33 replies to this topic

[Indimix]

Which is, a loot based game, is that the worst part of the game experience, comes when you have to identify all those rares you have in your inventory.

How is, that the most annoying, boring, almost depressing part of a loot based game.. happens to be the very same item identification process?.

I'm not talking about the time it takes, I don't care about it, but how itemization works, it makes extremely depressing to have to go through the identification process, you just see one useless item after another. Item specific class rolling non item specific stats.. 1k DPS 1 hand weapons rolling stupid stats.. or not having the required stats to be "competitive".

When the major aspect of a loot based game becomes the worse part of it.. something is just not ok.

I know, this is not new, I'm not saying anything almost everyone don't know, and I think that I'm far past the point of making threads to complain about something, like most of us do.

But.. seriously, the gameplay is overall good, killing stuff is fun, the builds are somewhat fun too (balance is still required thou) but when it comes to identify an inventory full of rares... sigh, It just makes me want to quit the game for good.

Something must be done, the situation has to change.

There are several alternatives to improve this game's itemization system, but I don't think Actiblizzard is going to hear any of them just because they could go against their need to maximize profits.

I would end this post with a "discuss" but.. not sure if there is a point anymore.

[Coho]

its cuz cain is dead, so now all our loot sucks

[BlacKcuD]

Revive Decard Cain already! He can do that for you!

And for your actual problem: there are more item classes and more item affixes and more legendaries than in D2 which makes for a load of more useless items. Add to that that most people never actually played D2 or if they did they didn´t do MF runs in a large quantity.
So for you newer guys out there: it was pretty normal that in a boss run where you kill most act bosses and some other special npcs to leave a lot of items right on the ground. For a 20 minute mf run game (with the fastest possible char and insane mf gear) it was the regular case to leave a whole boss drop on the ground consisting of mainly only unique ( = legendaries) and rare items.

These two things combined lead to the problem you have described. One solution I could think of would be to allow/require/disallow some affix combinations or make them more frequent. For example: increase the chance weapons have sockets or reduce the chance to find off-class items (Finding Mighty Belts when playing WD).

[ruksak]

Indimix, on 25 November 2012 - 08:47 PM, said:

Which is, a loot based game, is that the worst part of the game experience, comes when you have to identify all those rares you have in your inventory.

How is, that the most annoying, boring, almost depressing part of a loot based game.. happens to be the very same item identification process?.

I too have an issue with the ID process, but it's flip-side to yours.

I don't mind the high amount of "useless" rares. As I played D2, and most of what dropped there was useless as well.

My issue is with the ID process itself. I could almost puke everytime I have to go back to town to ID a full INV of rares. It takes over 1 minute just to ID a full INV. I'm a very patient player, but this is just too much.

1 minute may not sound like much, but it weighs on the player. When you consider the two ways this could be done, it really seems ridiculous.

If we had an 'ID all' feature at the merch, it would be click.....done

The way it is; click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....


...there....done, finally. That's a visualization of ID'ing 33 rares (an average haul). Fucking...ridiculous.

People get frustrated and accidentally switch equipped gears for junk, sell their multi-million gold items to the vendor, leave the game and don't realize until it's too late. This is a direct result of the unnecessary monotony of the ID process.

Other major playability issues IMO;

1) The lack of /nopickup. So sick of stumbling over loot on the ground, nevermind having to dump shit I didn't mean to pick-up.
2) No cap on key properties, causing serious itemization failures. Crit Damage & Crit Chance both need a hard cap. Resistance is also lacking a cap, having one would free-up itemization drastically. Life Steal also needs a cap of 6%, unless they make LS available on belts for all classes.

Edited by ruksak, 25 November 2012 - 09:18 PM.

[Indimix]

ruksak, on 25 November 2012 - 09:16 PM, said:

Indimix, on 25 November 2012 - 08:47 PM, said:

Which is, a loot based game, is that the worst part of the game experience, comes when you have to identify all those rares you have in your inventory.

How is, that the most annoying, boring, almost depressing part of a loot based game.. happens to be the very same item identification process?.

I too have an issue with the ID process, but it's flip-side to yours.

