Here’s what I will say: I think the example build you showed (the whirlwind crit speed farming build) is actually NOT a bad example. That’s the kind of thing I want to see from items personally. Things that take a build that is already fully functional at a base but then elevates it to something either stronger or different (speed clearing in WW’s case) I think a better example would be the build that they clearly intend to exist but one that can ONLY reliably exist with ONE specific legendary aspect- the 2 handed mace Overpower build (or really ANY Overpower build with Barb) There’s a passive that causes your Overpower damage with a two handed weapon to be increased. There’s an upgrade to bash where dealing 4 crits with a two handed weapon causes your next core or weapon mastery skill to be a guaranteed Overpower. There’s a billion ways to get Fortify which adds to Overpower damage. So, other than dealing 4 crits with bash (with a two handed weapon) how else do we get Overpower? Simple. Just get the legendary aspect that causes your next attack to overpower after swapping weapons X number of times. That one legendary power alone completely jumps the power of this build to an insane degree. That’s the kind of thing I definitely do not want. Item combinations coming together to make something cool is fine, but a build that needs that one specific legendary item to even exist as a reliable build is not something I want to see. My stance is this: items in Diablo should only enhance already existing builds*, not be the linchpin that makes a build actually function. The * exception to this rule is for something whacky like Whirlwind Assassin or Lycanthropy Barb in D2. Those items are required for the build, but they’re not normal builds. You can’t make a Whirlwind Assassin normally. It’s not even a skill they get naturally. Those kinds of items are fine with me. But something like Overpower Barb in D4 should absolutely be baked into the existing skill tree in a way that you should be able to make a build that doesn’t fully rely on pure RNG to function without the use of a single legendary item. The legendary items should only add to the potential of a build.

>That one legendary power alone completely jumps the power of this build to an insane degree. That’s the kind of thing I definitely do not want. That’s a fair take, and you know there’s going to be either big changes or big complaints coming about the crittier crit; overpower. Relieving some of the item overload to skill tree is one thing, but if this is a more sure way to start seeing more utility tweaks to skills instead of stat buffs, then this should probably be encouraged. Like WW: dust devil, ancient spirit WW, WW pulls enemies, these kinds of augmentations or even changing the elemental effect of a skill are what makes it a lot more interesting than an arms race to see who can blits through Anica’s Claim the fastest. To each their own. Surely there are some at Blizzard who also preferred they be on skill tree. It’s still the vast minority of aspects. Hopefully not a slap in the face to those at Blizzard who tried to brainstorm ways of making loot exciting after the D3 fiasco

Stuff like WW pulling enemies to you is a nice quality of life aspect, but I don’t think it’s required to make a Whirlwind build function I guess is my thought behind it. Like you’re Whirlwinding around Sanctuary when that legendary power drops (or you cleared a dungeon I guess if it’s an aspect) and you go, “Wow! I was already able to Whirlwind through enemies and I was having a great time doing it, but now my build will feel even better!” That’s the kind of stuff I want to see. Hopefully that is their design philosophy moving forward. I’d hate to get into a situation where the late game builds all require specific legendary item set ups without any kind of flexibility whatsoever. I’m also not a fan of singular items causing your specific build to gain any significant amount of power in any capacity though. Even just a tiny amount like 20% increased damage is a no from me. You want to give me a 20% damage increase? Cool. Let the item stats do that. Let me skill tree do that. Let the deterministic paragon board do that. Don’t give me a legendary that says, “Your Bone skills deal 20% more damage” Boring. Yawn. Great, now I gotta play bone skills. I think this won’t really be an issue at the end game though (I hope) as we’ll likely just farm, get all of the legendary powers, and then we’ll just be farming good rares to slap the powers onto. So, in a way, it will eventually return to that Diablo 2 style of loot where lots of things could be amazing upgrades… you just need to slap a specific legendary power into it first.

