!!Skip this!!
Itemization in Diablo 3 is one of the most improvable aspects of the game so i think most feedback should be directed towards this area. This feedback is NOT supposed to be a demand towards our dear CMs but rather a thought-process of the community agreeing/disagreeing with one another to reveal strengths and weaknesses of the suggested ideas to reduce the ...
Disparity of perspectives
Going by the premise of humans being rational (not logical) it´s possible to say that people standing at the exact same viewpoint of a certain topic are going to make the exact same conclusions. Consensus isn´t met every time when ideas from individuals coming from different perspectives collide and no one is capable or willing to change the personal perspective. This is where the world wide web shines. It allows to bring probably any viewpoint possible to the table and allows to look at the topics from a greater distance from many angles. So provide every thought you guys have, everything that doesn´t suit you everything you disagree with so we can create the improved...
Carrot on a stick
The carrot on a stick is the most simplified model of motivation through anticipation of a reward. Biggest problem of this analogy is the lack of showing possibilities how to increase the hunger of the "carrot-chaser". Many Diablo players i have talked to feel the carrot they are chasing right now is either to hard to catch or does not satisfy enough when caught. The most simple way to address this issue is to simply add more carrots to the equation. But let´s not leave it at carrots, we want apples, hot dogs and German "Wurst" tingling in front of our eyes. Adding more and more motivators has the benefit that we can allow the chaser to more often catch something he was chasing for, but even more importantly to give him "Wurst" while he was chasing the apple. Convincing us to get things we didn´t even know we are hungry for is such a diabolic process that simply confuses us and as soon as we start chasing every stick and being rewarded with even the smallest forms of rewards most players will stick to chasing it. So let´s add more carrots via ...
Parallel progression ! Important !
THIS is the most lackluster principle about Diablo 3 at the moment. Currently there are to few carrots to chase. Parallel progression means we improve on multiple aspects simultaneously. The current game SHOULD allow to always make small steps of improvement no matter in what direction we are going. But there aren´t enough tabs to progress in. Currently there are:
- Paragon levels: Every time you kill anything you gain XP
- Gem upgrades: On every kill you have the possibility to find a gem and move closer to the "gem-limit". Per gem slot you will need 729 gems of the same type. It´s like a second XP bar that increases by 1 every time a needed gem drops.
- Items (Screen-DPS): The most important tab of progression, but also the one that has the biggest problem. Items that are found at the moment don´t have "character". People are not searching for new boots, for a new weapon or for a new ring. They look for an overall + in the DPS screen. Sometimes it feels like there is only one item-slot called the "DPS-Screen"-charslot. This was done better in Diablo 2 where people explicitly looked for white items to fill the weapon slot and then put a check on that slot and tried to improve the other ones.
- Knowledge: When unexperienced people gain new informations on every run. Identifying which events to skip, what the map layout looks like and how to fight certain monsters, etc.
These tabs are already allow for a good feeling of parallel progression, but people want more, so let´s start by adding better crafting and adding imbues!
Stop Skipping
Crafting in other games:
Diablo 2: The most famous one. I´m going to stick to the "Item-crafting". This was the most complex item-system of the game but also had the chance to create the best items for many slots. To craft properly one had to find many types of items and acquire a lot of knowledge. There are ilvls, clvls, alvls, affixes, recipes and itemtypes that needed to be studied and while farming the mats you always had a chance to also find things you were not looking for which made it feel even more rewarding.
- Complexity
+ Could be very rewarding
+ Progression in many tabs
Titan Quest:
Probably one of the best crafting systems was titan quests charm/relic hunting. These imbues were bound to monster types and only these could drop the items. There were 3-5 parts each imbue consisted of and there were 20+ types of imbues. Each imbue could only be cast on certain armor types and only if the item is not of unique quality. Here is where the magic happens: The small parts held a small bonus that always increased by the same amount for every new part added but once the charm was completed new affixes from a new affix pool were added!
Example: Incarnation of Hektor´s shadow: 60 defense & 3 % chance to dodge projectiles per part. On completion the imbue additionally rolled one of the following stats: 65 defense, 450 life, 26 strength, 16% armorpen, 41% reistance.
This might seem redundant but in the game it created great incentives to use rare items instead of uniques and farming for the rare ones could keep people entertained for hours every time they found an upgrade. My absolute favourite system.
+ Great customization and incentive to farm
- The monsters that dropped charms didn´t drop anything else and didn´t allow for parallel progression
Torchlight:
A very unusual form of crafting but it had its hights. For a small fee you had a chance to either add an affix, not change anything about the item, or remove all existing affixes.
