View Full Version : Rares and Uniques
I sure hope I'm not bringing a topic from the dead. If I am, shout at me and I'll sink back into my hole.
There has been many comments that can be summarized to this: rares should be > Uniques.
Blizzard has, from what I know, already mentioned the fact they want rare items to be more useful. But I don't think they mean the above paragraph. Instead, they understand the iconic nature of unique items, and so want to bring rares a notch forward into becoming useful items on par with Uniques. Not above them. In short increase the odds in-game characters share their equipment slots between rares and uniques. Especially for the end-game. At least this is what I seriously hope for.
An item generation system that places rares above Uniques will result almost certainly in Uniques becoming useless items. This will be more true as the game ages and players (be it single-player or multiplayer) increase their item collection.
Personally I feel this would be scary indeed. As a player that puts a strong emphasis on collectibles, this simplified system would remove a large chunk of what makes the game interesting to me. Entirely randomized items aren't just as fun to collect. Neither are uniques that have no practical in-game application.
It is certain that what I'm defending is the opposite. i.e. uniques that render rares useless. But this seems more natural to me, particularly if we take into consideration this doesn't need necessarily to be the case since mods in rares could have the potential to fill a nich purposedly lacking from uniques of the same item type.
What is known is that there's another type of item in the works. But whatever it might be (godly items, a new type of crafted items, etcetera) I'd like to hear your comments on this issue.
Well we don't know what they ultimately want and what will the end result be.
I sure would want rares to be better than uniques in the end, but uniques should have that little extra that makes them special. Things like crushing blow, deadly strike etc. cannot spawn in rares which makes some unique items very powerful.
An item generation system that places rares above Uniques will result almost certainly in Uniques becoming useless items. This will be more true as the game ages and players (be it single-player or multiplayer) increase their item collection.
Don't know if you played before LOD but this is how it was and everyone pretty much totally enjoyed that. Characters were truly unique since no one had the same item which is yet another thing that makes LOD boring.
Also the positive thing about rares is that you can pretty much never get the ultimate best rare item in the game, so there is always a way to get a little better ones and your character never stops gaining strenght. With uniques and runewords, there are those set of mods that has small variation but ultimately you can easily get the very best items in the game. Some people in LOD are looking for the ultimate best uniques because just like with rares, they want something better BUT in LOD the ultimate best means for example 1 more defense in Harlequin Crest, which is in my opinion totally useless and stupid :)
Uniques should prove to be valuable for very long, but in the end you could get better rares. Lets say you would wear some uniques from 30 - 70 or 80 but after that you would have found so good rares that you would replace them.
Even in LOD you could replace some of those uniques today but the odds for finding good rares has gone very low so in the end you don't even think about the rares.
Another nice topic.
I would prefer uniques to be by far better and more valuable than rares.
BUT, I prefer uniques to be more uniques. I dislike being as common as they are in D2. I hope they remove the magic find system and their exploits with bots/maphacks and tones of magic find from killing bosses.
I hope when you see an unique item dropped, you must say: "WOoooooOOW, an unique item, OMG!!!", and not the actual "ah, an unique: more food for charsi/malah/larzuk/(insert your favorite name here)".
And, of course, I also desire Legendary Items, with more or less the %drop as an actually zod, but not duped. Just one Legendary Item per year of play to make them really Legendary. As Excalibur in the real world. Only few lucky people could possess them, and not the entire battlenet like nowadays.
Nimbostratus
02-04-2009, 13:41
Valmy: The problem with uniques being both the rarest and the most powerful items is that it most definitely encourages botting and endless MF runs. Also, what's the point of Legendary items if only a handful of people ever get to experience them?
And, of course, I also desire Legendary Items, with more or less the %drop as an actually zod, but not duped. Just one Legendary Item per year of play to make them really Legendary. As Excalibur in the real world. Only few lucky people could possess them, and not the entire battlenet like nowadays.
What an awful idea, why give one or two players (less than 10 in the entire history of D3 if it were to be once a year) such a huge advantage over everybody else. This would muck up PvP, allowing those few players to rule the dueling scene.
This is indeed a tough subject.
