Upon Closer Inspection: Remember Item Types?
Posted 29 July 2012 by FluxTalking to various Diablo 3 playing friends lately, I’ve been asking a simple question. “Do you know the name of the item type of a single item one of your characters is using?” Thus far not a single person has said “yes.” and I’m certainly not the one to break my own combo. I’ve got three level 60 characters and I know their equipment pretty well, in terms of, “What in the Hells do I have to kill to get some damn boots with Dex, faster run, and MF for my Demon Hunter?.” But as for the base item types? I couldn’t tell you a single one.
I think this is a shame, since a lot of the item types are quite interesting and funny in name. For instance, my Demon Hunter was greeted by this item drop the other night in the Den of the Fallen, and I actually eloeled at the sight.
The first rule of the Unspeakable Thing club is...
Most likely I’d found an Unspeakable Thing before, and not just on the living room carpet after a frat party, but if so I didn’t remember the name. I certainly will now, since it was so attention-grabbing, lying there in glowing yellow text. I picked it up, of course, but in the inventory the tooltip just said, “Rare Mojo,” and then once I identified it the item became an “Echo Surge” with the “Rare Mojo” identification down below in the item box. Booooooooooring.
They're called 'Iridescent Tears' since you cry when you create them.
Though I lament this, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’m sure some players like not having to see the extra info or the confusing/weird item type name. It’s certainly not an accident on the part of the game developers, since they chose to implement a system where rare, set, and legendary items never display the base item type once they are identified. This is convenient and easy for new players, but I think it’s sort of a shame and a loss of potential coolness, long term.
Click through for why, a big reminder of what glory Gear Sets were going to rise to, and how this whole item system could easily be tweaked for improvement.
Because Words Are Confusing
The developers obviously put a lot of time into coming up with all those weird names for every type of armor, and the names always display on white items and magical items. So they could certainly be set to display for rares+, much as items now show the ilvl in the tooltip, after Blizzard enabled that due to fan complaints about level 60+ gear being too hard to find.
I’d wager that during development, item types did display in the identified rare/set/legendary item text in Diablo III, but that as part of their efforts to make the game more “accessible,” these were disabled. Too much text. Words are confusing. Etc. Some focus/strike group of testers (likely composed of elderly relatives and/or WoW developers) said that all the item type names in Diablo III were cool and inventive, but really confusing and extraneous in the hover box. So away they went!
Personally, I’d like them to come back.
Anticipation and Expectation
One reason that item types are irrelevant/forgotten in Diablo III is related to the extreme scarcity of sets and uniques. Not only do such items not show the item type once they’re identified, but they’re so seldom found and so generally undesirable (though you still like to find them on Inferno, given what 
Fiery Brimstone sells for) that no one knows or cares what type of item they are. This was not the case to the 10000th percent in Diablo 2, where every serious fan knew all (or certainly most of) the item types for the best set and unique items, since we all desperately hoped to find them.
Everyone know that a Windforce was a golden Hydra Bow, and thus every time you saw a Hydra Bow drop, of any quality, you had a twinge of “OMG that could have been it.” And when you found a rare Hydra bow you were doubly vexed, since you knew how close you’d come. I used to joke that rares of desired Elite item types were Diablo 2′s way of saying “your Magic Find sucks.”
It was funny because it was true!
I suppose the same is still true in Diablo III… but no one knows since no one knows the names of the item types of top legendaries, and not just because there aren’t any top legendaries. I don’t want the entire Diablo 2 item system back, and I expect that item types will begin to matter more at some point in Diablo III, as the expansion(s) add complexity and depth to the simplistic D3C system, but I think players today could handle a bit more info than “Rare item type” in the tooltips. Remember that the invaluable item level display was only added in a patch post-release, so we had even less to go on initially.
Item Type Upgrades
The other big difference in item types in Diablo 2 was that they actually mattered, thanks to Imbues, crafting recipes, item upgrade recipes, and runewords. These features originated in Diablo II and were much expanded upon in D2X and its many patches, to the point that it was often more desirable to find a white item, or even a low quality item of many elite item types (the proverbial cracked sash) than a magical/rare/unique of that item type, since the low quality one could be Horadric Cubed up to a normal one, and then cubed again to socket it, in hopes of getting the correct number of sockets to turn it into a Runeword.
