by Hotstreak - 4 weeks ago     show comments

With Season 4 there has been so many foundational changes, tons of new shiny loot to chase after, bosses to take down, and sweet resplendent sparks to collect. One of my favorites of the new additions are Greater Affixes, which increases a base item stat by 150% and can only be found on item drops. These nice little bundles of pure dopamine have added a very welcome spice to the overall loot hunt, a spice that we haven’t really had in this franchise for some time. Another one of my favorite additions is Tempering. Which allows you to add up to two very powerful affixes that can’t be found on drops. Each Tempering slot shares seven re-rolls between them, giving you seven chances to get two of the affixes that you want.

I’ve always wanted to see a more deterministic crafting system in Diablo, and for the most part Tempering delivers. It’s also one of the most frustrating parts of Season 4 for me. There have been many times where I’ve found a really well rolled item with Greater Affixes, but I ended up rolling increased skeletal priest duration 4-5 times in a row. Effectively bricking the item, sometimes before I can even roll on my second Tempering slot. Other times it takes me 4-5 rolls to get the stat I want on the first Temper, leaving me with one roll on my second.

Now you may say, that’s just a part of an RNG based game like D4, and I would agree actually. I feel very strongly about keeping the possibility of bricking items, as I think it’s very good for the overall health of the game for items to be removed from the loot pool.  It also makes it feel that much sweeter when you Temper on well rolled affixes that you want or when you see a well rolled Temper on another player, you know they worked for it and earned it. But I think as it stands now, it’s just a bit too easy to brick items. It’s getting to a point where finding a cool and well rolled item with Greater Affixes, is making me more anxious than excited.

Possible Solutions

Now I’m no game designer and these ideas may suck, but I hope the attempt highlights where the pain points are. So for my first suggestion I thought about giving each Tempering slot five rolls, instead of seven being shared between the two. It’s still possible to get unlucky with RNG and roll stats that you don’t like, but this will make it a bit more forgiving. Especially when it takes five rolls to get the stat you want on your first slot. My second suggestion if ten total rolls seems too much, is to limit how many times in a row a Temper affix can roll. I think that limiting affixes to twice in a row would help ease some of the frustrations with rolling the same stat five times. My last and much less favorable suggestion would be to take the five million gold re-roll system from Masterworking and add it to Tempering. I don’t love this option though, because it effectively eliminates bricking.

I know that changes to this system could be tricky. Would bricking feel even more frustrating if it was less common, in a environment where you expect to get the Temper rolls that you want? It’s possible that always having a set expectation of a high possibility of bricking, makes it overall less frustrating. But I do think something could be done to make Tempering feel a bit more forgiving, while keeping the chance of bricking.

Conclusion

Overall I am having a blast with Season 4 and I love pretty much all of the changes and new additions. I think that Greater Affixes, Masterworking, and Tempering are huge wins for the game. With Tempering in my opinion, being a tweak or two away from perfection. How are you enjoying Season 4? Do you think Blizzard should adjust Tempering? Am I just mad cuz bad? Sound off in the comments below!