Highlights
- Diablo 4's loot system needs significant improvements as it currently lacks impactful and meaningful drops, making it hard to find upgrades for players' gear.
- The loot pool in Diablo 4 is not massive, but the number of possible affixes that items can roll is incredibly high, resulting in suboptimal gear pieces with undesirable stats.
- The abundance of craftable powers called Aspects and the prevalence of Legendaries and Uniques make it unlikely for players to find truly valuable and exciting additions to their arsenal, reducing the overall satisfaction of the loot system.
Diablo 4's popularity is not the same as it was when it first came out, and a lot of that is to be attributed to the many issues that came with Season of the Malignant, from the infamous "all nerfs" patch to the uninteresting seasonal loop - including most rewards. Blizzard still has a long way to go in refining all the things that made Diablo 4's launch period so successful, but there's hope because the company is actively seeking more feedback and listening to the community's concerns. Thus, before Season 2 launches in October, Blizzard should be taking a look at Diablo 4's itemization and find solutions to the many problems that loot is facing.
Loot is at the very core of ARPGs, and having good and meaningful loot to drop is a tough balance to strike because of the frequency of drops, the power of the items, and many more factors. For example, Diablo 4's uber-rare Uniques are not in a great spot because they are too difficult to find for players to even hypothetically rely on them for builds, to the point that some Druids are struggling to get their build-defining items. More importantly, loot doesn't feel as impactful as it could, and that's something Blizzard should address with a handful of fixes.
Why Diablo 4 Needs to Revamp its Loot
One of the biggest issues with Diablo 4 loot right now is that players can theoretically find dozens of Uniques and good-rolled rares to use for Aspect-crafting, but it's equally hard to actually consider new copies of the same items even a slight upgrade in the endgame. This is because the loot pool is not massive, but the number of possible affixes that items can roll is incredibly high, often resulting in pieces of gear that are far from optimal.
And yet, finding something that's better than suboptimal is not a simple task precisely because of the many rolls that a single item can have. Statistically, it's probable that players will get at the very least one stat they don't benefit from on a single item, and while they can reroll it, it's a costly process with no guarantees. In fact, Diablo 4's itemization should see one of two outcomes in Season 2, and those are either removing a plethora of affixes from each piece of gear or making rerolling affixes more rewarding or less expensive.
Still, Diablo 4's Aspects play a big role in how disappointing loot can feel, as they are essentially craftable powers that can be added to almost any item, resulting in players often already having pretty good gear when they start farming for more. With the baseline power being high, it's even more unlikely to run into loot that can feel like an actual upgrade to what a player is using. On top of that, one could argue that Legendaries and Unique are too common, and when one drops there is a very slim chance that it will be an astounding addition to a player's arsenal.
As such, the game might be suffering from an over-delivery of options in terms of possible builds that the developers wanted to cover with niche affixes on items, such as more powerful buffs from Shrines in Diablo 4, which is situational at best. Reducing the number of possible affixes and making both Legendaries and Uniques more valuable should be top priorities for Blizzard, especially considering that the game is currently suffering from very similar issues to Diablo 3's launch period. While an expansion might be the best way to win players back, the base gameplay and the loot it provides should be balanced way before then.
Diablo 4 is available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
