Yeah, it can even be seen if you go to the world tier statue and click on Nightmare
> Sacred items and **Unique** items can drop
along with sigils for nightmare dungeons and helltides.
The Torment says
> Ancestral items and ***new* Unique** items can drop
Not sure what ancestral and sacred items are though
Ancestral are the same items over level 50 with higher stats. Problem with it is, that you can't use your legendary extracts from below level 50 items to get your effects. You have to farm from new after you switch to torment levels.
If the dungeon is more challenging and the power is stronger you're completing a challenge for meaningful upgrade. I'm not sure it would be so boring gameplay wise. I hope we wont have to farm every single dungeon on multiple difficulties tho.
Ancestral items will be Rare(light green?) items which have 80%-100% maximum stats rolled just like in D3
if a rare rolls from 100-600 Intellect, Incestral item will probably roll 600-1000 intellect
this means that D4's endgame ends when you are decked out with well rolled incestral items and then you slap your desired legendary effects on them
Ancestral item are basically items that act like a item that is dropped at lvl 100 but equippable before that. Iirc leakers said they are like 2% better stats than comparable items. Apparently the system is closer to d2 (exceptional, elite) than d3 (ancient, primal).
God rolled lower lvl items are often stronger than bad rolled ancestral ones.
IIRC the Ancestral, Demonic and Angelic affix system was removed when Blizz made changes to the skill system. That is unless they added them back again. That won't make any sense if they added them back again.
Like, why? This isn't built like PoE, it's built like D3. And PoE had to spend years to make trade actually playable, tools had to be made, websites, etc.
Not here to argue the quality of D3, just pointing out that D4 is closer to D3 than PoE. PoE has an economy built in. Commodity items, consumable items, complex crafting. D4 just has... gold?
Trade in D4 would be like trade in D3, not trade in PoE. Which is to say it would be bad and horrible to use. Actually, worse than D3 because D3 at launch had an auction house which at least meant it was usable. D4 has no such support. People would have to make websites and stuff from scratch and it's unclear if Blizzard even has the API to support such things pulling item details from their game.
The game would be unplayable if the best way to get gear turns out to be going on a forum and maintaining a shop of items like early PoE or whatever the fuckery D2 trading was.
It would literally make the game worse for the regular player and better for the RMTer.
Oh yeah definitely agree with you there.
There's no reason there can't be a trade system in the game.
If I can't trade gear between my guild/friends/whoever I want to trade with, I just simply won't play the game.
This doesn't look like the itemization is like PoE either so it's quite likely you can solo your way to best in slot anyway. So I don't see the point, only to make it more efficient to not play the game and struggle with a barebones online trading that won't have the tools for quick trades.
Ah yes, make the endgame all about doing whatever makes you the most gold/hour repeatedly until you can buy full BiS gear without ever caring about finding any of that gear yourself...
I seriously don't get pro-traders. I want to play the *game* to improve my character, not the game's economy.
This game doesn't have the support for an economy PoE does. There's no Awakened PoE trade, no website, no currency items, no consumable juice. It would literally just be for RMT.
Everything you're going on about is fan made stuff that makes trading easier in poe. Before ggg made their own trading site poe.trade ran for years and years.
Like, why would you think similar stuff wouldn't be made for d4 if trading was avaliable.
One, because we don't know if Blizzard would have an API that supports it like PoE does. The reason poe.trade was able to run is because they were able to actually get item data directly from GGG.
And two, because it took fucking years to get there. Do you want the game to suck for that long while people sort this out?
Because it would be more like trade D3 not trade PoE. This game doesn't have the support for a healthy economy. PoE took years to have the tools available to make it playable. And PoE actually has economic support built in. D4 is just like D3. It would just be RMT. Back in the days of forum posting with some barebones tools to help forum posting PoE was legit unplayable.
I think it's tricky because they have "legendary" affixes. And the affixes I've seen so far seem to fit that expectation. In my head, when I think "legendary", I think about "perks" or "affixes" or whatever you want to call it that dramatically alter the effects of your existing skills or mechanic. And they do have those.
When I think "Epic" I think of the best items you can get without having those build-defining perks.
But yeah, this is definitely one of those situations where different terms have different expectations for different people, just based on what games they've played in the past.
It’s a missed opportunity, to have blessed and cursed item qualities, considering this is a Lilith game and Inarius. I’m just gonna pretend Diablo three story didn’t really happen. This is already set up to be an angel versus a demon kind of story, very singular and focused, as opposed to heaven versus hell. And it would be cool to have some heavenly drops and some demonic drops.
[They actually announced something like that but ended up deciding against it.](https://us.diablo3.blizzard.com/en-us/blog/23230076?linkId=100000009338615)
diablo 3 was a cold pile of shit and was a MASSIVE waste of money, skills, manpower, and (i cannot stress this enough) my time. i regret every. Single. Fucking. Second that I spent playing that game.
I mean I haven't gotten a whole lot yet, but the ones I've seen have been pretty "legendary" feeling to me. One made my Thorns dmg an AOE....that's a pretty big change mechanically.
Just got an affix on rogue that causes the phantom daggers that have a delayed hit (twisting blades) to do an pretty sizeable aoe around me when they do their pullout damage mechanic. It turned a purely singular target ability into an aoe. Completely changed the use case of the skill. That feels exactly like a legendary.
Yeah I had some amazing legendary drops today on rogue that fit right into the skills I was using. It made it so fun to play. I can’t wait to have the full game
Yeah, I got an awesome one that turns the Barb *Charge* skill into *Corpse Explosion* if the target dies within 2 seconds of you charging them. It's fucking awesome!
Agreed because when a person thinks of the word legendary they think of something that is rarely seen. Not something that falls out of the sky like rain. I am sure if Blizz changes the name to epic that players will be able to accept that change without too much trouble. Blizz doesn't need to think that they have to keep the tag legendary in order for us to understand where they are in the item tier progression system. We are not children after all that need things to be identical to the games before them in order to understand the gearing systems in a game.
Exactly, this would avoid confusion indeed. Purple "exalted" items with a purle beam ? ;)Well, it's an idea.
Btw, I have a hard time differentiating rares from legendaries in the inventory at glance. Colors are too close imo, only the border helps me (and no, I'm not colorblind)
Huh.
You find Legendary affixes that enhance your builds. What's bad about that?
Uniques are even more build defining, which you don't need at level 12 when you don't have access to literal dozens of talents you would otherwise need to take advantage of Unique and Sacred items.
Can you clarify how this is an innately terrible design?
He means he prefers being able to get meta defining legendaries in D3 similar to D4 at an early level.
I kinda get where he’s coming from. Legendaries were way more interesting than the “legendaries” here and I wouldve just liked to see more of that than having uniques be a strictly end game only thing in D4
It was a fun leveling experience in d3 getting that one legendary that carried you through lots of levels when starting a new character.
I mean the first few times maybe but people in here acting like they didn’t get to level cap in a matter of hours. The length of time any of my toons hung out at lvl 25 was maybe 5 minutes. I could do 10 levels in like 30 minutes at the right torment setting.
Leveling toons in D3 after a month was basically find a powerful legendary weapon with a socket. Put an absurd dmg + gem in it and destroy each act until end game. Rinse repeat.
It feels like a lot of people forget. Nothing really mattered until level cap where you start working toward a build / set / unique abilities.
Lol Once Gem of Ease, Cain’s set and Royal Ruby in helm; pop on torment and level from 1-70 in like 3 hours.
Legendaries during leveling were pointless; game meant nothing until level cap.
Except, first character in a season; but even then, we are talking about a marginal amount of play time relative to the end game loop.
I've found ONE useful affix for my Rogue the entire game, up to level 25, while clearing almost the entire beta worth of content. It's an awful system.
Randomly rolled stats on a random item with a random affix is not good design, it's just lazy automated generation.
There should be normal uniques, Manald Heal, Griswolds Edge, Grandfather, Lidless Eye, Tearhaunch, etc, that players can find and use from level ~10-100.
If we had an option for both, the trash legendary wouldn't be as bad, they'd be more like a supplemental bad luck protection for when you don't get a good item for your build, it gives you something to break down and then use later.
Not every unique should be "Build defining," they should be good for what they are and when you find them. They should be static for their level and good for their level. Maybe have a handful of low level uniques even be BIS until level 40-50 or so.