Even aside from that, weapon and armor base item types mattered since they all had different armor or damage or attack speed values, different numbers of possible sockets, and most notably, different str/dex/level requirements. If you look at something like the sword comparison section in my old D2 Barbarian Magic Find guide, you’ll get an idea of the importance of item types back in D2. And that guide was for v1.09, before Runewords became so powerful in the v1.10 and v1.11 patches, which added even more importance to selecting the correct item type.
Remember Gear Sets?
Another downside to the invisibility of item type in Diablo III is that no one knows what level Gear Set they’re wearing. If you were following D3 during development, you’re nodding right now. If you picked up the game and joined the community around the time of launch, you’ve probably never even heard the term before.
Gear Sets were introduced as a concept back in 2010, and during the lead up to that year’s Blizzcon, Blizzard released six preview images, each showing a male and female of the three known classes decked out in different levels of gear sets. Another batch of gear sets were revealed during a panel at Blizzcon 2010, and much fan debate ensued. Here are three of the initial gear set images from July 2010.
When I saw there was much debate, I’m not kidding. It’s a pity all of our older news posts lost their comments when we upgraded the news script, since most of those older ones on Gear Sets had 100+ replies with fans going back and forth on how the sets looked, if the Diablo 3 kit was too colorful or fanciful in design, if it was true to the fantasy universe, etc.
Internet blood was spilled over this headgear, back in 2010.
We even had long debates about just how many sets there were, if every type of item appeared in every set, and especially about how they would look on your character. Check out multiple Blue comments trying to explain the topic just in this one post from early 2011.
They’re visual tiers of gear, not actual specific items by name and stat. It’s the same as Diablo II, but more and better. —Diablo
To clarify, there are 18 complete tier looks. Complete. 18 individual looks for each item slot. —Diablo
Fans were passionately concerned about how their characters would look in each gear set, and how the sets would mix and match. People wanted the cool Witch Doctor “waving tentacle” set, which was known to be high level, and we wondered what would happen if you wore the helm and shoulders from that gear set, but the body armor from another gear set. Would you still get the cool tentacle look? Would players be hunting their end game gear based on the gear set, since their Monk simply had to have everything from gear set 17 to look good?
Honestly, I know this sounds like insanity at this point, but all these issues were hotly debated for well over a year.
What happened to all that gear set passion? It vanished in the final game since there’s no easy way to know what gear set your particular item is from. The names and numbers of the gear sets aren’t shown in any way so there’s nothing to encourage you to get gear all from the same set to give your character a unified look. Some players have achieved that simply because ilvl 63 stuff has the best potential stats, but that’s purely a function of Diablo III’s system weighting the highest level items to always be the best items.
Displaying the item type on rares/sets/legendaries wouldn’t change this, but when I remember how interested we all were in the look of our characters and the levels of gear sets, and it makes me sad that this whole system is invisible in the finished product.
Part of the Item System Upgrades?
We’ve been promised many improvements to the items in v1.0.4, including revamped Sets and Legendaries. That’s great, and essential for the quality of the game, but now that you guys have been reminded or learned about all the Gear Set stuff, do you miss it? Do you share my interest in seeing item types and having a reason for them to matter in Diablo III?
The D2 system wasn’t perfect, but it was nice to actually care about item types and know which ones you wanted by names, rather than just hoping for “item level 63″ when you looked at a tool tip. If the legendaries and sets are improved to the point that fans start to covet them, that’ll help a bit, but showing the names, and maybe even the gear set tiers, could also help. I don’t pay much attention to how my character looks, but RisingRed and Elly put in hours of work to create an awesome gallery of every gear set in the game for every class/gender, and when I look at it I get inspired to see how my characters would look if I ever kitted them out in organized fashion.
Given the choice, I would be happy to lose the “item name” in place of item type.
I LOVED swapping my heavy plate for ghost armour, balrog skin, kraken shell!
And with a quick glance at my transactions column in the AH, I can’t tell you what “Honour’s Grace”, “Disciple’s Will”, or “Outcast Vow” were.
I did that too in D2. I always aimed for Wirefleece for my Zon and Kraken Shell for my Barb. Screw optimized stats.
Same, I remembered hoping for archon plates to drop, rings, hydra bows, etc etc
now,. I wouldnt know what kind of item is good or not by it’s base type – other than rings and amulets…
It’s a shame an item ‘loses’ its type when identified. I got some archon armor, that’s about the only type I recognize.