On one hand we have Uniques being less important than Rares; The nomenclature itself becomes a parody and one needs to ask themselves what's then the purpose of specific artwork and specific names for an item type that invariably will become useless.
On the other hand we have Uniques reigning supreme over Rares. But here, as much as it pains me, I can understand the comments so far on this thread. Everyone ends up looking like the same, the game looses diversity and Rares do have a stronger potential for keeping the game running and interesting.
...
It is possible the D2 system was a mistake from the onset. I did play before LOD, naturally. But I do remember D2 was also being criticized by many for its lack of influential Uniques. So there wasn't really a consensus here. Some did enjoy pre-LOD, while others couldn't go back as soon as LOD emerged. Me? I'm Uniques biased, I must confess. But that you folks guessed already from the previous post :)
Definitely the issue of mods than can exist on Rares only and others that can exist on Uniques only is an area that could be explored. Also the possibility of Uniques' mods becoming more random than before. On the other hand, a more complex item naming system that awarded truly awesome Rares and was somehow tied to the most significant mods could be implemented. But in the end, all things considered, I would like for uber Rares to be rarer than Uniques. Otherwise game diversity will come at the expense of an entire item family.
EDIT:
Was forgetting about one last point...
Another thing to consider is specialized item features. For instance, while Rares couldn't ever spawn that were better than the best of Uniques of the same type, thus justifying Uniques presence and maintaining interest on them, Rare mods could have the potential of being increased through crafting (do not confuse with D2 crafting or cube recipes) or other game features, while Uniques couldn't ever. Players could use recipes for item crafting that would allow to increase existing mods or even create new mods on their existing Rares. This would definitely produce very interesting Rares that had the potential to become better than the best of Uniques. The system could be more elaborate than the crafting mechanisms in D2. Even involving in-game repeatable quests.
This type of solution would surely interest me. Whereas a strict item generator that could spawn Rares capable of surpassing Uniques would seem too minimalist and probably even a mistake.
Your last suggestion sounds really interesting. So we would have uniques a bit more powerful than rares and upgrading rares trough some kind of interesting system to be on par or slightly more powerful than uniques. I kinda like that and I bet it would suit for both rare and unique system lovers. :)
I'm not sure if it is bad system as it is in LOD that uniques in general are more powerful. But the way too low drop rate of quality rares is really something that need to be looked into. I remember that before LOD you had a lot better chances of getting something actually useful out of rares.
What an awful idea, why give one or two players (less than 10 in the entire history of D3 if it were to be once a year) such a huge advantage over everybody else. This would muck up PvP, allowing those few players to rule the dueling scene.
But this is not an awful idea. And I'm not saying 1 item per year in the entire battlenet Edairu, sorry for not expressing well. I mean if you play regularly (for example, 1 hour per day), you could have 1 legendary item per year, more or less). This is why d2x 1.10 was designed.
The highrunes were designed to be VERY uncommon. It was just the stupidity and the greed of jelousy people thinking this way the guilty.
But without those stupid people, then 1.10 would have been an excellent patch, with just few people wearing the powerful runewords and of course dominating both pvm and pvp.
Now, pvp and pvm are dominated by lammers, hackers, botters and those kind of persons.
I personally prefer my option, and not the actually as d2 is.
And, btw, greedy people and jealousy people will dupe and hack always, because they are lame. It doesn´t matter if there are uniques, legendaries, or normal items. They will do it anyway, because they are this way.
@And Nimbostratus: the point of making really really rare items like legendary ones, are jus this way: make them something specially. You must play years, and you don't have all, you could always get the experience and the "ooooMGGG feeling" of drop an item you never saw. This could be fantastic in the long term game. If you got every item in just 15 days, as it is nowadays each time a ladder starts... then it is no good for me.
Nimbostratus
03-04-2009, 07:31
Uniques can still be something special without having to be the strongest. Sure, some can be top tier items, but I'd rather see ones that are designed more for people who want to try something out of the norm (while still being usable for mainstream characters). I just hate seeing build guides listing only a specific set of gear, as if it's the only viable choice.
Many interesting suggestions here.
Rare mods could have the potential of being increased through crafting
Uniques should prove to be valuable for very long, but in the end you could get better rares. Lets say you would wear some uniques from 30 - 70 or 80 but after that you would have found so good rares that you would replace them.
