Diablo 3′s Legendaries Leave Something to be Desired
Posted 30 May 2012 by FluxThe other rage de jour over in Blueyshire is the fact that Diablo III’s legendary and set items are a bit underpowered. This issue has been brewing for months, since the very underwhelming uniques were first posted on Blizzard’s site. Datamining of the legendaries during the beta showed much the same, and when Blizzard updated their site with the new and improved legendaries on launch day… fans who looked them over remained unimpressed, though doubt remained since we didn’t know what top quality rares would look like.
Now that we’ve got two weeks of play time, the jury is no longer out and fans are all but unanimous in their judgment that Diablo 3′s legendaries are boring, uninspired, and generally lacking in the unique themes and properties that would make them special. Worse, legendaries are underpowered compared to good rares and even good blues, and badly outclassed by top quality blues and rares.
This issue has been the fodder for countless forum posts, and when Azzure paused his GAH wheeling and dealing for long enough to dash off an article about it, he offered constructive criticism, made his points calmly and rationally, used facts and figures to back them up, and took on a tone, at his harshest, of disappointment at a lackluster game feature that’s sure to be improved in v1.03.
Needless to say, the critics in Blueland are a bit less diplomatic in their appraisals.
Dropping the ball.
Making legendary lvl 60 items that arent even close to as good as blue items.
thats what dropping the ball is.
Bashiok: Even in the face of us confirming players comparing vastly different item stats as equal due to player level requirement and not stat budget, AND that Legendary items (despite your personal feelings) are not intended to be the best of the best and only the best items in the game? Seems like dropping the ball about talking about balls being dropped without ball dropping context.
Who doesn’t want Legendary items to be the best items in the game?
Bashiok: Players shouldn’t, really. I mean if you want all end-game characters to look the same and have on the exact same items by having a single #1 best item in the game, it’s a good way to get there. It’s a lot easier, to be sure, to just chase a single BiS item, but we really don’t believe it should be a lot easier. It should be difficult to find and judge and compare and build characters out of a mix of randomized items, not just go after a tier set.
Click through for much more from this thread.
Have you read the article I linked to where we said we’ll be buffing them?
Also The Grandfather is actually ilvl 61, so an ilvl 62 or 63 blue could beat it out on straight DPS.
Technically the Warmonger is the best 2h legendary sword.
But that’s not the issue here, the issue here is the legendaries are worse than rares and blues. And that should not be. Please accept that THIS is what players want. For once in my life I am VERY comfortable speaking for everyone. We’re accustomed to the term “Legendary” actually MEANING something.
And we’ve stated we plan to buff them and add more unique affixes.
What do you want to talk about now?
Of course no one here expects a level 30ish legendary to be worthwhile at level 45. That’s simply splitting hairs, or obfuscation. But at level 60, a legendary from say, Hell mode, ought to be better than most everything in Hell mode ( or insert advanced mode here).
I don’t think anyone with basic common sense believes it is in the best interest of the game to undervalue the rarest drops in the game. We realize you guys are still laying the foundation, it’s going to take some time. That’s understood. But also be cognizant of the fact that we, as players, don’t dig the treatment that the legendaries are getting as of right now. Stand back and count the dollars, but ignore the sentiment at your own risk. This isn’t WoW. I’m not on the hook for 15 bucks next month. /wink
Bashiok: Hah. Well, no one is standing back, every designer is in the thick of it working on future updates, patches, hotfixes, etc. I think it really comes down to a perception issue that color quality differentiation and name have made. If the items were called Uniques, as they were in Diablo II, would you assume they were the best items in the game? Maybe, if they’re the hardest to find. But I think the point is that the hardest to find items are not in fact Legendaries, but perfect Rare items. It’s less intuitive to not have clear separations of item power through name and color, and that’s tripping people up to be sure.
