A compromise on Charms

[sicilian]

So, there's a discussion going on on the official forums right now (has been for weeks now i think) about whether Charms are/should be in Diablo 3. I'm kind of neutral towards them, but most people against them have the following argument:

You can overpower your character by sacrificing inventory space, which is a pain. And if you were to give players a separate charms inventory, it just becomes another piece of equipment with nothing unique about it.

So, here's my system as a compromise (and because I'm bored).

Spirit Charms

Every five levels, your character gains one charm spot. This gives you a potential, at level 100, for 20 charm spots. Too many under the old system, but my system would have some checks and balances.

First, each charm would contain in it the spirit of an element: Fire, Cold, Lightning, Earth, Nature, and Arcane. Someone who knows the lore better than I do could probably assign some names to the categories based on characters from the history.

Obviously, fire, cold, lightning, and arcane would have mods related to those damage types, etc.

Earth I feel would represent strength and physical prowess, which would have mods for your stats, physical damage, armor, etc.

Nature would be related to life, and would have mods for health, health regeneration, etc,

The elements would each have their counter element:

Fire - Cold
Lightning - Earth
Nature - Arcane

If you try to combine charms with their opposites, the effects would be reduced. For example, wear a fire charm and two cold charms, and the effects of the fire and one of the cold would be severely penalized. The power of the charms would cancel each other out.

You might think, but I can still load up on three of the six elements. My second balance would be, once you add a fourth charm of any one element, you start to have adverse reactions to the overwhelming power of that spirit. For example, four fire charms would cause you to take periodic fire damage. Five would increase this, until you hit seven, when you would literally be constantly on fire.

It would allow you free reign on charms to a point, but make you think twice if you want the ultimate power. Can you survive a bit of life drain if you're killing fast enough to get the orbs? Can you overcome slower movement speeds if it means you'll be practically immune to cold damage?

Thoughts? Additions? Flames? :D

[Grug]

Sounds too complex. Why not just have a special space for charms without bothering with all the elements?

[Bobby]

I think all this is too complex. I'm fine without any charms, but I know that people like to have as many options as possible. I'd rather have a return to no charms, but I know many will hate that. I think taking up inventory space for charms was a good plan in d2 because it made people make a choice. People that wanted the ability to max out damage with + skillers filling their whole inventory got it. People that wanted to be able to pick up every item under the sun could. People that wanted something in the middle could do that.

As far as the old system, IMHO the only people that complain are the ones that think they deserve to be able to max their gear AND still pick up items. Taking away charms would do exactly that.

But back on topic...
I like the idea of adverse effects for overloaded charms or some canceling others, it's just gotta be simple.

[Kiroptus]

Nah Charms were an uncreative gimminick that just ends up with frustration. Plus with the new one-square-slot inventory they would need an overhaul.

Maybe there could be some slot items for the charms but then its just another type of equipament. Whatever, I just wont miss charms at all, whenver I play D2 LOD I try to not clutter myself with charms because it just gets way too annoying for a loot centric game.

[Game Over]

i quite like charms im not shore why its just another thing to factor into your build. i agree with sicilian that there should be a separate place for them but i also think it would be good if you had 2 unlock each slot with a quest or gold or the like to make using them more of a challenge.

[sicilian]

It probably is a little too complicated, I'm just in favor of any system that actually gives the player a consequence for seeking too much power. Not in the main game sense, like with skills or anything crucial, but in side systems such as this.

[Srikandi]

I kinda like the proposal, but it's another large area of complexity to add into the already insane balance equation. Still, if the devs can handle the balance issue, I'm good with the complexity ;)

The thing I hated about charms was the whole sacrificing-inventory-for-stats thing. So unless they have their own bag/tab/whatever, I'm against them regardless. I know there's a time-honored tradition in RPGs where inventory management is half the game, but I've never found it fun. Unlimited and hassle-free inventory ftw :)

[Bobby]

You can't have unlimited inventory, there are too many pack rats out there. And then Google will have a competitor for buying up hard drives =) But I must say, more space is better in terms of d2 usage.

I think if they have a shared stash or an easy way to move stuff between characters (like a dropdown in the stash to select which one you wanna view) people won't care as much about the size.

[sbn]

I always thought charms were one of the best additions to the game with the expansion release. After a while all that space just became useless space as not everything needed to be picked up. Regardless of whether they have charms in D3, I would not be surprised if they released some charm like feature in a follow up expansion. I get the feeling that Blizzard is deliberately holding back some aspects of the game to add in later expansion packs.

[Turnip]

Well I do like this idea, definately adds a bit more customization to the mix. Im getting into game programming myself and may have to steal it. :P

[DBaron]

I disagree with the idea. IMO they were balanced as it is, and they provide a decent way to round out your char. I hope they don't get rid of charms.

[Zeek]

I say dump charms. Just leave sockets as ways to add a limited bit of a boost to stats that your equipment doesn't otherwise provide.

To me it seems like the problem was they came up with runewords and that took up the chance to also add a socket for some other minor mods. So, they came up with charms.

