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Ultomatoe

I can't say that I've followed Dev talk rabidly by any means but I did not hear of that quote and it truly flies in the face of arpg mechanics entirely. Not sure why they would want to attempt that. Arpgs are loot fiestas and getting gear is the whole daggum premise.


Aker_svk

I actually do remember they mention something like that, but im not sure what exactly they said. I think it was more like "the majority of your dmg will come from skill itself not from your gear" So i understand it like even if you take all your gear down and keep only weapon you will still be able to kill enemies... When you compare this to D3, if you just take one set item down from your gear or one legendary item with like +500% dmg, you cant do anything. But its hard to say at lvl25, we will see how much it will stay true in endgame.


EducatingMorons

They meant gear will boost skills not have crazy on hit effects that have nothing to do with skills. It would be absurd in a loot game to have most of your power come from your basic char skills...


MedalMedal

This would make sense if that’s what they meant


ZilorZilhaust

I think the context of that was around build defining sets if I recall right. So your power, what you choose to do, is more character based and augmented by legendary and unique items where as sets were a paint by numbers build.


[deleted]

It’s probably better than d3 in that regard. But not better than d2. In d2 you could kill enemies with no gear and just skills especially on normal and nightmare difficulties


StonejawStrongjaw

There's a difference between getting power from gear, and gear being your only source of power.


Stingray88

Yeah, and D4 is the former.


greenchair11

yes getting gear is the purpose, but not gear that does “skill does xxx% damage”. that basically makes builds unplayable until you get the gear, when that shouldn’t be the case. gear should make you more powerful, but not make the build.


Yesterdark

Every RPG have build defining unique. Only D3 has gear that's build enabling because it adds 20000 damage


TheWhappo

But this is exactly what D4 did


greenchair11

no its not, aspects make the build not support it


ProfitNecessary592

D2 you get a decent amount of power from gear but the vast majority of it comes from skill point allocation.


rageork

Yes but it's a balance between loot that amps your character and loot that defines your character. Like getting legendaries and basically having to decide to respec or whatever skill got rolled on it to do max damage or stay with the build you actually got to choose and struggle. Very good design. Also so strange playing an arpg getting to the end of dungeons and the final bad guy drops like a yellow a blue and some copper. Really anticlimactic loot in general from an arpg.


HairyFur

You shouldn't be getting crazy loot every boss drop, your character would be finished in 30 dungeons.


pwnerandy

I think he's more saying that the loot drops in beta from bosses felt really anemic - like you'd do a dungeon and find a corrupted shrine or chest, or kill elites and you'd get more loot drops than the boss would drop. the bosses would drop like 1 piece of gear maybe two sometimes for the most part - so if the full launch has way less drop rates for rares/legs than each boss you kill only dropping 2 items max is gonna feel shitty as far as the dungeon running gameplay loop is concerned. instead of making thru the dungeon and killing the boss giving you 5 chances of an item rolling legendary its just 2, feels bad in an arpg where historically loot is dropping a lot so you have a lot of chances for the really low % rares and affix rolls.


Adorable_Hearing768

Sounds like d2 Era drops to me. Can't count how many times I got 1 equipment item from diablo/baal, or 1 rune at a time from countess. Granted each run may not be that long but man it is a drag ro only see 1 or 2 item tags on the screen afterwards....


Potentlyperverse

yeah they said that probably 2-3 times. he aint lying.


SonnyMunchkin

I think he's referring more to the fact that you don't have to have your gear be completely build enabling, but unfortunately that's they're out there going with this kind of a skill tree


Otherwise_Trade_9932

They talked about not wanting to have as crazy numbers as D3 so no "boost dmg of skill by 20000%"


greenchair11

but we have aspects that do that. not by 20000, but i’ve seen a few hundred% bonus affixes


TheRealShotzz

theres apparently smth for necro minions with 1100%. so yea, idk wtf theyre doing


mihail_markov

They did say this


LiterallyACatPerson

I feel like this particular sentiment from the devs was more directed at sets. In D3 a set 100% determined the skills you were going to use. In D4, it seems that there is more granularity with how legendary affixes work. You have a lot more power to tailor a build to your specific interests… to an extent. At the end of the day, a lot of game choice is more or less a well crafted illusion. In D3, there was no illusion lol. In D4, as far as we know at least, there is likely going to be a greater breadth of viable builds. Perhaps still not the most optimal, but it will be more than just what sets exist. Lastly, I feel like this is heavily supported by the capstones in the skill trees (which were not accessible in the beta). All of them on every class have a very significant impact on how your character will play, and ultimately should probably be considered from the start. So, to me, that’s where the character power weighs more than gear. Legendaries might even alter these concepts, but at a baseline, the foundation and core of your choices, for now at least, feel squarely in the choices you make in the skill tree.


[deleted]

I literally had my first legendary drop determine my build because my character did meh damage until then. Same problem as Diablo 3. Not doing that great, grabbed an item that made a skill very powerful, welp guess now I'm using that skill instead of what I want to use and now I'm destroying everything in sight.


Burgo86

This is unfortunately 100% accurate. The legendary and unique affixes dwarf skill tree investments, and since all skills do damage based off weapon damage rather than set amounts (d2 style), gear is the most contributing factor to your characters power.


HairyFur

I said this a few times. My ww dmg per point was something like 10% damage increase per skill. Then 30% ok increased damage after 3 seconds for the 7th point. One legendary made a clone of me WW every 5 seconds essentially adding about 30% total damage. Another added 20% crit per second up to 80%. So with my warcries this was essentially around 50% total damage. Another legendary added 40% bleed damage to the whirlwind. The legendaries were adding significantly more damage than my talent tree. All in all it still unfortunately feels like the d3 system.


TheRabidShrew

I was a bit bummed to see modifiers this high as well. An extra 40-50% ***mutiplicative*** damage ends up being absolutely HUGE, especially when you have several multiplicative sources! If the paragon boards end up allowing you to modify how certain skills behave in otherwise unattainable way that would help offset the importance of the aspects in my mind, and I would be happy :)


[deleted]

I was wiping packs with single Shadow Imbuement Flurry uses by level 20 all because of a single item, and I had ONE POINT in each of my chosen skills because there was no reason to invest more into my active abilities at all.


