What I look for in unique items is a few things
- Does the item change the way I engage enemies? (ie. allows me to attempt unique strategies). If the item in question is a damage modifier then the answer is no. If the item ,for example, imparts fire immunity for a turn then the answer is yes.
- Does the item have value outside of its numerical statistical values? For example in d&d a +1 sword is not as good as a +2 sword but if the +1 sword has the ability to add poison to its surface once per combat then it could be more useful in some circumstances.
Precisely my thoughts. And I don't think these kind of desires should be limited to uniques. Random loot could just as well have interesting features at the cost of brute stats that set up possible new strategies. And random modifiers might mean you find the perfect piece of loot for your weird build that simply couldn't be predicted with preset, unique items.
But if there are going to be lots of different weird modifiers, I do think they should add some rare/expensive "upgrader stones" that upgrade an item to your level with the stats improving to match, in case you find a perfect item for your build, but you want to use it for longer.
The story isn't single player only: It is multi-player aimed. Either cooperative or competative.
Also there is an Arena mode wich will be purely PVP and later on I think will offer you own character creation and way to improve by winning and getting loot. Not sure though.
It's a good point for valuing balance, since you don't want one player to feel much weaker than his friend just because they found this weird but OP item. Also, I don't know how Arena will work, whether you can import characters from your main campaign or just have seperate characters there, and whether you can level up there and gain loot and whatnot.
IMO, they could make it very addictive if you got a random piece of loot every time you won, and so you'd build these characters up and get more powerful, obviously facing players of the same level (with the same number of pieces of loot), though big variations in loot modifiers might lead to some players being more powerful from luck. But it would definitely spice it up if you saw various different builds leading out of weird items. There could even be a sort of economy to develop out of people trading loot, though obviously you'd have to prevent people from starting alt accounts to farm good items for their main account, or friends giving their best items to one person and just making this unfairly powerful team.
There's a ton of potential for the arena, but I'm not sure if Larian is going to make it a well-designed but relatively simple system, or something that could possibly grow over time. It's hard to imagine that arena will be very moddable, either, at least to a large extent, since modding could obviously be used as a way to cheat. It seems only people with the same mods installed could play each other. I don't know how a thriving mod PVP community could arrive without a LOT of developer support and framework build around it, and I don't know if that will happen or is even worth Larian's time, considering most of their focus is on the main story.