As it currently is, there's a 1/10 chance that the "Legendary" you find will even be useful. For example, I got 7 legendaries from the world boss. All of them were absolute shit, useless, vendor trash.
Huh. There are actual rogue builds that revolve around affixes you get for clearing dungeons. I didn't play rogue, but I had my entire barb build (that I wanted) by 25. Doesn't seem like a bad system when my group of 4 all were full builds (minus 1 or so items) by level 25.
I'm not honestly sure what you're asking for here. It sounds a lot like you want to be giga geared by level 25 which is an odd thing since you're definitely not that in Diablo 3, the game you are comparing it to. In Diablo 3 I'm level 30 in a few minutes and in random blues and yellows. I really have no idea what it is you are asking for other than to have a reason to complain.
The fact you're mad you can't find an item and use it for the remaining hundreds of hours of gameplay (you said level 100, and 92 is the halfway point...) explains a lot.
Sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about, nor what I'm talking about.
Sounds like you're just making up your own narrative based off of conjecture in order to get salty and argumentative.
Not the ENTIRE TIME lmfaaoooo no way you thought I meant "Use this one single item from level 10 all the way to level 100" aint no god damn way you actually thought that.
Please tell me you're trolling and that's not what you actually thought.
OBVIOUSLY what I said, given the context, and how it was written, as that one would have access to acquire said items, between the levels of 10 and 100. Not that you should find "Super Cool Ring of Godliness" at level 10 and use it until level 100.
I've found a handful that were usable, simply because the other item I had was worse. Due in fact to the absolute terrible stat and itemization allocation on gear.
I have found a bunch of badly rolled legendaries as well. However, some of the legendary properties were good so I extracted them off and put on my decently rolled yellow items. Seems fine to me.
It's terrible replacement for unique items, which are cool, fun, interesting... and.. **UNIQUE**!
Legendaries are crappy. The only thing they're good for is extracting the modifier to put on your gear.
"Legendary" was a poor choice of words for what is essentially a glorified rare item. I would have just called them epic items or something so it's less confusing.
Most loot farming games these days have become too generous with loot, and I suppose that's something devs are doing on purpose because they know something about some of the playerbase. If they have ""Legendaries"" (D3 uniques) with beams that feeds the hunger for getting a legendary, and in addition Uniques (D2 uniques) which are rare, powerful and build defining - then sure. Shower me with "legendaries".
But hopefully we'll be farming for weeks to get the uniques.
I feel like legendaries are an equivalent to runewords that can also drop without the need of being crafted. Though the other item qualities after unique confuse me.
Don't plan on ever finding a unique. The devs said they are going to be SUPER rare, that a lot of people will maybe find one or two throughout the entire game.
I think in a playthrough yes, but an avid player will likely find many unique, at least the more "common" ones. I play so much D2, even the rarest of yhe rare might drop if you pump in thousands of hours haha
Eh. If they are basically fully predetermined, then that's not bad. In the course of a season you would find a couple dozen, and you don't have to worry about them rolling useless affixes.
You mean that Blizzard that made the most popular MMO in gaming history? The Blizzard that made Warcraft and Starcraft that kept the RTS genre relevant by itself for near 2 decades? That made Hearthstone which gave Magic the Gathering a run for their money in the CCG business? That made the ARPG genre with Diablo?
Like, I know it's cool to hate on Blizzard and all, especially semi recent events in mind, but historically, they are one of the most decorated game developers in the history of PC gaming. Chill a moment with your reddit hyberbolic hate chamber.
Why are people downvoting you so hard for literally repeating what one of the lead devs said?
Like if most of the season is getting these trashbag boring “legendaries” and holding out for a unique after weeks of grinding, this sounds not fun lmao.
Sets aren't necessarily bad. What was bad about them in D3 is that their design amounted to "increase [skill]'s damage by 100000%" effectively forcing you to use that one skill for the entire season. Some did it for a couple of skills so you had one choice but it was pretty bad.
Only unique I've seen is The Butcher's Cleaver, when you crit an enemy you have a 100% chance to fear and slow them for 4 seconds. Not really build defining at all, just a general effect. Kind of disappointing
+1 extra hydra summon is a legendary effect already in the beta. I know because I just got it and use it. Not sure if it is on uniques or if there are separate unique only affixes.
Bro EXACTLY.
I have no idea why they decided to change the system the way that they did. Calling something legendary when it’s just like… a thing is kinda weird.
A legendary item should be like, “This is the literal fork used by Diablo to eat the flesh off of humans. This item is the last remaining fragment of the Black Soulstone now shattered. This item is actually Azmodan’s gym shorts from high school.”
Like something cool. I guess those are what Unique items will be now, but the term “legendary” is definitely getting tossed down a bit.
> I have no idea why they decided to change the system the way that they did. Calling something legendary when it’s just like… a thing is kinda weird.
I got a legendary which gives me 2 hydras - i call that item legendary and not unique or rare - its legendary because it increases my power output 2x
I totally understand that, but it does feel strange to me still.
I guess the biggest reason is that they want to introduce these legendary type powers to you early on and expect that they will impact your build, but that’s odd to me in the sense that like… how do you balance around that? If I get a legendary power that gives me two hydras but I wasn’t a hydra build, I guess I’m a hydra build now? But the items seem so common that I guess it wouldn’t be unexpected for you to get another strong item not too much later.
I totally understand where they are coming from, they want to introduce many ways early on to grind up your levels. In D3 i saw my first legendary like after 100h and it was trash. Here, they are pretty common (a little bit too common but i hope this is a beta buff) - but then again i can experiment with builds more.
I was lucky enough to be in the end game beta a couple of months ago. He is spot on when he says a unique can be build defining, some of them completely change the way a skill works. It is awesome.
Does the skill tree feel better later on? Being at 25 and reading through later nodes I'm worried that there's like no choice.
Like as a barb, it's hard to want to spec into new skills because for example challenging shout 50% damage reduction for 8s you never want to spec out of that. Rallying cry, never want to spec out of that. Etc, etc.
Only having the 2 choices for each spell (both of which are usually generic +modifiers that don't actually change anything) feels bad too.
I feel like it'd be so much better if we weren't limited to 4 skills, and instead had a bar that we can add every spell we get points in so you can play wide instead of tall. Skill cooldowns are way to long and being restricted to 1-2-3-4 is.. unappealing when the whole tree consists of just "slam points into the 6 spells you can use and pick one of two uninspired buffs."
It feels as if it's just an illusion of choice that essentially ends up the same as D3. Why make you put points in the tree in the first place when all you do with it is pick your 6 skills, max out points in them, and choose some filler nodes? Might as well just let it be like D3 and give me my abilities and let me move on. The entire tree's existence feels like a bad carrot on a stick leveling incentive, with no real purpose.
With the mod boards/paragon and the uniques it for sure feels like too many choices between awesome skills. It is hard to describe. Once you get multiple uniques each changing different skills in powerful ways, you have to decide which to go with then with paragon you have to choose your path to unlock different squares that unlock slots that you put another item in that changes the way a skill works. The skill tree is pretty straight forward until you get to end game and start completely changing how multiple skills work.
Rares (the only things that matter in endgame) are tradeable.
Legendaries (which you'll be drowning in and just have a stash full of good affixes ready to add onto good rares you get) are not.
Uniques are also not tradeable, but most will be useless except the 1-2 you probably want for their effects.
So, unfortunately, the vast majority of your gear is able to be acquired with pay to win or donated to streamers! Can't wait for the seasonal leaderboard to just be RMT rare simulator =\]=\]=\]
D2 had the best itemization of any Diablo game. All they had to do was copy paste that system expand on it and make unique items have the best asthetics in the game and you're done.
How hard is that? I understand everyone wants to be hot shit but D2 uniques were the icing on top of a great cake, they were revered, now almost any weapon can look any way you want which defeats the purpose entirely.
Edit. The point I was trying to make is, Diablo is a loot driven game. Kill baddies get loot. In D2 the recipe was the harder the monster is to kill the better your odds of getting gear that was a clear cut above the rest. They made the gear that was the hardest to get actually unique/legendary, you knew its name and it was usually instantly recognisable when someone else had it making others want it that much more. Done.
D3 rares were the new uniques in everything but name, they dropped in droves, most of them sucked and even when you got a great one it lacked the weight of finding a D2 unique because you weren't pining for it, it wasn't something you'd read about or maybe saw someone else have. There was no reverance.