+ Very simple, very fast
+ Items are never completed
- Risk of item going from hero to zero was to big.
- tooo random.
Ideas for Diablo 3
Imbues
As mentioned above imbues, to me, are the greatest type of progression in ARPGs. The idea is to create a new item-type that has varying loot-tables for each region. These items can imbue certain item-slots and those can not be of unique quality. They consist of several parts (3-7) and each part roles random stats of the same affix and can be imbued on an item even if the imbue is not completed. If combined the affixes add up and if completed they also gain a new affix from a new affix pool. If this new affix is an ability a more detailed description is available in the "imbue-window" Imbues start dropping in Hell difficulty. Imbued items can not be traded.
Example: In the cathedral, the crypts and the festering woods each monster has a chance to drop an "imbue of withering". This item is an additional item drop and does not effect other item drops. It is not influenced by magic find and they can not be traded. The "imbue of withering" consists of 6 parts. It can only imbue amulets. The base attribute of each part is "+2-8 intelligence, 1-3 strength". A completed imbue can vary from +12 intelligence and +6 strength to +48 intelligence and +18 strength. When the imbue is completed it gains an additional random affix giving the imbue a random passive from any class (only the respective classes can use it).
If implemented correctly these imbues can create huge incentives to keep farming and improving. What does correct implementation look like? Important rules are:
- Easy to achieve, very very hard to perfect: The first step to make this possible is randomization. Everybody will be able to complete imbues but most of them will be of average quality if rushed. Those that want perfect ones will have to farm for a longer time. The second step is to make people lose the imbue, once it has been used. If you managed to craft a perfect one, it is necessary to still have incentive to craft those. So the imbue has to be lost if the amulet is switched.
- Make them farmable, but not as an exclusive type of progression: As mentioned in the example these things have to drop WHILE killing whatever you want to. If you limit them to an area where ONLY imbues drop, people get tunnel visioned and are saddened every time they don´t get the drop they wanted. But making them drop at completely random locations makes it to hard and to unrewarding to strive and hunt for those. So the perfect solution is to bind certain imbues to certain places that allow for efficient farming but not at the cost of normal loot.
- The inventory problem: The biggest problem is the space these little imbues take up. I think usually people will want to farm at least for two sorts PER imbue. One perfect slot that wants the best stats and one "trash" slot that people just want to complete so they can get the completion affix. But i wouldn´t call it a problem, if there wasn´t a possible solution to this. By creating a new "imbue-screen" that has all imbues listed you can not only create an easy way of informing people which imbues exist but also give them the possibility to craft one imbue in the window. If people want to work on more than one imbue they will have to give up a slot in their inventory. I´m thinking about creating 20 imbues, so the window would consist of two rows with ten imbues per row. All available imbues will be listed there and be greyed out until the player stores a partial or a completed imbue in the slot. The player can drag this imbue out and use it on an item at any given time. If moving the mouse over an imbue in the "imbues-screen" a tooltip saying "This magical tool can increase it´s wearers intellect and strength if used properly. It was seen to be created as a side product when corpses in the foul crypts and graveyards were reawakened." to show people what the imbue does and give a rough description where it can drop.
Example of a few imbues:
1. Example:
Imbue of withering:
- Parts drop in Cathedral, Festering Woods, Crypts, The Weeping Hollow
- Tooltip: "This magical tool can increase its wearers intellect and strength if imbued on an amulet. It was seen to be created as a side product when corpses in the foul crypts and graveyards were reawakened."
- Can imbue amulets
- 6 Parts
- 2-8 Intelligence, 1-3 Strength (Min: 12 Int, 6 Str; Max: 48 Int, 18 Str)
- Completion bonus: Gain a random passive for your character (respective class only)
2. Example:
Imbue of celerity:
- Parts drop in Fields of Misery, Howling Plateau, Desolate Sands
- Tooltip: "This magical tool can increase its wearers speed, allowing him to move quicker and dodge attacks if imbued on an amulet. Creatures in huge open areas had to adapt to their environment and move quickly to survive. Magicians claim to be able to harness their essence and bind it to scrolls."
- Can imbue amulets
- 3 Parts
- 1%-2% dodge chance, 0.5%-4% movement speed (Min: 3% dodge, 1.5% ms; Max: 6% dodge, 12% ms)
- Completion bonus: Teleport 20-60 yards by clicking "force move" on the ground while having the item not on cooldown, 60-10 seconds cooldown
3. Example:
Imbue of resilience:
- Parts drop in Hell Rift, Gardens of Hope, The Battlefields, The Barracks
- Tooltip: "Grants the wearer improved defense and allows to retaliate attacks."