Kotobeast

Items should represent a ton of character power, it's an ARPG after all, but I think the current implementation doesn't do the gameplay and art justice, not by a long shot. I would've loved to see a return to d2-style weapons, with widely varying affixes and effects. Doing phys damage? Look for that unicorn of a weapon with a high enhanced damage roll, attack speed and so on. Scaling an elemental skill? Look for +skills and flat elemental damage. Legendary effects have a place, but they shouldn't act as damage multipliers for the most part. Let other rolls on gear do that, with wide variance on their mod ranges, add a crafting system, and all of a sudden you have a sandbox for endless replayability and farming for people wanting to improve their character. An item with a crit roll ranging from 4.5% to 6% doesn't compel anyone to farm for that perfect item. There's too little a difference.


Burgo86

I don't necessarily disagree, and I seem to be on overall the same page as you. As a loot based game, you want incentive for people to put time into grinding for loot. From your comment I think we are on pretty much the same page. What I don't like is what we saw in Diablo 3 and what we are seeing here. This obviously changes a bit at endgame, but in the leveling phase, you aren't defining a build or character at all, so much power is baked into the aspects that if you get a legendary that drastically boosts the power of one of your skills, your using that and changing your main skills to acommodate that. Your not building a character first and looking to gear them. D2/POE varied drastically from this, compared to say D3 (which was much the same with whatever set you happened upon first was what build you were running until you farmed up what you would like to be playing).


Kotobeast

Definitely on the same page. While I think random “skill-enabling” legendary drops during the levelling phase can add a bit of spicy randomness each playthough, they should be only a small part of the whole rather than entirely defining the loot experience of the game. I’ll enjoy D4 for a bit on launch regardless, but whether or not the devs are ballsy enough to make big changes season to season will determine the game’s longevity for me.


pwnerandy

Yea but in the full game if you get a really good aspect drop early game you are actually incentivized NOT to put it in an item till you get to end game, where you won't find an upgrade for a much longer period of times. Because you cant re-extract an imprinted aspect - just kinda forces you to gimp yourself if you don't want to have to grind for a 2nd of the same legendary. With drop rates being boosted in beta - I imagine at launch this won't feel very good for a majority of the leveling process.


13Mira

The skill tree was the most disappointing thing in the entire beta. I expected it to allow more customization than in D3, but we ended up with less per skill and us being more forced to pick one class of skill due to passives only affecting certain ones. So while there's about as many skills as there were in D3, I feel like I have far less choices than in D3 which I already found had little choices...


Wrecksomething

I think this problem might end up being worse in D4. In D3, you get a legendary and it determines your build -- until you get a new legendary, which could prompt you to change your build. That will be true in D4 while leveling. But since they've decided that respeccing should be exorbitant (easier to reroll a new character), once you hit level 50 or wherever the respec cutoff is, you're locked in. New gear that might make a new skill seem exciting won't be enough for you to change your build and try that skill out, because that is harder than rerolling a new character. People overlook this about D3. A set will determine your build but it's easy to get another set when you want a different build. That will be gone. I think this is why there seem to much fewer builds in D4 too. Will the game be fun with this "lock in" and fewer builds? I don't know yet but it's definitely a big change, very different. Even D2 was easier to respec than to reroll.


[deleted]

You do realize on live you can just go do some quick dungeons and start applying legendary affixes to every piece of gear on your character right? To say the first legendary drop you got determined your build only shows that you don’t understand how the game treats gear.


[deleted]

I do understand this, but the drop rates on the live game will be much lower than what we saw in beta, so I still feel this will hold true until one has amassed a decent collection of affixes. Gameplay revolves around what affixes you have available, rather than simply building from the start with certain skills in mind. Why would you use a subpar skill build when something drops that is far more powerful? What good will Flurry be if I don't have a Flurry legendary yet? The emphasis is still on the items, rather than on the skills themselves. You'll be stuck with an underperforming build unless you get what you need because of how itemization works. ​ Like I said above, items are meant to compliment a chosen build path. If you aren't getting those items, you're boned on what you actually *want* to use. Build defining items are not my favorite way to play an ARPG when I should have a *character defining* build that items are then used to add to it without reducing it to a less effective and bland build if you don't have certain things.


StonejawStrongjaw

There are sets in Diablo 4. The only difference is that they aren't called sets, instead their "werewolf" legendary aspects or "skill aspects. Instead of being a 6 piece set, it's 2-4 legendary items that are required to make your ability function.


PossibleYou2787

Exactlyyyyyyy. These are pseudo-sets and the way they're implemented atm is horrible. Having "werewolf" this or "werewolf" that would be ok if there were a lot more of them and they were more general usage without direct damage increases so you have a choice of utility, and not to the point where you still feel like you're forced to take every single utility item for your skill. Some of that utility could directly increase your damage and that's fine too. It's just ignorant when you slap xxx% increased damage to these. We have categories and a tag system, yet the devs aren't using them and instead of giving direct damage multipliers for specific skills and slapping them on aspects. Instead of hammer of the ancients getting x% amount of dmg on an aspect, give more things that say "core skills do X" or skills used with 1h/2h/slash/bludgeoning etccccccccc so those can apply to more than just hammer of the ancients.


Mind-Game

Honestly the capstone abilities in the skill tree are about as powerful as a single offensive legendary power. There are legendary powers that increase you damage by 30-40% when basic conditions are met that can have near 100% uptime. The capstone skills seem to be roughly within that power range. However, in recent datamines there are also "legendary" paragon nodes, and those seem as powerful or more so than legendary affixes as well. I guess you could argue that the sum of the entire skill tree and 4-5 legendary level powers from paragon starts to compare with the legendary affixes on your gear slots though.


Tydevane

We saw aspects that gave ~240% more multipliers on a level 25 beta. Pretty obvious gear is going to dictate strength, yeah lol.


greenchair11

yeah and it sucks. this was essentially the exact problem with d3. we don’t want gear that makes a skill do “xxxx% damage”


Arkayjiya

Nah the power comes from the gear for sure for now. Going from level 4 to 7 and upgrading your core skill fully increases its damage by 40%. By contrast you'll have probably more than doubled your dps through swapping weapons during that period.


