I hope Legendary Gems won't just give us flat stat increase. I'm kinda tired of stack XXX and even if the loot hunt is more rewarding than it ever was the itemization is still uninspired, we just have Elemental damage to add to our CC/CHD/MainStat tower with a 4/2 split on items that is really suffocating our items' potential (there is basically no room for other stats, expecially on weapons), but i'm going off topic here.
I'm a big fan of legendaries affixes that changes the behaviour of skills, like the Instant Bolas quiver or the Buriza and i hope they will make Legendary gems that way....
I'm a big fan of legendaries affixes that changes the behaviour of skills, like the Instant Bolas quiver or the Buriza and i hope they will make Legendary gems that way....
Personally, thats how I hope they would progress with "Legendary Gems".
The quickest and simplest way is not to introduce another socket "type" or "something to kept in inventory", but another type of socketable item.
While it may be desirable just to stack DPS, obtaining materials that "when combined with an existing gem, provide some additional legendary-type(s) of effect" could be potentially game-changing.
For example, "Chance to cast frost nova on hit or point of impact" would be quite interesting for weapon-type gems. Or something like the effect of Fulminator, but on a bow.
Introducing a plethora of these "combine with gem to get effect" types of things would be far better than searching for specific types of gems, because sooner or later you will have bits and pieces of things that you found (like making do with what you have). Should it become a "specific item" hunt, then definitely RNG is going to castrate some people (myself included--I havent picked up anything good in two weeks).
The only thing interesting about those rainbow gems was the +/- elementary damage. The on death effects were too small to notice, and the damage was very little aswell.
We allready have +skill damage % and +element damage %, I dont see why we need more of it on gems.
And wether this will fix itemisation or not : the problem is that blizzard thinks that itemisation is the entire game. Itemisation isnt bad at the moment. The problem is that there is absolutely zero endgame. All you do is grind and grind to get better gear to grind more. A few long term goals would be great. Or at least making the game open enugh that players can create long term goals themself.
The only thing interesting about those rainbow gems was the +/- elementary damage. The on death effects were too small to notice, and the damage was very little aswell.
We allready have +skill damage % and +element damage %, I dont see why we need more of it on gems.
And wether this will fix itemisation or not : the problem is that blizzard thinks that itemisation is the entire game. Itemisation isnt bad at the moment. The problem is that there is absolutely zero endgame. All you do is grind and grind to get better gear to grind more. A few long term goals would be great. Or at least making the game open enugh that players can create long term goals themself.
Itemization is a nice big winding road covered in foot wide potholes, when what should have been was a giant mass transit system...
I think the problem is that Blizzard made Itemization the entire game, and then blinked a few times and hoped everyone would assume it was not. Then they can shift their focus elsewhere while items as a whole sit and rot away.
I don't understand why when a new Idea is brought forth or an old idea that was new at one time and then was deleted from the game is brought forth players will so quickly punch a hole in it and basically are thankful that it is not in the game....
That's the root of that joke that echoes across the forums. A thing existed in the game, or might have existed or was hoped to exist....and then it does not exist.....and the players shake their heads in frustration....and some one quotes Bashiok....arent you thankful?
the joke means aren't you thankful for what could have been and will never be...
people say "I'm glad we dont have to pick our stats." im glad we dont have items that function from our inventory" im glad they got rid of skill trees. all I did was pick points on the tree"
in your quote above Two flower? instantly "We allready have +skill damage % and +element damage %, I dont see why we need more of it on gems."
well my reply is that that % skill damage and ele damage it took us two years to get put into the game.
For the first 2 years our only form of elemental damage was a tool tip that was blatantly incorrect and a boost to damage that was both basically a glitch and wildly more powerful and desirable than most stats in the game.
I just hate seeing new ideas and possibilities and different Ideas shot down from the sky and trampled while for the last 2 years the sky has been empty. and they get shot down FAST.
Itemization is a joke compared to what it could have been. But we will never know because the developers and even players all seem to follow suit.
they strip away stats and they leave new item ideas on the cutting room floor while chanting "analysis by paralysis"
Just like ruksak said. they took away a laundry list of different item types, and replaced them with thin air.
Like I said " I'd rather suffer the illusion of choice in all of its cunning fakery...than the honestly of nothing...."
So whats a bigger negative trait in the game? The fact that 90% of everyone picks the emerald for a weapon? or the jewels in the thead's original post if they actually existed??
in the end its about potential. if a player whips up a new item or new item idea...and people rush in an point out a spelling mistake or a scenario why that item fails....the bigger picture eludes them; everyone and their dog was wearing the same items. BiS was the same in many cases regardless of class. but many times that is never mentioned. They just point out a flaw in the new thing and turn around and walk away. and then new things do not get introduced....its really kind of heartbreaking in a way....
thats why I flew off the handle with my post in this thread about all the vomit and what-not......
