Like its last post on Elective Mode, the Diablo 4 development team revealed potential changes to the way the series handles items. A new blog post from lead systems designer David Kim touches on item affixes, stats, and the removal of the super powerful Ancient Legendaries.
Blizzard will add new affixes to items in Diablo 4. These affixes upgrade skills you already have or increase your damage resistance to a particular element. However, you’ll need to hit certain thresholds of three new stats to activate these affixes: Ancestral, Angelic, and Demonic Power.
Each of these new stats focuses on a different type of in-game buff. Ancestral Power increases the chance of on-hit effects (also known as proc chance), Angelic Power increases the duration of beneficial effects like buffs or healing, and Demonic Power increases the duration of negative effects like debuffs or damage over time. Without meeting a specific threshold of each of these stats, certain item affixes won’t activate.
For example, Blizzard showed off an amulet called the Fiery Amulet of Malice. It has a 15% critical strike chance and three affixes. There’s a 10% chance to land a Crushing Blow, only active when the wearer has 55 or more Ancestral Power. The other affixes aren’t active in the example tooltip, because the wearer doesn’t have the requisite 55 or 60 Demonic Power.
The goal of this major change is to give players more agency in how they build their characters. A new item isn’t just a stat stick designed to increase your power. Instead, each new item presents you with choice. If you upgrade for stats, you may lose some Demonic Power, and therefore an affix that really makes your build sing.
This plays into another major change for the franchise. Attack and defense stats are now only on related items. If you want to increase your attack, you’ll need to change out your weapons. If you’re looking to bolster your defense, you need to find better armor.
This removes some of the frustration from Diablo 3 of finding a great new sword that makes your hero far too easy to kill. But Blizzard clearly states in the post that only picking items based on stats won’t be the optimal way to play. However, it’s still a viable choice for players who don’t want to fuss with all the stats and affixes.
The studio also declares that items are only a piece of the puzzle for Diablo heroes. If you want to truly increase your power, you’ll need to upgrade your skill ranks, character level, talent trees, the end game progression system, and the items you wear. Power comes from everywhere in Diablo 4, a key difference from Diablo 3.
Finally, the studio revealed that it’s removing Ancient Legendaries from the game. Ancients used to be very rare, super powerful versions of Legendary items. Instead, there’s a new, yet unnamed consumable item to customize late-game builds. This new item will drop from destroyed enemies with a random Legendary power attached. Players can then attach the Legendary power to any non-Legendary item.
The goal here is to create more unique builds for players. According to Blizzard, the best Rare items in the game are still useful in the end-game. It seems that players can make items even more powerful than basic Legendaries with this new system, but with more choice than the previous Ancient system allowed.
In the post, Blizzard clearly indicates that all of these changes are very early, and might not even make it into the finished game. The studio is still looking for feedback on these changes, and will update players on further in-development features soon.
Comments
I miss my Diablo 1/2(?) Awesome Rags of the Ages. My friend and I still joke about finding that item.
By atari_zero on 12.03.19 2:43pm
I hope they remove some of the more "videogame" aspects of it that made Diablo III feel more like an arcade game than an RPG, stuff like enemies dropping health pick ups instead of potions (I’m predicting they’ll do an Estus flask-like system) and damage power up, that you got multiplier bonuses for using traps. Maybe it makes for a more streamlined game when you take out the nitty gritty stuff like that but you definitely lose something in the process.
By electric_sheep on 12.03.19 3:07pm
Why did you find monsters dropping health orbs more "video gamey" than monsters dropping health potions? I loved the idea behind the health orbs, even if the game was never properly balanced around them imo.
By yovargas on 12.03.19 4:49pm
I’m with you on this one.
I suspect that arcade-like play is in modern D3 because they had to work with the systems that existed in vanilla D3. Eventually I guess the designers decided the only way to make D3 fun after release is to turn it into a loot slot machine, so the gameplay is now optimized around that.
As for D4, these new design decisions mean items are not the only answer, which may free designers from having to make another loot slot machine. I’m a bit concerned because the animations still look arcade-like but if roleplaying is one of their core design pillars this time around, it should shake out in the end.
By Noper on 12.03.19 5:02pm
Considering Blizzard’s track record over the last decade or so, I’m not going to hold out hope that their itemization systems will be good at release. Or that they will stick. All they can really hold claim outside of their classic titles are a litany of trainwreck systems that were begrudgingly reassembled after vocal backlash and disappointment. They haven’t had their finger on the pulse of what makes loot mechanics good for almost thirteen years.
It took a rebuild of Diablo 3 for them to right that ship. And with each WoW expansion after TBC, a large, large patch.
By trashmyego on 12.03.19 4:57pm
Forget listening to feedback from fans. If they listen to the whiny ass vocal minority they’ll want them to make it just like Diablo 2. Which we all already have and can still play if we feel like it.
By Kahless on 12.04.19 12:16pm