In the end it's still all about choices. "If I use this I can't get 'cannot be frozen' from anywhere...if I use that I'm really hurting on resistances". That's the way it should be and where D2 is at right now there's almost too little of it.

[stillman]

Well, Blizzard said every item will be socketable, like gloves, belts, and so on. So, imo, they should just allow many sockets per item. This would give us more than enough compensation for charms being left out.

[NASE]

Why does every things so black and white?

Can't you create a system where there are a small number of (unique/set) charms where you can only wear one of them at a time. Then, you can created some challenges/monsters/craft recipes to find in order to get the charm. Or just create monsters with high chance to drop one - while they are very rare on other monsters.

P.S. I don't mean to get torches and the like back - as those might be overpowered. Yet some quests that give you a few charms can be interesting.
P.P.S. I'm not sure if there are going to be class specific quest, yet this might be an interesting way to give certain classes some key mods they need in the game. Of course, if they are implemented like this, they have to be finder only.

[Edairu]

I wouldn't mind if charms were still around but very limited. Like you can only have one each of Small/Large/Grand (obviously with the new inventory this would have to change). Or maybe if charms are never dropped and are just given as a quest reward here and there.

The thing I hated about them in D2 was that late game you had to fill up your inventory. Leaving maybe 4*2 squares at most to pick up the largest items. But it was always a hassle to magic find and constantly have to go to town or store as much as you can in the Horadric Cube. Taking up your inventory space isn't balance, its just annoying.

[teh_Thrasher]

im quite alright with the removal of charms. they didnt really do anything unless u were rich enough to get the perfect ones for your class.. life skillers, hp scs, and of course the game breaking Anni and Hellfire torch.

without charms in d2 u actually had to assign str points to use gear and not just rely on those 2 charms to add 40 str easily. not to mention all the resistance and +skills.

charms should stay... in diablo 2. and make no appearance at all in diablo 3

[DBaron]

Why does every things so black and white?

Can't you create a system where there are a small number of (unique/set) charms where you can only wear one of them at a time. Then, you can created some challenges/monsters/craft recipes to find in order to get the charm. Or just create monsters with high chance to drop one - while they are very rare on other monsters.

P.S. I don't mean to get torches and the like back - as those might be overpowered. Yet some quests that give you a few charms can be interesting.
P.P.S. I'm not sure if there are going to be class specific quest, yet this might be an interesting way to give certain classes some key mods they need in the game. Of course, if they are implemented like this, they have to be finder only.

The only part I don't like about this is only being able to wear one at a time.

Anni's, and torches I don't consider as they were rewards charms, and dropped in by specific, very hard to reach monsters. However Gheeds was a unique also and it drove me nuts not being able to carry more than one. If you were playing by yourself, you had to drop the one you had, pick up the new one, then decide on the two, and since a gheeds was actually worth something, you had to go mule it with all the fun that entails. Unless you were so rich you leave a ko, lem, um rune (or whatever they are going for now) laying on the ground.

Point is, instead of only being able to carry one, there should be a way of only making one active, enabling you to carry the other around for trade/friend/other character.

Crafting unique charms sounds good though as it would add to gameplay. I remember spending a stupid amount of effort and money trying to craft some blood gloves.

[sicilian]

Why does every things so black and white?

Can't you create a system where there are a small number of (unique/set) charms where you can only wear one of them at a time. Then, you can created some challenges/monsters/craft recipes to find in order to get the charm. Or just create monsters with high chance to drop one - while they are very rare on other monsters.

P.S. I don't mean to get torches and the like back - as those might be overpowered. Yet some quests that give you a few charms can be interesting.
P.P.S. I'm not sure if there are going to be class specific quest, yet this might be an interesting way to give certain classes some key mods they need in the game. Of course, if they are implemented like this, they have to be finder only.

The problem with only being able to carry one is that then it just becomes another piece of equipment. You might as well just add a third ring slot if you're going to do that.

All in all, I admit it's likely that charms are really going to work in D3, but I just wanted to present a possible system, based on the idea that the danger of overloading on charms isn't lack of inventory space (trivial), but is instead a danger to the characters themselves.

[NASE]

The problem with only being able to carry one is that then it just becomes another piece of equipment. You might as well just add a third ring slot if you're going to do that.

No it doesn't.
As there might be more then one charm. So you would need to add a fifth ring slot and a second ring slot and so on. A second thing to remember is that there won't be any competition with other option. You use the charm or you don't, using a different charm isn't an option as you can always add that extra charm.

P.S. I might have formulated wrong. You could use charm A, B, C but not A, A, A just like with torch and anni.

@ DBaron: that would probably be the best. On the other hand, if we envision them as quest rewards or something the like, you might want to make it based on the finder, preventing you from trading it.

[sicilian]

No it doesn't.
As there might be more then one charm. So you would need to add a fifth ring slot and a second ring slot and so on. A second thing to remember is that there won't be any competition with other option. You use the charm or you don't, using a different charm isn't an option as you can always add that extra charm.

