No endgame because of itemization

PC General Discussion
1

TL;DR: loot lacks personality, diversity, uniqueness, and dopamine factor. Without that, no endgame mode will be good enough.

There were complaints about “no endgame” since 4 days after launch, despite having 3 endgame activities. Then XP boost came, everyone got to the endgame, and those complaints skyrocketed.

The thing: there’s endgame, but many don’t find it funny or rewarding. Endgame loop is about replayability, and items are the soul of that replayability. Current itemization won’t allow any current or future endgame mode to be fun enough. Here are the issues:

  • Yellows as base trash tier: rarity is a pyramid. No whites and blues makes them the de facto bottom of the barrell. There’re no good items without bad items.
  • Whites and blues are useless: this way, no reason to stay in the game. Give them a purpose.
  • All-yellow inventory: both previous points make inventory a monotonous monochromatic yellow rug.
  • Not just yellow rug: same-4-generic-affix-standard-layout-everywhere. Only change is different equipment slots.
  • Legendaries raining from the sky: scarce vs yellows, but not scarce enough. Zero dopamine when they drop.
  • Smartloot: not repetitive enough? All for the same class. A way to artificially reduce the need of stash space.
  • Item base irrelevant: yellow “Piercer” drops. What’s a “Piercer”? Open your inventory, nothing with that name (act. a dagger).
  • No name-stat correlation: “Piercer” again. Worth grabbing from ground? What are the base stats of that? Any from the huge range Sacred-Ancestral define. Remember why Harlequin Chest was known as “Shako”?
  • Itemlv scaling again: Mother’s Embrace. Can be a lv40 ilv570 or a lv100 whatever ilv ring. Not very “unique”.
  • Level requirements: “requires lv100”??? Anything you farm with a high char is useless for a low alt.
  • All uniques same layout: like yellows. Frostbruns? 4 rolls. Grasps of Shadow? 4 rolls. Gohr’s? 4 rolls… That doesn’t help them feeling “unique”.
  • Rarity tiers too similar: low differences intra-tier, also low among tiers. 3 without legendary power, 2 with it. 3 with 4-affix-layout, 2 with less. All scaling with level, all world drops, all same generic affixes from standard pool…
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2

Also there is no variety in what builds can do what content.

All builds do all content.

Therefore, why even care about other possible builds? Whats the point of all the different loot if you ever only make one build?

Might as well just let us pick a character with a hardcoded loadout and let us play your action game.

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I share your point of view, but can somehow be controversial. Wouldn’t want to fall into the “why can’t X do Y?”, and focus on things where there’s a higher degree of agreement, so no reason to not implement them.

Same way with trading, inventory tetris and so on, where things seem to be very polarized.

4

All very valid points.

With regards to ancestral vs sacred and item names:

In D2 when a shako drops, you know its the hell mode version of the cap. When a Dimensional shard drops as a unique you know whats coming. The items are ALL recognisable.

I dont remember ANy of the names of these legendaries. I dont even look at the names. They dont matter. At all. They have no flare. They are all just generic stat sticks.

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You can’t.

The name you see when the item drops, it disappears when the item reaches the inventory.

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Do you mean cos you sold it ao fast or salvaged it? Cos i get that hehe

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Completely agree with EVERYTHING, also, created this other post in relation to this one: What's the point of Aspects on Items?

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İtemzation is boring

The main loop play of an arpg is finding exciting loot

The endgame activities are just a way to farm them and even if put many different endgame activities without getting exciting loot it wont make a difference

For most people joy and replayability comes from making your character better at the end

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