Summary
While the early launch experience ofDiablo 4was considered an incredible success in many regards, public opinion and general consensus shifted toward a more negative perception once the game’s first season launched in July. This is mostly due to the fact that the game received unpopular patches where every class saw its best abilities, talents, and items being nerfed a bit too hard, but the seasonal loop didn’t really help the case due to how limited the scope of Season of the Malignant inDiablo 4truly is. Season 2 and future updates should be aimed at winning players back and restoring morale within the community, and Blizzard could start by fixing itemization in one of two ways.
WhileDiablo 4is not perfect, it is a good iteration of the franchise’s staples and all the most valuable ARPG features. However, it is also suffering from many problematic aspects of the gameplay loop, such as the new approach to level scaling inDiablo 4making Malignant Tunnels obsolete by level 60 despite them being the new seasonal activity. Arguably one of the biggest issues with the game in its current state is itemization, with a popular request from the playerbase to makeuber-rareDiablo 4uniquesmore easily attainable, but another aspect of it might be more in need of attention.
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Diablo 4 Should Lower Gold Costs for Rerolling Affixes or Reduce the Affix Pool
As it stands, obtaining the perfect items for a character is a rather long process with no guarantees.Diablo 4’s leveling experiencecan already be quite tedious and grindy, with it being mostly limited to the same set of activities, like Helltides and Nightmare Dungeons, so it can feel like a chore to also have to find items with stats that perfectly match a given build - even if that is part of the nature of ARPGs.
The main problem with itemization is that at high levels players will have to spend incredible amounts of in-game gold in order to reroll a single stat on an item. While the fact that this can be done is good both because it provides a so-called “gold sink” and it allows players to have some form of agency over their loot, the cost of the whole process can be quite steep and still provide no guarantees.Gold inDiablo 4is not exactly easy to farm in amounts that mirror the demand in the endgame, either, which is a problem for many other reasons.
However, Blizzard has the option to reduce the very steep prices of rerolling affixes andcrafting Aspects inDiablo 4via the Occultist, both of which are essential parts of any builds. Reducing the cost of rerolling affixes would be important for the in-game economy due to the incredible cost of the process when one does it multiple times for multiple items, essentially draining gold at a faster rate than one can possibly make it. Similarly, crafting Aspects onto items can be extremely costly, and realistically it’s something that every build will need at some point.
The other option Blizzard has to help with itemization would be to reduce the number of affixes available on a given item. This would make it so it’s more likely to get good items to drop, and it would be easier still to reroll them with the correct stats - or at least decent ones that wouldn’t be a downgrade.Diablo 4’s Legendary itemsare a good example of this, as they can either drop with a good Aspect to salvage or with good base stats for players to imprint another Aspect. As such, reducing the affix pool would make it easier - and thus less costly - for players to obtain items that fit their builds.
Diablo 4is out now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
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