What makes the item system so bad?

[the Langolier]

Some say it's the affixes.

Some say it [was] the legendary items.

I can't say definitively, but a huge issue for me is that it feels like you are just equipping the same item in 10 different slots. Chest, helm, pants, bracers, shoulders, boots, gloves - it feels like they are just the same thing. You want the same mods on every item - primary stat, vitality, and resistances, picking up crit and LoH where you can.

Finding an upgrade for an item slot simply means finding the same item with better stats than what you already have in that slot. A better pair of boots is essentially just your old pair of boots with bigger numbers. It's boring.

In the previous games, different item slots were primarily for different mods. For example, you could find a shield with greater resistances. Consequently, you could replace your helm that has resistances (since the shield now provides a sufficient amount) with a helmet with +skills. Presto! - because you found a shield with resistances you are now doing more damage. That's much more interesting.

[Kevin]

Pretty much, yep. By making stats more important (they really weren't in D1 or D2 you got as much as you needed to equip the unique/set/runeword that were you targeting and then dumped in vit) they made the best min/max options much more obvious. So doing a good thing that people wanted hurt something else. I've posted about this before. Most of the complaints people have are because they fixed things that were bad in the previous games. Law of unintended consequences and all that.

As others have mentioned, the way to bring back what you and many others liked is to up add more, or up the value on, the "other" affixes. If you could stack reduces movement to a meaningful level, or chance to blind, or whatever, items become more interesting. This is actually what they did with the legendaries. Gave them unique effects that actually do something because they pumped the values.

As others have said I really think the smith is a big solution to much of this. Pay to modify a stat. Or use several gems to in a recipe to guarantee specific stats.

But since stats have been coupled to damage it changes the equation from the other games. In D2 the only meaningful way stats upped your damage or lowered the amount of damage you took was via +skills or resists (or giving enough dex/str so that you could wear some other item that did this) the defense of the item was fairly meaningless, etc. So the other D3 option is to decouple all that, but then you kill much of the beautiful scaling of skills that exists now.

[Athenau]

^ what he said.

Simplest solution is to make the affixes that aren't straight damage/defense/vit more powerful. Namely the CC affixes (change to slow, blind, freeze, stun, etc) the skill bonuses, and maybe things like movement speed as well.

I know it would drastically change my build approach if I knew I could get decent CC on gear, for example.

[Chesspiece_face]

Simplest solution is to make the affixes that aren't straight damage/defense/vit more powerful. Namely the CC affixes (change to slow, blind, freeze, stun, etc) the skill bonuses, and maybe things like movement speed as well.

I disagree. Making the CC affixes much more than a gimmick on items causes serious problems with balance. You very quickly get into Tornado-Wizard territory, where certain builds essentially become invincible because you can keep any enemy CC locked in perpetuity.

I suppose one way you could make these affixes work would be to remove them as they stand now and move the CC chance back onto the damage type on weapons (Holy - Blind, Fire - Stun, Poison - Slow, etc.) giving weapons with that damage a base chance to proc the effect. Then you can add in an affix on other items that can magnify the effect, thus still allowing people to try to build around it but not to the point where the CC effect would be all-encompassing as it was with Wizards.

As far as the item system in general I felt fairly disappointed with it until recently. I think the problem is that for 90% of a characters life-span you are making simple choices based on whether a new piece of gear has better numbers than the old piece. The last 10% of the character's growth is where the difficult/fun choices start coming into play. My present WD is trying to balance INT, VIT, All Resist, LoH, Health Regen, Crit, and Crit Damage, all while trying to maintain as much Pick-up Radius as I can possibly get my hands on. It is a super fun build and the item choices associated with it go pretty deep. Having said that, I'm sure that there are many builds that don't go that deep into the item well. It wasn't too long ago when every build out there only wanted massive Attack Speed and LoH. After that was balanced, Crit started to factor into people's choices. I think the best thing Blizzard can do for the item system is to keep building on the Legendary stable that they have while continuing to make more builds viable. When a build has to factor in more stats then they can reasonably expect to get on items (such as the WD I'm playing) you are forced to make interesting choices. And when you do get that one piece of gear that is perfect for your build it's that much more rewarding.

