First off, absolutely love the crafting system, LP, and exalted item concepts. The focus on a good SSF progression experience is amazing. The one place I think itemization in this game falls short is when it comes to variety and identity for each item slot.
This was one of the biggest issues in Diablo 3 for me. You’re hunting for the same 4 affixes on each item. This is a shallow system, and every end-game build has only slight variations on what those 4 affixes are. I think LE leans a little too far in this direction, though it definitely improves on the D3 system. Just like in D3 with Uniques and Sets, Uniques and Idols are the only easily accessible source of truly unique and build-enabling affixes, and many builds are forced into taking the same mandatory defensive and offensive affixes across all items.
Have there been any discussions on increasing total item affixes from 4 to 5, or even 6 so that builds can add supplemental modifiers that allow for more interesting ways to build?
What about interesting implicit modifiers and ways to add them that fundamentally change builds or provide supplemental affixes?
Do the devs have plans to expand the affix pool greatly to provide more diversity? For example, instead of “+2 to devouring orb, 40% increased void damage”, it could be something like “Your devouring orb chains 5 times and can hit you or your allies, granting 50% more void damage and 10% less damage taken for 4 seconds”, or weird stuff that augment/change skills to make them more interesting.
Do the devs think the game is in a good place regarding mandatory defenses and generic affixes being used across most builds? For example, crit avoidance is basically mandatory in Empowered Monoliths.
How “Rare” should rare items be? Are rares meant to just fill your stats while unique items provide an entire build identity? I think there is a happy middle ground, and right now it might be leaning too far in 1 direction.
Are there plans for affixes on rares to allow for much higher build diversity and player choices on how they want to build to play end game content?
Quick responsed from what I remember… others may have to fill in the gaps or correct my interpretation of what I recall devs mentioned. Maybe we get lucky and Mike respond… hint hint.
Yes… I think Mike discussed this - they happy with the 4 + 1 sealed at the moment… They dont specifically plan any more, but in Mikes typical response, never is a long time…
Yes… Similar response from the devs iirc… nothing is impossible but nothing formal right now… more items are definitely planned - and they could have different implicits or change existing ones - happened before so I’d expect it again.
Not sure on more complicated Affixes like the ones you describe, but from what I understand yes, more affixes are planned. I would expect nothing less considering we still have additional classes and more items coming… Now that I think of it, I recall the devs saying that they would prefer complicated interactions affix wise, be reserved for uniques/sets so I am not sure how complicated they want to go with normal affixes…
Not sure… Mike spoke specifically about critical avoidance on discord a few days ago but I cannot recall what he said - you may want to search the dev section… iirc he seemed ok with where things are, but I could be mistaken. I am fairly certain that no matter how many affixes there end up being, there are always going to the ones that float to the top of most builds… e.g. health, increased health are likely to be there no matter what changes…
Hmm… For me, Rares are the stock items - i.e. the “pay the bills” type gear that gets you all the way through early game to empowered monoliths and a little beyond if the affixes match well… I see Exalted items as the holy grail “rares”. Not sure if Rares are currently build enabling beyond the fact that an affix or implicit may benefit a build… Maybe an exalted with a high +X to a skill could be an build enabling items… Build enabling right now seems like the realm and differentiator of uniques/sets.
No idea… but I would assume more affixes are coming so logically they would probably allow for more build diversity… not sure if they would be “required” build enabling tho… Honestly dont recall the devs addressing a question like this…
Am wondering if asking these on Discord and getting Mike and the others eyeballs may get you better answers…?
I would like to see a lot of the more generic affixes maybe increased in power but restricted to fewer item slots.
It would be nice if items/affixes had more synergies with other items/affixes to encourage more diverse builds. I still think of UO, back in the day, where if you leveled anatomy, it increased your damage and healing ability. In LE, that could be something like X affix in your body armor is improved a % if you have Y affix in your weapon slot.
Something like dodge rating on weapon would be 20% stronger if you had dodge rating or block chance on your off-hand item. Similar to how some of the old affixes worked, just not as strong as those were (higher base value, lower synergy bonus).
*for those that don’t know, there used to be affixes that got stronger the more of them you had on your gear. ‘5 All Resist per affix’. So if you had 2 of those, they each gave you 10 all resist (20 total). If you had 3, they each gave you 15 all resist (45 total). They were way too strong and basically mandatory.
