The current crafting system feels overwhelmingly horrible.
When a piece of loot drops, I don’t feel excited about it, there’s no dopamine hit at all, not even when its an item that would be perfect for my build or a even a mythic, because I know the item wont survive your RNG based crafting system.
When I finally find a great 3 GA drop that fits perfectly with my build after 100 hours of grinding for it, I don’t want to feel excruciating anxiety over whether the item is actually going to be useful because I might brick the item to tempers. I don’t want to feel like quitting because after master-working or enchanting for the 100th to 1,000th time I still haven’t gotten the outcome I want. I don’t want to spend more than five minutes (let alone the usual hour I have to do right now) staring at a crafting menu, NOT playing the game, and watching the resources I spent so long earning get erased with nothing to show for it.
at no point during an item customization system (that your crafting system is) should I feel like absolute garbage as though I wasted my time and effort to be rewarded with nothing.
This season I have already spent over 2.5 billion gold on a single item while enchanting only to not get the affix I want at the value I want.
This season I have spent over 100,000 obducite on a single item while master-working only to not triple crit the affix I want.
In the past, while tempering, I bricked over 100 items in a single season trying to get any kind of upgrade.
your crafting system has caused this would be die hard fan to flat out QUIT playing for several seasons because of the shear rage I felt towards end game crafting. I even skipped the release of vessel of hatred.
When a friend finally convinced me to give diablo 4 one more chance for this season, I had hoped to see the RNG crafting system replaced with one that lets me just pick what I want so that it felt good to play your game again. instead, I am met with the same negative emotions that made me quit last time. So I’m done, after my friend gets bored of this season, I’m going to quit and never come back until this is fixed. I’ll probably try your competitor “path of exile” instead of your next expansion, at this rate. If you check my purchase history, you’ll see that I’m quote “one of your whales” since you obviously care more about my money than my time, my enjoyment, or my dedication.
As a former game’s designer myself (quit because of sweatshop conditions and THE virus), I understand what it feels like to receive criticism without suggestion on how to fix it, so if I was in your shoes, below is how I would fix each issue I have currently:
Tempering
Problems: player can brick an item turning good loot into another piece of garbage. player cannot choose which affix from a tempering manual they want. player cannot manipulate the value of the rolled/chosen affix.
Short Term Solution: make the scroll of restoration be applicable to a single item an unlimited number of times.
Complex Long Term Solution: as short term solution plus treat tempering manuals as aspects are currently being treated. tempering manuals drop as though legendary items. an affix in a tempering manual would have a range of 1 to 10 for example, and each time the same tempering manual is found, it raises the floor value closer to the ceiling value. so at 2 of the same tempering manuals the value would be 2 to 10 instead of 1 to 10 and so on. you can keep your random chance between affixes on the guarantee that the player can eventually get the affixes they want at max value. also, put in some code that checks what the previously rolled affix was, and make the next roll NOT that affix.
Simple Long Term Solution: let player choose the affix and whether the affix is maximized, however the price to temper increases by a multiplier based on whether player chose one or both. for example a 10 times multiplier to the price if the player chose the affix, but not to maximize the value, or vise versa, or a 100 times multiplier (10 by 10) for the player to choose the affix from the tempering manual AND for that affix to be maximized.
Enchanting
Problems: Greater Affixes cannot be rerolled into other Greater affixes, effectively removing the enchanting step when a GA is involved. Affixes are weighted such that some affixes at their desired maximized value have an observed less than 0.1 percent chance of being rolled (usually the most desired ones, especially for amulets). player has no ability to influence which affix appears nor can the player influence the value of the affixes that do appear.
Simple Long Term Solution: make GAs be able to be rolled into a different affix while maintaining the GA status. non GAs still cannot be rolled into GAs as part of a huge dopamine hit is the drop of a multi-GA item. break affixes down into categories and have 1 affix from each category appear, example core stats and max health, damage, resistances, ranks to X, so on. should have about 5 to 8 appear at one time as well as the option to keep the previous affix. if player chooses to keep the previous affix, have that affix increase in value by one step until maximized. for example, if player player rolls 7 out of 10 on max health and player wants max health maximized, instead of player being frustrated max health isn’t being rolled, player just needs to keep selecting “keep previous” to go from 7 of 10 to 8 of 10 and so on.
Complex Long Term Solution: it worked for tempering, why not do it to enchanting? implement enchanting manuals that work the same way as tempering manuals do above or previously. this allows the player to choose an enchanting manual with 3 to 4 affixes and to roll those affixes. if above version of tempering manuals work, do the same for enchanting manuals.
Master Working
Problems: player has no way to influence which affix gets the big boost each time. player has to watch LONG animation or click a glitchy skip button EVERY time. player must take the item through 3 steps that do not visually reward the player and serve as a barrier to the big boost. player must pay an EXORBITANT amount of gold and resources to have the item reset. resetting an item sets the master working ranks back to ZERO instead of the previous step.
Commentary: I want you to imagine that you take your suit of armor to the blacksmith and ask them to reinforce it with more armor and when they give it back, the magic crystal that gives you poison resistance is bigger but there’s no additional armor. how fast are you going to demand that blacksmith not only give you a refund, but do what you told them to do in the first place? thats what I thought too. don’t charge the player to fix what the blacksmith broke, its not the player’s fault.
Short Term Solution: resetting is free (just front load the cost of resetting into the cost of increasing the masterwork rank). the player receives at least a half back refund if not a full refund on resources used to masterwork the item. include in the options menu an option that says “always skip crafting animations.” also have that option function properly (joke about the option being there but does nothing). resetting still goes back to zero while a long term solution is worked on.