Having played Classic and LoD I can only say that the former was more challenging, but mainly because you rarely (well, not rarely, but you had to work harder on the subject) had items on par with either your level or the monsters' level.
If you were to go for efficiency you'd simply go for LoD and its host of Uniques, which was fairly reassuring to some players: I can't deny that once in NM A3 I was confident that sooner or later (days vs months) I'd be able to get a decent improvement in gear, knowing exactly what to search for because of the very nature of uniques - you know them and you know what mods they have. I.E.: The HC Shako might not be the best caster helm around but we must admit that it does a very decent job and the same holds for a mighty number of items, like Arachnid the various Ormus geared towards some single element sorc builds etc...
Frankly, I think we still know little about item generation in D3 (as said by Akse), but I'd think that in order to keep Rares usable it is necessary for their mods to not be entirely random: range for the mod value should make Rares fall not so far from Uniques.
Also, I think that Uniques should, well, look Unique - their skin should be reserved for them only (not sure if it possible).
Do we know if D3 will have Set items ?
Do we know if D3 will have Set items ?
Bashiok on set items:
I hadn't really considered that Set items might not be back (they are a big part of the D2 experience for me). Sigon's, Cathan's, Angelic, Hsaru's, Isenhart's... all have their role when playing the early game. Yes, there was a serious problem with Sets and SP (availability before being obsolete), and their usefulness was mainly limited to the early / mid game (with a couple exceptions), but those things could easily be addressed in D3's implementation. A shared SP stash fixes one issue, and more / higher level Sets (with progressive set bonuses) could fix the other. It just doesn't make sense to me that they might get rid of such a great item class.
Anyone else care if D3 has Set items?
http://www.blizzblues.com/us/sets-16019604470.html
I don't think you can objectively say "most" or "everyone" enjoyed the item outlook prior to LOD. If you using the forums or personal friends as a sample, this is far too small to be statistically significant. I personally much preferred the item layout of unique over rares. Yes, you can get that I am more "unique" because we have different gear, but in the end there are certain stats more appealing in a specific amount and combination to a certain class and build. In a way, things become the same yet again.
Now, pvp and pvm are dominated by lammers, hackers, botters and those kind of persons.
Luckily not in classic. Too bad that classic have gotten all the ****ty patch changes for gameplay with LOD and 1.10. It would still be a great game because there isn't much possibilities to bot efficiently and the community overall is more mature and fair play.
Yes, you can get that I am more "unique" because we have different gear, but in the end there are certain stats more appealing in a specific amount and combination to a certain class and build. In a way, things become the same yet again. In many cases no.. You have different type of armor, different type of helmet and so on that will make you look different even if you have exactly the same stats in your rares than everyone else. Also the fact that you couldn't predict what type of gear you get was nice. Sometimes you found an awesome armor for your sorc but it was a gothic plate that required 75 strenght.. it was too much so you made some compromises with your character to get in there because the stats were so good.
If uniques had the possibility to spawn the stats to any type of armor quilted -> sacred.. it might be more interesting :)
You can't see the stats in Chat.. you only see the item. And by looking at LOD now, it is easy to tell what people are pretty much wearing.. oh he got harlequin, enigma, hoto and spirit shield.. With rares you would be: I wonder how good cap he has, what kind of stats his armor got .. etc.
Yup. This is indeed very strong arguments for Rares and I must yield to them.
Some sort of balance needs to be achieved and I'm hoping Blizzard is working on it. I'm really having an hard time accepting the possbility Rares can surpass Uniques and eventually (given enough time) render them obsolete. But on the other hand these are strong pro-Rare arguments. Lets see if they can surprise us.
Being Diablo an item-collecting centered game, and having Blizzard announce D3 will be even more item-centered, I can only speculate they will indeed positively surprise us.
You can't see the stats in Chat.. you only see the item. And by looking at LOD now, it is easy to tell what people are pretty much wearing.. oh he got harlequin, enigma, hoto and spirit shield.. With rares you would be: I wonder how good cap he has, what kind of stats his armor got .. etc.
Great point here, I missed it. I must agree with you.
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