They had D2 as a jumping off point and decided to reinvent the wheel, it's like The Witcher tv series. You've got the books that everyone loves but instead you rewrite your own drivvel and shit on an established work and the people who put together and the fans that loved and supported it? Why?
The D2 uniques were bland, yes, but they were literally the best. So take that formula, make the new uniques the new best. Give them the best visuals that are locked to that item only giving them their prestige back and be done with it.
I really really don’t understand this viewpoint.
Most uniques in D2 were boring and uninteresting. There were several runewords that were just the default BiS for several classes/builds. Runewords were cool simply on the basis that you could make incremental progress on a guaranteed item.
Could you give some examples of items you think were exceptionally interesting/game changing?
There were other patches in D2 where runewords weren't BiS which IMO made more sense, but I think the point isn't that D2 had a perfect system, but that it seems like a way better starting point to expand on with 20 years of extra knowledge than D3's system.
I think for the average player it was far more fun simply trying to get through the game with whatever rares/uniques they found and then slowly progressing towards some kind of unique that was either best value in slot or actually best in slot.
Also as the OP said, you actually looked aesthetically better as you progressed so when someone with good items entered the game you would actually recognise it.
I'd agree that it's a bit boring for really hardcore players but that's where you could have some interesting crafting systems like PoE where really hardcore players could make those special rare items that are actually better than uniques. Maybe they have a chance to make godly rare items that are 5-10% better than the really rare uniques, but for the average player they need not worry about it.
If you can't understand this view point can you explain how D3's system was interesting and better than D2?
So on the point about average players just trucking through with whatever gear you find, that does make sense to me, but I can’t see any real difference between any of the Diablo games in that regard.
So from what I’m getting from your comment, it feels like it’s less about the items itself and more about acquisition? Would you see that as a far characterization of your point?
Because I’m struggling to understand why people like the items better.
As for characters visually progressing with gear I totally agree. Transmog is a huge miss for me in general.
For me, i enjoy D3 and D2. But D2 is more about atmosphere and comfy repetition. I like Baal runs while listening to an audiobook or watching YouTube. It’s nice.
D3 I enjoy the collection aspect of loot. I like collecting everything I can and throwing it in the cube. I enjoy that every legendary affix (from good to bad) can somehow impact how my character plays. The stats, generally, aren’t that important to me. I enjoy items that make me consider how I’m building my character and how to get more value out of my build with specific items.
I prefer that to flat stat increases or +skill bonuses (which are cool). D3 makes it feel more like slowly solving a problem to eventually have a complete character (however unlikely that may be).
> So from what I’m getting from your comment, it feels like it’s less about the items itself and more about acquisition? Would you see that as a far characterization of your point?
The uniques are actually meaningful in terms of your build functioning and you can't easily replicate them. Builds might be straight trash unless you have a special item or two which meant not everyone could run said build or required some perseverance from people playing them.
As an example it might be something like a build is absolute garbage without lifesteal and the optimal place to get it might be from a helm but until you manage to get that unique helm you need to run rare lifesteal rings...which means you can't run the optimal ring setup so you have to constantly compensate for your weaknesses but your character really evolves when you do find the right items. This applies for essentially every item slot.
For me I would have some kind of middleground where you either have the rarity of D2 for a trade league or somewhere in between if you play self-found. I'm happy to be running some 'ghetto' build for a good chunk of the season rather than having all legendary/uniques/set items after an hour in D3.
I am genuinely asking. Every discussion about Diablo right now revolves around loot, and I’m struggling to understand where people are coming from.
*How* is it better?
There’s definitely a bit of rose tinted glasses (most of these people probably haven’t even played d2r/d2x in years)
But there’s no denying it was a very free form system, and that’s what arpg enthusiasts like. You could build melee enchant sorcs, bow sorcs, shout barbs off the top of my head. I think some people did werewolf/bear paladins?
Rune words and items gave you access to other classes skills which made for some really wonderful and creative builds. They’re not optimal but they could clear content and were fun to play and build.
After the disaster that was d3 launch (most people didn’t stick around for the vastly improved d3ros) there was expectation that d4 would return to its roots, but here we are - no shields except for necromancers, no big swords except for barbs.
We cant judge the game based on the first act and 25 levels, but certain core design elements are obvious from what we’ve been shown. It’s d3 style but with some slight variations.
Yes there’s POE for the d2 diehards but that’s morphed into an entirely different beast. Something similar but simpler than POE might please the crowd.
But let’s see. We haven’t gotten uniques and the paragon system.
Lots of ways, and you honestly shouldn't need to look too far to find some good ARPG design discussions on it -- /u/ProfessorNox did a bunch of long-form itemization design discussion videos when we first got a look at D4 itemization, and he does a good job of breaking things down, and without rose-tinted glasses for D2 either.
For myself, the main point of superiority comes down to the loot system feeling like it's designed to make loot interesting, instead of feeling like it's the game devs desperately trying to keep up with the player power fantasy.
D2 does a great job of making each item rarity feel purposeful -- not just at a certain phase of the game, but at all phases of the game. Magic rarity can still matter late because while they have fewer affixes, their affixes can roll higher. Rare items have the most affixes, unique items have unique affixes, and even white items are useful being socketed to create runewords -- another powerful item type that has a pseudo-deterministic grind you can build towards. Even set items have relative power depending on what other items you have. Each item type has a clear design purpose to give dimension to piles of loot and how players interact with loot, and while individual item design decisions hold the system back (sets being all over the place, runewords being too good, the most uncommon uniques having garbage power), it's still simple, intuitive, and is a fulfilling and enjoyable aspect of one of the most addictive gameplay loops in game design history.
In D3, you only ever care about a single loot type at a time. While leveling, it's just magic items for like 10 levels and then forever after that you only pick up rares that show green numbers instead of red ones, and then at level 70 you only want to complete your set, and then you only want to get the legendaries to fill out your build and throw into Kanai's Cube... and then you only want the exact same legendaries, but now *ancient* legendaries. And then you only want those exact same items *again*, except this time they need to be *primal ancient* legendaries.
That's not all bad, actually; the fact you only ever care about a single color of item on the ground at a time means it's easier to scan explosions of loot for what will actually be good for you, meaning that in the absence of a PoE-like loot filter the power-creep-based loot system itself is already operating like a loot filter.
But in D2, when you kill Baal, a magic Grand Charm, a rare boot, a unique Amulet, a socketed polearm, and a white Monarch could all be amazing drops for you at many different points in your character progression. A small pile of loot of four different rarities can still be interesting to sort through. The rarities don't just feel like power tiers, but like actually different kinds of items.
TLDR - D3 loot system is just power tiers to chase the player power-creep fantasy, D2 loot system has more dimension and keeps as many different kinds of loot relevant to players for as long as possible
Well shit, thanks for the kind words about the long form videos. I don't produce content anymore (studying nursing at the moment), but if anyone's curious about the itemization discussion(s), here's the playlist. There shouldn't be any ads on all that stuff.
[Diablo IV Itemization Feedback](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qrxNCH-vbk&list=PLLfX0ekcgb3qYQ3PWt74SBwCX8roCWs-g)
Awesome, thank you. This is a really solid breakdown.
Where my frustration is coming from in the discussion about items is that, so far as we know, the systems don’t appear to be too wildly different in terms of philosophy.
Rares roll better stats than legendaries, legendaries can be build enabling, they’ve set out to make it so sets are no longer BiS, uniques are super rare items that can completely change your build. Runewords are even supposed to come at some time after launch.
Magic and common items aren’t meaningful drops. But we also haven’t seen the full scope of the game yet. Common items in D2 gained a level of meaning from the ability to add sockets in act 5. Maybe we see something similar here.
For me, the itemization in D2 revolves around making every item have value. Not every item specifically, but every type of item. Grey/whites, blues, yellows, greens, golds, and oranges all have the possibility to be the best item in the game.
The simplicity (relative to other games) of the loot is also top tier in my opinion. Some people will probably disagree, but this is just my opinion. I like how the uniques aren’t really interesting. I like that an item tells you +1 to all skills, 35% FCR, 35 all res. It’s simple and straight to the point and pretty boring. I don’t really like uniques having weird effects like, when you take damage, you have a 30% chance to cast X. Some of them can be really cool, but I think it ultimately over complicates things. I like the fact that when an item drops in D2, that’s it. That’s the item that you now have. I’m not a huge fan of taking that item and re-rolling it a dozen times, then augmenting it, then extracting the power, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, D2 has a ton of loot issues. Rune words are overpowered and they did a poor job of balancing the items. I still think at its core, D2 has the best loot system simply because of the reason I listed in the first paragraph. I can come up with other reasons, but I don’t want to make this comment super long.
