Only having good affixes in the affix table wouldn’t be a good idea aswell.
Good itemization need seome “bad affixes” to create dopamine feelings as soon as you drop something good.
If everything is good and nothing is bad dopamine situations are gone prety fast.
The “almost” items is what motivates to farm further to (maybe) find the item with perfect affixes with the next drop…like the slot mashine who almost rolled the 3 Bananas so you keep going till you find them.
Becasue if items can roll only good affixes the hunt for better items would be over prety fast…And one of the main things in ARPGs is the constant hunt for better items, even after months of playtime.
Having only good affixes in the table is like buying a Puzzle and everything but the edges is already solved.
A GGG developer explained this prety well during the last Exilecon why items need some “bad affixes” to create dopamine situations, very informative.
When I reroll and get %increase to Overpower and also %increase to Overpower with Core skills it really makes me wonder what the thought process was.
Get rid of stats that require odd parameters to be met and get rid of virtually duplicate stats but with extra steps.
Aspects very much need to be streamlined as well. NGL I prefer have legendary items with fixed effects like they were in previous Diablo games. Specific legendaries and their effects used to be recognizable at a glance. That’s not the case anymore.
Hopefully they at least implement the system whereby extracting aspects simply updates the the codex for future imprinting.
Nr 1: Take away the crappy imprint system.
Items will never feel unique if you can just move the main power from an item to another one.
Nr 2: Unique items should have a fixed level so it gives you a sense of progress, but it should be possible to find low level items that still has a use at end game so you dont always feel like you need to constantly upgrade/change items while leveling (ofcourse these items should be hard to find).
Nr 3: Take away bloated stats. More is not always better and it just over complicate things.
Its better that a stat has a multiple purpose (example. 1 Agility also increase your crit% and avoid%) instead of having it as 3 different stats on gear.
Nr 4: The unique property on unique items should be more focused on game and attack changing function (example. Your fire ball splits into 3 smaller fireballs at impact or your fireball explodes at impact making it an aoe dmg spell) rather then having a +% increase damage function to it.
This will make it easier to balance the classes and will add a “fun” function to attacks rather then a simple “higher numbers” function.
Nr 5: Blue and Yellow items needs to have their function and not just be materials.
D2 handled this quite well, but it should be improved upon.
A blue item should be able to roll the highest stats but with the lowest amount of possible stats (example. Blue can only roll 2 stats but you can get 80 agility on it. Yellow can roll 3 stats but only 60 agility and unique can roll 4 stats but only 40 agility). And with less bloated stats it will be easier to see if an item is better then another.
Nr 6: Sets should be introduced. But same as the unique power there need to be a fun factor to sets rather then power.
A set should’nt always be about strength. It should be about fun.
(Example. If you have the full set of ‘The Lord of Terrors Embrace’ You randomly spawn a Diablo clone to fight for you for 15 sec).
That is fun, not necessarily strong or overpowered like D3 sets that just gives you ++++% damage increase.
Im sure there is more needed then my points, but i think that would be a step in the right direction.
When I looks at that item I see problems more than benefits over D4.
This stuff for starters, there are 3 conditions just to use the weapon. Ignoring that the requirement system isn’t in D4, the concept of multiple requirements really has some downsides. It limits usage OR makes everyone do exactly the same thing to use the exact same item. I only mention this first because there are recommendations in this thread suggesting to do this with itemization. Limiting not just item usage but builds to use the item is restrictive and not really beneficial to itemization.
The enhanced damage implicit seems a bit odd to me, but mostly due to how large of an increase it is. It’s not a bad concept just implemented poorly in my opinion. If weapons have the same damage increase implicit (or balanced to be the same) then what’s the point of having it? A baseline increase to damage across the board shouldn’t be because of weapons to my mind. If it’s something needed to boost the desirableness of the item then it also contributes to limiting player choice. Why use anything else if it doesn’t contribute as much damage?
and
are pretty much already in D4. Well, cold effects work differently but chill/freeze are an additional benefit other than base damage. 80% attack speed is a bit much, especially on just one item so I think that kind of thing would have to be balanced better.