I don’t know … we’re looking to buff them. Whether we guarantee a blue item dropping in the same difficulty/Act can’t have higher DPS than a Legendary is still a judgment call we’ve yet to make. It’d sure make more sense to people who are stuck on item colors telling them which should be better, but whether it’s the best for game’s itemization I think is still up in the air. Giving players a clear ‘best item’ is not necessarily the best decision for the game and itemization landscape.
Are they going to add unique affixes in the way that D2 did? Instead of just buffing the current stats (taking the strength and doubling it) are they going to add INTERESTING affixes that support ‘quirky’ builds.
I’m fine with perfectly rolled, or well rolled rares having a better overall dps/stats, but make the legendary items good enough that they can compete with the damage/armor of great rares, but other interesting affixes that would have players think about it.
Bashiok: Yup, that’s mentioned in the article.
Everyone is looking at the front page, right? http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6018173/Game_Design_Update-5_28_2012#blog
Current Legendaries being buffed and new and more unique affixes aren’t currently estimated to arrive in the same patch, though.
You really don’t see why people logically think rarer items should be superior to the common if of a similar level? Are you new to games in general? Or why when you are playing inferno you don’t really have any use for a level 50 item? You’re right we are all just antiquated in our opinions, it couldn’t be that you and the ‘designers’ who have pissed all these people off because you didn’t include your radical new philosophies on the box for ex: ‘Please don’t buy if you want this game to make sense.’ Lets just put aside the fact that you have handled launch and the technical side of the game similarly to how my newborn nephew handles a diaper. The game itself is poor, there is no incentive to replay the same levels again and again on another class because they aren’t fun when your best course of action is to skip content. There is no risk/reward and no logical way to approach the game so people skip mobs to get to later checkpoints and break vases for loot. I suppose this is your idea of compelling gaming.
Bashiok: So… you’re having fun, then?
We won’t know how they’re going to patch up legendaries until we see it, some months from now, but it sounds like they’re going to buff them up, both in terms of bigger stats as well as better stats, in terms of making legendaries more interesting and unique, rather than just giving them a grab bag of not-very-thematic mods. That’s as much or more a problem than their lacking DPS, IMHO. I want orange and green items to be cool. They should have some properties that blues/rares can’t get, and have specific focuses to make them unique. That’s the sort of thing that makes them really cool in D1 and D2; since even when a unique isn’t the best item of its type, (which is the vast majority of them) they often have a special flavor that makes them stand out by something other than the color of their name.
Haha talking about everybody looking the same. They are so ****ing stupid that it’s sad. Blue/yellow all have the same model but whatever.
It’s a perfectly valid point. Not just about appearance — everyone wearing items with the same stats is boring and doesn’t belong in Diablo. It’s what WoW does with its more competitive setting where everyone is on the same level gear-wise.
But vocal Diablo players are absolutely desperate to have that D2 gear chase, where you knew what was best, because everyone else had the same duped item.
players now all already have the same stat so i think its a horrible point you and bash are trying to make. the items should go
perfect roll rare
legendary
rare
blue
whites and grey should just be removed all together
Whites and greys in their current state should be removed, yes, because they have no use other than littering the ground and annoying you when picking up the blue or better quality items, but I’d rather see use restored to these items than have them removed from the game.
To me, grey items should mean socketed, and you should have to pick them up to see how many sockets, and whether the item is damaged/normal/superior. White items should mean no sockets, and you should have to pick them up to see whether the item is damaged/normal/superior. In addition, both these types of items should be required for EVERY crafting recipe and number of sockets should not be an affix. As an example, if a crafting recipe requires a sword with 2 sockets, you should have to find a grey sword with 2 sockets, and if you want the best result, you should be wanting to find a superior 2 socket sword of the base type for which the crafting recipe requires.
This makes a ton of sense, and removes the redundancy problem Blizzard had with allowing everyone to add sockets to their items (it still boggles me that people don’t realize how meaningless this would be). If a high socketed white had the same drop rate as good legendaries then you would see the same nice gradient of socketed items in the AH as rares, but for crafting purposes.