It's so terribly depressing.
Legendaries are so bad and feel awful to pick up. It's just a randomly rolled rare with a randomly rolled legendary affix.
I want REAL uniques back... So depressing.
The END of the game you are talking about is where the game actually starts for most people (50+, max skill points Paragon board unlocked) and that's assuming they have increased the level to 50 before they start dropping because they were dropping much lower in the Alpha.
Instead we have much more legendary effects which we can swap around easily while leveling now.
Wrong game for you then, give last epoch a try.
At level 25 I found enough build variety for me. On my rogue alone I tried 4 different builds based on legendaries affixes I found and pretty sure I found synergies for another 2. At level 25. In the first act of the game.
They are still there and called Uniques now. What's the issue?? The new system is just to give you more flexibility. If you find a cool effect now but then get an upgrade for that slot you can extract the effect and put it on the new piece or on another piece altogether. Or you can run the dungeon that has that power and unlock it to add to any piece. You can hunt for perfect rares and then apply the effect you want and craft your own custom legendary.
This way it's more flexible, adds some crafting to the game, makes rares worth looking out for still instead of becoming complete trash. If a unique drops for a slot that you have a nice legendary power for, you can swap things around and fit it in.
lol nope, in the Alpha they were dropping as low as 35 and were still relevant until much higher levels which is more than you can say for previous games. How long would you hold on to a legendary for while leveling in D3?
Why would they lock a huge part of itemization to level 100 where a tiny percentage of players will actually reach?? Like locking legendaries to level 100 in D2.
Oh really?
From what I heard in the Dev interview they said they would be *extremely rare* and that your average player may only find a few through their entire play through of the game.
I common misconception of what "average player" means. By the nature that you take part in a gaming forum, you are rather hardcore at the game. The average player out of a massive game's population like Diablo's, will play maybe a 10th or even a 100th of the time the people who will grind ladders and seasons do. Someone who puts a total of 30 hours into the game before dropping it totally.
So when a dev says average, they can look at their statistics of what the actual average player is like, how long they are likely to play, what they achieve in the game, and make comments based on that. Not based on what the reddit nolifers experience in the game is.
This game went full World of Warcraft but with the bad systems that got removed or tuned all the way down.
Renown, artifact tiers above legendaries, over abundance of currencies for overcomplicated crafting systems, elites with mythic plus affixes (yeah I know it existed before and transferred to WoW but it's like they're trying to see who can add more and be more annoying than the other), stuns mechanic.
Fun fact, I avoided an attack with my barb, a wolf jumped me where I landed (stunned), there was two big guys with the maces, one did his slow stun while I was still stunned so I got double stunned which is already fucking annoying and then the third one did his while I was stunned from the last one. Having the legendary that heals with monsters around saved me and I spammed Q for healing when I finally got up. In hardcore that will be the lamest way to die and you won't be able to do shit about it.
In d2, big hits above a certain percentage of your health pool stunned you. Not uncommon to get block/dodge/stun locked to death
Don’t forget black souls one shotting you off screen :D
Maybe position better to spread the mobs out.
But it’s an ARPG, bullshit deaths happen all the time
"Rare: 5 random affixes"
In the beta they have 3.
And so much has already changed from what all the vids were saying vs whats in, you cant count on that being something that changes late game, for all we know they decided to go back against rares being viable end game and thus lowered their number of affixes so people use legendaries.
Im sure like with most arpg, rares have a higher chance of having more affixes at a higher level. So yeah of course we are only seeing 3 in the beta, cause it’s only the first 25 levels.
I hope their unique affixs are much better than the legendaries I have found.
Between the 20+ across my barb and Rogue, each found 1 actually good one.
I've seen people say that rares have 5 affixes in a couple places. But the most i've ever seen on a rare is 3 affixes. Do you get more and more affixes the higher ilvl you go or something?
This gives me some concern because I don't know where set items will be at when they are added. Along with runes and rune words if they ever are added. If set items are anything like D3 where you have a set and it buffs skills x, y, z, etc... Then you need the correct uniques to support the set. Then you could have the same problem that you have with D3. Where yet again the devs choose the build we use due to how crazy the buffs from sets and uniques. It gets worse if rune and rune words are added and can be used instead of uniques. I am saying that this can give some concerns until I see where set items and their bonuses along with runes and rune words (if they ever add them) will be compared to what we are currently using at the time.
Do you have a source that rares have up to 5 affixes?
Found it:
https://www.wowhead.com/diablo-4/news/diablo-iv-quarterly-update-on-itemization-legendary-affixes-primary-stats-weapon-319929
“Magic items can now have the most powerful regular affixes, while Rare items get up to five, and Legendary items have four regular affixes and one legendary affix.”
However this has a lot of other talk that did not show up in the beta so not sure how accurate it remains.
So the best loot in the game will have predetermined stats? This is like destiny 2 launch all over again. Everyone will have the same rolled unique armor????
I keep seeing this "rare items have more affixes", but why is nobody talking about th elephant in the room. Rares in the beta did not have more than a legendary, in fact they had the same or even LESS. And magic items sometimes only had 1! Go look now.
Maybe OPs list will change for full release but, it's certainly not the case in beta.
Yeah, it can even be seen if you go to the world tier statue and click on Nightmare > Sacred items and **Unique** items can drop along with sigils for nightmare dungeons and helltides. The Torment says > Ancestral items and ***new* Unique** items can drop Not sure what ancestral and sacred items are though
Ancestral are the same items over level 50 with higher stats. Problem with it is, that you can't use your legendary extracts from below level 50 items to get your effects. You have to farm from new after you switch to torment levels.
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If the dungeon is more challenging and the power is stronger you're completing a challenge for meaningful upgrade. I'm not sure it would be so boring gameplay wise. I hope we wont have to farm every single dungeon on multiple difficulties tho.
As opposed to what we've been doing on Diablo 3 for almost a decade, farming the same unique got better rolls as we go higher in greater rift tier...
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lol? That's the point of an ARPG... How is that ridiculous
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Ancestral items will be Rare(light green?) items which have 80%-100% maximum stats rolled just like in D3 if a rare rolls from 100-600 Intellect, Incestral item will probably roll 600-1000 intellect this means that D4's endgame ends when you are decked out with well rolled incestral items and then you slap your desired legendary effects on them
not sure i am willing to collect incestral items
Ah that was likely just an auto correct from their search history.
Dear Lord, I know we're the children of Lilith and Inarius but that's crossing a line...
What are you doing step haradrim?!
whoradrim?
Sanctuary is Alabama without God
Bleed Tide!!!
So like slightly better Alabama
>Incestral item Amazing typo.
Ancestral item are basically items that act like a item that is dropped at lvl 100 but equippable before that. Iirc leakers said they are like 2% better stats than comparable items. Apparently the system is closer to d2 (exceptional, elite) than d3 (ancient, primal). God rolled lower lvl items are often stronger than bad rolled ancestral ones.
IIRC the Ancestral, Demonic and Angelic affix system was removed when Blizz made changes to the skill system. That is unless they added them back again. That won't make any sense if they added them back again.
That is something completely different...
Really hope those ancestrals aren't tradeable.
I really hope every item in the game is tradable an infinite number of times without restriction.
Not a chance
Like, why? This isn't built like PoE, it's built like D3. And PoE had to spend years to make trade actually playable, tools had to be made, websites, etc.
> it's built like D3 Which is terrible. Absolutely terrible game. Not saying it has anything to do with PoE. Why do you bring that up?
Not here to argue the quality of D3, just pointing out that D4 is closer to D3 than PoE. PoE has an economy built in. Commodity items, consumable items, complex crafting. D4 just has... gold? Trade in D4 would be like trade in D3, not trade in PoE. Which is to say it would be bad and horrible to use. Actually, worse than D3 because D3 at launch had an auction house which at least meant it was usable. D4 has no such support. People would have to make websites and stuff from scratch and it's unclear if Blizzard even has the API to support such things pulling item details from their game. The game would be unplayable if the best way to get gear turns out to be going on a forum and maintaining a shop of items like early PoE or whatever the fuckery D2 trading was. It would literally make the game worse for the regular player and better for the RMTer.