These I like. I’ve often requested something to change how skills work on these forums. We get a tiny amount of it in D4 through very few aspects but I would prefer if they were linked to skills. My only reasoning for separating them from items is pretty much the same prior reasoning, forcing people to use a specific item for a build limits player choice. In my opinion it would be better to tie the changes to skills so you can get as much flexibility in affix choice as you want. Maybe I don’t want to use a 2h crossbow, maybe I want to use daggers to freeze enemies. If you link it to the skill you can play with anything and be capable instead of having to build specifically for certain items.
In this instance, I think the benefits of using this crossbow prevent you from doing anything else. In D2 it seemed fine because of limitations in the game engine and how early on in the life of the genre it was. I don’t think any modern ARPG would get away with doing this.
Aside from not actually having one of those affixes, I understand what you mean. My suggestion is not to get rid of them which limits customization effectively obliterating “play your way” but to empower them more. Keep the flat overpower affix but buff the “+overpower damage with werebear skills” and “+overpower damage with two-handed-bludgeoning weapons” to compensate for the conditional affix. The mentality should be if I do something special I should get special benefits, not why bother doing something special.
I think this is bad. Here’s why… if you can get everything you need from a small number of affixes then why have affixes at all? Plus, what happens when you loot gear and every single piece has 4 affixes that you want, is that a good thing? What’s the point of gear if it’s all the same, there needs to be something there that is good but not best. There needs to be a chase. If there isn’t a chase and variance then we should just play DOOM where we’re all the same.
Please no. Sets being a fully formed synergized thing will pretty much always be better than anything you can make on your own. This is what happened with Diablo 3, this happens in Last Epoch right now. Sets completely limit choice for the players and lead to everyone doing the exact same thing as everyone else. We don’t have to imagine this is bad because we see it happening.
Being able to form ideas for a build ourselves with the hope they’ll be competitive is a key element of ARPGs. I don’t even mean in a “play your own way” mentality, I mean from the perspective that ARPGs have always been based in the idea that you can use your head to come up with something special. There’s a guy on the forums, Ralph, that just posted his video for necro minions that’s nothing like Maxroll and Icy Veins. He put thought into his build, made some choices that seemed not optimal to others and surprised a lot of people on the forums (not me though, I said it before the season launched ). So through his experimentation he was able to show minion play more in line with what people want in minion play. If everyone was rushing to sets or getting set pieces as rewards for the season journey, it would be less likely that anyone would’ve gone as far into that planning since there would be a much better performing and easier to acquire setup.
Similar to D2 which is the grandfather, and what PoE is build opon, or like last Epoch which has a cool new trading system, and awesome crafting / looting possibilities which bring a lot of depth / complexity to the game. The problem with D4 is, none of the complexity or depth will ever take place here, unless the entire game is reworked and it won’t be, not even an expansion is gonna fix D4. Will D4 be an okay game for super casual players? yes. Will it ever bring more than a 1 button crafting and terrible dungeon design? no. Diablo 4 will never be suited for anyone else than casual slug, developers seems either unwilling, or to unskilled to provide anything above average. People that is defending this game is honestly born with 2 crayons instead of 2 braincells, and should be hospitalized soon enough. Game is barely worth the title as a mobile ARPG, it is that bad, people need to start blaming blizzard for creating such bad games. First it was D3, then Ow2, then D4 they keep creating terrible titles, or turning their titles into dust.
I can’t speak for trading since I don’t like trading and think it’s a bane to gaming but the crafting system for Last Epoch is the best one I’ve seen in an ARPG.
Last Epoch still has a pretty bad loot system but at least they have the best loot filter in the genre too. That covers up the loot bloat.
Think there’s a lot of misconception around what is complex. People seem quick to think annoying and unintuitive as complex. Path of Exile is the king of fake complexity and sadly too many games are listening to players who want to sound cool by saying it’s good. The truth of gaming is that complexity comes after accessibility. If the barrier for entry is convoluted or locked behind 50 currencies then you failed as a designer. Having a skill tree that’s 1,384 nodes… that’s not complex, it’s obtuse. It’s designed in a way to overwhelm players. Funnily, D4 suffers the same problem with paragon boards but people will say one is better than the other. No, they both suffer from bad design decisions. Designing a system that rewards you for not using points is contrary to the concept of a system that rewards you for using points, obviously.