[Athenau]

I disagree. Making the CC affixes much more than a gimmick on items causes serious problems with balance. You very quickly get into Tornado-Wizard territory, where certain builds essentially become invincible because you can keep any enemy CC locked in perpetuity.

It's easy to balance this, just scale it according to proc coefficients like everything else.

I suppose one way you could make these affixes work would be to remove them as they stand now and move the CC chance back onto the damage type on weapons (Holy - Blind, Fire - Stun, Poison - Slow, etc.) giving weapons with that damage a base chance to proc the effect. Then you can add in an affix on other items that can magnify the effect, thus still allowing people to try to build around it but not to the point where the CC effect would be all-encompassing as it was with Wizards.

I like the idea of having the type of elemental damage be meaningful again, but this isn't necessary to balance things. Actually, having resists matter would make items more interesting. In D2 the best builds had multiple damage types (or a single rarely resisted type, *cough* magic damage, *cough* blessed hammer) via skills or weapon swaps. That seems totally missing from D3, either because there are no significant one element resists on enemies, or because people don't know what they are.

The last 10% of the character's growth is where the difficult/fun choices start coming into play. My present WD is trying to balance INT, VIT, All Resist, LoH, Health Regen, Crit, and Crit Damage, all while trying to maintain as much Pick-up Radius as I can possibly get my hands on. It is a super fun build and the item choices associated with it go pretty deep. Having said that, I'm sure that there are many builds that don't go that deep into the item well. It wasn't too long ago when every build out there only wanted massive Attack Speed and LoH. After that was balanced, Crit started to factor into people's choices. I think the best thing Blizzard can do for the item system is to keep building on the Legendary stable that they have while continuing to make more builds viable. When a build has to factor in more stats then they can reasonably expect to get on items (such as the WD I'm playing) you are forced to make interesting choices. And when you do get that one piece of gear that is perfect for your build it's that much more rewarding.

But everything but pick-up radius is the same balancing act other characters do as well (with a different primary stat).

The problem is that the utility affixes are not powerful enough. Options that are more than just bigger numbers on the character screen need to be viable to lend flavor to the item game, just as the unique legendary proc effects do.

[Chesspiece_face]

The problem is that the utility affixes are not powerful enough. Options that are more than just bigger numbers on the character screen need to be viable to lend flavor to the item game, just as the unique legendary proc effects do.

I don't foresee how you would ever be able to make a utility stat on gear be competitive with either pure damage or pure defense. There are certain builds (such as my present WD build) that can use a utility stat, and I think there can be a better implementation of the current elemental CC stat, but other than that I don't see much you can do to make the secondary stats more compelling. Definitely not where they would cause a player a second of thought to sacrificing damage or defense to get it.

I've thought a lot about why so many people are dissatisfied with the D3 item system and I've read a lot of the complaints but barring some minor valid issues here and there I've not seen anyone be able to vocalize specific faults with the overall system. The arguments always boil down to hyperbole and false assumptions ("You're forced to use the AH!", "The only way to get good gear is to spend real money!"). In the end I question how much the distaste for this system lies in rose-tinted nostalgia or simply grass-is-greener syndrome.

I myself have had periods of dissatisfaction and the only thing that I can come up with is that the gearing curve doesn't appropriately match up with the game progression curve. In D2 the majority of gearing upgrades didn't come until after you were done with game progression and in 'farm mode'. D3 hits that massive upswing on the gearing curve at the beginning of Inferno, forcing players into 'farm mode' before they are given the satisfaction of "completing" a character.

[Treesh]

I like the idea of having the type of elemental damage be meaningful again, but this isn't necessary to balance things. Actually, having resists matter would make items more interesting. In D2 the best builds had multiple damage types (or a single rarely resisted type, *cough* magic damage, *cough* blessed hammer) via skills or weapon swaps. That seems totally missing from D3, either because there are no significant one element resists on enemies, or because people don't know what they are.