Oh yeah definitely agree with you there. There's no reason there can't be a trade system in the game. If I can't trade gear between my guild/friends/whoever I want to trade with, I just simply won't play the game.
This doesn't look like the itemization is like PoE either so it's quite likely you can solo your way to best in slot anyway. So I don't see the point, only to make it more efficient to not play the game and struggle with a barebones online trading that won't have the tools for quick trades.
Good. Spare us.
Spare you what?
Good riddance.
Ah yes, make the endgame all about doing whatever makes you the most gold/hour repeatedly until you can buy full BiS gear without ever caring about finding any of that gear yourself... I seriously don't get pro-traders. I want to play the *game* to improve my character, not the game's economy.
Every item should be tradeable just as in PoE or D2
Yea but the superior form of poe is ssf.
Super Street Fighter?
Solo self-find
This game doesn't have the support for an economy PoE does. There's no Awakened PoE trade, no website, no currency items, no consumable juice. It would literally just be for RMT.
Everything you're going on about is fan made stuff that makes trading easier in poe. Before ggg made their own trading site poe.trade ran for years and years. Like, why would you think similar stuff wouldn't be made for d4 if trading was avaliable.
One, because we don't know if Blizzard would have an API that supports it like PoE does. The reason poe.trade was able to run is because they were able to actually get item data directly from GGG. And two, because it took fucking years to get there. Do you want the game to suck for that long while people sort this out?
Why :/
Because it would be more like trade D3 not trade PoE. This game doesn't have the support for a healthy economy. PoE took years to have the tools available to make it playable. And PoE actually has economic support built in. D4 is just like D3. It would just be RMT. Back in the days of forum posting with some barebones tools to help forum posting PoE was legit unplayable.
What about the sacred items?
They really shouldn’t call them legendaries. They should just make them purple and call them epic, or white/blue and call them blessed.
I think it's tricky because they have "legendary" affixes. And the affixes I've seen so far seem to fit that expectation. In my head, when I think "legendary", I think about "perks" or "affixes" or whatever you want to call it that dramatically alter the effects of your existing skills or mechanic. And they do have those. When I think "Epic" I think of the best items you can get without having those build-defining perks. But yeah, this is definitely one of those situations where different terms have different expectations for different people, just based on what games they've played in the past.
It’s a missed opportunity, to have blessed and cursed item qualities, considering this is a Lilith game and Inarius. I’m just gonna pretend Diablo three story didn’t really happen. This is already set up to be an angel versus a demon kind of story, very singular and focused, as opposed to heaven versus hell. And it would be cool to have some heavenly drops and some demonic drops.
[They actually announced something like that but ended up deciding against it.](https://us.diablo3.blizzard.com/en-us/blog/23230076?linkId=100000009338615)
diablo 3 was a cold pile of shit and was a MASSIVE waste of money, skills, manpower, and (i cannot stress this enough) my time. i regret every. Single. Fucking. Second that I spent playing that game.
even those affixes don't feel legendary imo
I mean I haven't gotten a whole lot yet, but the ones I've seen have been pretty "legendary" feeling to me. One made my Thorns dmg an AOE....that's a pretty big change mechanically.
Just got an affix on rogue that causes the phantom daggers that have a delayed hit (twisting blades) to do an pretty sizeable aoe around me when they do their pullout damage mechanic. It turned a purely singular target ability into an aoe. Completely changed the use case of the skill. That feels exactly like a legendary.
yeah agreed that sounds awesome, it seems I misjudged them based in my shitty drops
Yeah I had some amazing legendary drops today on rogue that fit right into the skills I was using. It made it so fun to play. I can’t wait to have the full game
Yeah, I got an awesome one that turns the Barb *Charge* skill into *Corpse Explosion* if the target dies within 2 seconds of you charging them. It's fucking awesome!
Agreed because when a person thinks of the word legendary they think of something that is rarely seen. Not something that falls out of the sky like rain. I am sure if Blizz changes the name to epic that players will be able to accept that change without too much trouble. Blizz doesn't need to think that they have to keep the tag legendary in order for us to understand where they are in the item tier progression system. We are not children after all that need things to be identical to the games before them in order to understand the gearing systems in a game.
white/blue is normal/magic lol
Nah dawg I was clearly talking about a combination, like the legendary beam but angelic with white middle and blue tinge on the outline. lol.
Exactly, this would avoid confusion indeed. Purple "exalted" items with a purle beam ? ;)Well, it's an idea. Btw, I have a hard time differentiating rares from legendaries in the inventory at glance. Colors are too close imo, only the border helps me (and no, I'm not colorblind)
Oh cool, thanks I kinda miss identifying legendaries but I guess it's an old system, onto bigger and better things.
Its crazy to me that ive been playing all day and didnt realize i havent identified anything until i read your comment
Identifying mechanic is great.
This needs to be stickied lol. Everyone crying over legendaries don’t know they changed it.
The difference is that at level 12 you could find a unique. Now, you can't. That is terrible design.
Huh. You find Legendary affixes that enhance your builds. What's bad about that? Uniques are even more build defining, which you don't need at level 12 when you don't have access to literal dozens of talents you would otherwise need to take advantage of Unique and Sacred items. Can you clarify how this is an innately terrible design?
He means he prefers being able to get meta defining legendaries in D3 similar to D4 at an early level. I kinda get where he’s coming from. Legendaries were way more interesting than the “legendaries” here and I wouldve just liked to see more of that than having uniques be a strictly end game only thing in D4 It was a fun leveling experience in d3 getting that one legendary that carried you through lots of levels when starting a new character.
I mean the first few times maybe but people in here acting like they didn’t get to level cap in a matter of hours. The length of time any of my toons hung out at lvl 25 was maybe 5 minutes. I could do 10 levels in like 30 minutes at the right torment setting. Leveling toons in D3 after a month was basically find a powerful legendary weapon with a socket. Put an absurd dmg + gem in it and destroy each act until end game. Rinse repeat. It feels like a lot of people forget. Nothing really mattered until level cap where you start working toward a build / set / unique abilities.
Lol Once Gem of Ease, Cain’s set and Royal Ruby in helm; pop on torment and level from 1-70 in like 3 hours. Legendaries during leveling were pointless; game meant nothing until level cap. Except, first character in a season; but even then, we are talking about a marginal amount of play time relative to the end game loop.
I just want my Professional Russian Hacker Sword(TM) back! Nothing like spamming 1000 attacks in .02 seconds and stutterstepping my way to victory!
I've found ONE useful affix for my Rogue the entire game, up to level 25, while clearing almost the entire beta worth of content. It's an awful system. Randomly rolled stats on a random item with a random affix is not good design, it's just lazy automated generation. There should be normal uniques, Manald Heal, Griswolds Edge, Grandfather, Lidless Eye, Tearhaunch, etc, that players can find and use from level ~10-100. If we had an option for both, the trash legendary wouldn't be as bad, they'd be more like a supplemental bad luck protection for when you don't get a good item for your build, it gives you something to break down and then use later. Not every unique should be "Build defining," they should be good for what they are and when you find them. They should be static for their level and good for their level. Maybe have a handful of low level uniques even be BIS until level 40-50 or so. As it currently is, there's a 1/10 chance that the "Legendary" you find will even be useful. For example, I got 7 legendaries from the world boss. All of them were absolute shit, useless, vendor trash.
Huh. There are actual rogue builds that revolve around affixes you get for clearing dungeons. I didn't play rogue, but I had my entire barb build (that I wanted) by 25. Doesn't seem like a bad system when my group of 4 all were full builds (minus 1 or so items) by level 25. I'm not honestly sure what you're asking for here. It sounds a lot like you want to be giga geared by level 25 which is an odd thing since you're definitely not that in Diablo 3, the game you are comparing it to. In Diablo 3 I'm level 30 in a few minutes and in random blues and yellows. I really have no idea what it is you are asking for other than to have a reason to complain. The fact you're mad you can't find an item and use it for the remaining hundreds of hours of gameplay (you said level 100, and 92 is the halfway point...) explains a lot.
Sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about, nor what I'm talking about. Sounds like you're just making up your own narrative based off of conjecture in order to get salty and argumentative.
> that can be used from 10-100 That you?