I don't mind the high amount of "useless" rares. As I played D2, and most of what dropped there was useless as well.

My issue is with the ID process itself. I could almost puke everytime I have to go back to town to ID a full INV of rares. It takes over 1 minute just to ID a full INV. I'm a very patient player, but this is just too much.

1 minute may not sound like much, but it weighs on the player. When you consider the two ways this could be done, it really seems ridiculous.

If we had an 'ID all' feature at the merch, it would be click.....done

The way it is; click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....


...there....done, finally. That's a visualization of ID'ing 33 rares (an average haul). Fucking...ridiculous.

People get frustrated and accidentally switch equipped gears for junk, sell their multi-million gold items to the vendor, leave the game and don't realize until it's too late. This is a direct result of the unnecessary monotony of the ID process.

Other major playability issues IMO;

1) The lack of /nopickup. So sick of stumbling over loot on the ground, nevermind having to dump shit I didn't mean to pick-up.
2) No cap on key properties, causing serious itemization failures. Crit Damage & Crit Chance both need a hard cap. Resistance is also lacking a cap, having one would free-up itemization drastically. Life Steal also needs a cap of 6%, unless they make LS available on belts for all classes.

But you are missing a point. What actually makes the process tedious and boring, is the fact that you already know that the chance of finding a coherent item is more rare than to finding a legendary. I'm not talking about a good item, but a coherent one. Like, a class specific item with an average DPS/Armor with stats that are actually good for that class. Instead, you find items like xbows with strength, or wd helms with dex.. etc.

If this changes, I can assure you that those 2 seconds would be more than welcome.

[Gohei27]

Another issue about the loot system is with legendaries, rare two-handers and bows are pointless to pick up. Skorn comes with five out of six affixes already, so any two-handed rare needs to roll five affixes just to compete with low end skorns. Same with bows, you need to roll four affixes just to compete with low end manticores.

I know lots of people prefer the legendaries to be best in slot, and being a D2 classic player, I didn't mind that they weren't. The base legendaries are too good however and only a handful. They re-vamped them, but still only one out of the three or four top legendaries of each type are good while they others are still crap.

Legendary crossbow? AWESOME! Oh.. It's a hellrack.

Edited by Gohei27, 25 November 2012 - 10:45 PM.

[ruksak]

Indimix, on 25 November 2012 - 10:03 PM, said:

But you are missing a point. What actually makes the process tedious and boring, is the fact that you already know that the chance of finding a coherent item is more rare than to finding a legendary. I'm not talking about a good item, but a coherent one. Like, a class specific item with an average DPS/Armor with stats that are actually good for that class. Instead, you find items like xbows with strength, or wd helms with dex.. etc.

If this changes, I can assure you that those 2 seconds would be more than welcome.

Well this is going to come to personal taste. It doesn't matter to me as to why the item was merch food. I don't care if it's because it was a Monk fist with 225 STR or a Barb belt with +6 to ham sandwich.......good/worthy finds should be rare.

To me, it's the time intensive effort of identifying the items that seems pointless.

[Gohei27]

No one wants a monk fist weapon with 225 str, it takes two affixes in order to get 225, and of course it's strength on a fist weapon. Personal taste might play a factor with a barb belt with +6 ham sandwich though, but I prefer turkey.

While you  hate the time it takes to identify an item, which is weird since you like to waste time on higher MP. I'm with the OP who has a disgust for the loot itself and it's even more annoying that I have to ignore a majority of my drops because the low end market of legendaries makes looting and identifying them a complete waste of time.

[ruksak]

Gohei27, on 25 November 2012 - 11:31 PM, said:

No one wants a monk fist weapon with 225 str, it takes two affixes in order to get 225, and of course it's strength on a fist weapon. Personal taste might play a factor with a barb belt with +6 ham sandwich though, but I prefer turkey.

In case you misunderstood, I was implying that a fist with 225 STR IS a waste. But I don't consider it any differently than I do a low range roll on a desirable prop.

Quote

While you  hate the time it takes to identify an item, which is weird since you like to waste time on higher MP.

