For items, whats wrong with just having :
Magic (any 1 color)
Non-magic (no color)
?
Simply the best, imho. Anything more becomes MMO/Diablo Tier xxxx junk.
This will naturally make the game have LESS magic items (you dont have to design a common slot, uncommon, rare, etc...with all the stats calibrated to fit these...), which is a GOOD thing I believe. As a Dev, you can now concentrate on making more unique detailed stuff. And magic items become more fantastic and historically rooted in the world. And as a player, it becomes way more exciting discovering these.
Think of it like playing DOS2, removing every single colored magic items (green, blue, purple, red?..I forgot) ; but just keeping and improving only the unique magic stuff, and adding a bit more of those.
Then again, DOS is a silly world...so it kind of fits having a silly amount of magic items...not the best example lol.
I both agree and disagree with you. I really don't think that the problem with BG3's loot is the tier approach and color-coding. I think Larian wanted to design things this way to begin with, and color-coding just followed naturally from that. I think that everything you said about the game having fewer magical items is a positive, but I think you're treating the color-coding as part of the cause, rather than a neutral feature that exists because it helps with what Larian wanted to do in the first place. If someone forced Larian to take away the color-coding...we'd have the same loot issues but harder to manage visually.
I personally have no issue with rarity colors. They were invented back in the 90s in order to make it easier for the player to visually differentiate which items are better in terms of stats. So as far as games go it makes sense to have it, but the way BG3 does it is quite wonky because it lacks consistency since it is all over the place with rarities.
For example
[Vision Of The Absolute] and
[The Sparky Points] are exactly the same in terms of stats yet different rarities, but
[Faithbreaker] which is a +1 weapon with a unique ability and better than both is Uncommon. Same with other items such as
[Everburn Blade] being the same rarity as
[Greatsword +1].
[Firestoker] being the same rarity as
[Hand Crossbow +1].
[Sword Of Justice] being the same rarity as
[Greatsword +2].
So for me personally my only issue is the lack of consistency which makes rarities obsolete. Unique items with unique properties that make character builds more varied should simply be unique rarity. So it should look something like this;
- Common 0
- Uncommon +1
- Rare +2
- Very Rare +3
- Unique - A unique item that has a unique property.
So all these should be the same;
[Vision Of The Absolute] [Everburn Blade] [Faithbreaker] [Firestoker] etc... as they all have a unique property and only one exists in the world.
You've hit upon a point I hadn't really noticed. Things are pretty inconsistent in terms of how rarity is assigned. And also in terms of D&D pen and paper, rarity isn't purely a question of value and stats. Like, a healing potion is a common magical item in the DM's guide, it's not just a thing for weapons.