P.S. I might have formulated wrong. You could use charm A, B, C but not A, A, A just like with torch and anni.

@ DBaron: that would probably be the best. On the other hand, if we envision them as quest rewards or something the like, you might want to make it based on the finder, preventing you from trading it.

Ah, I see what you're saying now. You can carry as many charms as you want in your inventory, but none of them can be the same charm and there would only be so many of them (not a bunch of random low levels)? Not bad.

[Grug]

I was thinking, and I think the talisman thing we saw could work. You could put charms in the grid or some other geometric plot, and whenever two charms next to eachother have the same bonus, that bonus gets a 10% boost.

[teh_Thrasher]

thats a bad idea grug... then u could just get a bunch of the same ones and put em next to eachother and get an even bigger boost. *vomit*

theres no good way to work with charms. u either get too much content or too little. just remove them all together and have NO charm content. then the game will based more on skills + equipment and not have +charms thrown in the equation...

plus! blizzard wants a way to know how much life and what not each character is going to have at so and so level... having a bunch of +life charms would offset this and well u get the picture. (i think they will compensate for the +life from gear)

[Dahmer]

Thrasher, do you have a real reason why you're saying no to charms or is it just the fact that you think only really rich people had them?
For my part I think there's nothing wrong with how charms worked in D2 and see no reason not to have them in D3. The only bad thing about them is having a bunch of duped perfect charms floating around, that's all.

If someone wants to fill up their inventory space with charms to become a bit stronger but have less space to pick up items they should be able to.
If you don't like someone doing that and think he/she is getting too strong...get some yourself instead of whining about it.

[Kiroptus]

The problem is that they only served to make the interface more incovenient as the point of the game is to make your character stronger so you would want to wear the charms to be stronger but the way they cluttered up your inventory was just annoying. And now with the grid-tetris-inventory system gone, every charm would spend up one place in a huge inventory. It would be a hassle to balance their return now, there would need to be limitations and maybe a separed inventory so nah, just leave extra inventory space to pick up stuff and to keep alternate gear.

Charms would be fantasticly implemented in D2 lod IF there was a seperated place for them. But they are a boring addition, just extra mods. If you want the same power that charms gave to you might as well just make the items have more mods or have an augmenting/crafting system that allow us to add certain mods to our gear, so the mods are kept on the gear and not cluttering up our inventory.

I was once very rich on D2 and had characters filled with +skills charms and I have to say that playing them was a horrible experience, all that charms did was to make your character stronger if you are willing to have a worse gameplay experience and thats why such a bad concept should never return. The psicological effect of taking out the charms and making the character a bit weaker just kept them there but having them there just meant that you could forget playing anything other than PVP because only keeping a 4x2 inventory was really really inconvenient for such a loot centric game. Away with charms, give us more intelligent customization options that dont sacrifice the interface along with it as charms did.

And please dont come with "Oh that was a choice that people had to make!" no, it was a bad thing to be given choice. I mean, sacrificing and choosing some things over like life leech or +life, mana or +life, damage or defense, etc... those are game choices and are fine. But everytime you found a charm that you wanted to keep the sacrifice that you had to make was the own game's interface. Its a bad concept and let it die on D2, lets have D3 giving us something better.

[Dahmer]

Well at least you have a reasoning I can understand Kiroptus, I just don't agree with it. The whole point of the charms was to sacrifice inventory space to improve your character. If you have a seperate space for them they completely lose that meaning because everyone will be full of charms all the time.
By the way you're calling this a bad system / bad concept I have the feeling you're only calling it that just because you didn't like the choice? I had several characters with plenty of charms, compared to your example I had a character with lots of skill charms and unlike you I had LOADS of fun with it.

Calling it a bad concept just because you didn't like it doesn't add up, it's like calling a car bad just because you don't like it. People have different tastes, different things they like. I liked the choice of figuring out what to do with my inventory space depending on what I was doing (pvp or baalruns)

*edit*
Here's a reason why there's also no real difference between gear choices and charm/inventory spaces choices :
Depending on what char you were playing you either had one set of gear best for everything....or several items that could go in one slot depending on what you were facing.

Example :
the 3 big clones...one high resistance requires fight, two easy melee fights
choices & sacrifices? simple, you could either get one set of gear to do everything (more expensive) or you could sacrifice inventory space to carry a shield with resistance stacked to be able to counter the aura and use a high damage shield to deal with the melee fights

Similar thing you're doing with charms, inventory space vs character strength.

[Kiroptus]

I still say its a bad concept based of the goal of the game itself and not only because of my own opinion. The point of the game is to make yourself stronger by picking up the loot but charms went against that, if you keep too much charms you wouldnt have space to pick up stuff and in bnet people would end up picking more stuff than you if they had less charms. So there is the problem there, two of the most important concepts of the game, loot and evolving your character are opposing to each other.

Certainly you had fun with your character that had +skill charms and +300 poison sc stucked in every possible orifice but I guess that was in PVP and not in PVM or Baal runs where you have to click fast when he drops his loot.
Plus now in D3 Town Portals are out of the picture so you cant keep going back to down only keeping one inventory slot.

