My proposal to replace the legendary aspect system

PC General Discussion
1

Hello all,
I am not a game developer nor do I possess graphic design skills to bring my idea to life but I have an idea for an overhaul of the legendary aspect system that I believe can improve the overall experience of Diablo IV. I’ll try to be as brief and detailed as possible.

Problem: The current legendary aspect system causes builds to be RNG dependent and given character traits, it creates balance issues.

Solution: Create a new “sister skill tree” for each class called Legendary Powers (Placeholder name) all existing class specific legendary aspects get moved to your Legendary Powers tree. All “generic” aspects remain on legendary gear, all Unique and Uber Unique aspects remain on unique items.

Explanation: Right now as the game currently exists your build is reliant on RNG and not you choosing to build your character. I know gear should play an important role in your build but I believe gear should compliment a build and not be necessary, with the exception of the unique and uber unique items. There is also an imbalance that currently exists across the classes. Barbarian has 8 slots for offensive legendary aspects. The Rogue has 7 slots for offensive legendary aspects. The other 3 classes only have 6 slots for offensive legendary aspects. My proposal of converting all of the class specific legendary aspects to “legendary powers” could fix this and here is how. All classes can have up to 8 offensive legendary powers, up to 5 defensive legendary powers, up to 6 utility legendary powers, up to 2 mobility legendary powers. Legendary powers will be unlocked for the first time when you hit level 50 for that class for all future classes you create going forward Example: You hit level 50 on your Sorcerer season 5 after that and all subsequent seasons you have them unlocked from the start. You will only be able to equip a legendary power after you have unlocked them and only if you have a legendary item that corresponds to the category you wish to equip. Examples are as follows:

  • Barbarian: Can equip offensive 1 legendary power for each legendary gloves, rings, amulets, 1 for each two handed slot and 1 for each one handed slot totaling 8 potential Offensive slots. The other legendary power categories work the same as they did before in the codex when you assign the aspects to whichever corresponding gears. So if you equip an offensive power for one of your ring slots, the option to equip 2 Resource Legendary powers will be reduced to 1. Since the Offensive power is taking up the potential slot.
  • Rogue: Can equip 2 offensive legendary powers for its ranged slot and then one each for gloves, rings, amulets. This will allow the Rogue to be able to equip up to 8 legendary powers like the Barbarian.
  • All other classes: Can equip 2 offensive legendary powers for 1 handed legendary weapons and 2 offensive legendary powers for legendary off hand items and 4 legendary powers for two handed legendary weapons

The development can determine which legendary powers you unlock and in what order as you level. All future legendary powers can be unlocked as part of the season journey and moved to the eternal realm after each season. For the sake of fun I say let unique items and uber unique items still allow you to equip legendary powers but if it gets to be too much maybe balance it down some. I would also implement a new crafting system called ascendancy where you can spend resources to evolve a rare item to a legendary item since we are losing the ability to do that by removing the aspect system. I would also encourage the team to add more new “generic” legendary aspects to roll on legendary gear that can work for all classes.

1 Like
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I’m all for give back the power to the skills them selfs, and bee good on their own, and itmes just compliment enhance them, instead of beeing the source of the real power for some skills and skill combinations. But this is the only good thought you had. Your proposal is just weird and wonky imo. But nice try, had some good concepts, but over all I personaly would not like it this way.

2 Likes
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I understand my concept is weird but it’s trying to retool the system we were given. The current systems of aspects as it currently exists is wonky. You farm for gear, find the stats you like then have to go back to a town reroll your aspects, temper everything again. It almost feels unnecessary and again for starting new season it causes builds to be reliant on RNG. If you just had the access to the aspects from the get go I feel like it would be a better system.

Also there is the issue with the current imbalance with offensive legendary aspect slots.

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i wouldn’t miss the flat damage ones just gone from game and juggernaut one isn’t needed anymore. season of blood with vampiric system was the correct direction. aspects should add utility and mobility not pure damage. i cant count past 10

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I’m happy with the current aspect system. They could tweak a few things slightly but I don’t think it needs an overhaul. I like being able to find power, I don’t want everything to be something that is unlocked. I would like to see rare items having some potential though.

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I like the current system, although we have some skills performing better than others, like incinerate which has 3 aspects and others have none. I think the ideal would be to increase the level of the aspect for each one you destroy instead of keeping the Appearance with the highest value. This gives more value to the items. For example, if a staff drops with 30% damage, it is better to keep it than break it and print the aspect with 22% (2 levels).

-Another detail, many Legendaries are still dropping.

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Not sure if the aspect system is the problem or the system of damage calculation/s

Basically there’s no difference if you went for Critical, Overpower, Damage over time, or Vulnerable

Think the answer to the current problem of damage types and every damage enhancements feeling the same (mostly) should be resolved with some semblances of mob evolution, or at least mob impact diversification

I mean I know won’t happen but wish they reconsidered the multipliers into more of additive components and then have them enhanced individually (via status multipliers or whatever), or countered via mob mechanics

I mean would much rather have a character that has say: 300 physical, 10k non-physical, 6k vulnerable, 5k overpower, 3k over time per second and then have an affix of type: x30% increased vs CC-ed, x150% increased vulnerable damage vs Flyers than have a baseline damage of 4k and then all multipliers work all damn time and then the final damage output ends up in millions

THAT part is the whole mess and I think they keep forcing a simplistic solution to a complex problem (which is fine to attempt but perhaps a time to reconsider)

And to be frank not sure what with the end/game itself, whatever one can think of as a potential solution can be extremely clunky, bad, tedious when done (or attempted) 100s times

That being said - don’t think you’d achieve much with that @OP, yes Aspects may feel a bit all over the place, I can see that, but on the other hand think the bigger issue is mobs never feel different and the game is revolved around doing one same activity/run in multiples

In other words - still think that the biggest and super problematic issue is high numbers of repetitions and hyper-efficiency with the game

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Lets just go back to orange items dropping and us using them and wanting more of them. This stupid aspect system is so gd stupid.