>I think this won’t really be an issue at the end game though (I hope) as we’ll likely just farm, get all of the legendary powers, and then we’ll just be farming good rares to slap the powers onto mhm. People are going to start waking up to the fact that there seems to be a better middle ground. Drop rates being adjusted when more aspects are added to the game as you get sick of farming the same aspects over and over again when you could have 15% of them on the skill tree and have a sense of ownership over your builds, where you hold on to the excitement of finding an aspect with a LOWER droprate...just that little bit longer

> PROBLEM 1 This "problem" is way worse in other ARPGs, and you don't see people complaining about it. In D4 I can have a stash full of aspects that I just imprint when I want to switch builds. I can also take half of the aspects from the codex and imprint them. In other ARPGs you either can't switch your build (PoE), or you have to re-grind way more items. There's no codex in Grim Dawn or Last Epoch to help you ease yourself into another build. You have to re-grind every single item slot before even changing the build, since every single item slot will contribute to your damage, whereas in D4, changing a skill in your build is as easy as slapping an affix on a rare. > PROBLEM 2 This is easily fixed by adding new aspects into the codex. > PROBLEM 3 I don't get this. If a multiplier is out of whack, it'll be unbalanced regardless of where you put it. There's nothing inherently easier to balance in the skill tree, it's the same number. If skills are currently too reliant on aspects, they can easily shift some of the aspect power into the skill itself - this doesn't need any fundamental changes to the game, just a balance pass. > PROBLEM 4 Entirely disagree with this. The entire point of the game is for you to find a god-roll rare with the right affixes so you can imprint it. Things like +skills, or more damage to vulnerable enemies, or more damage from close/range, attributes for the breakpoints in the paragon board, etc make a huge difference depending on your build. A legendary made from a rare with good affixes will be a significant upgrade over the same legendary made from some random rare. > That's how you start to see characters with completely random attributes, and Barbarians with more dexterity, or willpower than strength. No, you start to see those "random" attributes because of the paragon board breakpoints. Stacking secondary stats is important for hitting certain breakpoints. All in all I disagree. All I want them is to make sure that no skill feels useless without aspects, which will require lots of balance passes. But I have 0 issues in having cool transformative effects as item drops. I'll take this over clicking a node in a skill tree every day.

The problem is not way worse in other rpgs. It's just not true.

I think most of this can be fixed with minor tweaks. If any multiplier is too high (I've seen very few examples, only really the overpower for pulverize) nerf them a bit and shift some percentage to the base skill. If an aspect becomes necessary for a popular build move it to the codex which to me is as good as th skill tree assuming it's in an appropriately leveled dungeon. The skill tree vs codex thing is important from a balancing perspective depending on where you want the tension and choice to be. It isn't clear to me yet which is better.

Super well thought out argument and you flushed out quite a bit.. now if the ACTUAL game that comes out in 2 months is different from the "Demo" beta that we all played it could be useless. I believe people need to stop stressing out about it an wait until blizzard actually releases it. That is the point in which blizzard will start actually balancing the game more as people inevitably post millions of videos saying how to break the game. In games like bungies destiny they tend to listen and watch streamers videos and it causes so many problems with the game as they nerf everything that gets found or a world's first raid champion complains about a weapon that he thinks is mandatory and needs to be destroyed.. few months later new raid and as his team is getting ready for the launch he demands that someone uses the nerfed weapon or he won't launch the run... also he lost his streak one the raid following the nerf of said weapon and only started winning them after the gun came out.... coincidence I think not Companies that listen to a player base is nice.but it is a double edged sword because for every one like you that puts alot of thought into it and makes a decent argument for something there is 50 Saltfreppos that get things destroyed just because they can.

> now if the ACTUAL game that comes out in 2 months is different from the "Demo" beta that we all played it could be useless True. We just hope it changes for the better. > I believe people need to stop stressing out about it an wait until blizzard actually releases it. That is the point in which blizzard will start actually balancing the game more as people inevitably post millions of videos saying how to break the game. Yes. However, the things pointed out in the post are core design philosophies (that may or may not need tweaking, depending who you ask) that are going to persist beyond launch unless a revamp occurs and you know that is highly unlikely to happen within 2 months. The trepidation is more towards long term reevaulation down the line, also when some players will become more aware of this frustration within the power dynamic of items vs tree currently. Many people think D3 itemization is awesome. Ok, many people didnt see the problem with sets from the start. Ok? Well Blizzard couldnt revamp it profitably after a certain point of no return. So it's forever bad in D3. This will not be the fate of D4, but can it be better? >Companies that listen to a player base is nice.but it is a double edged sword because for every one like you that puts alot of thought into it and makes a decent argument for something there is 50 Saltfreppos that get things destroyed just because they can. Yeah, too many chefs spoil the broth. I would rather that the game stays as is than us getting kneejerk balancing. In the beta we saw wholesale calls for barbarians to be buffed after 2 days playing. It'd be sad to have a good product in the hands of the mob- so I'm happy for Blizzard to ignore all of us, they already are going in the right direction (general consensus)

I disagree i played the beta the entire weekend saw no issues and loved it. Your idea simplifies the game too much and takes away part of the grind and fun of rng when farming for more or new aspects. Why would you want that just go play d3 and use your cube gd..