Simple Long Term Solution: as with short term solution plus two different reset buttons, one that resets to zero (costs nothing) one that resets to previous rank (maybe costs something, prefer nothing). additionally, remove the filler master-working ranks, so when the item is worked on, the animation plays (or is skipped, as I prefer) and the results show +X% to BLANK affix, +X% to all other affixes. just add the cost of the filler ranks to the big boost rank. if you don’t want to remove filler ranks put it in the options menu an option that allows me to 1 click get to the big boost. if I don’t have enough resources to cross the filler ranks, either don’t let me click on the button, have a pop-up that says “you don’t have enough resources to cross all the filler ranks, do you want to go up to rank BLANK, instead?” or just assume I would say yes at the popup when I click the button.
Complex Long Term Solution: resetting is free. player can reset to zero or to previous rank. remove filler ranks combining their costs and bonuses with the big boost rank. allow player to choose which affix will get the big boost, but player must spend additional resources to do so.
Greater Affixes (GAs)
Problems: most premade builds have requirements listing a GA in a specific stat on a specific piece of gear in order to function properly, the way you have designed your game indicates your target audience are casuals that maybe have 1 to 2 hours each day to play (7 to 14 hours a week) those players don’t have time to GA and loot hunt. additionally, it feels good when a 3 GA amulet drops, but when all three of those GAs are not for my build, I’m trashing the item and I’m horrifically disappointed.
my Solution: salvaging a GA item gives you GA dust (or some other resource name, maybe repurpose netheriron, since you took that out previously) a player can use GA dust to turn a non GA affix on a piece of gear into its GA version. for an item without any GAs maybe its 10 dust. for an item that has 1 GA its 100 dust. 2 GAs, its 1,000 dust, and so on. point is, you want to offer that casual or that guy with terrible luck the option to eventually build up to perfect gear and satisfy the power fantasy of having a truly perfect build for that season. it keeps the player playing because they know that with enough determination and effort even they can get the loot they see streamers running around with.
Aspects
Commentary: surprisingly I’m overall happy with the changes made to aspects so far, and only have one suggestion to make.
Problem: getting some aspects maxed out is incredibly difficult (especially the resource ones, or the one that your entire build revolves around) and you can often times come across the same aspect at a lower level than the same one you have stored and never encounter its maxed out version or a version higher than what you have.
My Solution: I can see that aspects have ranks, and I understand taking the highest, but what about adding them together? say you salvage the rapid aspect and now have 3 of 21 ranks (I don’t know how many it actually has. this is an example) then you come across an item with 2 of 21 ranks. when you salvage it, your new ranks should either be 5 (2 plus 3 is 5) or 4 (the item’s ranks are less than yours so only half its ranks are added to yours). so what if you have 5 ranks in the rapid aspect and salvage an item with 8 ranks. you’d have either 8+5 ranks or you’d have 8 ranks and ignore the previous 5. point is to make it so that eventually your aspect will max out even if you don’t find the max version.
Pinnacle Dungeons, Item Power Level, Sacred items, and Ancestral items
Commentary: previously you learned your lesson that sacred items were useless as soon as a player could get ancestral items. good, its always good to learn from your mistakes and I like it when you make progress. I do like the current difference between regular legendries and ancestrals. its clear cut with obvious differences. regs can only have up to 750 power, ancestrals can only ever have 800 AND they always come with at least 1 GA. so what’s my problem? well…
Problems: player already decked out in ancestrals still has regular legendries dropping. player can reach multiple plateaus in their progress as they discard regular legendries, then all items with 1 GA or less, then all items with 2 GAs or less, and so on. player has no way to tell the game everything below X is auto trash, except for magic and rare items, which become auto salvaged on torment 1 or higher. if player with all 1 GA gear (or greater) encounters a regular legendary whose affixes are perfectly rolled for the player’s current build, the player has no way to convert that item into an item that could become an upgrade for them. Sacreds were removed for being effectively useless, but what if we gave them a new purpose so that we could prop ancestrals to new heights without sacreds being useless. previously, pinnacle dungeons were annoying blockages to greatness, lets get them out of that roll and have them serve a new purpose.
My Solution part 1: regular legendries stop at 750 item power like usual, however both ancestral and sacred items would both be always 800 item power. the new difference between sacred and ancestral would be that the affixes on ancestral items are ALWAYS maximized while sacreds still rolling in a range like usual. sacreds don’t always roll with GAs, but lets keep that ancestrals always do.
part 2: lets have it so that an item can consume and destroy another item from the same slot to assume some of the properties of that item, like becoming that item’s item power, or status as a sacred, or status as an ancestral with the perks that would entail.
part 3: gamers previously showed you that you can get relatively the same effect by turning a punishment into a reward instead. previously, pinnacle dungeons were a punishment “you didn’t finish this dungeon, so no better loot for you” they were a barrier on the loot ceiling. so, lets turn it into a reward. reinstate the pinnacle dungeons EXCEPT make them actually difficult and the reward for completing them is to raise the loot floor. that way whenever you finish the first pinnacle dungeon, if an item would be a regular legendary it instead drops as a sacred. finish the second one? it would drop as an ancestral instead. third one? now all ancestrals drop with 2 GAs minimum. you could do this all the way up to making it so all items dropped are perfect so long as each dungeon was progressively harder than the previous. make these pinnacle dungeons an actual achievement to complete, especially if they have to be completed solo, because we both know carrying people is never going to go away.
I broke my solution into parts for that last one so they could be viewed separately or as part of the whole.
This post took me 10 hours to carefully think through and write (my hands are busted). I probably wont respond to comments made on this post. If this post never sees a blizzard employee, or a person who can actually implement any kind of change, then whatever. At least I felt like I could say something somewhere to someone who would get it. Sorry for the wall of text, I wrote it in MS word and it didn’t transfer well.
TL;DR Man gets angry at winter storm for not making a better video game.