Loot | Diablo3

What should we do with the loot, Emperor?

Comrade said, equal to all!

I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, The God, declare loot system somewhat broken!

Firstly, an avid reader would do wise to read "Act and game balancing" with attention undivided! But, in short, what is said in there:

A) Acts are not equal between themselves, neither by design quality, nor balance and farming possibilities

B) Arguably, Act I and Act III are best designed ones, with most unique features and best balance

C) Farming capabilities of an Act depends of monster population - more the better, denser the better and monster toughness - less time for killing the better

D) Monster exp is almost equal among the acts (but density is not - and it's the sole reason for Acts III, perhaps IV to be better for exp farming than Act I - for a undergeared characters)

E) Monster density is significantly lower on Acts I and II

The Blue Blues

Indeed. Close to "Unneeded items" section. They cost too little to be worth collecting, they carry less affixes than rares and are usually left lying on the ground. While having this is kinda convenient during levelling process, it becomes a nuisance on Inferno. As discussed in "Acts and game balancing", Acts I and II should have more monsters, drop rate should be LOWER (oh, you mortals, hate the Clavdivs, see if he cares) - basically lowering drop rate and increasing monster number should break somewhat lower than it is now.

In a percentages of cases, instead blue drop, game engine automatically converts blue vendor cost to gold and makes it somewhat useful - "best players" who got their status by exploiting may avoid picking up anything as long as they like, but not everyone can sit whole day and exploit crafting recipe publicly ad infinitum (on that note, The God already stated that blacksmithing is complete nonsense, source of AH imbalance and very bad and unreliable item-sink and that it should be removed entirely. Or redesigned from a scratch. The God said this lot before, but mortals don't listen - look at the AH now - how many items ilvl62? At what price? And how many will be there in a year? Will anyone use blacksmithing THEN? ILL-CONCEIVED! BLASPHEMY! WHICH-CRAFT, HERESY AND MUTATION!) [The God calms down slowly]

Back on The Blues - there are too many at Inferno and they serve nothing.

Solution:

A) Converting at least half to gold directly upon generation

B) Adding a blue-only affixes which cannot spawn on rates (as in diablo II)

The Rares Blues

As proven too many times, there are too many. Too many of the low quality, that is, much of which is caused by Blizzard persistance on full randomness, which supposedly brings... something... to the game. Well, it's been tried, and it doesn't work. The worthless items are piling up, cannot be sold on AH but some people try nevertheless, are converted into resources for blacksmithing which shouldn't exist, or are vendored.

Most irritating thing is that Blizzard opted for I sec identify time (as of current state of 1.05) - The God advocated full removal of any identification at all since before 1.03. Mass identification like diablo II would also serve a purpose, but not as good. The God expects GRADUAL change toward no identification at all, firstly through I second, then I second or mass, and THEN no identification at all. Clavdivs thought the designers goal is to remove all unnecessary, tedious and burdensome things from previous games - not to introduce new ones.

Say battlefields are more populated and more diverse as in article mentioned before. As a corollary, there would be even more rares (and legendaries), more time will be spent on their identification, selling junk at AH, or un-crafting, then crafting, or vendoring. Truly, more drops would get more good items as well, but at the price of clogging the item-sink, AH and generally wasting time.

This, of course, applies to Inferno farming only. The rest is already ruined by AH [The God sighs].

Ok, onto proposed solution:

Proposed solution: [The God giggles]

A) Filter rares drop, as in "The Blue Blues" and convert to money. Do it with bad drops often (never fully), with medium sometimes and never with good. The good drops remains the same. The total drops are lowered, as well as time waste and annoyance. Gold is increased.

"we could move the curve towards better drops... but the results will be the same" - developers, cited from divine memory

Yes. You could do it now. Or you can wait for a year of trash to accumulate, and do it THEN. I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, The God, declare fully random affixes a lost cause. It was worth a spin. Maybe. But it's not any more.

The diversity through items or "The Legendary Blues"

As all skills are available in all flavours, there is basically no replayability value in game - except perhaps with a gender change. Simple visit to AH is needed, and chief difference between 'old' and 'new' build will be either modest change of primary/vitality ratio or one or two items change.

Now, some items have skill enhancers (some are good, some not so). This is good start, but needs moreof customization possibilities. And balances - what will +III% lighting damage do? Well, apart from +I% (sometimes II%) in total dps, not much - sorry, Tal Rasha... On the other hand +X% AND -X% resource cost transform a lesser used skill to a formidable one - applying not only to skills alone - individual runes can be buffed by same principle. Consider this when balancing - it would be fun having build made with chosen items who can develop into unique gameplay style.

The Legendaries are especially good for starting one of those builds. Legendaries traditionally carries affixes not normally present on items and therefore have initial buff, which is then increased further by standard buffs. Set items (one or few combined) can do the same, even hold a whole group of skill/rune enhancing affixes.

Going a bit further, a Legendary (or Set) can carry a valuable asset, like a passive (belonging to a corresponding class (Prodigy - Wizard only), or any (Bloodthirst - usable by all).

Doesn't this mean just another shopping tour through AH? Sadly, yes. But what a tour it would be! Full aisles, huge amount of cash spent, different feeling of game afterwards (for a while, at least - or even for a long period - a certain, wisely chosen passive could make class feels entirely different)

What is important? Well, Legendaries/Sets shouldn't grow on trees no more! I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, The God, am not afraid to say so! Yes, The God played diablo II and found numerous uniques - Shako is usually put as example of how uniques could be found in dII - The God found several, in fact. The question is WHEN and HOW?

Oh, it was about a month after expansion got out, The God was walking happily over Den of Evil (Act I) with mf 0%, killed a skelleton and THERE! A SHAKO! The Ist rune (+mf%, kinda rare) was on next one and there!

I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, The God, DECLARE ANYONE WHO BELIEVED IN STORY ABOVE A FOOL! It was actually after about two years of farming, with strictly MF-sorceress (over 600% mf) made for single player - yes, pretty hard to play, you should try it, The God doesn't remember where, but it doesn't matter.

[in whiney voice] "i play this game for a 600h and i never found any legendary with mf 0%, Blizzard you suck, i quit" [normal voice] QUIT. Weakling! Seriously, do it. Legendary drop is high enough already, probably too high. And you HAVE FOUND a Legendary, liar. It was just a weak one, so you don't count it, right?

[in whiney voice] "but i have mf 300%, i bought mf items in a store, Blizzard you suck, i quit" [normal voice] QUIT. Weakling! Do you know how The God accumulated 600% mf? FOUND every item. Every one. In SP, no trade whatsoever. Over years. Improving build gradually to be able to farm efficiently. Item by item. Could The God make Baal runs regularly at beginning? NO! Did The God found best swap gear combination? After X years? NO! YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE EVERYTHING AT DISPOSAL AT YOUR WILL, DEAL WITH IT!

Another matter is that most legendaries aren't good enough - which can be fixed easily.

Proposed solution:

A) Put more of skill/rune promoting affixes, preferably well-thought ones - not like Hydra cost decrease - spell cost 15 arcane, cannot be spammed - WHY, OH, WHY? [Zero-thought idea emerges again in divine mind]

B) Are the Legendary drops ruled by different probability? If not, they SHOULD be. Game-changing ones should be rare, REALLY rare, and not readily available on AH (RMAH is, again, different). Anyway, player shouldn't be able to have one just because he wants to - and rarity of drops is only sure way to do it

Soon to come Blues

As time demands, there is no time for this now! An invasion!

Proposed solution:

A) There will be one. The God will address each question as the time comes!