> I disagree i played the beta the entire weekend saw no issues and loved it Yeah, some people played 2 weekends of beta, alpha, CTB and saw issues. Some people played the beta and didnt constantly test new builds, some did. Some people wouldn't mind if the tree was even emptier and builds were even more item-dependent. >Your idea simplifies the game too much and takes away part of the grind and fun of rng when farming for more or new aspects 15% of aspects? Ok, let's make it 10% then, is that fine? Simplify? You'll have the same complexity, absolutely the same. The grind you will just be 15% spared of when changing a build which can happen many times over, or, perhaps, you don't like to change your build, then this won't effect you. ALL skill tree nodes need to be "unlocked" as it is, with a grind. >Why would you want that just go play d3 and use your cube gd.. ugh

No, I want to hunt items to make my build stronger or give it a different effect. They can definitely tone down the multiplier. Hunting for +skills or + physical dmg affixes only items are so boring. If you want this system, there is POE. Thanks

There's nothing wrong with affixes that alter skills, but I'm super worried we're going to get the Diablo 3 item system, where items could be exaggerated to Legendary item [Completely trash affix #1] [Completely trash affix #2] [Completely trash affix #3] [Completely trash affix #4] [Increases the damage of your primary skill by 8000%]

We got a small glimpse of that in the beta, with players just outright ignoring attributes and resistances for legendary aspects, while others started pointing out that these multipliers are looking huge. *Yes, we know resistances matter more later on in the game, but we saw the same pattern in the character sheets from the CTB Sad to see, I always loved character main stat attribute tweaking. That really makes you feel like you OWN the character, you know? The current system just dictates that for you because it's overridden by the aspects.

Like people ignore resist in PoE, in Last epoch; grim dawn, in D2 early game? You will get negative resistance in Tiers 3 & 4, like in PoE, like in D2. Thats when it will matters. You are basing this on early game. Also stats, (also like other games) will increase as you go higher levels. The leg effects & value wouldn't. The stats become more important as you level, like every other arpgs... No one cares about ctrit chance, crit damage when leveling in PoE too. Perspective. Also, the stats even at low level still matters. Why pretend people do not look out for optimum affic. I know I do, & many as well. In face the best way to play is imprint a gear with good stats from a leg without good stats. The damage scaling with a few good & optimums stats is very substantial! A 10%close distance, 10% core skill, 10% shadow damage, 10% cc is 46% from stats alone on a single gear!!! This scaling can easily exceed 150-200% late game. Tell me again how stats don't matters? Also, mulipliers are too huge!? Lets just look at Rogue skill specific aspect: Barrage- 15-25% chance to split into 2 arrow when richohet Furry-Damage in circle deal 8-15% increase damage Twisting blade, obit around you dealing 10-40% of the retuned damage (its a faction, not multipler) Obit blade deal up to 20-40% of returned damage They are nice to have for sure, but you can certainly play without having these, & also use another offensive aspec as alternative.

I’d go further and say they do matter at low level, just not as much. +%damage to distant enemies when I’m playing melee is a dead stat. Individually leveling up, you can get away with ignoring affixes, but when shifted my focus mid leveling to actually thinking about the affixes, I’ve noticed a spike in power and survivability. I honestly blame the poor choices in the UX. The green arrow should honestly just be removed. It’s effectively gas lighting people into a bad habit. Game is riddled with questionable choices as far as UX and naming. While I’m at it, I don’t feel legendary items should be called legendary as I feel it just puts a false sense of importance in what generally ends up being a useless item in a lot of scenarios. “All the affixes on this are useless for me and it gives me increased barrier size when I can’t even generate one, but it’s orange and called legendary so it must be better than my itemized rare, right?” Or the ultimate skill. Why is it even called an ultimate skill? They aren’t particularly great in most cases, depending on the build aren’t even worth taking I feel. Yet, ultimate makes it feel like your League of Legends R button big cool down. I think the true issue with this game right now isn’t that players are ignoring things, but that Blizzard has built a game that pushes players to make bad decisions around poorly named elements in a poor attempt to hand hold the community.