A good thing is legendaries, in my opinion. I like how I just find an orange ‘shield’, makes the ID process actually somewhat more exciting (would be even moreso when legendaries were any good). I D2 I knew roughly every set and unique and the corresponding item type, that was a bit dull…
That’s a good point about legendaries.
Those of us who played D2 long enough (everyone here?) can instantly recognize which unique it is the second it hits the ground simply because of the item type.
But it’ll just say “Shield” when an un-id’d legendary is on the ground and I think that’s pretty cool. It’s exciting, even though the item itself will suck (unless it says “amulet” which is even more exciting).
The downside is that if, say, Lidless Wall drops, you can clearly see what it is on the ground. You can see the actual lidless wall model on the ground. While that’s pretty cool and a detail that I’m sure almost everyone would overlook, it’s definitely there.
I agree with Flux and the others about listing what the base item type is on the item tooltip, though. It’s really helpful to get an ilvl range (ie, a base item type archon armor is ilvl63) so you can figure out where to farm it the most efficiently, along with all the other reasons listed.
I disagree with this. Once you pick up the item, the item model tells you right away which legendary/set it is. Considering the really small pool of legendaries (of each category), and the very unique looking item model, you can easily figure out the legendary/set item.
For example, if someone were to link me a blue, beam-like bladed sword, it’s obviously an Azurewrath. So, i guess you get excited for like a second until you hold Ctrl or look in your inventory?
Exactly my thoughts.
Ah. I see. So you’ve memorized every single legendary in the game and your excitement is gone because you instantly know what it is the second you pick it up? Then I don’t know what to tell you.
Well I wouldn’t say I’ve memorized them all, but I’m familiar with a lot of them (weapons and set items anyway). I wasn’t trying to boast. I was just trying to say that you can determine what the item is simply by looking at the item model and portrait.
Anyway, my point is if you’ve either looked up legendaries on the AH or any of the websites for any bit of time, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what they look like. The sheer number of legendaries/sets in this game is pretty sad, so it’s not too hard to remember (not to mention they all have very unique looks). The models don’t even change appearance between classes, like your regular gear does. If there was anything Blizzard did right with the Legendaries/Sets, it’s the uniqueness of the models.
Before the IAS nerf, it wasn’t uncommon for people to sell Unid Legendaries with innate IAS (i.e. Andy’s Visage, Tal Rasha’s Chest, etc.) because despite the fact that items only says “Sword” or whatever, you can figure out what the item is by the portrait. Hell, even the jewelry have static item portraits, so you’ll always know if it’s an SoJ or BK ring. It’s not like how it was in D2, where you had to pray, ID it, and hope you get what you wanted.
Also, like in Diablo 2, you CAN tell which item it is when it drops, because the model on the floor is the same as the item portrait. It’s actually even more pronounced, because they don’t share models with any other item in the game (i.e. Rattlecage and Tal Rasha’s). Years down the line, I’m sure many people would become as familiar with them as in D2, if not more so, despite not having found them personally.
I mean, can you really tell me you can’t figure out that the Legendary mask that just dropped is an Andariel’s Visage? It’s the only one that even remotely looks like it…
[A good thing is legendaries, in my opinion. I like how I just find an orange ‘shield’, makes the ID process actually somewhat more exciting]
Except that it doesn’t.
Even if all you see is “shield” in orange(**** you blizzard, it should be gold letters), any person who has taken a glance at the game guide can instantly find out what specific item it will be simply by the ilvl and model of the item on the floor.
The only upside to this is that it makes it hard for any scammer to try and item swap like people used to do with Tal’s armor vs Rattlecage. Unless you lack brain cells to rub together that is.
Is it orange? I guess it kind of is after looking at it a bit more closely – like a really dark, burnt orange. But to me, it looks more like a sh!t brown… quite fitting if you think about it
I’ve also been having a hard time remembering all the different item names without knowing exactly why.
Perhaps it’s because of the sheer number of items (far more than in D2)? Perhaps it’s because magic items are already identified and their name is almost hidden between the affixes (I rarely even read the names of the blues I loot)? Or perhaps it’s because some item types have almost identical names, to the point where I’m seeing the same handful of items drop and after 200 hours still can’t instantly tell which item is which (warbands, armbands, armguards, armwraps, armplates, wristplates)?
It’s probably a mix of all of those things. They just don’t stand out very well, which makes the items feel rather bland and generic.
