I never played Diablo 3 (for many reasons I won't waste peoples time here), but I have read many who argued that the system you explain is what they think killed the series. /shrug
They're idiots then. What "killed the series" (at least the parts of it relevant to your statement) was the in-game (real-money) AH, followed by the even more bizzare total removal of all trading. One of the few things they did right was the smart loot.
Originally Posted by Tyhan
...
Smart Loot worked because everyone had their own gear drops tailored to them. A smart loot inspired system for something like Divinity would be a lot more complex since loot is shared by the whole party.
It wouldn't need to be very complex, though. You could just put weights on the characters' attributes and abilities then base the loot on that. It may not be perfect (I'm sure somebody could come up with a better solution), but it would beat drowning in dex/strength gear when your party consists of two lone wolf mages.
In fact, the ability to do this is one of the good reasons to to use the game's current loot system.