- Can imbue shields
- 3 Parts
- 0.5%-2% all resistance, 5-50 armor (Min: 1.5% AR, 15 armor; Max: 6% AR, 150 armor)
- Completion bonus: + 50 random single resistance, Shield retaliation: After being struck the yielder has a 30%-80% chance to retaliate with 300%-2000% of intelligence as damage. The retaliation is not possible for 2 seconds after each block. (Coupled with this affix i would like to see at least one tier of shields that can role a lower block chance than 10%)
4. Example:
Imbue of fortification:
- Parts drop in Gardens of Hope, Desolate Sands, Fields of Misery
- Tooltip: "Allows its wearer to increase his life and a chance to summon a sacred shield when being hit."
- Can imbue shields
- 7 Parts
- 0.2%-1% increased life (Min: 1.4% HP; Max: 7% HP)
- Completion bonus: + 40 random stat, Sacred shield: When dropping below 50% HP a sacred shield appears and reduces all damage taken by 0.01%-0.1% of its wielders dexterity for 4 seconds, 60-15 seconds cooldown.
5. Example:
Imbue of strangulation:
- Parts drop in Festering Woods, Howling Plateau, Dhalgur Oasis, Stringing Wind
- Tooltip: "Reduces cooldown of all abilites and allows to drag monsters to the wielder."
- Can imbue shields
- 6 Parts
- 0.25%-1.5% reduced cooldowns, 2-10 Vitality (Min: 1.5% Cd, 12 Vit; Max: 9% cd, 60 Vit)
- Completion bonus: 10%-50% Chance to vortex a monster towards the player if its attack is blocked, + 12-60 Vitality
6. Example:
Imbue of domination:
- Parts drop in Cathedral, Alcarnus, Tower of the damned
- Tooltip: "Increases summoned minions damage and allows to control more minions. Gather the essences of Sanctuarios' greatest summoners and bind them on a scroll."
- Can imbue Belts, Amulets
- 3 Parts
- 1%-4% increased minion damage, 0-2 Pickup radius (Min: 3% MD, 0 PR; Max: 12% MD, 6 PR)
- Completion bonus: summoning mastery: Reduces cooldown of minion based spells by 1%-50%, Doubles the amount of minions summoned
7. Example:
Imbue of venom:
- Parts drop in Howling Plateau, Fields of Misery, Fields of Slaughter
- Tooltip: "Increasing its wearers Agility and Resistance. Gathered from the most poisonous areas in Sanctuario this allows to apply a deadly venom to the attacks, once completed.
- Can imbue Shields, Belts
- 5 parts
- 3-10 agility, 1-6 poison resistance (Min: 15 agi, 5 pr; Max: 50 agi, 30 pr)
- Completion bonus: Venomstrike: Normal, non critical hits apply a poison, dealing
100%-2000% of the players poison resistance as damage over 2 seconds.
Crafting using the jeweler and the blacksmith:
Crafting has a few major purposes once the max level has been reached. The first one is to improve the loot experience. On every kill monsters have a chance to not only give better gear to the player but to also give new materials to the player. In D3 this is ensured through salvaging items that have no use to the charakter. The next goal of a good crafting system should be to allow to customize the players gear by giving him a way to influence the loot he gets. The only decision the player has at the moment is whether he wants to use his materials for boots or for a belt. Combined with the huge effort and the lack of unique affixes for crafting it is very discouraging for players to invest time in crafting rather than killing a few other monsters which grants the same reward. Crafting should add new affixes and allow for alternative loot paths. Players should be allowed to dedicate their hunt to materials and see the regular items as an added bonus if they so desire. A little bit of complexity should also add more fun and dedication from players.
Changes to crafting materials:
Following the idea of parallel progression crafting materials have to pile up while the player is doing whatever he wants. The other goal is to make the piñatas that dare calling themselves our enemies more interesting to pop. We can achieve this by changing the current crafting material system a bit:
- Material quality: Depending on the affix quality of the salvaged item we can get 3 types of material quality: normal, superior and magical. Items in the 0%-60% range of the best affixroll salvage into normal quality (90%) or superior quality (10%). Items with the best affix being in the 60%-94% range salvage into normal quality (20%), superior quality (70%) or magical quality (10%). Items with their best affix in the 94%-100% range salvage into superior quality (50%) or magical quality (50%). This allows you to gain superior and magical crafting materials even from white and blue items, making these items really interesting to dedicated crafters. Yellow items still have the advantage of rolling more affixes and therefore having a higher chance on high affix rolls.
