Itemization is pretty much the game with these ARPGs and yet at level 80 i cant help but see all my stats settled and just looking for more of the same stats but higher rolls. I know you have very rare affixes but they are so low in variety that if you seen a few you’ve seen them all. Uniques are in the game but again they aren’t numerous enough at high levels.
Coming from GD and POE we are still missing:
Minion conversion
Flat damage on armors
Active skills
Skill modification
Skill scaling revamp (say turn int scaling to strength)
Extra projectiles
Extra pierce
Passive on trigger
Rare item template with more innate stats
Additional damage on skills
Complete skill elemental conversion
skill or + passives
Cant break from crafting
High level sets
Self buff on hit
Self buff being hit
Extra minions
Stats conversion (mana to shield, health to mana etc.)
Flat cool down reduction (-2 seconds on a skill)
Aura
Passive on trigger pet scaling with character
Resistance reduction
And many more
Hope dev can start adding these so the itemization can be liven up abit. Im hoping that by high level the stats that you are aiming for will be a bit more complex and more things to consider (A good example in GD is if you want + skill or a passive on hit, in POE is if you want extra projectile or conversion), it just makes looting things that much more interesting than flat tier numbers. It also opens up tremendous build opportunities.
I’d like to see more affixes that aren’t just straight “you deal bigger numbers” or “you take smaller numbers”. I was a big fan of skill charges and curse on hit procs in D2, for instance. The former wouldn’t really work in LE since durability/repairs aren’t a thing, but I’d imagine it ought to be possible to add in chance to proc support skills on skill use (probably with a cooldown).
in Grim Dawn you had extra skills granted by the item or socketing gem (speaking of which we don’t even have socketing yet ), which people made an entire build out of.
Yeah, same thing in D2 with stuff like Passion/Fury runewords granting off-class skills. I don’t think that’d work well in LE unless you could then spec skill trees for skills coming from equipment, since there’s nothing like raw skill levels or POE support gems. And even if you could, I’m not sure how you’d make various affix tiers matter for that, though this could be worked around by making +oskill affixes exclusively T6/T7.
As for sockets, equipment in LE feels powerful enough with just 4 affixes already. Making it even more powerful doesn’t seem like a good move unless it also comes with significantly harder content.
I feel like equipments being too powerful for content is a balancing issue than anything. That shouldn’t limit itemization which is one of the major core of the game.
Dev just need to dial back down the crazy numbers abit and add socketing that also offer another layer of options (resistance, extra skills, passives, skill mods etc etc…). i am frankly sick of seeing big numbers slapped on gear. When all synergies come together thats what makes a build for me. I mean look back at D2 it really is miles ahead of its time in making builds and items interesting.
Yes, I agree that what can be done with equipment is a separate issue from the game’s difficulty, but I think the interaction between the two shouldn’t be ignored. If either the base numbers on gear are toned down or monster difficulty is toned up, I’ll be all on board with adding in another layer to items. However, if items get that extra layer without any real change to the current difficulty, I think it’d be a bad form of power creep. If players have more power/choice without it being necessary, I find it tends to make my playing experience worse, probably because it becomes less meaningful.
That said, I definitely agree that being able to do things with equipment other than just fiddle with numbers is great. Looking at my experience with playing D&D-type games, my favorite magic items are always ones with oddball effects like “you can smell emotions” or “you can walk through angles”, not just boring old “+5 sword”.
It could create some of the most glorious chain reactions from damage procs that would eventually crash the server…probably not the best for LE but still great fun
Some great ideas OP and I agree it would help to improve the itemisation to include more affixes.
I think many of the class affixes are already a good step in the right direction. Since those are only present on body armour and helmets (and on idols if you count them too), those are only available on a portion of the entire gear.
Similar cool affixes on a more “generic” basis would be cool too.
Also while we speaking about affixes, i really do like when high tier affixes get some little extra, even if it’s just a “numeric improvement in disguise”.
For example the T6/T7 affixes for some of the rogue affixes do “feel” more exciting.
Lethal Mirages T6+ gets +2 instead of +1 extra Mirage.
And the maximum ballista T7 get’s +2 instead of +1 maximum ballista.
This is probably not as exciting as completely new affixes, but still i would like to see more of the T6/T7 affixes being more exciting.
I think the “cool” affixes should come from endgame rewards in limited quantity. Else it may potentially trivialise making OP gears with the deterministic crafting we have.
I suggested bosses should drop unique shards a while back with interesting effects but what this game needs on helm/chest is a free ‘class slot’ that doesnt interfere with suffix/prefixes and you can choose something class related up to T5 craft because currently its too restrictive lose your suffixes on helm/chest
Dont think ive seen an exalted class drop affix and dont think ive even found T7 drop at all and all I mainly do is lvl 100 monoliths
You cant just limit everything to the endgame, you want it spread out with best ones or best number of affixes end game - or direct upgrade of mechanics (say instead of a summon you get group aura buffs, instead of flat damage you get a proc).
As of right now its abit of a turn off to see stats so boring early on in the game, you want to retain players.
Look at how GD is doing it aside from the set issues (which they even attempt to fix with better greens), its probably one of best itemization i’ve came across and theres not much to complain about.
Even POE has some interesting affixes here and there with uniques dashed in.
I overall agree with you all. I’d like to see in Last Epoch affixes that adds levels to certains skills. They could be considered “unique” affixes with only two tiers. They also could add a certain passive node of a skill/character tree to make things interesting.
Definitely agree with this. That (very slim) chance to drop endgame-quality charms from the very start of the Blood Moor all the way to the Throne of Baal was something that made checking drops fun in D2.
LE has a slight touch of that with how crafting shards function the same way regardless of where you get them, but something is lost in the transition from “hey, I got THIS item!” to “hey, I got some shards I can use to improve an item I’ll get 20 hours from now”.
i agree. maybe they could make some “Critical shards” that would make +2 level of any affixe (as critical already function in the crafting process). And make them drop as a certain colour ?
Maybe they could make specific unique items craftable from certain shards combinations and quantity ?
Class skills like teleport available to all classes killed the “can be balanced” aspect in a PvP environment and most of the fun for me in D2. 1.10 sucked
I really do not understand this obsession of some people with ARPG PVP, theres DOTA 2 for that and ARPG were NEVER about pvp focus. Even POE had to design an entire separate battle royal mode to accommodate PVP so much so they might as well made a new game out of it.
It is just impossible to balance and make a good mode out of thousands of gear combos and class builds.
), which people made an entire build out of.