Again, having the option for players to sacrifice the interface of the game itself, and making it more annoying to play a loot centric game was just wrong, if you cant see that then you need to look further on the concept because it is.

Its obvious that you WANT to keep your character stronger as it is one of the goals of the game but it was just a conundrum that wasnt healthy to the game. Its good to have a dilema about life or mana, damage or defense, etc... but having two of the main concepts of the game, loot and character evolution opossing each other was just absurd.

Just because D2 gave you the option to kill your own interface to make your character stronger doesnt mean it was a great choice or that D3 has to make the same thing again. There are lots of new ideas that can be implemented and charms doesnt need to return when something much more creative and that can give you far more interesting choices aside from killing the own interface can be made.

If there is a new customization system where I have to make sacrifes like life over mana or damage over defense I can play the game just fines and taking the advantages and disadvantages of my choices whithin the game's rules itself but If take full use of the charm system, I can play but its just makes the game more annoying to play as you diminish your inventory. Plus the proof that the charms arent that necessary to the game is that right now, if all charms were removed (maybe except for the 3 unique ones, at least those got some personality and having all of them dont clutter up your inventory as much as all the +1 skill charms) no one would really be damaged by it. Look at classic, people can PVP and PVM normally without charms. Plus it would just balance the field as no real build really NEEDs charms its only there to be exploited, casters want the +1 skill charms and builds who are used to hit targets physically use lots of +300 poison sc but both types can work just normally without them.

D3 is another game, charms in D2 were there because of the inventory tetris and the abudance and ease of using town portals to return to town and put your loot there even if you just had a 4x2 space because you were full of charms. Now both town portals and inventory tetris are out of the game so charms' return would be a hassle to think of, its certainly much better to think of a new system, you can love D2 charms all you want but you have to understand that we are talking about D3 here and with all changes announced to the interface and the game itself, charms would feel just bad in the game. Not everything that was in D2 has to be in D3.

[Grug]

Like I said in Knight_Wolf's suggestion about mercenaries with inventory, you should never have to choose between Combat Strength and Inventory space. They should never be dependent on one another. Kiroptus hit the nail on the head: Charms effectively worsen your game experience in exchange for more power.

[Dahmer]

I still say its a bad concept based of the goal of the game itself and not only because of my own opinion. The point of the game is to make yourself stronger by picking up the loot but charms went against that, if you keep too much charms you wouldnt have space to pick up stuff and in bnet people would end up picking more stuff than you if they had less charms. So there is the problem there, two of the most important concepts of the game, loot and evolving your character are opposing to each other.

Certainly you had fun with your character that had +skill charms and +300 poison sc stucked in every possible orificeAnd I stopped reading there, congratulations for being another idiot jumping to the wrong conclusion.
I never used poison charms and never will, I killed people that did and obviously there's no point to try and talk sense in to you if you're accusing me of using stupid (duped?) poison charms when you know absolutely nothing about me.

@Grug :
Worsen your game experience? I'ld like to see an example of that, all they did was make my game experience better (more fun)
If I needed more charms I got more, if I could do with less I put some in my stash and I honestly don't see what the problem is. You ALWAYS have the option to move stuff out of your inventory and the only mobs that required you to be as strong as you could possibly be dropped ONE small charm or one large charm. For those you needed a max of two open inventory spots and if you needed that many charms for anything else (not including pvp) you were obviously doing something wrong.

[Zarniwoop]

Removing charms would be irretrievably stupid.

They should simply add a three layer row below normal inventory and call it the charm inventory. Nothing but charms can be put in there. 3x width of normal inventory. No infringement on your ability to carry, no hassle.

Dumbing down the game is just that. Dumb.

[SlechtWeerBeer]

Removing charms would be irretrievably stupid.

They should simply add a three layer row below normal inventory and call it the charm inventory. Nothing but charms can be put in there. 3x width of normal inventory. No infringement on your ability to carry, no hassle.

Dumbing down the game is just that. Dumb.

Then why not just make items/skills better and remove charms...?
It's like stats in D II: Everyone will take practiaclly the same, except for those small variations (such as max blockers), and the off-beats (I doubt there will be a lot of those in D III though).

[Zarniwoop]

Because that's just dumbing the game down.

I oppose the "bioshocking" of the game industry.

More complexity is better in my book. You can stick the latest talk given by the developer of the month in a sandwich. I'm not interested. Make items and skills better anyways. Keep the charms.

Items will be to customize our stats anyways.

[Kiroptus]

Its not dumbing down since we dont know what other customization options are avaliable. The problem is that charms concept was flawed as it took too much space in the inventory. The inventory is clearly separed between your gear and the actual inventory. Let the gear section get the items that will have mods that will affect your character and the inventory to be the space to pick stuff, keep reserve potion, alt/gear, whatever.