I'm still VERY glad they got rid of immunities though, which was the real reason you needed multiple damage types in D2.  Highly resistant wasn't really a concern; you could still whittle down the critters if you so chose. Immunity meant you either had to park the critters (which was something I didn't do) or you ran around with multiple types.

There are still resistances on enemies in D3, but since most of the critters aren't physical resist and most classes rely more on physical damage than elemental damage, it's not as noticeable. I definitely notice the resists when I'm playing my wizard so they are there and some of them are fairly significant, even on just nightmare difficulty.

[Archon_Wing]

1.) Items are objectively better than others. There's nothing wrong with that, but in general, once you gain a few levels, it's quite feasible to find stuff that completely outclasses your old gear. Level 51 gear is frequently way better than 48s, and the result is that there's really no attachment to items.

2.) Same reason why rares were not the best items in Diablo 2 Expansion. In order for a rare to even think of competing with a good unique or runeword or against set bonuses, a rare had to roll practically perfectly. A weapon would need to roll high enhanced damage and +damage modifiers. With so many affixes available, that proved to be near impossible.

However, in Diablo 2, gear was just something to make the game easier for you. in Diablo 3, gear greatly determines your effectiveness. So basically good isn't frequently good enough.

In Diablo 3, 6 affixes give too little leeway, considering the mods that NEED to be rolled on an item. A helm without a socket is significantly worse than a helm without. Boots without movement speed are significantly worse items, and movement speed is merely a single trait that MUST be rolled. How hard is that? Very.

For example, Look at my shield. It's not the best shield in the world, but it provides me with decent resists and gold find, and nice block as well. I am a monk so 2 slots are already naturally used to provide resistances. It's the only way to survive late inferno and itemization sucks especially hard for a monk with some extra gold to spend because the things they are looking for have even tighter requirements.



So, what can I do to upgrade on this, if I want more gold find, or just a better shield with similar stats? Bigger numbers is one, but that's why the itemization sucks. The strength is the most useless trait here. So I can swap one trait at most and that would mean a little less armor. What if I want +blocking and crit chance? Whoops. Gold find has gotta to go. It can't coexist. And even if the shield has the dream traits, if there's only 10% blocking, it's not going to get bought.

Legendaries pre 1.04 suffered from a similar issue. Not enough affixes, and the affixes that were on weren't as great enough. The nature of the randomness of rares, plus the traits demanded to survive in Inferno demand perfection to such a degree that 6 affixes just can't hold all of that unless one gets really lucky.

Ultimately, upgrading just means seeking a duplicate of your item with somewhat bigger numbers.

3.) No ilvl 63 crafting. Having the crafting system be a stopgap was just not a good idea. It goes hand and hand with the hell endgame concept where many people just got ignored. All viable options must lead to the possibility of endgame gear. If yellow crafting provided unique traits instead of just giving us more boring stats, then it would add another layer to getting items. Furthermore, all the costs are just better off used on the Auction House. Removing the Auction House does not remove the problem since itemization would be even crappier, since you'd be forced to bartering, and as anyone who's played D2 online too much, knows, that is not that great of an idea. Trade scams ahoy, and the general shadiness of the people that frequent these areas.

It's a tad bit ironic that nerfing inferno actually makes the issue worse as the small benefits of upgrading seem even less important. A lot of people I've met don't give a damn about "Progression" or beating inferno. They'd stay in hell mode for all they care, if they just could farm interesting loot all day. Though Paragon Levels are a nice balance to the situation. By increasing the base stats over time, the importance of items goes down slightly more so and thus less frustration from not having great gear.

IMO, charms (though of a limited variety, maybe only carry a few) would make things a bit more fun. They can cover deficiencies in gear. Runewords, however, I actually don't miss, given the inane drop rate of that.