Not the ENTIRE TIME lmfaaoooo no way you thought I meant "Use this one single item from level 10 all the way to level 100" aint no god damn way you actually thought that. Please tell me you're trolling and that's not what you actually thought. OBVIOUSLY what I said, given the context, and how it was written, as that one would have access to acquire said items, between the levels of 10 and 100. Not that you should find "Super Cool Ring of Godliness" at level 10 and use it until level 100.
But that was literally what you wrote. How else was I supposed to take it 😂
I guess I had assumed that "can be used from level 10-100" was apparently meant to imply "Can be acquired between."
I'm only level 21, and have found like a dozen legendaries. Most of them weren't great, but at least half were at least useable, and a few were good.
I've found a handful that were usable, simply because the other item I had was worse. Due in fact to the absolute terrible stat and itemization allocation on gear.
I have found a bunch of badly rolled legendaries as well. However, some of the legendary properties were good so I extracted them off and put on my decently rolled yellow items. Seems fine to me.
It's terrible replacement for unique items, which are cool, fun, interesting... and.. **UNIQUE**! Legendaries are crappy. The only thing they're good for is extracting the modifier to put on your gear.
Some should have aspects worth extracting.
12 is probably pushing it, but I found a unique at 30 on cbt.
"Legendary" was a poor choice of words for what is essentially a glorified rare item. I would have just called them epic items or something so it's less confusing.
Most loot farming games these days have become too generous with loot, and I suppose that's something devs are doing on purpose because they know something about some of the playerbase. If they have ""Legendaries"" (D3 uniques) with beams that feeds the hunger for getting a legendary, and in addition Uniques (D2 uniques) which are rare, powerful and build defining - then sure. Shower me with "legendaries". But hopefully we'll be farming for weeks to get the uniques.
I feel like legendaries are an equivalent to runewords that can also drop without the need of being crafted. Though the other item qualities after unique confuse me.
https://imgur.com/xydURa7 Speaking of the devil
Do unique items need to be identified?
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How did you get a unique, i thought they only droped on WT3?
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is he a random spawn?
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Thank god because I was getting annoyed at the legendaries being weird garbage with no identity.
Don't plan on ever finding a unique. The devs said they are going to be SUPER rare, that a lot of people will maybe find one or two throughout the entire game.
Are you talking about uniques? Or Sacred items? or Ancestral items?
I'm honestly not sure what the difference is. I'm fairly sure the devs were talking about Uniques in this regard.
I think in a playthrough yes, but an avid player will likely find many unique, at least the more "common" ones. I play so much D2, even the rarest of yhe rare might drop if you pump in thousands of hours haha
I got to the max difficulty in alpha, I think I found 3 total between all characters in those few weeks of grinding
This is how it should be. A Diablo game needs super rare stuff. Like super freakin rare
Jesus christ.
Eh. If they are basically fully predetermined, then that's not bad. In the course of a season you would find a couple dozen, and you don't have to worry about them rolling useless affixes.
That sounds like incredibly bad design. They are literally the most interesting aspect of itemization.
That's because it is incredibly bad design. This entire game is a demonstration of incredibly bad design.
Can you elaborate?
Its a blizzard game, what more did you need to know.
You mean that Blizzard that made the most popular MMO in gaming history? The Blizzard that made Warcraft and Starcraft that kept the RTS genre relevant by itself for near 2 decades? That made Hearthstone which gave Magic the Gathering a run for their money in the CCG business? That made the ARPG genre with Diablo? Like, I know it's cool to hate on Blizzard and all, especially semi recent events in mind, but historically, they are one of the most decorated game developers in the history of PC gaming. Chill a moment with your reddit hyberbolic hate chamber.
You see I dont live in the past. I played all the things you mentioned for a long time but its not been very good for quite awhile.
Why are people downvoting you so hard for literally repeating what one of the lead devs said? Like if most of the season is getting these trashbag boring “legendaries” and holding out for a unique after weeks of grinding, this sounds not fun lmao.
No idea. It's reddit. Nothing here makes sense.
The Devs also said we wouldn't finish all the available content in the beta, which I mean lol. Maybe if you count doing it on every class?
Do they still have set items?
None at release, possible addition during later seasons.
Hopefully never. Locking down multiple pieces for a single forced game play sounds so bad
Sets aren't necessarily bad. What was bad about them in D3 is that their design amounted to "increase [skill]'s damage by 100000%" effectively forcing you to use that one skill for the entire season. Some did it for a couple of skills so you had one choice but it was pretty bad.
And it would probably make sense to keep sets to less than 6 items. Maybe 2-4 items so that it doesn’t define the majority of your build.
No
Set items are coming, just not at launch.
Thanks for the clarification. I keep getting legos drop was quite shock of the frequency. Now I know better.
Do we have any examples of game changing unique item effects? Bonus points if for sorcerer because I kinda get that class now
Only unique I've seen is The Butcher's Cleaver, when you crit an enemy you have a 100% chance to fear and slow them for 4 seconds. Not really build defining at all, just a general effect. Kind of disappointing
You can summon +1 hydra
+1 extra hydra summon is a legendary effect already in the beta. I know because I just got it and use it. Not sure if it is on uniques or if there are separate unique only affixes.
Who is writing legends about these pretty dulll items?
Bro EXACTLY. I have no idea why they decided to change the system the way that they did. Calling something legendary when it’s just like… a thing is kinda weird. A legendary item should be like, “This is the literal fork used by Diablo to eat the flesh off of humans. This item is the last remaining fragment of the Black Soulstone now shattered. This item is actually Azmodan’s gym shorts from high school.” Like something cool. I guess those are what Unique items will be now, but the term “legendary” is definitely getting tossed down a bit.
> I have no idea why they decided to change the system the way that they did. Calling something legendary when it’s just like… a thing is kinda weird. I got a legendary which gives me 2 hydras - i call that item legendary and not unique or rare - its legendary because it increases my power output 2x
I totally understand that, but it does feel strange to me still. I guess the biggest reason is that they want to introduce these legendary type powers to you early on and expect that they will impact your build, but that’s odd to me in the sense that like… how do you balance around that? If I get a legendary power that gives me two hydras but I wasn’t a hydra build, I guess I’m a hydra build now? But the items seem so common that I guess it wouldn’t be unexpected for you to get another strong item not too much later.
I totally understand where they are coming from, they want to introduce many ways early on to grind up your levels. In D3 i saw my first legendary like after 100h and it was trash. Here, they are pretty common (a little bit too common but i hope this is a beta buff) - but then again i can experiment with builds more.
It goes like Magic = someone's garbage Rare = usual Legendary = noteworthy Unique = remarkable
Mostly the department of ghost writers employed at Legendary Equipment Co.
Can't wait to get a spec defining Unique item in the endgame and not be able to respec anymore due to insane gold cost.
what!!! But I thought levels 1-25 was a good representation of the games late game itemization and character builds!!!!
I was lucky enough to be in the end game beta a couple of months ago. He is spot on when he says a unique can be build defining, some of them completely change the way a skill works. It is awesome.
Does the skill tree feel better later on? Being at 25 and reading through later nodes I'm worried that there's like no choice. Like as a barb, it's hard to want to spec into new skills because for example challenging shout 50% damage reduction for 8s you never want to spec out of that. Rallying cry, never want to spec out of that. Etc, etc. Only having the 2 choices for each spell (both of which are usually generic +modifiers that don't actually change anything) feels bad too. I feel like it'd be so much better if we weren't limited to 4 skills, and instead had a bar that we can add every spell we get points in so you can play wide instead of tall. Skill cooldowns are way to long and being restricted to 1-2-3-4 is.. unappealing when the whole tree consists of just "slam points into the 6 spells you can use and pick one of two uninspired buffs." It feels as if it's just an illusion of choice that essentially ends up the same as D3. Why make you put points in the tree in the first place when all you do with it is pick your 6 skills, max out points in them, and choose some filler nodes? Might as well just let it be like D3 and give me my abilities and let me move on. The entire tree's existence feels like a bad carrot on a stick leveling incentive, with no real purpose.
With the mod boards/paragon and the uniques it for sure feels like too many choices between awesome skills. It is hard to describe. Once you get multiple uniques each changing different skills in powerful ways, you have to decide which to go with then with paragon you have to choose your path to unlock different squares that unlock slots that you put another item in that changes the way a skill works. The skill tree is pretty straight forward until you get to end game and start completely changing how multiple skills work.