I don't consider it wasting time when I'm playing. Playing the game is why I....ahem...play the game. Part of the challenge of playing the game should not come from such an innocuous activity like ID'ing an item. Honestly, I'm shocked that we still have to individually ID.

Quote

I'm with the OP who has a disgust for the loot itself and it's even more annoying that I have to ignore a majority of my drops because the low end market of legendaries makes looting and identifying them a complete waste of time.

I agree the loot is, for the most part, flat and vanilla. I have faith this will be fixed but that's going to take time. I want them to do it right, not another shit botched and hurried job like we saw with 1.04.

The ID issue could be fixed on Tuesday.

[Indimix]

ruksak, on 25 November 2012 - 11:46 PM, said:

Gohei27, on 25 November 2012 - 11:31 PM, said:

No one wants a monk fist weapon with 225 str, it takes two affixes in order to get 225, and of course it's strength on a fist weapon. Personal taste might play a factor with a barb belt with +6 ham sandwich though, but I prefer turkey.

In case you misunderstood, I was implying that a fist with 225 STR IS a waste. But I don't consider it any differently than I do a low range roll on a desirable prop.

Quote

While you  hate the time it takes to identify an item, which is weird since you like to waste time on higher MP.

I don't consider it wasting time when I'm playing. Playing the game is why I....ahem...play the game. Part of the challenge of playing the game should not come from such an innocuous activity like ID'ing an item. Honestly, I'm shocked that we still have to individually ID.

Quote

I'm with the OP who has a disgust for the loot itself and it's even more annoying that I have to ignore a majority of my drops because the low end market of legendaries makes looting and identifying them a complete waste of time.

I agree the loot is, for the most part, flat and vanilla. I have faith this will be fixed but that's going to take time. I want them to do it right, not another shit botched and hurried job like we saw with 1.04.

The ID issue could be fixed on Tuesday.

Explain please.

[Gohei27]

Tuesday's maintenance is eight hours, quite long. So maybe a patch?

Edited by Gohei27, 26 November 2012 - 01:06 AM.

[Vulmio]

ruksak, on 25 November 2012 - 09:16 PM, said:

I too have an issue with the ID process, but it's flip-side to yours.

I don't mind the high amount of "useless" rares. As I played D2, and most of what dropped there was useless as well.

Other major playability issues IMO;

2) No cap on key properties, causing serious itemization failures. Crit Damage & Crit Chance both need a hard cap. Resistance is also lacking a cap, having one would free-up itemization drastically. Life Steal also needs a cap of 6%, unless they make LS available on belts for all classes.

Actually, you are contradicting yourself a little here. Having great stats and bad stats is what make most of the loot useless and you say you don't mind this. The greatest the inbalance between stats, the more useless loot we get. The more we "nerf" the good stats (crit, resist or LS) or improve the bad ones, the more they become equally desirable and almost any roll on an item becomes "equal" (of course it would require lots of nerfs and improvements to make health from globes as desirable as crit chance).
In my opinion saying you want to "nerf" (I know it's a bad word !) the greatest stats is like saying you want less useless item (because you want more items to be useful).

Edited by Vulmio, 26 November 2012 - 01:45 AM.

[Cryomatic]

ruksak, on 25 November 2012 - 09:16 PM, said:

Indimix, on 25 November 2012 - 08:47 PM, said:

Which is, a loot based game, is that the worst part of the game experience, comes when you have to identify all those rares you have in your inventory.

How is, that the most annoying, boring, almost depressing part of a loot based game.. happens to be the very same item identification process?.

I too have an issue with the ID process, but it's flip-side to yours.

I don't mind the high amount of "useless" rares. As I played D2, and most of what dropped there was useless as well.

My issue is with the ID process itself. I could almost puke everytime I have to go back to town to ID a full INV of rares. It takes over 1 minute just to ID a full INV. I'm a very patient player, but this is just too much.

1 minute may not sound like much, but it weighs on the player. When you consider the two ways this could be done, it really seems ridiculous.

If we had an 'ID all' feature at the merch, it would be click.....done

The way it is; click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds)....click (wait 2 seconds).....


