Hello dear Developers and Community!
Im a veteran of ARPGs and wanted to suggest a possible remedy to avoid the sometimes problematic/frustrating way these games (including yours) handle loot drops, rarity of gear and gear power.
Background: what can be bad and frustrating
Common gear usually possesses less modifications than rare gear and are thus less powerful.
This tends to render common gear practically useless (leaving aside the crafting in PoE).
Additionally, a lot of loot will drop, so the majority of loot will be useless stuff that clutters your screen - possibly even killing you, if you cant see your enemies.
The goal of a rarity system is to make players feel good upon finding rares and make them grind for it, so they spend a bit more time in the game. However, it can be done in a way that makes no item useless:
Suggestion:
a. all items of a type (ring, etc) possess the same number of modifiers, regardless of rarity
b. rarity is now determined by the modifiers the item possesses (the more rare and specific the mods the rarer the item)
c. reduce the amount of loot (-15 to 30%)
Let me use and example to explain what I mean by a) and b):
Assume we get 2 rings, a common and a rare one.
The common ring could do simple things like grant grant health, mana and intelligence.
The rare one could do something more special, like:
- granting an additional level in a specific mastery
- greatly empower an effect of a certain skill
- grant weapon attacks a chance to apply a poison debuff
- grant conditional effects (example “+ Health regen per second while under Y% health”)
This way, normal gear will be useful, but to min/max your build you will need very specific rare gear. Not only will this make the game more accessible to casual players who do not care much for grinding, but finding a “fitting” rare would be at least as rewarding as it is now.
Since there are more usable items, there is no need to clutter the screen anymore, thus I suggested the reduction of the loot drop rate.
NOTE:
It is also possible to introduce “gear-only skills” and mods for these skills.
Example:
" While equipped, you may use ‘Fire Aura’. "
" + X to radius of Fire Aura"
“Fire Aura deals Y% increased damage.”
This would allow players to have access to more than just class based skillls and compliments the suggested rarity system.
What do you guys think of it?