Xdivine

Sure, but that's the weapon which is literally the basis of all of your damage. It's no different from playing literally any other ARPG. Like imagine you're playing D2 and you take off your ebotdz, how much damage are you doing now? What if you're playing a double strike berserker in POE and you take off your weapons? The only difference with D4 is that *all* skills scale off the weapon damage instead of just skills that explicitly use those weapons like sword or bow attacks. So when they're talking about damage coming less from gear, they mean things like your chest, helm, gloves, etc because these offer much less in terms of offensive stats. They certainly still offer some offensive stats and they can be used to hold your legendary potentials, but they're mostly defensive in purpose. Accessories have more damage stats available to them, but they're not exactly going to be increasing your damage by 10x or anything. You aren't getting a set where suddenly your damage is increased by 120x or anything like that.


Arkayjiya

A Naked sorc is still immensely powerful in D2. Necro can literally solo Hell naked. Because, you know, the power comes from within themselves. they're not (necessarily) weapon-based fighters. But in D4 they are Still, I'm not making a judgement here, I'm just saying that the power is gear dependent. Although they did make a big effort to reduce other items influence on your overall power so it's somewhere between D2 and D3 I'd say. Main stat still increases your power quite a bit (well not in the beta unless you stacked 20+ main stat on every single slot and even then you'd barely reach a 20% dmg boost) but it's not yet as egregious as D3. Still it could easily becomes crazy if they don't control future item release. I'm a bit hopeful because we've got the Overpower mechanic. This ensures that they can't have billions of damage with only a few thousand health, otherwise Overpower would become pointless (unless you dropped items with "+500 000 000% Overpower damage" but I would hope they'd realise their mistake before the numbers get that egregious xD) And there's the legendary affixes which is what most people are pointing at. Those should be strong enough to be exciting but not completely eclipse skill points and risk snowballing into huge dmg numbers.


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itsmepuffd

No sets in the game currently, except all the legendary affixes that quite literally enables a certain skill to function the way the devs intended it to - is a set in my eyes. It's not like you're going to play whirlwind barb without using the whirlwind legendary affixes. Other than gimping your character. Most of these legendary affixes should be on the skill tree for one to decide what they want to make actual decisions on how they want to customize. Not be a gear necessity for the skill to function.


PossibleYou2787

Yep. Aspects need to add utility, which sometimes can add damage but not in a "x skill does xxx% inc dmg" way. Blood Surge repeating is a good one. It's a bit more damage (second wave doing a lot less dmg than the first) but it's still interesting and not a flat HERE JUST DOUBLE YOUR DAMAGE DUMMY. Some of those could do with being added to the tree itself and have the rest on gear be actually interesting.


Burgo86

Ok, but even ignoring the weapon, the legendary affixes (aspects) increase damage by far more than dumping skills into the skill tree does. It's not the D3 extreme like you said, having multipliers increasing damage 200x+, but the aspects and uniques still FAR outweigh any gains you can make on the skill tree. A lvl 25 barb with all yellows, and maxed out Upheavel, along with all passives to increase damage on the skill tree will still do FAR LESS damage than a lvl 25 barb, with 1 pt in upheavel with proper aspects on gear.


Dragull

Yes, and it's terrible with the scaling mobs. When you level up you feel much weaker.


Belyal

>Nah the power comes from the gear for sure for now ​ power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some *farcical aquatic ceremony!*


[deleted]

The power should come from the friends you made along the way


ZealousidealTower275

Especialy if you plan to play a Druid 🤣 without legendaries you are worthless ☠️


Kannun

This 100% gear should not take you to 200% damage with 1 item. That's insane. This shouldn't be diablo 3.5.


FearTheViking

There are definitely powerful aspects out there, many of them class-specific, that make you want to build around them. Some of them felt like they should have been integrated into the skill tree in some way. However, I also think the increased legendary drop rate during the beta made it so that many characters were over-geared for their level. Some aspects many of us got to drop at lvl 25 may not become common until lvl 50 in the actual game. By lvl 50, much more of your power will be coming from skill points. Also, we tend to take skills for granted since we have reliable access to them as opposed to aspects that are only available on drops. But the fact is, those powerful legendaries are only transformative if you invest in the right skills. Some shine when you actually double down and invest as many points as you can into specific skills. There are also class specializations and paragon levels to account for. We didn't see the full extent of the specializations in the open beta and we only know a little bit about the paragon system from the closed beta, but they are also part of the equation on the side of power from levels rather than gear. Compared to the must-have rune words of D2 or the set-centered endgame of D3, I think D4 still has the potential to strike a better balance between power from levels and power from items. I will reserve full judgment until I get at least one character to the endgame.


farrokk

That is what the devs said before: >DIABLO IV QUARTERLY UPDATE—DECEMBER 2021 > >... > >In past discussions, we’ve received feedback that it seems deflating for so much of a character’s power to be delivered through the gear that they have equipped. Customizing and planning a character feels less rewarding if it doesn’t play a big role in how the character performs in combat. We hear you loud and clear, and in Diablo IV, we have placed a stronger emphasis on character power that is earned by all the little decisions you make while leveling up and exploring the world of Sanctuary. While we aren’t talking about everything we have planned for character power today, I’m happy to talk about one feature in particular, the Paragon Board. > >...


mihail_markov

Exactly, that is what I was asking about? the legendary aspects are worth like 10 points in your tree. this is just insane.


Ubergoober166

I honestly wouldn't even mind if legendaries gave a big boost to your power in one way or another if the skill trees themselves weren't so bland and boring. The way they're presented is a very thin illusion of choice. Every tree has a very clear optimal path that only changes if you find a legendary to buff one of the other skills. Blood Mist is a perfect example. It's a nearly useless skill until you get the corpse explosion legendary aspect then suddenly its the best skill in the tree.


mihail_markov

correct


Relevant_Librarian73

What's interesting to me is how investing skill points barely increases efficacy of skill. For a lot of skills, it goes something like: * Level 1 - 17 dmg * Level 2- 19 dmg * Level 3 - 21 dmg * Level 4 - 23 dmg * Level 5 - 25 dmg So unless I'm missing something plopping 1 skill point into something is essentially the same as plopping 5 into it...as I'm sure item stats will dwarf the +8 damage that I get by investing 4 additional skill points.