If you play Last Epoch without the loot filter setup you will go crosseyed and spend an obscene amount of time at a vendor hub. Path of Exile is a little better with limiting drops but it also suffers the same issue to a lesser degree. Loot filter or bust, that’s the PoE mantra and people scream for it in D4 even though there’s only 8% of the number of drops happening at any given time. We’ve grown accustomed to horrible design because someone said it was complex and if we overcame the bad design we would get cool points. I’d rather we actually play better designed games.
(I’ve been playing Last Epoch for several hundred hours since it first entered early access. I’m not being paid for anything I’ve said about Last Epoch, it’s just got a few elements that are so much better than others in the genre.)
Isnt this exacly how it is now?
People looking for the exact same perfect stats on gear?
The hunt for the perfect combo will always be there.
And just because the stats will be simplified doesnt mean it needs to be boring.
• Strength
• Agility
• Vitality
• intellect
• Dmg
• Spell Dmg
• Hit chance
• Hit speed
• Spell hit
• Spell cast speed
• AoE Dmg
And so on and so on.
There is alot of stats that can be simple and still not boring.
I dont think you really read my point about this.
I said that sets should be fun and not necessarily strong.
A game could still be enjoyable even if you arent the strongest one out there as long as your having fun with fun mechanics.
I want to be able to find good uniques, legendaries and so on on every character level I am, not just only past level 70. I need that feeling that I can find something precious everywhere at every level and at any moment of the game. Also please do not copy the loot system of diablo 3, that would make me instantly uninstalling the game.
I also wanna be able to trade everything in the game and not just rares. You could handle it like in Last Epoch if you want to where you can play with or without trading, just toggle it on or off and there you go.
Also please give me an option to toggle smart loot on or off, I wanna be able to farm and find items for my other classes.
They also made sure to mention that it was a few bad affixes not most of the affixes being bad. PoE also has much more depth because there are problems that you need to solve to be effective. Things like frozen immunity, ailment immunity, or corrupted blood immunity need thought to factor into your build. You can get these from gear or stat points or other means, but you have to think about how you want to incorporate them into your build and it makes builds much more variable. You can get a pair of boots with some ailment immunity but may not be the greatest in other ways, but that in turn allows you to take that stat off of another piece of gear resulting in an overall power gain to your character. D4 just doesn’t have any depth so the gear is boring on top of the skills being boring.
Like you can find an SOJ Occy Shako ect in nightmare and bring those items to the end game they were fun items and felt like big boosts because often times they came with fun skills or skill points
Also held in inventory items gave you ways to increase your character strength even after reaching bis. Also there was fun items to find for alts to use at much lower levels.
Find a decent templar lidless ect was like meh maybe not the greatest but sure I’ll throw that nice titan on my zon. Stuff like that.
On top of that runes gave you another reason to keep hunting because you were probably still on the hunt for something even socket base perfect items.
In D4 I don’t give a care til WT4 then you google bis stats for your build and look for the best you can minus Uber uniques unless you nutty. That’s basically it.
Sure would be fun to make alts and deck them out but it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Meanwhile in d2 you could toss on occy on like a lvl 42 mage good times
Everyone seems to have a different opinion of what the term “itemization” means. To me, the term is defined as how items function & interact to empower & progress your character.
Using this definition it should be clear why itemization is terrible. Here are my issues with it.
Items have no identity & are too homogenous.
Items don’t interact in interesting ways.
Items don’t function without a secondary attachment (Aspects or paragon nodes).
No items that you find before WT3 matter.
Bloated affix pool with excessive redundancy.
Lack of agency to manipulate & influence items.
Stats are bland, poorly designed, and make the game feel inconsistent.
Explanations:
Lack of Identity:
When an item drops, not only do you have no clue what it is (aside from slot & Aspect potentially), you have very little information about what characteristics an item has. I.e., can this item roll X stat? For example, if a chest piece drops, you know it can roll armor, but does it have a higher chance than any other chest piece that drops? Nope, it just has some totally random chance to roll armor. It makes all chest pieces feel the exact same regardless of which class you’re playing. In D2 (and even 3 to some extent) when an item drops, I know quite a lot about the item before I ever pick it up. I know if it has a higher chance of rolling specific stats, or if it’s a specific piece (chest for example), I can identify the item with high accuracy. This is impossible in D4 outside of Uniques, which is why Uniques are the only items anyone is actually willing to chase in the game. They’re the only items that are interesting. Also, Sacred & Ancestral items are pointlessly named. There is no reason for them to exist. The only thing that matters is item level. Sacred & Ancestral items should feel different than non-Sacred/Ancestral items, yet they don’t, they just have bigger numbers.