4. Set items aren't unique enough and have no identity. The bonuses are fairly boring, and when I refer to identity, I'm thinking of Sigons and Angelic as twink sets, or Trangoul which turns the Necromancer into something rather different. Items need to sparkle more so people can stand out, basically.

5. Cheating. Bots and other exploits have flooded the economy with items, and thus making legit items look worse, much like in D2, and increasing people's standards for items. As I've also stated before, this creates the false illusion that D2 dropped really good items, but it really didn't. Rares were poor but uniques were more feasible and interesting to make up for this. If left unchecked, all items will be like D2 value = not worth toilet paper. Unfortunately, stopping bots is difficult.

6. Gems. In places like helms and weapons they do cool stuff, but otherwise they are also extremely boring. The benefits from spending a fortune to upgrade your gems a tier or two is small for the most part. Allowing gems to be used as crafting materials for some recipes would make them of more creative use. As is, there's no gem sink-- you only need so many gems since they are never destroyed.

[Chesspiece_face]

So, what can I do to upgrade on this, if I want more gold find, or just a better shield with similar stats? Bigger numbers is one, but that's why the itemization sucks. The strength is the most useless trait here. So I can swap one trait at most. What if I want +blocking and crit chance? Whoops. Gold find has gotta to go. It can't coexist. And even if the shield has the dream traits, if there's only 10% blocking, it's not going to get bought...

...Ultimately, upgrading just means seeking a duplicate of your item with somewhat bigger numbers.

This confuses the hell out of me. You list out a multitude of options you have when deciding how to upgrade your items. Very real, hard choices you would need to make about how to progress your character. If you want to improve one aspect of your character you may have to make sacrifices in another area.

And the conclusion you come to is that the only option is to not make a choice at all. You have choices. You can sacrifice your gold find and grab 8+ Crit chance. You can look for a shield that has +Life %. Looking at your character page you have serious options, across the board, on upgrade paths for your gearing. But yes, it does require big choices about your whole gear set and it does mean finding a good balance between what you gain and what you sacrifice.

Speaking from personal experience I've been trying to find places to slot in %CC Reduction on my gear. I'm up to 21% right now and if I win a couple possible auctions I can probably get that up to 40%+. At that rate this affix stated at that level will have a huge impact on how many champion fights go for me. I see people every day complain about monsters with Jailer, Frozen, etc. Even going so far as to say that these abilities should be removed from the game, and yet nobody bothers to try to gear for the gear stat that directly counters those abilities.

[Archon_Wing]

So, what can I do to upgrade on this, if I want more gold find, or just a better shield with similar stats? Bigger numbers is one, but that's why the itemization sucks. The strength is the most useless trait here. So I can swap one trait at most. What if I want +blocking and crit chance? Whoops. Gold find has gotta to go. It can't coexist. And even if the shield has the dream traits, if there's only 10% blocking, it's not going to get bought...

...Ultimately, upgrading just means seeking a duplicate of your item with somewhat bigger numbers.

This confuses the hell out of me. You list out a multitude of options you have when deciding how to upgrade your items. Very real, hard choices you would need to make about how to progress your character. If you want to improve one aspect of your character you may have to make sacrifices in another area.

And the conclusion you come to is that the only option is to not make a choice at all. You have choices. You can sacrifice your gold find and grab 8+ Crit chance. You can look for a shield that has +Life %. Looking at your character page you have serious options, across the board, on upgrade paths for your gearing. But yes, it does require big choices about your whole gear set and it does mean finding a good balance between what you gain and what you sacrifice.

Speaking from personal experience I've been trying to find places to slot in %CC Reduction on my gear. I'm up to 21% right now and if I win a couple possible auctions I can probably get that up to 40%+. At that rate this affix stated at that level will have a huge impact on how many champion fights go for me. I see people every day complain about monsters with Jailer, Frozen, etc. Even going so far as to say that these abilities should be removed from the game, and yet nobody bothers to try to gear for the gear stat that directly counters those abilities.

Problem is that I feel like these sacrifices just lead me on a merry go round. Giving up one for the other, and it just doesn't matter.