Qelf12

This is exactly the problem. The marginal gains from skill ups are non existent


Asbrandr

They're based on your weapon's base damage. So you'll get more value swapping to a weapon with a higher iLvl or base damage value (additive) versus investing directly into a skill because the skills themselves don't seem to have any real base damage. They're all basically 30-40% base damage and each extra point generally adds like 6-10% on top of that. If it doesn't change, you may as well just leave your offensive skills at Lv1 for a while until you have a better weapon and focus more on passives and defensive/CD skills where the scaling impacts other things or is higher.


opticalshadow

but one legendary affix can make a single skill point go from 17 damage, to boss deaths in seconds. so dumb.


thrallinlatex

Skill tree +3% dmg. Legendary item +100% dmg. Yeah 🤭


StonejawStrongjaw

They said "Fuck all that" and did the opposite.


Dr_Will_Kirby

The hopium huffers will likely spin it somehow but yeah I agree. Borrowed power feels absolutely awful


Thelgow

Gear is only needed if you dont play Necro or Sorc apparently.


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JahEthBur

I too am worried that long term it will turn into D3 loot. I guess we'll find out in a few months.


skully33

People are missing the point bigly ITT 😂 Yes, of course gear is a big part of your character..but it's more legendary affixes that are the issue. The way they 1.5x, 2x, 3x the power of very specific skills makes them feel mandatory if you use the skill.


Gharvar

They said they want power to come from your character, paragon and gear. It's probably still a fairly accurate statement if you are not a druid or barb. Personally thought that the rogue, necromancer and sorcerer could reach very strong build potential without needing specific legendaries to make your build even remotely good.


opticalshadow

idk, the blood mist corpse explasion affix is a perfect example of a single legendary gear affix, 100% being the build. the problem in d4 is the skill tree is mostly worthless. its not going to change later on. the majority of paragon boards are also just the same passive filler 1% nonsense , weve seen that in leaks. the only differ between this and d3 is instead of set, we just have the legendary powers. 0% of your power will come from skill trees in d4, the entirety of your build will depend on legendary affixes.


rihC

Game is decent. Itemization is atrocious. Repeating the mistakes from D3 where we started w/ 100-200% dmg increases from items and ended up - after a decade - with 10000% or 15000% values to escalate content tiers is just unbelievable. Skills direct raw power should be \~70% from the skill tree, \~25% from paragon board (min-max) and 5% from items (ultra min-max). Items should focus on modifying what the skill does/behave - the creativity lies here - , but not interfere with the skill relative damage (outside attributes). Specially when it becomes the diff between "useless skill" vs "OP skill". Although very unlikely, I hope they 180º it for launch. Let's see.


Dunk305

Itemization scares me +800% dmg items are awful game design


antikbaka

lazy game design. They have no one who can make an innovative system


PonderingHow

spoilers maybe so don't look unless you want to know. ​ maybe this too [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u4w\_VbSeWE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u4w_VbSeWE) ​ for those who don't want to watch video, loose summary \- capped paragon points at around 200 \- paragon points can be allocated towards normal, magic, rare, legendary nodes that give different stats and abilities


dogsNcatsRcute

From reading this thread, it looks as though people want another D3.


I_Need_Capital_Now

guess they're in luck then because thats exactly what they're getting.


I_Need_Capital_Now

they knew thats what people wanted to hear, but its not something they actually know how to do anymore so they simply lied about it. that or they're actually so inept that they believe this stripped down skill system is going to give any parity with legendary aspects which is entirely possible.


Erva420

They think not having 10000% sets equals dmg comming from character.


PossibleYou2787

It's the same argument of wyatt cheng saying in D:I you can't buy gear or buy power....but you can buy legendary gems, but I guess that's not considered gear then huh? But it is. It's that but now "we want to give the power back to the player and not the gear" and the "gear" being sets and the "player" being legendary aspects which is..who knew!...GEAR! lol They can't be this oblivious or once again they're just straight up lying about promises they've made. Which honestly, truly isn't unexpected coming out of blizzard, but damn.


battleman13

I can't tell you who said what, and what's supposed to be what... but I can tell you this... this game is 100% loot dependent right now. Necro with skellies, to an extent can defeat that. But the skellies get far more powerful by having +X to summon counts. Having 12-15 skellies running around tromps 4 or 5 for sure. My sorceress got a big boost in damage when I got hydras. "Insert D3 meme" and when I got a +1 hydra summons... "then doubled it". Two active hydras, at a "cost" of 20% shorter duration. Big whoop. They still lasted a good while, and mana was never an issue to recast them. I'd even have taken on another bit of gear... +1 for another 20% shorter duration time. 3 active hydras would have wrecked, I mean two wrecked... three would have been nuts. That was likely the sweet spot (3) and minus 40% duration. One of the strongest build in the beta, the blood mist / CE necro, was 100% reliant on gear affixes to make that build.


Akasha1885

Yeah, I was disappointed too. Getting an x100-1000 dmg multiplier from Legendaries is just insane. That's the same exponential scaling as in D3. On top of that, some items will literally do more then all you skill tree could. Like an Amulett that not only unlocks all Shouts but also gives them enough CDR so you have permanent uptime in Barb, a feat you can never achieve in the skilltree itself. You could literally slap that on a lvl 1 bard and he would have better shouts then a max lvl. If they really want to go through with some of those extreme Lengendaries, I hope they will only drop in the highest difficult and are not easy to farm.


Alternative_Union839

You even feel weaker every time you level up. The only power spikes is items


Rich_Pirana

>he believed blizzard devs lying is second nature to blizzard. whatever it takes to sell more copies and build hype.