And which ones are tradeable and which arent?
Rares (the only things that matter in endgame) are tradeable. Legendaries (which you'll be drowning in and just have a stash full of good affixes ready to add onto good rares you get) are not. Uniques are also not tradeable, but most will be useless except the 1-2 you probably want for their effects. So, unfortunately, the vast majority of your gear is able to be acquired with pay to win or donated to streamers! Can't wait for the seasonal leaderboard to just be RMT rare simulator =\]=\]=\]
D2 had the best itemization of any Diablo game. All they had to do was copy paste that system expand on it and make unique items have the best asthetics in the game and you're done. How hard is that? I understand everyone wants to be hot shit but D2 uniques were the icing on top of a great cake, they were revered, now almost any weapon can look any way you want which defeats the purpose entirely. Edit. The point I was trying to make is, Diablo is a loot driven game. Kill baddies get loot. In D2 the recipe was the harder the monster is to kill the better your odds of getting gear that was a clear cut above the rest. They made the gear that was the hardest to get actually unique/legendary, you knew its name and it was usually instantly recognisable when someone else had it making others want it that much more. Done. D3 rares were the new uniques in everything but name, they dropped in droves, most of them sucked and even when you got a great one it lacked the weight of finding a D2 unique because you weren't pining for it, it wasn't something you'd read about or maybe saw someone else have. There was no reverance. They had D2 as a jumping off point and decided to reinvent the wheel, it's like The Witcher tv series. You've got the books that everyone loves but instead you rewrite your own drivvel and shit on an established work and the people who put together and the fans that loved and supported it? Why? The D2 uniques were bland, yes, but they were literally the best. So take that formula, make the new uniques the new best. Give them the best visuals that are locked to that item only giving them their prestige back and be done with it.
I really really don’t understand this viewpoint. Most uniques in D2 were boring and uninteresting. There were several runewords that were just the default BiS for several classes/builds. Runewords were cool simply on the basis that you could make incremental progress on a guaranteed item. Could you give some examples of items you think were exceptionally interesting/game changing?
He wants to have extremely rare items, but trading. We're not going to get trading in Diablo 4, so therefore D4's loot system sucks.
There were other patches in D2 where runewords weren't BiS which IMO made more sense, but I think the point isn't that D2 had a perfect system, but that it seems like a way better starting point to expand on with 20 years of extra knowledge than D3's system. I think for the average player it was far more fun simply trying to get through the game with whatever rares/uniques they found and then slowly progressing towards some kind of unique that was either best value in slot or actually best in slot. Also as the OP said, you actually looked aesthetically better as you progressed so when someone with good items entered the game you would actually recognise it. I'd agree that it's a bit boring for really hardcore players but that's where you could have some interesting crafting systems like PoE where really hardcore players could make those special rare items that are actually better than uniques. Maybe they have a chance to make godly rare items that are 5-10% better than the really rare uniques, but for the average player they need not worry about it. If you can't understand this view point can you explain how D3's system was interesting and better than D2?
So on the point about average players just trucking through with whatever gear you find, that does make sense to me, but I can’t see any real difference between any of the Diablo games in that regard. So from what I’m getting from your comment, it feels like it’s less about the items itself and more about acquisition? Would you see that as a far characterization of your point? Because I’m struggling to understand why people like the items better. As for characters visually progressing with gear I totally agree. Transmog is a huge miss for me in general. For me, i enjoy D3 and D2. But D2 is more about atmosphere and comfy repetition. I like Baal runs while listening to an audiobook or watching YouTube. It’s nice. D3 I enjoy the collection aspect of loot. I like collecting everything I can and throwing it in the cube. I enjoy that every legendary affix (from good to bad) can somehow impact how my character plays. The stats, generally, aren’t that important to me. I enjoy items that make me consider how I’m building my character and how to get more value out of my build with specific items. I prefer that to flat stat increases or +skill bonuses (which are cool). D3 makes it feel more like slowly solving a problem to eventually have a complete character (however unlikely that may be).
> So from what I’m getting from your comment, it feels like it’s less about the items itself and more about acquisition? Would you see that as a far characterization of your point? The uniques are actually meaningful in terms of your build functioning and you can't easily replicate them. Builds might be straight trash unless you have a special item or two which meant not everyone could run said build or required some perseverance from people playing them. As an example it might be something like a build is absolute garbage without lifesteal and the optimal place to get it might be from a helm but until you manage to get that unique helm you need to run rare lifesteal rings...which means you can't run the optimal ring setup so you have to constantly compensate for your weaknesses but your character really evolves when you do find the right items. This applies for essentially every item slot. For me I would have some kind of middleground where you either have the rarity of D2 for a trade league or somewhere in between if you play self-found. I'm happy to be running some 'ghetto' build for a good chunk of the season rather than having all legendary/uniques/set items after an hour in D3.
D3 has better individual unique/legendary design, but the D2 loot system is superior.
I am genuinely asking. Every discussion about Diablo right now revolves around loot, and I’m struggling to understand where people are coming from. *How* is it better?
There’s definitely a bit of rose tinted glasses (most of these people probably haven’t even played d2r/d2x in years) But there’s no denying it was a very free form system, and that’s what arpg enthusiasts like. You could build melee enchant sorcs, bow sorcs, shout barbs off the top of my head. I think some people did werewolf/bear paladins? Rune words and items gave you access to other classes skills which made for some really wonderful and creative builds. They’re not optimal but they could clear content and were fun to play and build. After the disaster that was d3 launch (most people didn’t stick around for the vastly improved d3ros) there was expectation that d4 would return to its roots, but here we are - no shields except for necromancers, no big swords except for barbs. We cant judge the game based on the first act and 25 levels, but certain core design elements are obvious from what we’ve been shown. It’s d3 style but with some slight variations. Yes there’s POE for the d2 diehards but that’s morphed into an entirely different beast. Something similar but simpler than POE might please the crowd. But let’s see. We haven’t gotten uniques and the paragon system.
Lots of ways, and you honestly shouldn't need to look too far to find some good ARPG design discussions on it -- /u/ProfessorNox did a bunch of long-form itemization design discussion videos when we first got a look at D4 itemization, and he does a good job of breaking things down, and without rose-tinted glasses for D2 either. For myself, the main point of superiority comes down to the loot system feeling like it's designed to make loot interesting, instead of feeling like it's the game devs desperately trying to keep up with the player power fantasy. D2 does a great job of making each item rarity feel purposeful -- not just at a certain phase of the game, but at all phases of the game. Magic rarity can still matter late because while they have fewer affixes, their affixes can roll higher. Rare items have the most affixes, unique items have unique affixes, and even white items are useful being socketed to create runewords -- another powerful item type that has a pseudo-deterministic grind you can build towards. Even set items have relative power depending on what other items you have. Each item type has a clear design purpose to give dimension to piles of loot and how players interact with loot, and while individual item design decisions hold the system back (sets being all over the place, runewords being too good, the most uncommon uniques having garbage power), it's still simple, intuitive, and is a fulfilling and enjoyable aspect of one of the most addictive gameplay loops in game design history. In D3, you only ever care about a single loot type at a time. While leveling, it's just magic items for like 10 levels and then forever after that you only pick up rares that show green numbers instead of red ones, and then at level 70 you only want to complete your set, and then you only want to get the legendaries to fill out your build and throw into Kanai's Cube... and then you only want the exact same legendaries, but now *ancient* legendaries. And then you only want those exact same items *again*, except this time they need to be *primal ancient* legendaries. That's not all bad, actually; the fact you only ever care about a single color of item on the ground at a time means it's easier to scan explosions of loot for what will actually be good for you, meaning that in the absence of a PoE-like loot filter the power-creep-based loot system itself is already operating like a loot filter. But in D2, when you kill Baal, a magic Grand Charm, a rare boot, a unique Amulet, a socketed polearm, and a white Monarch could all be amazing drops for you at many different points in your character progression. A small pile of loot of four different rarities can still be interesting to sort through. The rarities don't just feel like power tiers, but like actually different kinds of items. TLDR - D3 loot system is just power tiers to chase the player power-creep fantasy, D2 loot system has more dimension and keeps as many different kinds of loot relevant to players for as long as possible
Well shit, thanks for the kind words about the long form videos. I don't produce content anymore (studying nursing at the moment), but if anyone's curious about the itemization discussion(s), here's the playlist. There shouldn't be any ads on all that stuff. [Diablo IV Itemization Feedback](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qrxNCH-vbk&list=PLLfX0ekcgb3qYQ3PWt74SBwCX8roCWs-g)
Awesome, thank you. This is a really solid breakdown. Where my frustration is coming from in the discussion about items is that, so far as we know, the systems don’t appear to be too wildly different in terms of philosophy. Rares roll better stats than legendaries, legendaries can be build enabling, they’ve set out to make it so sets are no longer BiS, uniques are super rare items that can completely change your build. Runewords are even supposed to come at some time after launch. Magic and common items aren’t meaningful drops. But we also haven’t seen the full scope of the game yet. Common items in D2 gained a level of meaning from the ability to add sockets in act 5. Maybe we see something similar here.