Sure, I can dump a few things. But what's the point of a shield with crit that has low Dex? A 200 dps boost? Okay, I can go for all out damage but even up to the 10 million range at least one or more of the following: the block rate, dex, vitaility, and/or resistances are mediocre, excluding gold find as a search item. (an amount I don't feel like devoting the effort to). Might as well dual wield at this point.

I admit it's partially my fault, but any attempted upgrade on my part simply never lead to anything interesting and I end up going back to my shield. I simply dislike the concept of going in without a modicum of gold/magic find. Even if I kill at my best case scenario of 20% faster, it's not worth the time to spend all that gold. If I spent 5 million gold, I'd to earn 25 million extra just to break even! Can I really get my dps up to 24k (and this isn't counting any survivability sacrificed)? Maybe I should dual wield instead. Edit: Well, actually there's a good shield for 1 mil (10% crit, vit, dex, somewhat less dual resist, and a good +500 more armor) that popped up-- 15% block rate does seem kinda annoying though. A while back, I may have jumped on this shield for the sake of clearing act 3/4

Then again, I guess I'm out of the "progression" stage. I can already do act 4 with gold find on; so my goal is to well... naturally want more.

But this isn't about me. My point is that 6 affixes just have a hard time succeeding in a world that demands pretty much every roll be good, and thus most rare items are doomed before they are generated. Int on a barb item? Oops.

[Jester]

Problem is that I feel like these sacrifices just lead me on a merry go round. Giving up one for the other, and it just doesn't matter.

This sounds like RPG existential angst. If trading the various stats around isn't your thing, why on earth are you playing this game? This is the very core of the roguelike gearing progression.

-Jester

[Archon_Wing]

Problem is that I feel like these sacrifices just lead me on a merry go round. Giving up one for the other, and it just doesn't matter.

This sounds like RPG existential angst. If trading the various stats around isn't your thing, why on earth are you playing this game? This is the very core of the roguelike gearing progression.

-Jester

Nonsense.

I'm sorry that my analogy is too abstract. I am pointing out that the item changing is moving as a circle, aka no progression.

For example, a 30% increase in offense, and a 15% decrease in defense power is progress. It is very likely that you may use your skills to get further. You made a sacrifice, but the cost to benefit ratio is clearly to that of the benefit side. Some may even argue that a 40% decrease in defense is fine too, depending on what you are dealing with.

However, increasing combat abilities by a marginal amount and reducing your treasure hunting ability (Gf/MF) by a marginal amount effectively leads to no real gain. It's just like rearranging the same thing and realizing you just spent your gold on nothing, really.

Have I spent lots of gold on such extreme endeavors? Yes, actually.

And FYI, I play because:

1.) Boredom, or GW2, while fun, has made me dizzy
2.) Hardcore
3.) Paragon Leveling
4.) Some people are still playing and need help
5.) I like seeing colorful crap drop when I kill monsters. I really do. It's the only game of late that has provided me with that.

So please, try not to focus the problem with why I play this game, or some variation of me having the wrong expectations, k? It's fine if you think my gear choices are inferior and that I could improve; Chesspiece has already rightfully noted that some of these issues are of me somewhat unable to look out of the box. If you're going to waste your time trying to psychoanalyzing off that one point, don't pollute the thread.

I'll repeat again. 6 affixes makes the situation difficult when many affixes are basically mandatory. It just doesn't allow people enough leeway to suit their playing style.

I'll use a less controversial example this time. Single resists in general do not provide as much resists as all resist. This doesn't allow stuff like say, someone who specifically is built for a certain section to withstand arcane attacks in a party. Sure you can stack both all resist and arcane resist, but then it still becomes someone wearing all resist items that happen to have arcane resists. All resists is just a better trait even when defending against a particular element.

In addition, you can't have more than one of a single elemental resist on an item, furthering the superiority of all resist.

Unless, you're a monk of course. However, in that case you're just using a certain passive to give you all resist anyways. That's just not nearly as interesting.