A separated inventory just for the charms is fine, I would be ok with that but some people here want them just as D2 were and now with inv-tetris gone, is hard to pull that. But again, it might as well be extra equip slots being like that so...

And I stopped reading there, congratulations for being another idiot jumping to the wrong conclusion.
I never used poison charms and never will, I killed people that did and obviously there's no point to try and talk sense in to you if you're accusing me of using stupid (duped?) poison charms when you know absolutely nothing about me.



I really dont care what you did or what you didnt do, its what everyone does with charms. So you used charm only for the greater good? How nice of you! everyone just stacked the maximum poison charms possible if they were to hit their targets physically or casters would use lots of +1 skill charms and +20 life sc.

Plus I never said you duped anything, its not even THAT hard to find those gross +100-200 poison charms. Dont throw a fit at nothing, you still fail to actually defend the actual state of the charms where you have the option to kill your own interface in exchange for mods and also say anything about how no build in the game actually NEEDs charms.

As someone mentioned it could have a separed inventory for them, now without tetris-inv it certainly cant be bought back how it used to be on D2.

[sicilian]

As someone mentioned it could have a separed inventory for them, now without tetris-inv it certainly cant be bought back how it used to be on D2.

Which was kind of the point of my original idea. Putting aside whether anyone thinks the inventory space vs. power choice was good or bad, the charms system at it's core was a system with two attributes:

1) You can basically expand your power far beyond what your normal equipment provides.

2) With each new bit of power, you sacrifice something.

Now, like you said Kir, without the tetris style inventory, it becomes harder to make the sacrifice inventory space. Also, as some have pointed, it detracted from one of the more fun aspects of the gameplay, which was collecting loot.

So my idea was a stab at making the sacrifice something other than inventory space. Perhaps a simpler version of my system could work like this:

Each charm has a positive AND a negative mod, guaranteed. You want that extra 20 life? You might lose 20 mana. You want 10 extra fire resist? You're going to lose 10 cold resist.

That way, overloading yourself on charms would be dangerous, but if you're stacked on one particular mod and can afford to lose a bit, you can find an item that will help you. More customization, but with a price.

[Grug]

That still wouldn't work. Because with the benefit, there's now a drawback In Addition To the loss of inventory space.

I think everyone can agree that a separate charm inventory or equip slot would be best.

[sicilian]

That still wouldn't work. Because with the benefit, there's now a drawback In Addition To the loss of inventory space.

I think everyone can agree that a separate charm inventory or equip slot would be best.

My second idea WOULD be in a separate "charms" window, not in your inventory. But if you're just going to have that or additional equip slots for charms, there's nothing special about them. It's just another type of equipment, no different from boots, or gloves, or jewelry.

With a separate charm area, PLUS automatic negative mods, it allows for a much greater range of improvements, but with the negative mods providing a control so you can't overload a character's power ala D2.

[DBaron]

Which was kind of the point of my original idea. Putting aside whether anyone thinks the inventory space vs. power choice was good or bad, the charms system at it's core was a system with two attributes:

1) You can basically expand your power far beyond what your normal equipment provides.

2) With each new bit of power, you sacrifice something.

Now, like you said Kir, without the tetris style inventory, it becomes harder to make the sacrifice inventory space. Also, as some have pointed, it detracted from one of the more fun aspects of the gameplay, which was collecting loot.

So my idea was a stab at making the sacrifice something other than inventory space. Perhaps a simpler version of my system could work like this:

Each charm has a positive AND a negative mod, guaranteed. You want that extra 20 life? You might lose 20 mana. You want 10 extra fire resist? You're going to lose 10 cold resist.

That way, overloading yourself on charms would be dangerous, but if you're stacked on one particular mod and can afford to lose a bit, you can find an item that will help you. More customization, but with a price.


I'm vehemently against negative mods. It's hard enough finding decent crap as it is, not to mention decipher its value based off the range of its values, no need to make it even harder IMO.

Yes a rich player could possibly imba the game by overloading on the best charms, but isn't that sort of the point? If I put the time and effort in I want to be more powerful than the casual player. I already made a sacrifice. And for the casual/poor player, well we all can't have maras, but at least we can get some resist charms, and some of the cheaper skillers and make up for it a little bit.

I don't really buy the argument that charms take up too much inventory. In my experience with inventory space goes, if you don't fill it up with charms, your just gonna find a way to fill it up with other junk. It always seems to happen regardless, and at the end of the day the player will always have to come to some comprimise between available space and used space. At least with the charms the way they were, you were getting some immeadiate benefit, instead of wasting the space muling around a ton of assorted crap that may or may not be worth something, but you don't want to give it up just in case, or don't want to spend the time trying to find out. Maybe if they did something like slowing down your attack speed/running speed based off of a percentage of how full your inventory/backpack was it might help, but that would suck.

Regardless of the way they work now, In the end I guess that a seperate slot for charms would probably be the best, but I agree that it turns charms into just another piece of equipment. I was thinking that in order to make them compete for space against other permanent equipment just put them on your belt. Something like, you have a 24 slot belt, you could place potions/elixers/antidotes (basically quick buff items), or key/scrolls (utilitarian items) or you could overload on charms (permanant items but with small buffs) or some combination of these based off of your play style. Keeps charms, but also keeps the spirit of having to comprise.