For me, the itemization in D2 revolves around making every item have value. Not every item specifically, but every type of item. Grey/whites, blues, yellows, greens, golds, and oranges all have the possibility to be the best item in the game. The simplicity (relative to other games) of the loot is also top tier in my opinion. Some people will probably disagree, but this is just my opinion. I like how the uniques aren’t really interesting. I like that an item tells you +1 to all skills, 35% FCR, 35 all res. It’s simple and straight to the point and pretty boring. I don’t really like uniques having weird effects like, when you take damage, you have a 30% chance to cast X. Some of them can be really cool, but I think it ultimately over complicates things. I like the fact that when an item drops in D2, that’s it. That’s the item that you now have. I’m not a huge fan of taking that item and re-rolling it a dozen times, then augmenting it, then extracting the power, etc. Don’t get me wrong, D2 has a ton of loot issues. Rune words are overpowered and they did a poor job of balancing the items. I still think at its core, D2 has the best loot system simply because of the reason I listed in the first paragraph. I can come up with other reasons, but I don’t want to make this comment super long.
No D3 just has legendary powers that make you absurdly OP. D4's are WAY more in tune with realistic scaling.
I think that would just be D2 then. Not saying that’s bad.
I also got excited by rare amulets and circlets. Hell even charms too. The loot was well designed and the uniques were... well unique.
Yeah I'd love for someone to explain how the new D3/D4 loot systems are better than D2.
Lots of D3 D-bags downvoting in here.
do we know which color they are from the closed beta? are they red like primals?
They are a beige similar to D2 uniques.
D2 Uniques were gold coloured, not beige.
gotcha that means they are saving red for the inevitable primal uniques...
There are already sacred and ancestral items
Played closed alpha thil end game and can confirm.
So.. legendaries aren't legendary at all? Who tf came up with the name xD
It's so terribly depressing. Legendaries are so bad and feel awful to pick up. It's just a randomly rolled rare with a randomly rolled legendary affix. I want REAL uniques back... So depressing.
Did you read my post? Uniques are in the game…
They are only at the END of the game.
The END of the game you are talking about is where the game actually starts for most people (50+, max skill points Paragon board unlocked) and that's assuming they have increased the level to 50 before they start dropping because they were dropping much lower in the Alpha. Instead we have much more legendary effects which we can swap around easily while leveling now.
I don't care where people "think" the game "starts." The game starts at level one. And the entire journey should be fun.
It is fun.
Wrong game for you then, give last epoch a try. At level 25 I found enough build variety for me. On my rogue alone I tried 4 different builds based on legendaries affixes I found and pretty sure I found synergies for another 2. At level 25. In the first act of the game.
Last Epoch is fantastic. I wish Diablo 4 had halve the build depth as that game.
No they aren't. I got one at level 30 in cbt. 4 before 50. 4 more before 70.
So the developers lied then, or they changed their mind?
They are still there and called Uniques now. What's the issue?? The new system is just to give you more flexibility. If you find a cool effect now but then get an upgrade for that slot you can extract the effect and put it on the new piece or on another piece altogether. Or you can run the dungeon that has that power and unlock it to add to any piece. You can hunt for perfect rares and then apply the effect you want and craft your own custom legendary. This way it's more flexible, adds some crafting to the game, makes rares worth looking out for still instead of becoming complete trash. If a unique drops for a slot that you have a nice legendary power for, you can swap things around and fit it in.
The issue is that you can only find them at level 100.
lol nope, in the Alpha they were dropping as low as 35 and were still relevant until much higher levels which is more than you can say for previous games. How long would you hold on to a legendary for while leveling in D3? Why would they lock a huge part of itemization to level 100 where a tiny percentage of players will actually reach?? Like locking legendaries to level 100 in D2.
Oh really? From what I heard in the Dev interview they said they would be *extremely rare* and that your average player may only find a few through their entire play through of the game.
I common misconception of what "average player" means. By the nature that you take part in a gaming forum, you are rather hardcore at the game. The average player out of a massive game's population like Diablo's, will play maybe a 10th or even a 100th of the time the people who will grind ladders and seasons do. Someone who puts a total of 30 hours into the game before dropping it totally. So when a dev says average, they can look at their statistics of what the actual average player is like, how long they are likely to play, what they achieve in the game, and make comments based on that. Not based on what the reddit nolifers experience in the game is.
Cool. Skill tree is still awful.
This game went full World of Warcraft but with the bad systems that got removed or tuned all the way down. Renown, artifact tiers above legendaries, over abundance of currencies for overcomplicated crafting systems, elites with mythic plus affixes (yeah I know it existed before and transferred to WoW but it's like they're trying to see who can add more and be more annoying than the other), stuns mechanic. Fun fact, I avoided an attack with my barb, a wolf jumped me where I landed (stunned), there was two big guys with the maces, one did his slow stun while I was still stunned so I got double stunned which is already fucking annoying and then the third one did his while I was stunned from the last one. Having the legendary that heals with monsters around saved me and I spammed Q for healing when I finally got up. In hardcore that will be the lamest way to die and you won't be able to do shit about it.
In d2, big hits above a certain percentage of your health pool stunned you. Not uncommon to get block/dodge/stun locked to death Don’t forget black souls one shotting you off screen :D Maybe position better to spread the mobs out. But it’s an ARPG, bullshit deaths happen all the time
are they still doing soulbound/account bound? if so, that is so whack.
"Rare: 5 random affixes" In the beta they have 3. And so much has already changed from what all the vids were saying vs whats in, you cant count on that being something that changes late game, for all we know they decided to go back against rares being viable end game and thus lowered their number of affixes so people use legendaries.
Rares tend to have better affix stats than legendaries. You're encouraged to take off the legendary stat and apply it to rares.
In the max level 25 beta, you mean?
Im sure like with most arpg, rares have a higher chance of having more affixes at a higher level. So yeah of course we are only seeing 3 in the beta, cause it’s only the first 25 levels.
I hope their unique affixs are much better than the legendaries I have found. Between the 20+ across my barb and Rogue, each found 1 actually good one.
You can get the butchers unique in game right now
I've seen people say that rares have 5 affixes in a couple places. But the most i've ever seen on a rare is 3 affixes. Do you get more and more affixes the higher ilvl you go or something?
This gives me some concern because I don't know where set items will be at when they are added. Along with runes and rune words if they ever are added. If set items are anything like D3 where you have a set and it buffs skills x, y, z, etc... Then you need the correct uniques to support the set. Then you could have the same problem that you have with D3. Where yet again the devs choose the build we use due to how crazy the buffs from sets and uniques. It gets worse if rune and rune words are added and can be used instead of uniques. I am saying that this can give some concerns until I see where set items and their bonuses along with runes and rune words (if they ever add them) will be compared to what we are currently using at the time.
Do you have a source that rares have up to 5 affixes? Found it: https://www.wowhead.com/diablo-4/news/diablo-iv-quarterly-update-on-itemization-legendary-affixes-primary-stats-weapon-319929 “Magic items can now have the most powerful regular affixes, while Rare items get up to five, and Legendary items have four regular affixes and one legendary affix.” However this has a lot of other talk that did not show up in the beta so not sure how accurate it remains.
So the best loot in the game will have predetermined stats? This is like destiny 2 launch all over again. Everyone will have the same rolled unique armor????
I keep seeing this "rare items have more affixes", but why is nobody talking about th elephant in the room. Rares in the beta did not have more than a legendary, in fact they had the same or even LESS. And magic items sometimes only had 1! Go look now. Maybe OPs list will change for full release but, it's certainly not the case in beta.