There was a certain gimmick a while back where they'd stack fire resist, and once they got to Diablo, turn off OwE and just use fire resist. However, changing skills would remove your valor buff, so that idea quickly went to the wayside.

[Jester]

I'm sorry that my analogy is too abstract. I am pointing out that the item changing is moving as a circle, aka no progression.

For example, a 30% increase in offense, and a 15% decrease in defense power is progress. It is very likely that you may use your skills to get further. You made a sacrifice, but the cost to benefit ratio is clearly to that of the benefit side. Some may even argue that a 40% decrease in defense is fine too, depending on what you are dealing with.

However, increasing combat abilities by a marginal amount and reducing your treasure hunting ability (Gf/MF) by a marginal amount effectively leads to no real gain. It's just like rearranging the same thing and realizing you just spent your gold on nothing, really.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to pick on you, but the economist in my head is having fits. You only trade one piece of gear for another if you prefer it. (otherwise, why trade?) And you presumably only buy new gear when it's better than your old gear. Perhaps you have to do multiple swaps, in order to keep your offense and defense in balance, but slowly, better gear edges out worse.

I'll repeat again. 6 affixes makes the situation difficult when many affixes are basically mandatory. It just doesn't allow people enough leeway to suit their playing style. I'll use a less controversial example this time. Single resists in general do not provide as much resists as all resist. This doesn't allow stuff like say, someone who specifically is built for a certain section to withstand arcane attacks in a party. Sure you can stack both all resist and arcane resist, but then it still becomes someone wearing all resist items that happen to have arcane resists. All resists is just a better trait even when defending against a particular element. In addition, you can't have more than one of a single elemental resist on an item, furthering the superiority of all resist.

More affixes would not fix that problem. (Fewer affixes might help, by making you balance your stats between pieces more). What would solve it, is more balanced affixes. If you buffed the single resist affixes massively, the resist all/resist one gap would not be so big.

-Jester

[Archon_Wing]

I'm sorry that my analogy is too abstract. I am pointing out that the item changing is moving as a circle, aka no progression.

For example, a 30% increase in offense, and a 15% decrease in defense power is progress. It is very likely that you may use your skills to get further. You made a sacrifice, but the cost to benefit ratio is clearly to that of the benefit side. Some may even argue that a 40% decrease in defense is fine too, depending on what you are dealing with.

However, increasing combat abilities by a marginal amount and reducing your treasure hunting ability (Gf/MF) by a marginal amount effectively leads to no real gain. It's just like rearranging the same thing and realizing you just spent your gold on nothing, really.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to pick on you, but the economist in my head is having fits. You only trade one piece of gear for another if you prefer it. (otherwise, why trade?) And you presumably only buy new gear when it's better than your old gear. Perhaps you have to do multiple swaps, in order to keep your offense and defense in balance, but slowly, better gear edges out worse.

I'll repeat again. 6 affixes makes the situation difficult when many affixes are basically mandatory. It just doesn't allow people enough leeway to suit their playing style. I'll use a less controversial example this time. Single resists in general do not provide as much resists as all resist. This doesn't allow stuff like say, someone who specifically is built for a certain section to withstand arcane attacks in a party. Sure you can stack both all resist and arcane resist, but then it still becomes someone wearing all resist items that happen to have arcane resists. All resists is just a better trait even when defending against a particular element. In addition, you can't have more than one of a single elemental resist on an item, furthering the superiority of all resist.

More affixes would not fix that problem. (Fewer affixes might help, by making you balance your stats between pieces more). What would solve it, is more balanced affixes. If you buffed the single resist affixes massively, the resist all/resist one gap would not be so big.

-Jester

Point one. True. But if we're going by that route, then I feel that the best use of resources is to not improve my gear for an extremely indefinite period of time. Also, regardless of the quality of the itemization, this would hold true regardless.

