Unique Crafting and Item Drop Rate

Items and Crafting
1

So this topic is probably getting beaten to death but I figured I’d put my two cents out there.

I think the concept behind crafting uber uniques is awesome but for casual players the ratio for crafting is abysmal. My uncle and I after like 60 Duriel kills finally got our first ubers yay! Well its the uber unique staff for both of us that really serves no purpose for any build. Fantastic material for breaking down sure but now we have to get 4 others to do so. Pretty ridiculous. The drop rates do not balance out well and feel more like a kick in the face with the new crafting system.

We genuinely need to make better use of this system. I would love to see the amount of sparks needed go up a bit but allow us to break down regular ancestral uniques for sparks. Like say 1 spark per regular unique and then 5 sparks per uber or something I dont know. Then make it to where we require like 50 sparks for an Uber.

I want grinding to feel purposeful I want to see results from what I’m doing as I play. If I’m getting uniques I don’t need I want to make use of them towards something I will use.

Lets take it a step further. Currently I really want to play a Stormclaw build on my 100 druid and have been farming Varshan for the Staff of the Crone. This dude’s ipower range for unique drops is way too large for level 100 characters when we all know how much ipower matters for a weapon as it relates to our damage. I have been getting nothing but ~880ish Staff of the Crone’s (with bad rolls but thats a whole other topic). I think it would be incredible if we could craft ourselves regular uniques as well with higher rolls and ipower using sparks we get from breaking down uniques we don’t like. It’s especially painful when these uniques which are integral to an entire build and you can’t even find a good one to use. You can’t play stormclaw effectively without Staff of the Crone.

I just also feel with drop rates being so bad the items needed for boss spawns feel really lopsided. For example my uncles and I have run Malphas about 50 times. One of us got one of the unique stones and thats it. We do runs every week. I was trying to grind Igneous Cores earlier today from Heralds of Malphas. I spent about an hour and a half killing them back to back with 3 Igneous Cores to show for it. Thats not even enough to summon Malphas once. We seriously need drop rates to either be more generous or just for bosses to require fewer of the materials because once again it doesnt feel like rewarding gameplay when you burn all of your boss materials for like 40+ runs of a boss with nothing to show for it.

I get it that uber uniques and uber stones are supposed to be rare but theres no fun in this level of rarity when it feels like we’re essentially doing a weeks worth of work getting together to beat up an evil slot machine and leaving with nothing to show for it.

A season in Diablo 4 is relatively short and it’d just be nice if I felt like I could thoroughly enjoy everything I wanted to try within that season even as a casual player.

I hope this came off as constructive and not rude. I genuinely like the game at its core but often times this season I just feel like I’m being punished for spending time playing it rather than rewarded.

2

I think everything you wrote about makes sense if the intent was to eventually to let everybody have one. To be honest, I don’t think they wanted people to actually get one given the estimated drop rate was 1:10 mil of that unique type. They were originally one of those oh wow somebody won the lottery type deals. You kinda envy them but don’t expect to actually win the lottery. I think people kinda accepted they weren’t going to get an Uber.

All that started to fall apart pre season when they mistakenly let Ubers drop in helltide. Suddenly more than 1 person had a shako and people started complaining why couldn’t they. This was where, imo, they broke the game. They decided to give in to the uproar and in season 2 they would let you farm duriel to get Ubers. They prob thought it would be rare enough where most casual players wouldn’t feel like they were really missing out. But they didn’t count on dupped mats altering how many people getting Ubers. Not everybody got dupped mats…but chances are you’ve been in a rota where somebody had mats that were prob dupped. So the number of duriel runs went up far higher than planned. Now you have enough Uber drops that everybody wants one. It didn’t help Zir pretty much required them to advance.

Anyways now we’re at the point they pretty much need to hand them out to satisfy the masses. Or basically just not make them “Uber” anymore. (Allow everybody to get one and raise the game difficulty appropriately) Hopefully the next time they come up with a similar concept they plan it out better.

3

Yeah thats pretty much how i viewed it too. They never meant to have the ubers as truly build defining items but basically forced their own hands due to various past bugs and duplications.

So I guess I made my post in the mindset that they basically should simply just embrace it at this point. If they go back now they’re just going to cause an uproar. Might as well lean full tilt into having Ubers be obtainable but maybe just have the being an item you need to gradually build towards through crafting.

What’s funny is I think I was more interested in the second thing I wrote which was using this new crafting system to craft regular uniques because getting 925 unique weapons that are build defining are a pain to get as it stands.

4

This may come across poorly but the stones and ubers drop at an uncommon rate, they arnt even rare. It took me 300 runs to get both stones from having bad luck but my friends all got them between 20-50 runs. Yes, when you dont get something you want can feel bad but that feeling when you finally get it is great.

Everything else in the game is common so these items are the only thing left in the game that isnt a participation throphy.

The end game repetitive grinding loop isnt for everyone. Not everyone enjoys arpgs and D3 did the franchise a disservice by being an arcade game.

Smart loot and the commonality of everything else doesnt serve the game well but everyone will have there own opinion.

5

At least in Diablo 3 we had a batter chance at getting good item gear. The drop rate off the bosses in D4 is freaking pathetic. 300 Duriel kills before i got 1 item.

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