Usage of normal, superior and magical quality: At first we have to remove these materials from the inventory completely. Right now there are 3 different lvl 60 crafting materials and adding quality levels will overflow the inventory. Since these materials don´t have any use at all, no matter how often you click on them they do not deserve to be in the players inventory. Create a new crafting window with a 3x3 grid. Not only does this look really compelling and tidy, but it also removes the hastle of storing and picking them back up. Dragging those into the trading window should still be possible though. Also, dragging higher quality materials into lower quality brackets inside the materials window allows to downgrade the materials fast. At the crafting window the player can chose which quality level materials he wants to use.
The different quality levels influence the efficiency of the player´s crafting by altering the amount of items crafted. Normal materials always generate one item. Superior materials have a 20% chance to create one item, a 70% chance to create two items at once and a 10% chance to create 3 items. Now things get crazy: Magical items have a 50% chance to create 3 items, a 30% chance to create 4 items, a 15% chance to create 5 items, a 4% chance to create 7 items and a 1% chance to create 10(!!!) items at once. These items are rolled individually and the player should make sure he has free inventory space if he doesn´t want to turn into a pinata himself.
- New crafting item, that CRAFTS!: More loot is something everybody wants. Another colour that we can cheer about and look forward to on every kill called SCROLL OF THE HORADRIM.
A very rare crafting material that can drop everywhere and stacks in the players inventory. Dropchances are higher for unique monsters. This item allows players to increase the third affix of an item by a random amount between 1%-30%. The bonus is shown as a new affix at the bottom of the items description and adds "of the horadrim" to the basic items name. You can use the scroll of Horadrim as often as you want to reroll the increas of the third affix.
Crafting - Blacksmith:
Crimson-recipes:
These allow players completely forgo the current defensive stats armor and resistance affixes by granting the player a huge lifeboost and situational defense. Items crafted with these recipes have NO armor and NO resistance at all. They can not be imbued and can not be traded. Crimson items can be created for the boots, belt, shoulders and wrists-slot. They have 3 base affixes:
+ 200-500 Vitality
+ 10%-20% Life
+ Armorconversion 1-25 (Armorconversion: For every 1000 points of damage the character takes he gains x amount of armor for 5 seconds.)
Along with these set affixes there are another 4 affixes (excluding armor/resist):
1. Either +5.000-25.000 Healthglobes/Potions OR +500-2.500 Hp/s.
2. random affix from the current affixtable (affixlevel = itemlevel)
3. random affix from the current affixtable (if 1 higher alvl is available than alvl = ilvl + 1; if no higher alvl is available than alvl=ilvl - 1)
4. random affix from the current affixtable (if 2 higher alvl are available than alvl = ilvl + 2; if no higher alvl is available than alvl=ilvl - 2)
Additionally to the affix-roles the player can enchant crafted items to gain one ability that is autocast every 30 seconds (wizard-armor,monk-mantra,barb-shouts). Only the latest ability that has been put on works (if the player has more than one enchanted item).
Obsidian-recipes:
These allow players completely forgo the current critchance and critdmg affixes by granting the player an attackspeed bonus and increasing monsters vulnerability. Items crafted with these recipes have NO critical chance and NO critical damage at all. They can not be imbued and can not be traded. Obsidian items can be created for the boots, hands, amulet and head-slot. They have 3 base affixes:
+ 100-250 Attribute
+ 1%-5% increased attack speed
+ a) Vulnerability 1000-7500 (80% chance) or b) Vulnerability 1000-15000 (20% chance) (Vulnerability: Increases the damage taken by target by x after each completed attack. This damage is added after critmodificators and is therefore not improved by critical hits.)
Along with these set affixes there are another 4 affixes (excluding crit,critdmg):
1. + 2-7 pickup radius
2. random affix from the current affixtable (affixlevel = itemlevel)
3. random affix from the current affixtable (if 1 higher alvl is available than alvl = ilvl + 1; if no higher alvl is available than alvl=ilvl - 1)
4. random affix from the current affixtable (if 2 higher alvl are available than alvl = ilvl + 2; if no higher alvl is available than alvl=ilvl - 2)
Additionally to the affix-roles the player can enchant crafted items to gain one ability that has a 1%-10% chance to be cast on hit (seismic slam,chackram,exploding palm,zombie charger,energy twister). Only the latest ability that has been put on works (if the player has more than one enchanted item).