I don’t get it, why are they the RAREST items in the game, if they’re not going to be the best, or even COMPARABLE to the best items in the game? It makes no sense. Atleast make it so they can’t be beaten out by blue items of the same level, I mean maybe when a legendary rolls badly, they could be compared to blues or even Yellows, but come on now.. I personally feel that later in the game that blues/yellows/legendaries should all be balanced out, but atleast make it so that legendaries can be CONSIDERED the best items in the game. =/
Did you read his response? The rarest items in the game actually the perfect stat blues that everyone is comparing them to. By your own logic, those particular blues should be better.
“The other rage de jour over in Blueyshire is the presumption that Diablo III’s legendary and set items are a bit less than uber-nigma.”
Fixed two words. Other than those, this sentence borders on poetry.
Keep in mind that there are some people who think that this is indeed the way it should be. Legendaries should have more flavor yes, but they should be reserved for specialty builds and etc. rather than be able to compete with the best random drops. I’m personally happy with legendaries being around the 85-90th percentile of quality at best.
This.
Most of the time rares sucked in D2. What sucked even harder? Crafted items. Weaker ‘uniques’ is a much better alternative to having only 1 item class matter at all.
The answer is to actually make them unique, cosmetically or special affixes, which they are doing. I found “Stolen Ring” which is a pretty underwhelming Legendary ring, and after I got past the initial disappointment of not finding the D3 equivalent of SoJ, I was pleased I found it, stashed it and moved on.
The reason why rares sucked in D2 was because they weren’t allowed to roll the highest tier affix in most patches (I’m not sure about the latest ones), but I remember Rare couldn’t have the Cruel affix which is 300% ED, and instead they could only have up to 200% ED.
Now Legendary is having the same treatment, because their fixed affix has a low highest dmg comparing to the affixes that are possible to appear on a high level blue/rare. When the dmg mod on a legendary is 100-300, while the strongest affix is around 200-500+, Legendary has no chance in comparison.
And it doesn’t even matter what other affixes are on the Legendary since DPS is so important. As long as the Blue/Rare has a better dmg mod, and maybe an IAS mod, then it will be a lot better than a Legendary of the same level.
It’s hilarious how his responses alternate between “working as expected” and “we already said we’ll fix it”.
What’s hilarious is some people’s failures at reading comprehension.
Legendaries aren’t supposed to be the best items in the game. This in no way contradicts the notion that legendaries could stand to be a bit more powerful.
I’m fine with perfect Legendaries not being more powerful than perfect rares.
I don’t get why perfect legendaries can’t be about as powerful as perfect rares.
Why not give the players a choice?
They really should either answer or not. This circling around questions is really annoying.
They’re not really dodging questions; they’re explaining how people’s questions are based on faulty assumptions, and they’re trying to correct those assumptions.
I totally agree that the Legendaries are to weak. I have only received 1 and as cool as it was to see it drop. As soon as I identified it, I was struck with a “ah, well, ok, thats cool”. I was expecting to be blown away. It just didn’t move me. Also, I haven’t seen one set item drop yet personally. Have any of you?
Nope. Only one unique belt and it was unbelievably dull and bad.
Dropped one belt in Normal – It was flippin’ fantastic and lasted until Hell. Then dropped a second – knuckles that handily dropped for my HC monk – but they weren’t as good, and outclassed by my current weapon.
What belt is that? Goldwrap? Witching hour?
Set items are just a mythical things to me so far and their existence are only proven through the AH and the official site.
It was me when I saw my first legendary drop:
http://bit.ly/KHGtMv
But now I’m like this when I see a legendar drop:
http://chzb.gr/92tCZ8
I had a Nutcracker drop for my Barbarian. It was lower DPS than the weapon he was using, but the stats on Nutcracker made it worth trying out. A friend of mine had Giant Skull drop from some normal mobs as soon as he got into A1 Hell, and it was a huge upgrade for him at the time. I also use an Angel Hair Braid on my Wizard that dropped for my friends when I was helping them get through Hell difficulty. In terms of Intelligence it was a bit of a side-grade, but the resists and %life on it made it worth using. Considering it’s only a level 55 item I’d say it’s pretty good.
