So i've wanted to make this post for a while now but was to lazy and too busy and thus forgot about it but after finishing the newest beta this weekend it came back to my mind. I've been playing the game since alpha bla blubb and while the game is great fun the itemization is only partly fun. The item "hunt" (this is not diablo and i think we all agree that we don't want it to be) is great at the beginning of the game, because most of the time they deal a great benefit. The problem is the time you hit around level 7/8 it starts to get less important till negligible.

While the item finding rate is constant their usefulness begins to degrade heavily, especially for weapons. If you found a good one (good stat boost or good damage) it takes alot of time till you find a new item which you consider to replace the current one. Most of the time its more like 'yeah could be useful in some situation where i need one point more in X so i keep it, but never use it anyway'. If you have a top damage 2 hand weapon you even ditch weapons that have far better stat boosts. What is one point more in strength worth if you already have 13 or 1 extra AP if you already have 8AP in comparison to 60 more damage. So you start identifying items just for trading purpose rather than looking for upgrades. For example you found another blue ring and you know this one will make its way to the vendor because the ones you are wearing are green or orange.

I don't know whats beyond the beta content but i've managed to top out strength and intelligence (assuming 15 is the limit) easily with the cyseal content. This raises the question what comes next or what is left. Maxing out the other stats and thats it?

Larian already made some changes to item variety with some nice little effects. But apart from a few exceptions like the stone sword, an armor that had a chance to freeze attacking opponents or boots that grants you slow immunity they are not game changing. I guess it gets better later on in the game but in the beginning it doesn't matter if a weapon has 10% chance to stun, blind, knock down etc.

Am i the only one who feels that the current itemization is a little bit too boring on long term view? Like i said i don't know whats after the cyseal content and if we can expect new things like the ones i'd like to suggest than forget what i wrote here, nothing to see here

I'd like to see items with stats that make you reconsider. "Hmm do i take the weapon that does x damage or do i take the weapon with cool effect xyz?" "Do i take the ring that buffs a gazzilion stats or do i take the ring that buffs/changes one particular game mechanic?" I'd like to see items that bend game mechanics, alters them, allows you to use abilities without spending points into the corresponding schools or grants you abilities you can't even learn otherwise.
For EXAMPLE properties like this:



I know its probably too late till release to implement/balance such things anyway but you could reconsider it for an addon or later patch. Just a suggestion though

nice ideas.

I would rather go for consumables and temporary buffs, because this would probably be easier to implement than new skill effects and animations, while i really like the idea (and have seen this in other games at least partially).

as said in a different thread, i would love to see temporary weapon or armor improvements, consumables, that add a certain effect to your weapon or armor for a few turns, such as "weapon does ice dmg instead of whatsoever was on it for 3 turns" or "your fire spells are more effective/do more dmg but you are now "Warm" or have the risk of being set on fire randomly while unter this effect".

this would also make crafting more "important" (it is important already, don't get me wrong here ^^), and add more diversity to recipes. there could be anything, from increasing resistance to temporary immunity, from adding effects to imcrease dmg. In the end, this should not simply lead to an improvement, there should be a penalty for using such things (such as if somethings improves your fire dmg, it could lower your ice dmg, or make you even more vulnerable for ice dmg, and so on...), a certain balance.

Well, they added unbreakable recently to the item pool and made it happen on about 80% of everything you find. Since the only thing that you worry about breaking is your weapon or armor, they need to take unbreakable out as an option on necklaces, rings, belts, bracers, etc. I also don't think unbreakable should cause a weapon or armor to be magically rated. If it is only unbreakable, then that is a normal (non-bordered) item that costs a little more. If it is added to something that has one enchantment, it should still be blue, not green, and so on.

Item diversity is still a problem and it's not going to get solved by release. I hope Larian plans on supporting DOS after release, because the game just isn't done. There are a lot of things that feel half-assed on the implementation side. Music, writing, companions and more need a lot of work to feel like a finished product.

I fully expect the 2nd half of the game to be broken. I mean crafting was totally broken in the most recent beta, and it had been quite stable for a while.....

Aren't there going to be like a gazzillion weapon & armor mods flooding out only weeks after the game launches?

Just to give an example: fire & burning effects are already in the game so it stands to reason that making a fire sword with a continuous burning effect is rather simple to make.

i figure i can see the logic of really unbreakable items being magical, right? because ordinary normal items can never be literally unbreakable.

It does look weird on rings and other such smaller objects.

It looks wrong in this game in general and i wish it was removed completely.
I would also wish that armors, helmets and bracers loose durability much faster, since you are using those a lot in combat.

Boots should loose a lot of durability, or get damaged - if you walk into hazardous, deadly surfaces. It would be nice if this feature was more fine tuned like that.

Instead, these items loose durability points the slowest. while this rate has been slowed down completely for all items. I havent had one weapon break down to minimal levels yet in this new version. And that actually has a very negative feedback effect on variety of items in the game and any necessity to use some other items then a few good ones you find.

I'd like to see items that boost skills. Boots of quick escape that allow rangers to blink w/o AP cost or a staff of fireballs that adds 5% damage or a sword of whirlwind that has double range, etc. Anything to add more variety. I'm missing the charms from DivDiv already.

Apparently it is now possible for items to grant skills while you have the item equipped. Presumably, Larian didn't add that in just for the sake of modders, and they'll use it themselves. I'm not sure about improving skills though.