Ember-recipes:
These allow players to heavily take advantage of abilities dealing damage over time. Items crafted with these recipes have NO critical chance and NO critical damage at all. They can not be imbued and can not be traded. Ember items can be created for the weapon, hands, head and amulet-slot. They have 3 base affixes:
+ 4%-12% increased damage to elite monsters
+ 1%-6% movementspeed
+ a) Curse mastery 10%-35% (80% chance) or b) Curse mastery 25%-55% (20% chance)
(Curse mastery: Increases strength of damage over time effects that are applied to the enemy)
Along with these set affixes there are another 4 affixes (excluding crit,critdmg):
1. Either +50-200 armor or +20-50 single resist
2. 2. random affix from the current affixtable (affixlevel = itemlevel)
3. random affix from the current affixtable (if 1 higher alvl is available than alvl = ilvl + 1; if no higher alvl is available than alvl=ilvl - 1)
4. random affix from the current affixtable (if 2 higher alvl are available than alvl = ilvl + 2; if no higher alvl is available than alvl=ilvl - 2)
Additionally to the affix roles the player can enchant crafted items to gain one permanent minion (mystic ally,raven,3 zombie dogs,Madawc) that is resummoned after 30 if it dies. Only the latest ability that has been put on works (if the player has more than one enchanted item).
Runecrafting using Shen:
The next character that needs more use is Shen the Jewelcrafter! His job is to give players small improvements over long periods of time. Currently he is only capable of upgrading gems as a form of progression. Every gem that drops currently increases the players progress by a small amount. The higher the upgrade gets the lower the total increase of strength is. For every perfect gem the player currently needs 729 gemdropps of the same type in inferno-difficulty. Problems arise when players start using the auction house. The costs of buying a gem in the auction house are about the same as the costs to craft the gem yourself and therefore removes the incentives to collect gems at all. This removes Shen's purpose almost completely and therefore he needs a new thing to do!
Runecrafting allows players to improve their favourite abilities and if really dedicated, players can even "perfect" those. Long long ago every rune had multiple levels but this was removed because the system of storing hundreds of runes was to clunky. So to address this the system has to change a little:
Runepower: For every kill the player gains 1 runepower (10 for elite, 100 for bosses) to one random rune-type (crimson,obsidian,golden,indigo,alabaster) that is not capped. The runepower is shown in a small section at the bottom of the skill selection frame. Every rune-type can store up to a max of 100.000 runepower. If the player collects enough power he can use it to upgrade one of the abilities permanently to the next level by going to Shen and selecting the ability and the rune he wants to improve in a new tab called "Runecrafting". There are 3 upgrades for every rune possible. The first one costs 10.000, the second one costs 35.000 and the last and final upgrade costs 100.000. Upgrading reduces the runepower by the amount it costs. Players start earning runepower after completing normal mode by killing monster that grants experience. Runepower is shared among all characters of the same gamemode (softcore - hardcore).
New items for runepower: These items allow players to influence the runepower farming process and give new items to be excited about if they drop:
- Powerfocus: There are 5 types of powerfoci, one for every type of rune. They have a rare dropchance (one every 1500 kills) and are bound to the account. Once used they make the next 5.000 runepower gathered go to the rune-type they were called. (Crimson powerfocus, obsidian powerfocus,...)
- Equilibrium: Very very rare. Once used they make the next 5.000 runepower gathered go towards every rune-type at once increasing the amount gathered by 5 times. Tradable. They can be combined with a powerfocus by Shen and create enchanced powerfoci, which give 3 times more runepower, but only to one type of rune.
- Concentrated runepower: very quite rare. Can be given to Shen to increase a random runetype by 5.000 runepower. Account bound. Can be combined with equilibrium to give 2.000 runepower to every rune-type.
What would change? Level 60 characters progress in even more tabs with every kill they make, they have a chance to receive even more loot and most importantly players will have to make choices again. It would take huge amounts of time to level every rune to max level (3.625.000 runepower per rune for a character with 25 abilities) and therefore characters are forced to make choices again. The rune upgrades are not strong enough to greatly change a characters power, but still encourage those who focus on their favourite abilites. Since runepower is shared amongst all characters it's also profitable to level new ones.
That´s it! I hope you guys enjoyed my ideas and see what´s still possible in Diablo 3 itemization and crafting systems.
TL;DR: New itemtabs to progress in. While farming you won´t be looking for legendaries only.
Progression through items:
1. Finding legendaries
2. Finding rares
3. Improving imbues (all 20 of them)
4. Improving Crimson-set
5. Improving Obsidian-set
6. Improving Ember-set
7. Finding high affix whites and blues
8. Leveling Runepower
Epilogue: Now that you managed to scroll down that far, what is left to do?
- Feedback: What do you understand? What does not make sense to you? Why do you like/dislike the feature? Give me your perspective and show me the flaws of the system.
- Improve: Discuss how to make this system better and add ideas.
- Correct: English is my 3d language so help me getting rid of all the mistakes (grammatical and logical ones!).