Lack of Interactivity:
Items are just stat sticks and it feels shallow. In D2, items can interact in interesting ways; you could have an item that lets you use skills from another class either through skill charges or %chance to cast skills. You also had stat breakpoints that different classes & builds needed to hit to play on higher difficulties and getting even just a little bit of that stat on one item felt hugely impactful. In D3, there are set items and Legacy of Dreams; with set items, you might have 3/6 or 5/6 of a set and so you only get the first set bonus (at least without a specific ring) but not the second or third. The moment you find that 4th or 6th piece & get the second or third bonuses, you immediately feel more powerful. That’s how items have impact. In D4, my items only feel powerful when I attach Aspects to them. I could go more in depth here, but I’ll leave it at that for now as it explains the issue simply.
Item functionality:
You can have an item with +skills, hell you can have PERFECT gear but if you don’t have Aspects on any of them your character is useless. You can have 15 levels in a skill and it will do nothing without Aspects. This feels horrible. It ruins one of the most fundamental aspects of this genre of games which is ITEMS. We go out and kills thousands of monsters for ITEMS, not Aspects. ITEMS should be the foundation & the core of your build. If anything, Aspects shouldn’t function unless you’ve itemized correctly, not the opposite!
Items are meaningless pre-WT3:
This one is self-explanatory and any competent player can attest to it. The only thing that matters before WT3 is your weapon. You can easily make it to WT3 by slapping on any gear you get as long as you have the strongest weapon you can equip & Aspects on your gear. It’s just another instance of items feeling meaningless.
Bloated affix pool & Redundancy:
Another self-explanatory issue. The affix pool is too big and riddled with redundancy. Most affixes are just “more damage” but worded differently or with a different condition. Damage to Healthy, Damage while Healthy, Vulnerable damage, etc. Why are so many stats & affixes in the game just generic “more damage”? Some examples:
Damage to N different types of CC
Damage to N different types of DoTs
Damage with N different types of DoTs
Excessive condition-based damage affixes
This all feels horrible. On top of your items not mattering anyway, getting the affixes you want is not only a chore but a headache since you have to pick up every single item you find just to check if it has the affixes you want. On top of that, there is next to no agency for the player to manipulate items in a meaningful way to make gearing more engaging & less tedious. Affixes should be interesting, powerful, or RARE. There should be WT4+ exclusive affixes that are difficult to get but tangibly powerful or influential.
Lack of Agency:
Currently inn D4, the only ways to influence or manipulate an item is by upgrading or enchanting it. Most times when you get an item that’s almost what you want, it won’t get any better (in terms of affixes). In D2, we have runewords so you can take one item and turn it into another using runes. In D3, we have the ability to upgrade Rare items to Legendary or Set items; this was extremely powerful for helping you to alleviate the issue I mentioned earlier about set pieces and bonuses. You could also completely reforge a Legendary or Set item. This let you turn one of your Legendaries or Set items into a new Legendary or Set item (re-rolling all stats etc). We have absolutely nothing like this in D4. You accept what you get or you keep grinding endlessly. The closest thing to any of these systems in D4 is the ability to slap an Aspect on an item and make it “Legendary” but in reality it’s just a Rare with an Aspect attached. Shallow!
Stats & their impact:
Most stats in the game feel so uninteresting & unengaging. Depending on the build, main stat is either very free (due to Paragon) or no-brainers (always take on X slot), yet they’re mandatory. Why do main stats even exist when we aren’t consciously making decisions around them? Crit prior to S2 was in the same spot. No-brainer but mandatory. It makes gearing/itemizing too easy and simple. The four core stats (Str, Int, Dex, Wil) don’t do enough to justify building into non-main stats. Lucky Hit chance is a cool idea, but it’s implemented poorly; currently you either just don’t need the stat depending on the build or it’s mandatory so you don’t run out of resource constantly, but yet it can only be found on 3 item slots and doesn’t feel even slightly impactful until you have great rolls. Armor is strong, mandatory, yet useless if you aren’t stacking DR you feel like toilet paper. Why? Why does generic DR even need to exist as an affix when we have Armor & Resistances? Ever wonder why you get one shot when you have capped armor & resistances? Chances are it’s because you don’t have enough DR in your build. I could go on, but again, this should be clear enough.