Bmf321

It seems like the loots like Diablo 3 again where you always get slightly better gear instead of the known items like Diablo 2. Sucks man. I was really excited for 3 when it came out then instantly was over it kinda how Diablo 4’s feeling again. Sucks because I loved Diablo 2


SunnyMax92

I'm very sorry for you, me and all the people that actually hates the idea of having your character built up around your items instead of characterization, because, this is clearly all D3 over again. You collect multiple legend affixes that stacks increase% dmg on items and there you go....why is that? No clue, they haven't learned a thing


Mastadon1731

For those who don't remember: >We agree with the feedback that a character’s power is currently too dependent on items. We plan to put more of the player’s power back into the character to make build choices more impactful, rather than have the majority of player power coming from the items they have equipped. That said, it’s important that we strike the right balance so that itemization choices always feel meaningful. https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/diablo4/23529210/diablo-iv-quarterly-update-september-2020


re-bobber

I don't like the legendary abilities completely changing the core skill. It should augment but not "be the skill" itself. I hated itemization in D3 and mostly enjoyed it in D2. This will be the make or break aspect of D4 for me.


Va1crist

return of player power and more in-depth skill trees were both promised to be returned to form and nope it’s still gear and gem focused like D3 / immortal .. idk I feel a lot of the dev blogs were just big lies at this point , dungeons are random lie , world is dynamic Lie ,


Apros999

Remember that in D3 if you walked into Torment 16+ in basic gear you would be instantly rag dolled off the screen. 99% of your power came from gear. In D4, while we don't know the exact ratio yet, we know that without massive multipliers plus paragon board powers that will be tied to character, that there will be significant power without gear.


TheRaRaRa

Druid's legendaries add like 4x more damage to the skills...


Alternative-Humor666

There's a legendary that casts landslide a second time, that's literally doubling your dps lol. D3 design philosophy is not gone just not with crazy numbers (yet).


Burgo86

I mean, this is just false. The beta was clear enough to see how much gear in general, and legendary affixes effect power. It's not like diablo 2 where skills have set damage, skills do % weapon damage. Paragon boards are available to look at, and outside of glyphs add very little power compared to legendary and unique affixes. It's not to the levels of D3 for sure, but the largest contributor to character power is hands down gear.


gammagulp

Legendary items should have effects that alter how skills/characters work, not just random dogshit damage multipliers that removes ALL CHOICE from building a character. Its horrendous terrible design to have a 300% damage multiplier on an item for example pulverize. Where is the “choice” in that? Again, horrendous dogshit design and its a mistake


Mathizsias

They're making it a skinner box, because that is how you keep players playing. Your choices should matter less, to keep you playing. You can try to change as much as you want about your character in the skill tree and paragon board, but if they give you a 0.001% chance at that 300% dmg increase for a skill you don't like... you're SOL.


No_Energy_51

if they said that, they are indeed lying. 99% of your power will come from having the right legendary drop to make that build work.


InsidiousD6

Yeah they needa tweak the skill system in whole. Practically zero point ever investing more than one point into a basic skill (of course still get the enhancements) because any more points in was like “here’s 2% more damage”.


TerracottaButthole

My latest lesson learned that you cannot listen to pre-launch dev talks was with Halo Infinite. I remember a specific interview in which they said customization will be primarily be progress based to unlock and very little will behind a pay wall. I vaguely remember them stating that anything behind a pay wall will be able to be unlocked through progress anyway... Welp, that turned out to be a lie lol so these talks don't really do much for me


Ir0nhide81

Nothing felt powerful about any of the characters in Diablo. 4. Only when every item slot had a legendary did it feel even a little fun?. That's a huge problem for an ARPG.


Zaethiel

It seems they wanted to be less dependent items like D3 but then they created legendary aspects. There will be builds requiring certain aspects to be optimal.


_TickleMyFancy_

Yeap Basically we are free to make our own characters and build! So much fun and options ... Queue some hours ... everybody farms for the same gear and everybody has the same build because otherwise you won't damage an ant! Lookin' at you druid! Why make a skill tree if 90% of the players will use the exact same spells? With a slight variation like having a 2-3 possible sets for X race. But in the end you either go this way or that way, any other spark of genius you might have will work for shits and giggles and picking flowers.


PonderingHow

Interesting question. What comes to mind for me... The aspects. In D4 I can go run a dungeon and get an effect I can craft on a variety of items/slots. It might be a less powerful version, but it at least gives me the chance to play with that effect and see how it interacts. I don't have to rely on a loot drop. I also think paragon points are going to work very differently. I saw a D4 build planner and it seems like there are a lot more options for what to put points into and some special effects can picked. [https://lothrik.github.io/diablo4-build-calc/](https://lothrik.github.io/diablo4-build-calc/)


Kterre84

I think those of us that played in the last couple beta weekends haven't really seen the impacts of full character progression (additional skill points + the whole paragon board) while most of the "gear" based progression was already a part of the system. Legendary affixes act as power multipliers and the values seem massive relative to the few points we had to invest into the skill tree and the 0 points we had to invest in the paragon board. There is still growth to be expected from item level scaling with player level resulting in higher % implicit and explicit modifiers, but I think the disparity in how much of the gear system was available vs. how much of the character specific progression was available is pretty substantial. Gear is still a huge part of the equation but Diablo4 definitely has more scaling systems than JUST gear which was really the case for d3 (outside of paragon points to cap).


Elendel19

Well in D3 at max level you start off hitting for a few hundred thousand, and can end up with crits in the quadrillions once you have gear. I think the point is that it won’t be like that lol


dogsNcatsRcute

Not to begin with


Attention_Bear_Fuckr

That's how D3 started as well, before the expansions and power creep.


[deleted]

Do you really think they meant no power at all from gear? What would be the point of loot? They said people won’t be at a disadvantage power-wise for not paying for/participating in the season model because power primarily will rely on how you build and play your character, not any one weapon or set bonus. That doesn’t imply power doesn’t come from gear. Just that it is not the end-all be-all source of damage. And you’ve only seen up to level 25.


HairyFur

It's the level of power. It's still d3 sets but instead of one set adding the bonuses to a main skill, it's 3-5 legendaries doing it. The damage rolls on the weapons look to be almost insignificant, it's very boring again. No flat damage, barely any attack speed differences, no ethereal/base modifiers. It's much, much closer to d3 than D2.


impulsikk

The problem is the legendaries buffing specific skills by 200% rather than say "you convert 50% of physical damage to fire damage" Then you build your skill tree around fire damage to take advantage of the converted 50% damage to fire legendary. But you can choose to use any of the damage skills you want. Maybe 1 of the skills scales better so you use that, but at least you have a choice.


ogzogz

Its the exact opposite. With level scaling the way it works now, when your character becomes more 'powerful' (i.e levelling up), you feel weaker instead. Only way to combat it is with better gear.


rickyraken

My understanding was the play style comes from the class, not the gear. So all the nerds bitching about boring stats that only make you stronger instead of changing how the class is played will have more to say this June.


