What makes the item system so bad?

[Archon_Wing]

1.) Items are objectively better than others. There's nothing wrong with that, but in general, once you gain a few levels, it's quite feasible to find stuff that completely outclasses your old gear. Level 51 gear is frequently way better than 48s, and the result is that there's really no attachment to items.

2.) Same reason why rares were not the best items in Diablo 2 Expansion. In order for a rare to even think of competing with a good unique or runeword or against set bonuses, a rare had to roll practically perfectly. A weapon would need to roll high enhanced damage and +damage modifiers. With so many affixes available, that proved to be near impossible.

However, in Diablo 2, gear was just something to make the game easier for you. in Diablo 3, gear greatly determines your effectiveness. So basically good isn't frequently good enough.

In Diablo 3, 6 affixes give too little leeway, considering the mods that NEED to be rolled on an item. A helm without a socket is significantly worse than a helm without. Boots without movement speed are significantly worse items, and movement speed is merely a single trait that MUST be rolled. How hard is that? Very.

For example, Look at my shield. It's not the best shield in the world, but it provides me with decent resists and gold find, and nice block as well. I am a monk so 2 slots are already naturally used to provide resistances. It's the only way to survive late inferno and itemization sucks especially hard for a monk with some extra gold to spend because the things they are looking for have even tighter requirements.



So, what can I do to upgrade on this, if I want more gold find, or just a better shield with similar stats? Bigger numbers is one, but that's why the itemization sucks. The strength is the most useless trait here. So I can swap one trait at most and that would mean a little less armor. What if I want +blocking and crit chance? Whoops. Gold find has gotta to go. It can't coexist. And even if the shield has the dream traits, if there's only 10% blocking, it's not going to get bought.

Legendaries pre 1.04 suffered from a similar issue. Not enough affixes, and the affixes that were on weren't as great enough. The nature of the randomness of rares, plus the traits demanded to survive in Inferno demand perfection to such a degree that 6 affixes just can't hold all of that unless one gets really lucky.

Ultimately, upgrading just means seeking a duplicate of your item with somewhat bigger numbers.

3.) No ilvl 63 crafting. Having the crafting system be a stopgap was just not a good idea. It goes hand and hand with the hell endgame concept where many people just got ignored. All viable options must lead to the possibility of endgame gear. If yellow crafting provided unique traits instead of just giving us more boring stats, then it would add another layer to getting items. Furthermore, all the costs are just better off used on the Auction House. Removing the Auction House does not remove the problem since itemization would be even crappier, since you'd be forced to bartering, and as anyone who's played D2 online too much, knows, that is not that great of an idea. Trade scams ahoy, and the general shadiness of the people that frequent these areas.

It's a tad bit ironic that nerfing inferno actually makes the issue worse as the small benefits of upgrading seem even less important. A lot of people I've met don't give a damn about "Progression" or beating inferno. They'd stay in hell mode for all they care, if they just could farm interesting loot all day. Though Paragon Levels are a nice balance to the situation. By increasing the base stats over time, the importance of items goes down slightly more so and thus less frustration from not having great gear.

IMO, charms (though of a limited variety, maybe only carry a few) would make things a bit more fun. They can cover deficiencies in gear. Runewords, however, I actually don't miss, given the inane drop rate of that.

4. Set items aren't unique enough and have no identity. The bonuses are fairly boring, and when I refer to identity, I'm thinking of Sigons and Angelic as twink sets, or Trangoul which turns the Necromancer into something rather different. Items need to sparkle more so people can stand out, basically.

5. Cheating. Bots and other exploits have flooded the economy with items, and thus making legit items look worse, much like in D2, and increasing people's standards for items. As I've also stated before, this creates the false illusion that D2 dropped really good items, but it really didn't. Rares were poor but uniques were more feasible and interesting to make up for this. If left unchecked, all items will be like D2 value = not worth toilet paper. Unfortunately, stopping bots is difficult.

6. Gems. In places like helms and weapons they do cool stuff, but otherwise they are also extremely boring. The benefits from spending a fortune to upgrade your gems a tier or two is small for the most part. Allowing gems to be used as crafting materials for some recipes would make them of more creative use. As is, there's no gem sink-- you only need so many gems since they are never destroyed.