...there....done, finally. That's a visualization of ID'ing 33 rares (an average haul). Fucking...ridiculous.

People get frustrated and accidentally switch equipped gears for junk, sell their multi-million gold items to the vendor, leave the game and don't realize until it's too late. This is a direct result of the unnecessary monotony of the ID process.

Other major playability issues IMO;

1) The lack of /nopickup. So sick of stumbling over loot on the ground, nevermind having to dump shit I didn't mean to pick-up.
2) No cap on key properties, causing serious itemization failures. Crit Damage & Crit Chance both need a hard cap. Resistance is also lacking a cap, having one would free-up itemization drastically. Life Steal also needs a cap of 6%, unless they make LS available on belts for all classes.

its not 2 second, its 1 second and 4 second legendary

[ruksak]

Indimix, on 26 November 2012 - 12:20 AM, said:

Quote

The ID issue could be fixed on Tuesday.

Explain please.

They could make it so we could ID all, like friggin Tuesday during maintenance.  I'm no programmer but I would bet my right nut that change would be easy as shit.

[ruksak]

Vulmio, on 26 November 2012 - 01:43 AM, said:

its not 2 second, its 1 second and 4 second legendary

Semantics.... It should be 1 second and done....move on with inspecting the items so I can sell and play again. Identifying should not be rigorous. It's kinda fun with Legends, but these rares have a great disparity.

Edited by ruksak, 26 November 2012 - 02:36 AM.

[DirtyLarry]

I think it's just a throw back to Blizzards time-sink mentality from the mmo. Let's prolong everything.

[maka]

Loot sucks. Period.
My friend Jamoose gave me a low-end Triumvirate; now every rare wizard off-hand is pure crap.
I had a very low-end Windforce; still, every rare bow/xbow was crap compared to it. The only thing that replaced it was the low-end Manticore that Jamoose found and gave me.
Says a lot about the items in this game.

[ruksak]

Vulmio, on 26 November 2012 - 01:43 AM, said:

ruksak, on 25 November 2012 - 09:16 PM, said:

I too have an issue with the ID process, but it's flip-side to yours.

I don't mind the high amount of "useless" rares. As I played D2, and most of what dropped there was useless as well.

Other major playability issues IMO;

2) No cap on key properties, causing serious itemization failures. Crit Damage & Crit Chance both need a hard cap. Resistance is also lacking a cap, having one would free-up itemization drastically. Life Steal also needs a cap of 6%, unless they make LS available on belts for all classes.

Actually, you are contradicting yourself a little here. Having great stats and bad stats is what make most of the loot useless and you say you don't mind this. The greatest the inbalance between stats, the more useless loot we get. The more we "nerf" the good stats (crit, resist or LS) or improve the bad ones, the more they become equally desirable and almost any roll on an item becomes "equal" (of course it would require lots of nerfs and improvements to make health from globes as desirable as crit chance).
In my opinion saying you want to "nerf" (I know it's a bad word !) the greatest stats is like saying you want less useless item (because you want more items to be useful).

No contradiction here.

To state it simply;

If some of these highly desirable properties were capped (as they were in D2) than we have some balance to work with. If they then made it so more slots could spawn more of these props (helm w/ IAS....weapons with Crit Chance.....belts with LS etc etc) than we have balance.

Some of the most popular items are items that have the unique (and inherent) ability to spawn a specific prop. Prowlers...Mempo etc.  What if rare Bracers could spawn with IAS and/or MS? Do Prowlers become less desirable? Yes. Is that bad? No.

So many people said they were glad that Rune Words weren't a part of D3. They said this because they didn't want every class to be using the same handful of items. Well....that's where we're at. Find me a monk that does respectable DPS that doesn't have an EF or a Skorn. Very few indeed.

Capping would be very tricky and would require much thought and testing, but I see it as absolutely necessary.

You have to ask yourself....why can't IAS, CC, LS etc spawn on all slots?

Answer; Because there are certain props that are very powerful. If all slots could spawn these props, than people would stack every slot with said prop. If there was a cap on that prop....problem solved. You could hit the cap without stacking every slot, use your other slots for stacking up other props. We'd have balance and what we would see is people attaining these cap limits on various pieces.