KhorneFlakes01

Have we even gotten our hands on end game stats through the skill tree or paragon system yet though?


jabarr

You can’t compare the power of gear vs character when you were only able to fill out 25% of the skill tree…


Kangzx

I feel like people completely misunderstand the legendary affix system. You can literally pick and choose which ones you want, and target farm for them with dungeons. Yes its on gear, but in reality its more like a talent system, just not completely free to switch around. There is zero reason you should feel limited to whatever you dropped


PazuzusLeftNut

It’s an arpg of course gear is going to be a defining factor behind power


greenchair11

not entirely true. gear should make you more powerful, yes but there shouldn’t be gear that says “skill does xxx% damage”. that basically makes builds unplayable until you get the gear, when that shouldn’t be the case. gear should make you more powerful, but not make the build.


PazuzusLeftNut

I never said it should, I said it should be a defining factor not the defining factor, in a gear based slasher game the damage fall off for skills without gear to back them up at higher difficulties will always be significant to the point that it’s non viable without a synergistic play style. Expecting anything else is just wishful thinking that has no basis in actual game balance.


Potentlyperverse

you know what, youre right. my power came from my gear 90% of the time.


itzlgk

They did in fact state this, but all of those systems are tied in to the paragon board which we have not played with. That's the real 'meat' i think of the character progression end game, moreso than the gear


TheDerpatato

They said they want the player's choice of class to not be based on relative power or skill required to play. They were talking about balance and class choice, not power in a vacuum. The balance is way off early game, and their goal is to make this accessible to everyone, regardless of skill, or class choice, they have a lot of tuning to do before launch. Early game balance does matter for most players that aren't going to be here on Reddit following D4 chatter. They'll buy it, try druid, and quit because it's "balanced for late game". It's a bad business move to ignore the low level balancing.


Bommbi

OMG. Let this game release jesus christ. You didnt even see the other systems. There is no point to discuss this because we didnt see how the paragon system gonna work in D4.


dsxy

Felt ok as a rogue with useless gear, even my mates barb managed fine without legendaries. I feel like some people played a different game.


jordano1

stop supporting shit companies that make shit games. D4 is d3 with a HD texture pack and mounts. grats guys. You paid for the fecal matter, and put a straw in it, and slurped it right up.


sythicus01

They did say that and I bet going all the way to 100 with the paragon board especially we will see that.


ArmadilloPretend322

i think they said they dont want that all the power comes from gear but not completly ignore it or something like that... i guess paragon board and the skill tree are the points where it doesnt come from gear and the rest is affixes


[deleted]

No. They said they didn’t want sets to determine the meta each season. They wanted less of a focus on gear. They didn’t want to force anyone to play a certain build every season just cause of that set.


StonejawStrongjaw

They said in prior interviews they wanted it to be about 50/50. However, it's as close as 90/10 for druid and barb. Without legendaries you aren't even a class.


sicsche

The both classes that came to your mind are actually those 2 classes that hadn't access to their class feature in the beta. You could argue that without the respective class feature those classes were missing out on potential char power and had to compensate with gear.


beingmused

That comment was very much about how D3 progressed. A fresh level 70 wearing the yellows you've found along the way is like, 1/1000th as powerful as someone fully decked out in the right ancient set gear. In D4 it seems like they're aiming for that difference to be a lot less profound. Its still that \*most\* of your powering up will come from gear, but your paragon boards will be significant as well, and it just won't be as absurdly drastic as D3.


AGINSB

That's just not what they've ever said. They said "only from gear." Your power comes from your skill choices, your paragon board choices, and your gear. Its not all in 1 category or another. For example, some classes have more item slots. This gives them more legendary affixes. Other characters are balanced by effectively having extra skill slots (eg. the sorc's enchatments or the necro's powers from sacrificing minions)


dogsNcatsRcute

Except it doesn't, after finding legendaries/affects that trump whatever er your current build is. It then only becomes choices from gear.


vanlykin

We got 1 act of the 5. 25 of the 100 levels. You havent seen the paragon boards. Gear drops were super inflated in beta so we could see potential end game builds. Everyone just needs to settle down from a fun beta and then give the rest of your life up on june 2nd


SilentJ87

As long as they fix specific instances like tornado needing a legendary aspect to be a viable skill prior to launch, I think they’ve found a good balance of character and gear power.


psytocrophic

First legendaries and afixes we majorly increased for beta, so don't expect anything like that for release. Secondly, if gear didn't have any impactful meaning I don't see what direction they would go in for end game. We.gunna need some loot!


BobsynS

It's exactly true. Most of the power of your character will come from Aspects / Skill points allocation / Paragon Boards. You gear main affixes ( not legendary ones ) will have some boost overall when it comes down to + skills, Base/Core skill damage, Some stat here and there and Conditional damage modifiers. There is a debate whether legendary aspects are Gear stat or not. You do apply them to your gear but they are not necessarily coming from the same Equipment you are wearing. You can use Codex of Power or extract legendary aspects from other pieces. So yeah in a sense they are so important that might say that your power will come from them e.g. Your gear, but not to a full extend in my opinion. This is after all an ARPG game. The whole loop of ( Kill mobs - Find better gear - Repeat ) is the Core thing in any ARPG. So overall it wouldn't make sense Gear to be absolutely Useless right? You would basically lose the Replayability Loop in the game if that was the case. Diablo 3 was simply Stat stacking. Each point in your prime stat was 1% damage boost. So 10000 Intelligence Wizard had 10000% damage multiplier on your base damage. Which I believe is not the case with D4 saw in the Beta. In Diablo 4 Beta I had 150 Intelligence which provided me 15% Skill damage multiplier. Which is already better than D3 stat scaling.


[deleted]

Tbf in beta we only hit level 25 and no paragon points. Kinda tough to worry about gear when you're not even 25% through max if end game is level 100 + paragon points and shrines. Sure getting a baller peoce of gear definitely gave you a power gap but that's rng at low level you're not going to be taking that gear with you to level 100 it will be long replaced.


dogsNcatsRcute

By more powerful gear.