This is not the same as a frequent complaint of people that prices are too expensive or something. For the most part, the rarity of the items reflects the price. But also given the fact that there have been tons of non-legit items have been dumped kinda shows that the incredible difficulty of getting items that are considered "upgrades". It goes beyond drop rates or anything. Not only do you want affixes of a high magnitude to be dropped, but they must also drop in a particular order on the right item. Even if inferno dropped only 61-63 items, the problem would be masked but still remain. The game doesn't know what a "good" item is. It's just that the box that defines "very good" items is very small.

I'm still going to hold onto the belief that having more affixes on higher level items would allow them to be more distinguishable than the gradual upgrade of the same item with different names.

Point two. Yes, it's more of an issue of balancing. That was another issue to speak of. Ultimately, I should have just stuck with my Diablo 2 description of rares.

On a side note, this is why the legendary buff is a good one. It allows more consistency in a itemization pool that is already heavily reliant on chance.

[Jester]

Point one. True. But if we're going by that route, then I feel that the best use of resources is to not improve my gear for an extremely indefinite period of time. Also, regardless of the quality of the itemization, this would hold true regardless.

I don't understand. What are you going to use your resources for in a game about getting better gear, except getting better gear? RMAH aside, there's not anything else to do with your gold.

The game doesn't know what a "good" item is. It's just that the box that defines "very good" items is very small.

I'm still going to hold onto the belief that having more affixes on higher level items would allow them to be more distinguishable than the gradual upgrade of the same item with different names.

So long as there are better and worse affixes, the more affixes you add, the smaller the "box that defines very good items" gets. The Uber items will be rarer, and relatively better, than the non-Uber ones.

-Jester

[Archon_Wing]

Point one. True. But if we're going by that route, then I feel that the best use of resources is to not improve my gear for an extremely indefinite period of time. Also, regardless of the quality of the itemization, this would hold true regardless.

I don't understand. What are you going to use your resources for in a game about getting better gear, except getting better gear? RMAH aside, there's not anything else to do with your gold.

Nothing, except hoard more gold in the event something interesting pops up. The time spent to gather said amount of gold isn't worth it imo, at the very moment.

The game doesn't know what a "good" item is. It's just that the box that defines "very good" items is very small.

I'm still going to hold onto the belief that having more affixes on higher level items would allow them to be more distinguishable than the gradual upgrade of the same item with different names.

So long as there are better and worse affixes, the more affixes you add, the smaller the "box that defines very good items" gets. The Uber items will be rarer, and relatively better, than the non-Uber ones.

-Jester

It would be true that a true perfect roll in every slot as am uber item, would be so rare to be practically impossible, but I'm fine with that level of item to be unattainable, if it were merely possible. I don't care as long as I can mix and match the traits that I would want.

[Jester]

Nothing, except hoard more gold in the event something interesting pops up. The time spent to gather said amount of gold isn't worth it imo, at the very moment.

Well, then, aren't we back to what I said initially? I wasn't trying to be insulting. I really mean it: If playing a game where you kill stuff in order to find or buy marginal upgrades isn't doing it for you right now, then why play? Because that's what Diablo is, and always has been.

It would be true that a true perfect roll in every slot as am uber item, would be so rare to be practically impossible, but I'm fine with that level of item to be unattainable, if it were merely possible. I don't care as long as I can mix and match the traits that I would want.

Are the traits you would want idiosyncratic? Because if they're the same as everyone else's, then the good gear would have gotten rarer, not more common. (Unless you're talking about adding affixes without balancing the game around them, in which case, you're just going to end up with massive gear inflation.)

If you added one affix, it wouldn't make uber gear unattainable, just rarer than it is now. Two affixes, rarer still, and so on until you get so many affixes that the question becomes which traits a piece *doesn't* have.

How many affixes should gear have? I think 6 is already way over the top. Cut down the number, and gearing choices become more interesting, and pieces more specialized.

-Jester

[Archon_Wing]

Nothing, except hoard more gold in the event something interesting pops up. The time spent to gather said amount of gold isn't worth it imo, at the very moment.