Note: I can't remember if potions are out now, but I think I remember seeing an elixer of something drop in one of the gameplay demos.

[Dahmer]

Seperate inventory for charms would be best for all the people whining here that can't make up their own mind and don't know how to manage their inventory. It still completely ruins the whole point of charms though, having to choose between power or inventory space. In D2 you had the choice, according to what you guys want you wont have a choice, you'll have to fill up your charm spots because everyone else will.

@Kiroptus :
First you're telling me I'm "sticking +300 poison sc in every orifice" and you're saying they're not dupes? Either you're the only person on the planet that managed to get more than 3 legit +300 poison sc's or you're clueless. It was close to impossible to get a non duped sc with that much poison damage.
Besides that I can't think of a single character that actually needs charms to do something pvm wise, everything has always been incredibly easy. I still stand by the fact that the only mobs in the game that require charms are the clones and they only need you to have 1-3 spots open in your inventory, if you NEED charms for anything else you're doing it wrong. I had 3 accounts with chars I played with over all the years I played D2 and every single one of them could do fine without charms, I only used charms to make the grinding go by a bit quicker. The only two charms I had on all the time (if I had them on that char anyway) were the unique sc & lc.
Also judging by your join date I would think it's more of a clueless part and not having played this game long enough but I know those dates dont mean that much, it's only a forum join date.

[Grug]

Here's a thought. Separate inventory for charms, but the slots are in a special pattern, like the Talisman thing we saw. If two charms with the same bonus, like +fire damage or Thorns, are placed in spaces connected by lines, that bonus gets a small boost, like an extra 5%. That way the layout matters as well as the charms themselves.

[sicilian]

Here's a thought. Separate inventory for charms, but the slots are in a special pattern, like the Talisman thing we saw. If two charms with the same bonus, like +fire damage or Thorns, are placed in spaces connected by lines, that bonus gets a small boost, like an extra 5%. That way the layout matters as well as the charms themselves.

I could get behind this. It's different enough from just a standard inventory slot that it warrants it's own distinction.

Could even take it a step further, and make this the new "runeword" system. Put in the correct complete pattern and you'll get additional bonuses.

[Kiroptus]

Seperate inventory for charms would be best for all the people whining here that can't make up their own mind and don't know how to manage their inventory. It still completely ruins the whole point of charms though, having to choose between power or inventory space.

And thats a bad choice because its about two of the main concepts of the game, collecting stuff and becoming powerful, two things that are the main goals of the game should never be opposing each other, infact they should be working together with the flow of the game.

@Kiroptus :

I still stand by the fact that the only mobs in the game that require charms are the clones and they only need you to have 1-3 spots open in your inventory, if you NEED charms for anything else you're doing it wrong.

Yes, charms were necessary for nothing, every single build would work without charms, I already stated that.

I had 3 accounts with chars I played with over all the years I played D2 and every single one of them could do fine without charms, I only used charms to make the grinding go by a bit quicker.

I know every character can do perfectly fine without charms, whats your point? Charms are only there to overpower and unbalance stuff.

The only two charms I had on all the time (if I had them on that char anyway) were the unique sc & lc.

Same as me, I dont like cluttering myself with them, but hey, thats what someone who takes full advantage of the charm system does.

Also judging by your join date I would think it's more of a clueless part and not having played this game long enough but I know those dates dont mean that much, it's only a forum join date.

HAHAHAHHA yeah by knowing it doesnt mean much you shouldnt even mention it because it just makes you look very clueless. I have been on these forums and played D2 since launch date with a diferent account. After a certain Hiatus and overall boredom of patch 1.10, many many left the game, when D3 was announced it bought a lot of old members back and I am one of them. So dont give me clueless noob-that-dont-know-what diablo is about because I have been here as much time as possible so far.



Btw just think a little, if charms are back exactly from D2 and someone wants to use it to full extent, by only leaving one inventory slot free, that person could play the game, it wouldnt be too much a problem as D2 since now everyone has their own drops and noone would steal your drops but it just makes the game a horrible experience to play, everytime that person found an item that he/she wanted to keep, they would have to backtrack aallll the way back to town (no portals this time) and put their item there, in the stash, and then return. It would make the game a chore. If a customization system which, used to full extent, makes the game a chore, it wasnt a good system to begin with.

You think people will "naturally" find a balance between the proper number of inventory slots and charms? How long have you playing this? Havent you noticied the line of thinking of this community of players? Everyone wants to exploit the game and become more powerfull as possible, with the lesser effort as possible, if there is a system that allows you do so they will do it. In every patch it has been like this, in the 1.09 days the cow levels were abused to no extent, the game was barely played, after 1.10 its all about enigma-hammerdins bots auto-leveling for you. You can say "Oh no, I didnt do any of those! You are the exploiter!" I dont care, its what most players do, its why pre-1.10 cowlevel games were filled in second and why it was sacrilegious to kill the king or why after 1.10 hammerdins bots have their own channels for their fast runs. Because people want to extract the most effective way to exploit the game.