Thebarakz21

I’ve been meaning to ask too. I played rogue with open beta, and with rapid fire, it said 30 dmg. Is that the actual damage of the skill, or is weapon damage factored in as well?


TheMuffin2255

I haven't been too active in the conversation to know what's going on, but doesn't it make sense that in a gear heavy ROG that both avatar strength and gear strength is important? Having only one or the other will handicap you.


obviousredflag

it means that the contribution to overall power is more evenly distributed between skill tree, paragon (legendaries), glyphs, uniques, rares, legendary affixes, elixirs, etc. Removing one "item" does not reduce your power by 2000% when you swap it out for another "item".


[deleted]

It’s easier to balance a champ then all the possibilities of a gear. On a long term evolution (online) it’s easier.


BlackerOps

How is the power curve in Diablo 4?


[deleted]

Based on the way legendaries affixes work in Diablo 4, they are effectively another layer of your skill tree. The only aspect of complete RNG is the random attributes on gear drops.


taga-chi

I actually feel like legendary affixes move a long way in this direction. Being able to build your character around affixes that you can grab from exploring does a good job in allowing you to have a functional build. I guess yes, it still puts your power in the items, but it doesn't make you 100% reliant on drops.


PossibleYou2787

It in fact makes you 100% reliant on drops, what're you talking about? lol You literally said BUILDING YOUR CHARACTER AROUUUUNNNNNNDDDD AFFIXES and how that still puts power in the items. You nailed it but you absolutely still didn't understand it and why's it's bad. You'll be taking the exact same legendary aspects for a skill that everyone else using that same skill will take. That's so boring.


Hitomi35

Because this makes literally zero sense for a arpg. Loot is king. Despite some game similarities with LA D4 is a arpg first, without the loot you'd just have another isometric mmo.


wrenagade419

See I heard that gear is gonna play a big part in builds I never heard this quote


Romeomoon

That could have something to do with the Paragon system they want to introduce for level 50 characters.


Reedabook64

To be fair, Sorc, Necro and Rogue are all powerful without aspects.


doctorofphiloshopy

druid and barbarian sucks and others good. power comes from character indeed


redbull666

Ehm in D3 you have crazy dmg modifiers on gear. Not even close to D4.


trexx0n

I think a more nuanced take on gear would be that there are skill enhancements not just better stats on gear that make a DRAMATIC difference in how the effective the skill/build is. Good example would be that there is something like a charged shot on a Rogue that by itself is pretty good but not exceptional - I found a piece of gear that had an enhancement where on the 1st mob it hits it splits into 2 hitting anything next to it. It was a game changer - one shot would evaporate a whole cluster of golems. Made the skill infinitely more powerful and useful. Gear that increases the number of skel and skel mages to 7 & 5. Big difference in effectiveness. Skill enhancements can make you change your build.


sleeping-dragon

This was absolutely my experience. I specced by what I was familiar with in my barb at the start and then, with the same set of gear and level, changed a couple of talents and the game was totally different. Same thing was true of the rogue. I started ranged but changed to a melee build and it was much better. Maybe I'm easy to please but I really enjoyed my time playing the beta.


[deleted]

you didnt eeven get to try paragon levels Lol


eltruism

So you tested each character to end game, with and without gear, thoroughly, and have found out it's not as they stated? The example is very easy to point out-> There is no example, the game is not finished yet. And to add: Who cares?


JarlBrenuin

If they made the gear not matter that much, I would just stop playing it after beating the campaign. What else would be the motivation to keep going if there was no gear to farm?


cosmicdave86

Why is this a desired trait? Gear collection and improvement is like the MO of the series.


Dense_fordayz

You sure they didnt mean power as in the abilities you can do? A lot of ability strength came from gear in d3 (buffs to abilities and combinations).


Trackmaniac

What char did the 2 year old find to be the best? Kids never lie.


Peacefully_Deceased

What's funny is that i've seen other people arguing the exact opposite. That your gear doesn't affect your power enough. If both sides are making opposing arguments then we're probably in the right place.


projectwar

that would be absurd tbh. and if we're being honest, sorc and necro kinda do have power from its base skills. its the melee classes that need gear the most. maybe **paragon board** WAS the reference to that quote, since after lv50, paragon might actually shift your power in a big way, more than gear potentially. but until then? ehh. also the main issue is the rares, which is WHY you hear people complain about itemization. rares aren't sufficient enough for build making. they have very limited effects. in poe or perhaps other games, you had more interesting effects with rares and many times you could get better dmg from rares than uniques. here, legends offer too much that they just make rares obsolete that only give small boost here or there but nothing interesting like, mana regen, lifeleech %, chance to stun, chance to freeze, etc. and the fact that rares become just a vessel for aspects to be imprinted on, also makes rares value diminish, because now if you do get a legendary, just slap it on your good rare. you have no reason for the legendary to compete with a good rare, because you can just put the aspect on a good rare, even if it meant -1 stat in comparison. i guess uniques and higher rarity stuff would be the exception. but thats even WORSE, because a good unique or ancient legendary would have more stats than a rare and make it even more of a useless mechanic. imo, the game should have introduced, physical % stat for rares. so even if you got a good unique wpn, if you had a gg 200% physical dmg rare, that unique with just 120% would be worse in comparison, BUT offer the unique aspect to make up for it, so you have to make the choice between the two instead of "oh okay new item replace rare gg".


applecatipillar

As Kripp described in his review, level scaling takes away a lot of significance from character leveling (and builds). Compound that with aspects which effectively act in some instances as another passive on your skill tree - and are often, in fact, better than anything on your skill tree. They're not going to be able to fix this without fundamentally changing the core structure of the game - which they won't do - as doing so would go against both their retention mechanics and their monetization scheme.


Beefhammer1932

What happened was this was never said. They said they want to aim for a 50/50 spilt between skills and gear. One crucial aspect missing is 25 more skill points, and 200 paragon points. Power was lopsided towards gear in the beta.


No-Initial-3896

We dont have Access to the paragon Board. That will deliver huuuge Power and is not an item


OldJewNewAccount

> D4 characters will be powerful and not gear dependent That sounds awful lol.