Final Thoughts:
Reading this might make people think I’m judging the game harshly, or that I’m expecting a perfect system. Other people might read it and think I didn’t go deep enough, or I didn’t touch on specific issues. Notice I didn’t compare the game to PoE, Last Epoch, Grim Dawn, or any other incredible ARPGs out there; I only ever compared the game to past entries in the Diablo franchise. That’s because I simply want the game to be a good Diablo game before it starts trying to be anything else. Currently, it is not a good Diablo game, let alone a good ARPG because the core of this genre is the itemization and D4 fails at that.
I don’t want a perfect system. I simply want the game to have features that make chasing items & progressing my character enjoyable. I want to feel like I am building my character, not eating up breadcrumbs the developers left for me. I want to feel like I am making the decisions about what items and effects I take on my character, not simply taking things because they’re mandatory or default (lack of choices). This post was primarily about items, but the issues I listed here go deeper & are exacerbated by other systems in the game as well; namely, skills, class mechanics, and paragon.
No, my point is that getting all stats you want on every piece of gear at all times is bad. The whole gear chase is precisely because people didn’t get something they felt was useful. If everything has equal viability then there is zero reason to chase gear. If everything has equal viability then why even bother with them at all. They could easily code power into the skills and ditch gear if it’s all the same value. The gear chase is a core pillar of the genre, take that away and you’re no longer playing an ARPG.
As for sets, the problem is that sets have built in synergies. Sets are only sets of they work cohesively. You say they should be fun but they will inherently have power associated with them and because it is purpose designed it will always be strong. Which set is the best at any given time may change but they will always end up the best.
You can’t make a set without creating power on it to do what the set does, or it’s not really a set. You have to think of the purpose of the set and then think of how to make it viable. So you design it with the stats it needs to be viable. The loot chase is gone and you always have the best possible stats. Or you don’t put the appropriate stats for the specialization which makes the set non-viable and pointless if you don’t pump the power on the set bonus.
Sets don’t necessarily have to be designed that way. They could implement sets that let us manipulate skills in unique ways. In D3 you could change the element of skills for free, but in D4 this could be set-exclusive. Sets could be a way of implementing restriction-based playstyles; i.e., you lose power in one area but gain it elsewhere.
For me the itemization isn’t that bad. More uniques with new playstyles for spells rather than just flat % damage.
I just don’t like the UI at all. Stats should be easily readable at a glance. Values must be ordered and with a different color (like blue from D2). But the most annoying part imo, stats should never be more than 1 line of text.
Sometimes i just feel like reading a book when my inventory is full.
Itemization is more than just affixes. D4 has a lot of things D2 had, but none of it feels anything close to how it felt in D2. They brought over a lot of things that don’t share any resemblance to their D2 counterparts in identity or function, only the label.
Removing 925 item levels as it’s now. Too much. Change it to 1-100, decrease numbers, make skill damage base on affixes and flat damage instead of scaled to weapon. I would like to see endgame with numbers like 100-200 to attributes, instead of 900 (because if they allow such high numbers now, after the expansions we will end up with billions of damage, I don’t like that, I love to see power increase it and feel it with just +5 to stat). Every single digit should have weight. It currently doesn’t, I don’t care if my item has +45 to intelligence or +48, I won’t bother with rerolling it, but if I could reroll it from 3 to 7…
Crafting, addix affixes, using base whites or blues as base if possible.
It’s PoE idea, which lot of games and mods to D2 implemented later as well - vaal orb, a special crafting material, which can corrupt item with chances to destroy it or give it some cool affixes, that would be normally impossible to appear on that kind of gear, for example in current D4 you could get armor with movement speed or +all skills or additional socket slot.
Once you find aspect from orange item and salvage it you should be able to (for example with additional mats payment) upgrade your codex, so if you find max rolls on aspect and salvage it with additional cost you get it forever (for the current season duration).
Make more affixes (especially for upcoming sets in the future and uniques) that are something else than just boring damage reduction or damage boost. For example something that change skill behavior or adds something new to it.