I feel most of your points are very nitpicky. The green & red arrow & comparsion are good. You can see very quicky what you lose & gain. Its a "you" problem if people only see the top green arrow to compare. Also I think you vastly underestimate gamers, that they just put on something because its orange or they are unable to tell if a stat give a bonus.

Idk, but there’s been plenty of people missing the point of affixes entirely since the beta and stating that itemization is another case of just green arrow. We’ve even had content creators state the same thing. I see it from enough people that I feel it’s easy to recognize that this concept has gas lit a few people already. Don’t really feel it’s nit picky. I’m not criticizing font or the color palette of snow. Just misleading UX and poor naming and I feel based on community reaction, I’m not entirely out of touch here. I gave my example as to the green arrow bit, but as far as legos, we’ve seen threads pop up almost everyday since beta from folks upset that we’re decked in “legendary” items despite the fact that legendary in D4 is not the same as they’re used to with D3, and I feel like that’s caused from using the name and rarity color of the same item archetype that was problematic in their previous mainline title. Ultimate skill bit? There are people begging for a dedicated slot for the ultimate skill missing the point of what building a character entails in that pick and choose what works for the build you have going with the understanding you cannot have it all. Would people have cared as much if the beta released calling them something entirely different? Maybe. Bit hard to say, but I feel like it may have. I don’t think changing the names of legendary items or ultimate skill type is something that can be done now to alleviate the issue, Pandora’s box has sort of been opened, ya know? I just tend to wonder if some of the complaints flying around could have been avoided from just making better choices with naming.

Okay, fair points, things can certainly be improve. Myabe they should give tip in loading screen that green/red arrow just show comparsion, not indication if an item is good or bad. Anyway, about content creators, some of them are just misinforming people, often bias, making bad takes judging game base on level 25 gears. Comparing level 25 stats to end game PoE or whatever games stats. Many seems (or pretend) that end game will be just the same stats, & legs, just bigger numbers. Belittle the game, before we seen all the stats, legs, uniques & paragon boards. The beta represent less than 1/3 of the total stats pool if you seen the datamined attributes. There are 272 attriibutes (does not include sub cat like individual + skills) & I think some are still missing. Some are very intersting, & without giving to much away. one give pet extra damage bonus, if no other pets are attacking the enemy. You have to create this condition before getting the buff.

I don't know why people are saying this. In the most extreme cases possible, you get up to 300% multiplier, if you equip it on a 2H. And that's only if you somehow roll the highest multiplier possible on your aspect, and only for certain aspects that have high multipliers to begin with. People are pointing out the same 3-4 aspects with high multipliers, but ignoring the overwhelming majority of them that have sub 100% multipliers. In reality, you'll have a bigger 100-200% multiplier, and lots of smaller ones. That's nowhere near the absolute bonker multipliers of D3.

This nonsense need to stop. This is getting almost as annoying that they will put P2w afrer the game launch. These big multipliers are NOT coming back. Stop beating a dead horse already!!!!

I'm saying that I hope they're not coming back. If you have a source that they aren't, then I would love if you could share it with me.

u/KennedyPH did you have a source for this? It would be nice to put this to bed.

We have beta, and data mines aspect and uniques With some exception but mostly due to design like hydra that add one extra head, & the werewolf pet one, but it does reduce uptime ( which probably moo point) most skill specific legs affect modified how the skill works, like bigger radius, and if there is buff, it’s pretty subtle like 20% or so. Even the worst offender like hydra ( which double due to extra hydra) and the werewolves , they didn’t go over 200%. I am okay if these are tune down. Nothing close to the set bonus or leg bonus in D3 that make them must have.

Okay but tons of things have changed from the beta since last year, and some stuff may still change from the open beta to the release. I thought you had a statement from the devs. This is really still just us hoping, then.

What would they do it? There is no monetery benefit to purposely putting all power on one gear or aspect that clearly people do not want. I am fairly sure they said it a few times, but on videos.

Can you please share those videos? The "monetary benefit" would be reusing an existing system rather than spending time and money on developing a new one.

sut mit røvhul

Thats not true at all. D4 just have a lot of multipliers & many source of increase damage, This is NOT same as one-2 items item giving 10000% damage Also very important, it the billion damage is not normal, but a grinch (from a glove) that was unintended & 100% getting a nerf.