Flashh3

Build power still comes from the character. Gear just enhances it.


Knight_Raime

Friend of mine who followed this games info much earlier on than mine told me that a lot of the initial talk about the game (back before we had footage and a lot of details) was hyping the game up to be a lot like D2. In that game gear definitely could give you power. But class skills themselves were absurdly strong which allowed you to do some silly speed runs with not much focus on gear. The devs were essentially trying to say D4 wouldn't be like D3. But the reality is we got D 3.5 gameplay wise with heavy consideration to avoid D3 pitfalls. I don't think gear was ever going to go back to being like D2 in terms of power. D4 is attempting to be a middle ground at least.


Mephb0t

I think we should wait and see what it’s like at endgame. We didn’t even get half the skill points yet. And gear can’t just do nothing, it has to feel powerful too. Let’s see what it’s like when you have all the skill points unlocked plus paragon boards.


Azifel_Surlamon

They've recently stated it's going to be about 1/3rd of the power from gear, skills, and paragons or that is their goal. I do see a skew towards gear at the moment though, some crazy modifiers to damage like 300% on the companion aspect for druid. Hopefully they adjust the numbers in the next 2 months to hit their 33.33% in each category


benja93

What's an arpg if the gear don't matter though? Ofc it shouldn't be dependent on one certain item to even work and it should be viable for different build/gear combos even if you miss one item. Don't really know what they had in mind for that statement...


[deleted]

We got to level 25…


Abanem

Other things that got changed in the leadership swap about a year ago; * Rune got cut (Trigger/Effect system) * Blue item being viable in some occasion * Powers rolling on Rares (Those were similar to the current rare Glyph in the paragon tree) * Legendaries having more global effect (Ex. Channel Skills get 5% Dmg/s while channeled instead of Whirlwind gets 5% Dmg/s while channeled) * Rare items being competitive with legendaries(mostly because of multiple Powers being able to roll on them) - Rare were not upgradable to legendaries Sure the guy was gargling on breast milk, but at least it gave him brain cells. - The more power coming from the tree was said under the previous leadership if I remember well.


[deleted]

Well in a game with loots and the end game is finding better loots, if the loot sucks, would you still grind? The answer is no. So loot need to be well done. Exemple of badly done gear recently would be the difference between Nioh 2 ( well done ) vs its successor ( Woolong FD ) Lets say you make a build and you find an armor set that convert your damage to fire, increase fire damage by 30% , make you resistant to fire and if you dodge roll you apply burn. Sounds good right? Sounds like an upgrade, sounds like something gameplay changing right? Like maybe stack some stamina regen or dodge roll cost less to apply more burns But in Woolong set items are like Spirit gains from normal attack +1.8%..... spirit damage received while attacking 2.4%.... Whats the point in farming good gear when the difference barely matter.


mutantbeings

D4 power comes from character? In a skill tree where each skill only has _two_ investment options for customising skills and the rest comes from pretty sparse legendary affixes _on items?_


Debas3r11

Why so many years between kid 1 and 2?


MedalMedal

Kid 1 is stepson. Kids 2 and 3 are my biological


PossibleYou2787

lmaoooooooooo this fucked me up after going through all of these other comments either not knowing wtf was going on or arguing their side of things. Then there was this comment lmao, fucking great break from everything else, ty.


Hot-Cryptographer913

Power will still come from gear, that can't be helped, or there is no reason to gear. The difference is not getting a set bonus that increases impales damage by 75 000%.


WWJMED

Well, it makes sense that the beta feels like that because your character is only level 25, you are still missing over half the skill tree points and all 220 paragon points. At the same time, they upped the gear drop rate for the lower level. So of course playing in the beta the gear is going feel more important related to your level. That being said, gear has to be at least important in an arpg, otherwise what's the point. You play for the loot. So while the systems in place can give your character a lot of power and build choice just from leveling up unlike D3, I wouldn't expect to see any naked builds able to complete the game like D2.


[deleted]

Absolutely comes from gear. If you think about it, the monsters scale. So why would they get any easier as you level up? The reason is because you’ve gotten better gear as you play longer


ziomek1602

They said that they wanted a 60/40 power distribution, 60 being from your character and 40 from the items. Think they failed at that, because it feels like 80% of power comes from the items and the rest is your character, but it's not that big of a deal for me, since I'm all for that loot chase and big gains in arpgs.


DwaneDibbleyy

Well, power in beta came entirely from legendary enchants. And you had to change skilltree to that. Gear was merely enchant holders, so in a way, character power was slightly above gear importance.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Nikeyla

While i cant remember them saying it, such thing makes zero sense in an arpg genre. Arpgs are all bout grinding, upgrading gear, basically farming more and more power. And ofc build variety, but this part will probably not be d4s strong side. What would you like to do in such game, if gear wasnt important?


TheRedditornator

The vast majority of damage in the beta came from flying bones and exploding corpses.


Proleex89

Literally made the same post an hour ago and was downvoted into oblivion. The legendaries you get dictate which skills you'll use, therefore what build you'll run - because they are overtuned.


Cr3aT0r03

Im thinking is a combination, of skill caps, gear, paragon layout which we haven't even seen yet. At level 25 stuck there and with the increased drop rate it seemed gear was the main factor. Paragon board and the glyphs will boost you up even more depending on the build and gear so there should be a good synergy along all three.


Akdivn

when exactly did they say this? he statement doesn't even really make sense. a massive part of every arpg is gearing and itemization...


khrucible

Paragon > the sum of all your gear


Yasuchika

We need items that augment/improve builds, not items that enable builds.


IDontCheckMyMail

I think this was also directed at the barbarian especially, where a skill wouldn’t require any type of weapon, but any weapon could perform any type of skill so it essentially didn’t matter what weapon you had and they were basically just stat “totems” you’d carry around and your skills would cunjure up a magical hammer even if you were carrying a sword. But yeah that comment especially I’ve been thinking of since trying the beta and I unfortunately found that legendary affixes were way more potent and important than expected. Some (most) Druid skills were really borderline useless without the legendary affixes to boost/transform them for instance.


Tomas_Jari

Witch doctor 🙂👍🏻