For better itemization you also need drastic changes to skill mechanic. I would remove resource generators and add mana ragen/potions instead. Those basic skills are really boring and unnecessary. It’s cancer that came with D3 core gameplay. I hate that everything revolves around resource and cool-down reduction, making it basically mandatory to use 1h weapons for casters instead of 2h.
We need more depth in skill trees. Diablo 2 had entire tree for curses alone, here you have only 2 curses… You can’t have fire or elemental mage skeletons, there are no many options with skills you get.
Paragon board should have more diverse nodes. Maybe even something with +to certain skill to make better damage scaling without weapon. Maybe even add something like: “for each empty slot in your equipment you gain bonus to…”. Meaning you can even make viable naked build (something like monk in Final Fantasy, which gets bonus to strength if he’s unarmed).
Just take concepts from D3.
You have usually 4 main stats on an item and with cheap rerolls you can quickly get 4 useful stats on each (even though not the perfect ones).
Finding a legendary while leveling should be a wow moment. It is in D3 because it has better stats. Blue yellows are just step stones and mats later.
A legendary power is not a legendary power if you don’t feel an improvement right away.
If they can’t find a better concept just copy over everything from D3.
Why do people think because sets exists they should work exacly the same as in D3.
Its simple really.
5 piece set.
Nr 1: Make each piece about 80% of the same powerlvl as a unique. In other words, the whole set will be 20% weaker in pure stat power then a unique.
Induvidual pieces wont have a unique power/ability to it as a unique has.
2 pieces set bonus: Your fireball splits into 3 smaller fireballs at impact.
3 pieces set bonus: 10% chance to ignite the enemy, putting them on fire.
4 pieces set bonus: The fireballs explodes on impact, making it an aoe.
5 pieces set bonus: Fire aura. Enemies takes firedmg when in melee range and lowers fire restistance.
Now there is a set without ridiculous % dmg bonuses to it.
You have fun game changing abilities to it (1 extra for each added piece starting with 2 pieces). So in a 5 set piece you would have 4 unique abilities and it will be 20% weaker in pure stats than a unique.
Plus if you choose to use uniques instead of a 5 piece set you will have 1 extra unique ability to it.
So how is this set just plain stronger then uniques?
It Isnt. It will be fun thou, but maybe there is ways to dish out more damage if you skip the set and go for uniques instead.
Talking about itemization from an endgame perspective here:
For rares:
This is mainly about the stats: get rid of the fat. If two stats do essentially the same thing keep the more universally applicable one and get rid of the one that only applies “on a friday night after you’ve eaten dinner”.
The devs justified them nerfing stuff like CD reduction with “the players felt forced to use it” which is ofc. complete nonsense. Things like CD / resource cost reduction and other stuff like attack speed are examples of good stats as they feel decently impactful in a way that is actually felt in your gameplay if you build for it while each of the given examples still does something completely different. If anything this is what the game needs more of.
For legendaries:
Not much to say about legendaries in general other than avoid redundancies. Most of them are fine but the ones that only exist to buff a skill (not talking about the ones that fundamentally change how a skill works) should probably be made baseline.
The acquisition and distribution could use some improvements however. In addition to how it is rn certain mob types (like the poison spiders) should have an increased drop chance for various aspects (Aspect of Bursting Venoms). Also, you should be able to upgrade you Codex with the aspects you find.
For uniques:
In general: no two uniques should strive to do the same thing. If anything they should always be sidegrades, not upgrades.
Their distribution for target farming could be better as well. Avoid giving bosses a bloated unique drop pools and reduce the ones that are e.g. remove the Mad Wolf’s Glee from Varshan’s drop pool and give it to the Den Mother, similarly if they ever implement an Echo of of Andariel boss fight than I would want them to remove Andariel’s Visage from Duriel’s drop pool and give it to her.
Also, “challenging endgame activities” should always be based on the assumption that the player has all the best gear for his build (to ensure that the difficulty is not going to be trivialized by it) and it should never be the go-to method to farm it.
). So through his experimentation he was able to show minion play more in line with what people want in minion play. If everyone was rushing to sets or getting set pieces as rewards for the season journey, it would be less likely that anyone would’ve gone as far into that planning since there would be a much better performing and easier to acquire setup.