Individual character diversity would come from how players chose to stack other, non-capped props like main, LoH, Vit, Armor, Weapon DPS. To make all this work correctly  we need more props as well. Deadly Strike, Crushing Blow, Faster Hit Recovery, Cannot Be Frozen....that kinda shit.

Anyone that disagrees with me, I'd like to hear why they think itemization fails in D3 as opposed to what I've laid out here. There is no diversity right now. Slot 'Y' must have 'X' is a bad template.

Edited by ruksak, 26 November 2012 - 02:32 AM.

[Vulmio]

ruksak, on 26 November 2012 - 02:30 AM, said:

Vulmio, on 26 November 2012 - 01:43 AM, said:

ruksak, on 25 November 2012 - 09:16 PM, said:

I too have an issue with the ID process, but it's flip-side to yours.

I don't mind the high amount of "useless" rares. As I played D2, and most of what dropped there was useless as well.

Other major playability issues IMO;

2) No cap on key properties, causing serious itemization failures. Crit Damage & Crit Chance both need a hard cap. Resistance is also lacking a cap, having one would free-up itemization drastically. Life Steal also needs a cap of 6%, unless they make LS available on belts for all classes.

Actually, you are contradicting yourself a little here. Having great stats and bad stats is what make most of the loot useless and you say you don't mind this. The greatest the inbalance between stats, the more useless loot we get. The more we "nerf" the good stats (crit, resist or LS) or improve the bad ones, the more they become equally desirable and almost any roll on an item becomes "equal" (of course it would require lots of nerfs and improvements to make health from globes as desirable as crit chance).
In my opinion saying you want to "nerf" (I know it's a bad word !) the greatest stats is like saying you want less useless item (because you want more items to be useful).

No contradiction here.

To state it simply;

If some of these highly desirable properties were capped (as they were in D2) than we have some balance to work with. If they then made it so more slots could spawn more of these props (helm w/ IAS....weapons with Crit Chance.....belts with LS etc etc) than we have balance.

Some of the most popular items are items that have the unique (and inherent) ability to spawn a specific prop. Prowlers...Mempo etc.  What if rare Bracers could spawn with IAS and/or MS? Do Prowlers become less desirable? Yes. Is that bad? No.

So many people said they were glad that Rune Words weren't a part of D3. They said this because they didn't want every class to be using the same handful of items. Well....that's where we're at. Find me a monk that does respectable DPS that doesn't have an EF or a Skorn. Very few indeed.

Capping would be very tricky and would require much thought and testing, but I see it as absolutely necessary.

You have to ask yourself....why can't IAS, CC, LS etc spawn on all slots?

Answer; Because there are certain props that are very powerful. If all slots could spawn these props, than people would stack every slot with said prop. If there was a cap on that prop....problem solved. You could hit the cap without stacking every slot, use your other slots for stacking up other props. We'd have balance and what we would see is people attaining these cap limits on various pieces.

Individual character diversity would come from how players chose to stack other, non-capped props like main, LoH, Vit, Armor, Weapon DPS. To make all this work correctly  we need more props as well. Deadly Strike, Crushing Blow, Faster Hit Recovery, Cannot Be Frozen....that kinda shit.

Anyone that disagrees with me, I'd like to hear why they think itemization fails in D3 as opposed to what I've laid out here. There is no diversity right now. Slot 'Y' must have 'X' is a bad template.

I was not saying that your idea was good or bad. I'm just saying your idea would reduce the amount of bad items, or increase the amount of good items if you prefer (and I'm not saying increasing the amount of good items would be good or bad).
For example bracers : right now for barb BiS bracers, you want prowlers with crit, str and either resist or vit. Any prowler without crit is far from bis, but if you cap crit (or ias), a wide variety of prowlers (or rare bracers) would become BiS (well actually the notion of BiS could disappear with capped stats).

[ruksak]

Vulmio, on 26 November 2012 - 02:45 AM, said:

(well actually the notion of BiS could disappear with capped stats).

BINGO!!!!