The auto-stats came to bring balance, charms would just throw that balance out of the windown, it makes no sense to have such a bold move with auto-stats and suddenly, allowing such a system as charms to be back, which if manipulated accordinly turns the game into manual-stats all over again. If their line of thinking is to have more control about what every class can do and can be/not be its safe to say that charms, as they were in d2, wont return.

Its the problem with you people that want everything that was in D2 to be back, you just dont put thought on how things actually worked and the new line of thought that was presented for diablo3 so far. Sometimes removing stuff actually add things. Removing potions give you a more sense of danger and fair play, as the only things that were actually treats were 1-hit kill monsters. Removing town portals gives you the sense that you are actually going further and further into the hells and actually being far away from safety, in D2 you were always one step from town, it was ridiculous that in the middle of boss fight, fighting the personification of evil himself, you could just stop the fight and refill yourself.


I played this game long enough to know what to love and what to hate. Long enough to notice what was wrong. Its funny that this is a game that was barely played. It has pretty much a decade of age and still few people actually played, the game was much more exploited than played, it was always about rushing -> exp spot. When everyone should be playing together to have a good time killing stuff, but that never happened with systems such as PKs and players stealing your drops and specially when someone could just level faster by you by rushing and running into automated runs (bot or no bot, the "runs" were always a robotic mechanism) always made that not really a good choice. In 1.09 I remember that my friends always said "only noobs play the game", because the rule for 1.09 was to rush to cowlevels and stay there leeching experience (there was even an old column here criticizing this line of thinking, I will see If I can find it because it was a good read). In 1.10 a character can own anything in 8ppl hell alone (hammerdin), plus to add insult to the injury there is enigma, which makes programming bots ridiculously easy for such an already powerful character build.

If charms are back exactly as they were, the whole point of auto-stats goes out of the windown, and by adding charms we lose this little thing called balance. I know that back in 2000 that balance wasnt widely discussed or demanded in games but the times have changed. Gamers that demand an imbalanced games are outdated and any of their requests will rightfully fall on deaf ears. Let them remain playing their old games, balance IS important in any type of game even a PvM game. Its not cool to create a fire druid/or lighting zon/or a poison necro that has to worry about immunities while a maniacal hammerdin can just teleport around killing everything and not worrying about immunities at all and not only that but doing far more damage that you would ever do. Its time to understand that times have changed and balance is a priority in any type of game now.

[Grug]

I could get behind this. It's different enough from just a standard inventory slot that it warrants it's own distinction.

Could even take it a step further, and make this the new "runeword" system. Put in the correct complete pattern and you'll get additional bonuses.

Thanks for the support, but Charmwords are a bad idea. It would cause the same problem that Runewords did. IE, people would only use the special combos and not their own custom sets.

[raveharu]

Charms are too D2, they won't appear in D3, trust me.
Something new will be implemented that works something like charms(maybe).

[Dahmer]

Charms are too D2, they won't appear in D3, trust me.
Something new will be implemented that works something like charms(maybe).I guess this is the only reasonable way, no charms.

random stats bonus on items and/or gems to get stat modification people used to get from charms and maybe enchants on items

I just hope they're not adding a seperate inventory where people can put charms...I'ld rather have no charms at all then.

@Kiroptus :
You read my post and you still manage to come up with an example where someone is killing mobs and has a full inventory of charms? If anyone is retarded enough to have a ton of charms in their inventory while there's a chance of getting useful drops they fully deserve to waste time going back to town just to be able to get the item(s).

[Akse]

Charms were useless in d2(unless you wanted a full inventory if you played expansions) so why need them in d3 :P

[sicilian]

Charms were useless in d2(unless you wanted a full inventory if you played expansions) so why need them in d3 :P

I disagree. For untwinked characters, they were VERY helpful when trying to maintain resistances in higher difficulty levels.

[Akse]

You don't have them if you play d2 classic... i've managed fine so far(9years - breaks). 3pdiamond shield does wonders for resistances.

[SlechtWeerBeer]

You don't have them if you play d2 classic... i've managed fine so far(9years - breaks). 3pdiamond shield does wonders for resistances.

Because everyone who plays untwinked will have a couple of those at the ready, whenever. Plus, try to find a suitable shield for it that has more than just the res...
Still, I agree with you. Charms sucked.

[Due]

Charms are Idiotic. No need for them in D3.

[sicilian]

You don't have them if you play d2 classic... i've managed fine so far(9years - breaks). 3pdiamond shield does wonders for resistances.

I don't play classic, so can't really comment. But as another poster mentioned, untwinked, three perfect diamonds don't just fall out of the sky, and what if I'm playing a Frenzy Barb? No shield. Charms help.

[Brother Laz]

Oh no, the game is difficult! Fix that!

