Hey, first time posting so not sure if anyone has brought something like this up before but I am coming back to LE after about a year off and am really enjoying it but I am having the same friction with the itemization as I had last time and I think I can now put it into words.
I really dig the crafting system and the level of control it gives us in obtaining the type of gear we want. I also think the affixes offered are sufficiently diverse. The tradeoff in giving us so much control, however, is that we are locked at 4 affixes on dropped items to limit the power we can build into any given item. Because of this every affix slot has to count so all affixes are focused on stat bonuses and there is no room for anything that is more ‘out there’.
This leads me to a point where I am simply determining what stats my build would need when creating a new character, filtering out everything but those affixes, and crafting what I want. While this may sound like a positive to a lot of people I feel it creates a strange disconnect from the items that are dropping in the game. I don’t really see them as an item I might want to pick up and put on, but more like just crafting materials. There isn’t really anything that make items feel unique or interesting and affixes seem too pigeonholed into serving specific stat based purposes.
My suggestion would be to add a system I’ll call Inscriptions. When an item drops there would be a very low chance that it would be inscribed, having an extra set of up to 3 or 4 attributes that are separate form implicits and affixes.
These attributes would not necessarily be stat based and because they would be separate from affixes and crafting they could be much more ‘out there’ or wacky attributes. For example in Diablo 2 some of my favorite attributes on an item were things like +light radius or +stamina as these gave interesting bonuses to how I played the game but weren’t stats focused on killing monsters or not getting killed by monsters. This could be a way to give items a space for more creative and interesting attributes that don’t necessarily affect the build of your character.
Just some ideas could be:
- Player draws more aggro
- +light radius (for lightless arbor)
- player becomes ethereal and can walk through walls and enemies (can still be damaged)
- +move speed for every 100 gold picked up in the last minute
- +aoe size for each unique enemy hit in the last minute
(these may not be good ideas, just off the top of my head)
Since inscriptions are a different set of attributes they would be uncraftable and unable to be changed or influenced and would be locked to that item. This could help items feel more unique and less like materials. It could make item drops feel more exciting again.
Speaking of which, what can Inscriptions drop on?
- Can drop on exalted and less frequently on rares
- Can NOT drop on Uniques (after all they are already unique)
- Can drop on Set Items (though in a different way that I will go into)
So uniques can not drop inscribed but there are two ways that a unique could obtain an inscription. The first is via legendary potential. Any time an inscribed exalted is consumed to make a legendary item the unique will ALWAY inherit the inscription and this will not affect how many affixes are inherited. So if the unique has 1 LP it takes one random affix AND the inscription.
The other way a unique can obtain an inscription is with Weaver’s Will. The way it would work is that when consuming a Weaver’s Will there is a 73% chance to upgrade an existing affix, 22% chance to add a new affix, and a 5% chance to add an inscription (like a crit on a d20).
For set items inscriptions would work a little differently. A set item would be inscribed with a ‘note’. Any given note would always give the same attribute. For example Do gives knockback, Re gives +projectile speed, etc. Now here is where it gets interesting. If you are wearing 2 or more set items with the right combination of notes you create a ‘song’. When you create a song your items will give you a special set of attributes from that specific song. This would work like set bonuses for inscriptions mixed with the concept of rune words from D2. The really cool thing is that since any note could drop on any set item you can use items from different sets to create a song!
I think this kind of system could add a lot of depth to the itemization of the game without interfering with the crafting system. It also gives room for so much potential for ways it could be implemented. For example you could have bosses have inscriptions that are unique to them that you can only get from items they drop. Or maybe instead of getting inscriptions from random drops there is a special event you must do to inscribe an item. Even possibly rarity tiers for inscriptions.
This kind of system could also be a great way to create chase items that players can try to obtain because they are looking for that one specific inscription they want!
Anyway, I’d really love to hear anyone’s thoughts on this and if this sounds like it would be fun!
Edit: Title, Grammar