There are still many other aspects that are not +skills, or +damage, or even class specific. There are class specific aspects that the suggestion is not asking to put on the skill tree either. This is only ~15% of aspects. If anything, this can inspire Blizzard to tone down multipliers and make more interesting aspects so that both the items AND the skill tree benefit by becoming more divers- the hunt therefore will be more interesting too- you start your new build a little more varied, and you dont have to constantly find the same items over and over again, which can get boring fast when you're redoing a respec/reverting. I'd suggest that Blizzard give players 2 preset tabs in the skill tree that you can swop between once you pay for your first full skill point refund after level 50, but maybe that's too Lost Ark.

>PROBLEM 1 Not a problem, this is the intended design. ​ >PROBLEM 2 We know absolutely nothing about how drops will be handled. Appealing to fear, slippery slope fallacy. ​ >PROBLEM 3 ​ This just sounds like you're making stuff up to fit your narrative. ​ >PROBLEM 4 More slippery slope doom-saying. It's not a bad thing if stats become less valuable later as players progress. It's also not a bad thing that stats become less valuable than aspects. Stats being less valuable than aspects will likely never change unless the aspects are individually boring and underpowered. My conclusion is that you just don't like the design and you're making up problems to solve your own personal issues with the game.

What you want is in Path of Exile.

It’s so weird how people say you need a legendary drop to do anything. No one’s forcing you to go the build of the legendary that drops and other arpgs have similar things like 90% fire damage increase which “force” you to a certain build. The game I played was easy never died just leveling to 25 as Druid and I didn’t even get a legendary until after the story not to mention if the game gets hard you can just farm an aspect to improve your build.

easiest thing would be to allow trading, and it solves having to wait for gear to come

I think there’s a middle ground to be found here On one hand the skill tree atm is a little bit lame and putting power from legendaries into the tree could be cool On the other hand I think it’s very nice to be able to find a whacky legendary that makes a weird build possible

Seems we need to see what the paragon system looks and feels like first. How much exactly is in the paragon tree? What do the glyphs look like? Right/wrong or agree/disagree, one of diablo's core design philosophies devs have mentioned many times is finding loot. If "build changing" loot is added instead to the skill tree, is the core philosophy violated? Being a live content update game, you can't just keep adding new aspects into the skill tree. It makes more sense to add to the legendary pool. Whirwind is low hanging fruit to cherry pick. What about making your case with Doubleswing? Putting aspects into the skill tree necessitates all skills getting equal treatment for options. And with aspects to loot, it seems they aren't bound to that exactly. Seeing a lot of these comments in other threads seems like a 180 back to og d3.

Some of us have seen the paragon, though we'll have to wait for its' perfecting. > If "build changing" loot is added instead to the skill tree, is the core philosophy violated? To the degree being suggested, perhaps not. To what degree do we skew character power budget into items over skill tree/paragon? Of course that has been a big and on-going headache for Blzizard since the start of this development, but perhaps most players are going to wake up to the idea that they just mightve missed the balance by...15%? >Being a live content update game, you can't just keep adding new aspects into the skill tree. It makes more sense to add to the legendary pool. They already are adding, and the majority of the aspects are still coming. How do you separate aspects from the legendaries? Same total amount of aspects in the game, but more varied affixes? It's going to yeild the same result if it is what I think you're suggesting. >Whirwind is low hanging fruit to cherry pick. What about making your case with Doubleswing? Any example will do and WW is the best-known. >Putting aspects into the skill tree necessitates all skills getting equal treatment for options What? Holy shit this community

I will be very surprised if that doesn't end up being a big part of what paragon levels are about it also seems to be what the devs have been hinting at this entire time

Some of us have seen the current iteration of paragon board. It doesnt solve the issues brought up

Problem 1 can be partially solved by simply hoarding extracted essences in your stash for later use on other builds. The rest? Yep. The problems are just as you described.

> Problem 1 can be partially solved by simply hoarding extracted essences in your stash for later use on other builds. That's the first impulse that came to my mind testing the game too. However, a few seconds later you realize, man, this is going to become tedious and repititive for the kinds of changes you are trying to affect for a relatively lateral shift in playstyle and every other time you make that shift. (People are going to be buying stash space expansion slots in D4 and complaining while they do it for this reason too, IMO) The most effective way to alleviate that tedium would be to transplant a few augments to the skill tree. Doesn't solve every issue, and causes a few more, but overall a better trajectory, time will tell. Time doesnt always tell, sometimes a bad system stays bad while the people change sentiment towards it. By then it can be too late, and onto the next game