That being said, I really wish they would display a rare’s actual item name in the tooltip, either next to the ilvl in the lower left corner (“item level 63 Unspeakable Thing”) or instead of the base item type in the upper left (“Rare Unspeakable Thing” instead of “Rare Mojo”). It’s a simple change that would give items a bit of their personality back, hopefully making it easier to remember the different item types in the process.
Every time I play, I lament that rares/sets/legendaries don’t display their base item name. I’ve spent many hours farming Inferno, but I don’t know the inherent value of anything without having any correlation between item type and ilvl. The only point of fact that has had any impact on my runs is to pick up everything that isn’t white or gray; nothing else matters. When I go back to town to offload my loot, all I look at are ilvls (thank the gods they put that info in the tool tips), never the item name. You’d think that I’d start to learn which item types are really worth picking up by now, but nope…
lol, I’m definitely not proud of it but I could most likely name exactly what type of item, and ilvl from 55+. Certainly 61+ since that’s pretty much all I’ve ever been concerned with. Anything with the name Archon or Sovereign in the name is a welcome site during any MF run. Arch Axe, and Desolator Wand are the two drops that make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside though
“Displaying the item type on rares/sets/legendaries wouldn’t change this, but when I remember how interested we all were in the look of our characters and the levels of gear sets, and it makes me sad that this whole system is invisible in the finished product. ”
Pretty sure it’s as simple as equipping all items of the same level. Just make sure none have level req reduced, as well crafted items might not fit. You’ve no doubt noticed that there are specific levels where a new tier of armor is available (…, 24… 32, 36, 40, 44… 51, 54, 57…).
As it’s somewhat impractical to assemble any full gear set other than iLvl 63, I hope and think that eventually Blizzard will add a system like transmogrification in WoW.
Easiest way for them to do it would be like armor dyes, with one for every item tier. I quite like some of the mid level tiers and would love being able to have them without completely gimping my characters.
I know the names of most ilvl 63 weapons.
Since they’re what one is looking for when farming.
This. Those and armor. They’re the only reasons I know base items though so I can rule out automatic disappointments. In most cases at least… ilvl 62 armor is still good.
I agree, definitely miss having a deeper connection to the items in many ways, including item type. I had the exact same feeling about “missed” drops of coveted item types in D2.
I actually started collecting plain white versions of each item type and trying to match them into their tiers just to be able to try them on all my characters as a set at once. (Didn’t know you guys had already done the work for me!) From what I can tell, there are no shoulders or headgear for the first tier (which would be cloth armor, shoes, etc.)
In the picture above, it says rare mojo. why dont they leave the fancy name and instead of just rare *item class* they actually put rare unspeakable thing or whatever. we all know the unspeakable thing is a mojo.
Further, and i suggested this earlier, they should indicate somewhere in the item window if the item was crafted or not. i think that would be good too. A little “C” in the corner would suffice.
I remember being surprised when I realized that crafted items in D3 were just blue or yellow, without any indication that they were crafted. It seemed very weird during the beta, when crafted items had some guaranteed stats. They’d have +10 str and 2 random mods, or something like that. So you could make a blue or yellow item from crafting that had stats that were impossible to get from a monster dropped blue or yellow item (of the same ilvl).
Since crafting was dumbed down and everything just gets random mods now, the blue/yellow is less obviously weird, but 1) I still think crafted items should be a diff color or show their origin in some way, and 2) part of the fix to crafting should be to include some inherent mods and/or the chance of mods you can’t just get from monster drops.
I thought it might be a nice “advertisement” for people to actually craft. If they see items on the AH that are crafted AND good, they might be apt to engage in crafting themselves. I think the more we can feed the good sink the better the economy will be. Of course, blizz can pull out the farmer ban hammer anytime now…
A couple other thoughts on crafting:
They need L63 items for crafting. They need to lower the gold cost (again. and if for no other reason than to neuter the gold bots). In order to keep the top to bottom commodities markets viable they need to include other difficulty commods in the recipe. For example: grand exalted gloves = X gold, X ToS, AND pages of blacksmith AND tome of black smiths. People will be forced to earn them (which is easy cause they are lower difficulty or then you will be forced to buy them which then stirs the trading economy). They put this stuff in the game and they should make it mean something.
it’s also stupid because it makes their already flat item system appear even flatter. Just make the text purple and, “hey look, more item diversity”