Well, then, aren't we back to what I said initially? I wasn't trying to be insulting. I really mean it: If playing a game where you kill stuff in order to find or buy marginal upgrades isn't doing it for you right now, then why play? Because that's what Diablo is, and always has been.

Well, you would have been right pre-1.04.

It's changed though. There's alternate methods of progression besides gear, and the whole killing monsters bit is an example. I can still find other parts of the game better and not like the itemization.

I guess we've been playing differently. Sure, I love loot, but I'm much more interested in finding exciting items that stand out. Hell, I bought a Horadric Hamburger just because it's something else. Legendaries also help mitigate this boring item issue.

I'm really glad that the AH shows you what you sold. Before I switched to hardcore for a while, I sold my old, more crit heavy gear on the RMAH. I really couldn't tell you the items, or what they were called beyond "This was a yellow item that contained resists, primary stats, crit hit, and vitality"

It just doesn't lead to crazy awesome items to dream for. Improved yellow #2536 isn't going to give me the same fascination when I was seeking to and eventually complete say, the Heart of the Oak Runeword in Diablo 3.

It's why the paragon system, while simple, and doesn't solve the problem of repetitious gameplay was applauded. It's a lofty goal that's arguably a waste of time, but it's something that you can easily work for just by playing the game and know that it's going to something that isn't at the mercy of the RNG.

If I wanted to summarize Diablo, it's a slot machine. It needs to have a dream, no matter how unrealistic that can come true. And it must be all shiny and stuff.

It would be true that a true perfect roll in every slot as am uber item, would be so rare to be practically impossible, but I'm fine with that level of item to be unattainable, if it were merely possible. I don't care as long as I can mix and match the traits that I would want.

Are the traits you would want idiosyncratic? Because if they're the same as everyone else's, then the good gear would have gotten rarer, not more common. (Unless you're talking about adding affixes without balancing the game around them, in which case, you're just going to end up with massive gear inflation.)

If you added one affix, it wouldn't make uber gear unattainable, just rarer than it is now. Two affixes, rarer still, and so on until you get so many affixes that the question becomes which traits a piece *doesn't* have.

How many affixes should gear have? I think 6 is already way over the top. Cut down the number, and gearing choices become more interesting, and pieces more specialized.

-Jester

Well, we can't really go back on it now without wrecking the value of everyone's gear now. Maybe in the expansion. And I don't feel 6 is over the top since there's already so many I consider mandatory. I'm convinced it's too little through playing the game. For the reasons of balance and interest it would make sense that new traits would have to be added, or even allow certain things to stack twice.

It's my feeling that the characters need more power, or at least present the illusion of such. Before 1.04 there were mostly nerfs of both players and the monsters making the action more dry. 1.04 though certainly had other amibitions.

[Jester]

Well, we can't really go back on it now without wrecking the value of everyone's gear now. Maybe in the expansion. And I don't feel 6 is over the top since there's already so many I consider mandatory. I'm convinced it's too little through playing the game. For the reasons of balance and interest it would make sense that new traits would have to be added, or even allow certain things to stack twice.

Here's a wacky idea: Don't add traits, remove them. If half your traits just translate to "damage," then just pull them all off. Anything that's absolutely mandatory, just bake it into the weapon itself.

-Jester

[Archon_Wing]

Well, we can't really go back on it now without wrecking the value of everyone's gear now. Maybe in the expansion. And I don't feel 6 is over the top since there's already so many I consider mandatory. I'm convinced it's too little through playing the game. For the reasons of balance and interest it would make sense that new traits would have to be added, or even allow certain things to stack twice.

Here's a wacky idea: Don't add traits, remove them. If half your traits just translate to "damage," then just pull them all off. Anything that's absolutely mandatory, just bake it into the weapon itself.

-Jester

Mm, I just feel like we're too into nerfing and removing too much. Still, if there were inherent mods, so called "mandatory ones", that wouldn't be a problem with me.

These exist in the form of the new legendaries, and thus going in that direction isn't a bad one at all.