I know why they’re a little worried about adding unique effects and affixes to different legendaries. The more you do that, the more you run the risk of allowing people to stack way more of a certain thing than is normally possible. If every Legendary does something category-breaking, then certain combos might perform absurdly well. And useful items not in Hardcore are not likely to go away any time soon. I think they’re underestimating how much fun people will have collecting legendaries to actually perform those combos, but I can also see why they wouldn’t want to accidentally put in a legendary effect that makes the game easy mode. Blue and yellow items are random, but the designers know what the top level affixes do with each other, and how many the player is budgeted with stacking.
how difficult would it be to put hard caps on various bonuses? Don’t they already have diminishing returns for IAS, blocking speed, etc?
Also, they’ve often said things about how they don’t want the game perfectly balanced. They’re cool with some skills and builds and characters being kick ass. Just so long as it’s not game breaking.
But you don’t want everyone bumping into a hard cap as soon as they hit 60, do you?
It’s not so much about plain old stats, its about the unique mods that only showed up on Uniques/Runewords. Oskills, lower enemy resists (breaking immunities,) crushing blow, curse on hit, and then they’d add obscene amounts of MF on top of all those crazy, game breaking mods. The unique, weird mods could really be a problem.
“Who doesn’t want Legendary items to be the best items in the game?
Bashiok: Players shouldn’t, really. I mean if you want all end-game characters to look the same”
Well, won’t it happen no matter what ? I mean, the end-game chars look the same ? People will optimize builds based on whatever combo of skills + items is best, post on internet, and a lot of others will follow, it doesn’t make a difference if that item will be a legendary or blue item, there will always be those items that will be better than any other, and it will be used by most.
No, because the ideal they are striving for is build diversity. This is part of what I was discussing earlier. Right now, they have a good idea of what items can do to a character in D3. The more legendaries and stuff they add, the more balance permutations they need to worry about. Each piece of armor could be like adding a new passive that practically anyone can flip on to break the game.
I’m not sure if I mind people playing a Stormshield Barbarian or Wizard, or whatever, but I think Blizzard is just remaining cautious, due to the shelf life of items with the auction house.
Ideally, what’s optimal for me is not what’s optimal for you. One of the reasons it’s nice to choose from 500+ tools (the skills/runes) is that I can choose my tools, and you yours. Also, ideally, what’s workable/possible for me and you should be diverse. There’s optimal, and then there’s fun experimentation.
The biggest letdown for me is that we won’t see any changes until v1.1, and it can be months away. Also, since changes won’t be retroactive, I’ve effectively lost all motivation to do MF runs.
“Who doesn’t want Legendary items to be the best items in the game?
Bashiok: Players shouldn’t, really.”
This is kind of reasoning is why D3 will NEVER be what it should have been.
They nerf drop roll/rates in games to “compensate” for the fact that you have access to the AH. And when you do find a “good” item, its boring as hell. When Blizzard talks about D3 being all about the item hunt apparently they meant doing searches on the AH.
Fail game design is fail.
I disagree. Just cause you, the disgruntled, are more vocal does not mean that I do not exist. I don’t want legendaries to be buffed. It’s just people being confused with MMO drops. (note: I have nothing against MMOs)
DeeJayeS – i wish i could give you more than +1.
this is DIABLO we are talking about, not WOW.
i am not saying that rares shouldnt be better with a good roll, i am saying that unique items should be UNIQUE.
i know they renamed them legendary – but following the naming logic legendarys should better be LEGENDARY. and by that most likely the best items in the game.
i personally dont want that. i want unique items.
odd, weird, at times completely useless items. (until you find the right build)
and they also should be strong, yes.
and mr poo, go and play D1 and then D2 and see what we are talking about.