Charms make up for gear deficiencies so you don't have to make trade-offs, you can just use all the best items and fix holes with charms. And their penalty for use has to be the suckiest design ever seen this side of reputation grinds.

[Killafornia]

Oh no, the game is difficult! Fix that!

Charms make up for gear deficiencies so you don't have to make trade-offs, you can just use all the best items and fix holes with charms. And their penalty for use has to be the suckiest design ever seen this side of reputation grinds.

I know you aren't hating on charms Laz. Look at all the nice ones you made.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m102/p0tsimages/charms.jpg

[Brother Laz]

I know you aren't hating on charms Laz. Look at all the nice ones you made.

Did you notice all of those are carry1 so you physically cannot fill your entire inventory with them?

That's the whole problem with charms in D2 - you are encouraged to fill up your inventory to the point where you can't pick up items anymore, so you have to do annoying cube tricks.

[JonathanNathan]

That's the whole problem with charms in D2 - you are encouraged to fill up your inventory to the point where you can't pick up items anymore, so you have to do annoying cube tricks.I felt like I was being encouraged to do something quite different: pick and choose the absolute best charms, so that I always had room in my inventory for picking up what I needed. I would never allow my charms to exceed 50% of my inventory, and would generally keep them below 35%. Most of them stopped being very useful in the later levels of Nightmare anyway.

I don't see charms functioning well at all in D3. Some of the proposed solutions are innovative, but too complicated for the deadheaded, boring, WoW-zombie type of player that Blizzard seems to be trying to attract with this title. Now that "inventory-tetris" (I thought we used to call it "having the common sense to know what to pick up and how to store it properly") is no longer a facet of the game (one more iconic element of Diablo goes down the hole), charms make no sense, and would unbalance the game. Whatever else they do that I don't like, one thing I know they will do will is game balance. Charms will not be in.

[ThulRasha]

Why not just have 2 spots for charms and name those 2 spots trinket slots :p

[Killafornia]

Did you notice all of those are carry1 so you physically cannot fill your entire inventory with them?

That's the whole problem with charms in D2 - you are encouraged to fill up your inventory to the point where you can't pick up items anymore, so you have to do annoying cube tricks.

No you can't fill it all the way, but when you get every charm in your mod pretty much your inventory is full.

[Akse]

I don't play classic, so can't really comment. But as another poster mentioned, untwinked, three perfect diamonds don't just fall out of the sky, and what if I'm playing a Frenzy Barb? No shield. Charms help.

Pdiamonds are cheap or and easy to get.. seriously even in LOD you have like from level 40-70 time to find normal and flawless diamonds in nightmare before hell level. A 3 soc shield can be bought from act2 store in normal for example.. So much about hard..

I'm quite sure that in D3 we will have so much better ways to customize our gear and many skills that can help out with survivability or damage that the charms offered. No need to fill the inventory with stupid toilet paper when you can have the same effect more nicely.

[XxSharpNipsxX]

In D2, if your charms were pissing you off because they took up to much room, then simply get rid of some of them... i know you want all be bonuses but if it makes you that upset get rid of 8 squares worth of charms so you can pick up and armor of something. As for the people who overload their inventory with charms let them its only going to effect you if your dueling(if your dueling put your charms in your inventory...

[JonathanNathan]

In D2, if your charms were pissing you off because they took up to much room, then simply get rid of some of them... i know you want all be bonuses but if it makes you that upset get rid of 8 squares worth of charms so you can pick up and armor of something. As for the people who overload their inventory with charms let them its only going to effect you if your dueling(if your dueling put your charms in your inventory...Admittedly, I've never been one to hang out in game-fan circles very much--this is my first foray into gaming fandom in ages--but I always assumed that this was everyone's attitude? Some charms just aren't worth the bonuses? Isn't that the...um...adult way of looking at a problem?

[Rash]

I think the charm "problem" is totally made up by players. Nobody force you to use charms and they are only really needed when you
a) play pvp
b) want to optimize your char

By the time your inventory is nearly full of charms, your gear is pretty much perfect anyway, so you dont need much space to pick up things. Runes, other charms, and some very rare items are the only things you need to pick up.

I like the concept of charms and those where one of the few valuable items left you could get rich (everytime a sc or gc drops in hell is was like "yay!")

[DxAxxxTyriel]

any1 else think the Talisman picture kinda fits what the OP is suggesting?

[rCt Arbitur]

Bad idea, why not just let ppl have a charm bag that can carry up to 10charms max so u wouldn't have to have them lying around in your inventory? (you wouldn't be able to use their properties if their in your inventory, only charms in the charm bag would have active properties.)

[Edairu]

Bad idea, why not just let ppl have a charm bag that can carry up to 10charms max so u wouldn't have to have them lying around in your inventory? (you wouldn't be able to use their properties if their in your inventory, only charms in the charm bag would have active properties.)

Yeah, that sounds nice and all. But what people are saying is having a special slot somewhere solely created to hold charms... makes charms the same has any other piece of equipment. And I personally don't think we need any extra items to try and collect.