The only plausible way items could stop raining like that, is making their stats useful to your class, like in Diablo III or World of Warcraft.
Wow an actually well thought out article from Wowhead? That's almost as rare as a pre-duriel Shako. I agree with everything stated above, and will add I really miss set items. Putting a full set of Sigons with a spare Trivincal flail on a new D2 character was fun. Unfortunately with the way stash space works in D4, even if they added Set items there's no real way to keep them all. I also think that legendary aspects should go on an item slot, not the item itself. Add a small box by each item slot for the aspecct so we can easily trade out gear without having to go to the occultist if we swap boots or gloves or whatever. Then we wouldn't have to keep spare aspects once we find a maxed out aspect. It would also make leveling better, and allow you to use filler aspect powers as you level until you find your BiS power.
I recently started playing Lash Epoch and even though its ran by an actual indie company and is still technically in Beta, it plays 10 times better than D4. They really singlehandedly managed to run the entire Diablo franchise into the ground. If it was any other company the people responsible for developing and running it would have been sacked by now. But of course it's Blizzard and even if there was a desire to hold people accountable and potentially fire them they couldn't do it because they wouldn't be able to find replacements since they're already down to the "Z" team, lol.
Same issues D3 hadD2 had the best itemization and that's a fact
it's mind blowing they released the game with the current itemizationthey claimed that itemization was the most important pillar to Diablo games and yet they've managed to screw it up two games in a row noweven more unforgivable considering how many great ARPG's have released that they could have learned from, but it's clear nobody on the team even plays the genre
I love loot showers but it's a mind numbing experience to have to go through all that looking for the right affixes. I'd kill for an affix loot filter.
I think the real problem with itemization in D4 is that it was bricked from the start because it was and still is based on “attack” and “defence.” If the most powerful multiplier in the game is simply “more damage out and less damage in,” then everything else is pointless unless it’s some massive stacking multiplier to a specific skill. As long as the game is still based on “green arrow good red arrow bad,” then there isn’t going to be a real fix.
Why would Blizzard allocate any dev time to making the game good when they can just make cosmetics for the store instead?
First I want to say that I see some problems with itemization but I personally think the developers have done a very good job overall. The issues are not ugly. Items, affixes and aspects harmonize well in Diablo 4's game system. In most cases it isnt more complicated than in any other ARPG. Comparing it with Diablo 2 (and 3) seems reasonable at first, but makes ultimately not much sense. Diablo 4 created its own base system which for now is very balanced and easy to expand. My take on a few points in this post that I dont agree with:
Blue items being able to roll better numbers (a D2 staple) is something that was in the game at one point in the development cycle - I remember it being covered in one of their quarterly updates. No idea why it was dropped.Another idea that would make blue items useful would be to use them as a component of the enchanting system. Let's say you want a particular affix on a legendary - what if, instead of having to randomly reroll it again and again, you could find a blue item that has the specific affix you're after, extract it and imprint it onto the legendary, a bit like an aspect but instead replacing an affix of your choice?
Good article.I don't think the developers actually know how to develop an AARPG game. It's really a mess. And the worst part about all this? They have all the components they need to make D4 the best game to play in the genre. Between the previous Diablo games, Last Epoch, Path of Exile, and Grim Dawn; they have the ability to make the best most richest content filled Diablo game ever.But, its like they don't care. Or they are just completely clueless in how to to achieve it. Either way, it shows in the final product. And it disappoints me to no end.