D3 was originally going to have a system where the Skill Runes would have dropped and they would have had affixes on them. There were going to be 7 tiers to the runes. Blizzard had problems with balancing it out. I was looking forward that they would be implemented in the expansion or with patch 2.0.
I would still have the current skill system where you pick the effect, but have the rune be more of a catalyst to the spell. Maybe adding a powerful effect to the spell but it no longer does critical damage and maybe not even weapon damage or main stat. Possibly it could use other stats as a catalyst.
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On Strike and supporting Fallout 4 Mod Makers
Some fallout 4 mod makers have had their mods stolen and uploaded and downloaded on Bethesda's site for the Xbox One.
So whats a bigger negative trait in the game? The fact that 90% of everyone picks the emerald for a weapon? or the jewels in the thead's original post if they actually existed??
Neither. The biggest negative is that, despite the feedback, they didn't do a goddamned thing about emeralds dominance in weapons. Inaction on such a simple thing (all they have to do is nerf the damned emeralds) is far worse than the initial imbalance.
Why bother adding MORE when you can't get the current things right? Why ad MORE legendaries when there are a ton of legendaries out there which probably need to be re-re-revisited?
Instead of "fixing" gems by making them obsolete with "legendary gems" it would be a lot better if Blizzard would show us that they understand what's wrong with gems and attempting to fix that BEFORE just slopping more shit on the pile.
Neither. The biggest negative is that, despite the feedback, they didn't do a goddamned thing about emeralds dominance in weapons. Inaction on such a simple thing (all they have to do is nerf the damned emeralds) is far worse than the initial imbalance.
Except it isn't simple. Remember the IAS nerf and the rage it gathered? The only way out I could see them doing is to separate sockets from affixes, then drastically buff the rest of the gems.
At the end of the day..and I've posted this..as well as Rusak and many others..the lack of socketables in this game sucks.. there are 5 ..and when you look @ it from a item slot basis..it boils down to 2-3 choices.
While the affixes on those gems might not all work or really be that great for diablo 3...of course they'd be changed to fit diablo 3. What about having a rainbow facet that added 5-10%element dmg, crit chance, crit dmg, life oh hit, etc etc etc and having a chance to do a combo of any of those just like an item.
At the end of the day there is always room for improvement in terms of itemization and game mechanics..blizzard just has to take the right approach to it. When you consider that after awhile ,rares, blues, whites all just end up as crafting mats..why not find a more suitable use for them?
I'd love to see rune socketables come back into play to add other time of item affixes or on-proc affects that would be either a side grade to crit dmg or something even better. At the end of the day, you'll always have an item that is clearly better than another..so its really unavoidable to make everything be the same..because really whats the point then.
Hell I'd love to be able to combine rare items with gems/runes/whatever to have them transmute (or have a chance to transmute) into a legendary item with random affixes and/or set ones.
I'd love to see charms make it back into the game, because at the end of the day outside of picking up items forever and salvaging them..the inventory space could be used for a bit more creative options. Yeah they didn't want charms to feel mandatory...but so what paragon is mandatory but everyone wants to min-max.
Every single nerf to anything dominant, broken/bugged or not, has created a firestorm of rage (IAS Nerf, ToC nerf, SoH Nerf, Crypt Gold Nerf, you get the idea). People are basically at this point begging that Blizzard, instead of nerfing anything, just buff things to compensate, regardless of how hard/easy/good/bad it is.
I think Blizzard would rather make new stuff to obsolete the old so 1) People are not retroactively punished by just waking up one morning and seeing their gear/capabilty nuked into the floor (which if emeralds were nerfed, would not completely destroy people, but I don't doubt it would lead to a fair number of people having to drop a Torment level or 2, not fun) and 2) Give more meaning to finding stuff.
Ultimately, from what I gather from this thread and elsewhere, is that people want the journey to be as varied as possible, regardless of the destination. For example, people thought it was fun to use a Skeleton Necro in D2, even though it was totally ineffective in Hell, you needed Revive. But people didn't care.
If I had to tweak the existing system, I would permit Blue items to roll any skill rune, and let the rolls have a huge range, with the upper range making them possibly BIS for that skill (so like +1 to 100% to a skill, doubling a skill damage would be very much worth dropping almost everything else I would think). Since blues are common enough, it would mean RNG woudl let the average player arrive at getting a decent skill boost, but you could enchant or look for the higher range ones. Do the same with rares, but for elemental damage or possibly just skill damage, but the entire skill, not a singular rune.
Never understood why they didn't give jewelry sockets a different effect
Socketing Ring/Neck with:
Ruby = Crit hit chance / Fire dmg
Emerald = Area Damage / Poison Dmg
Amethyst = %Armour / Arcane Dmg
Topaz = Crit hit damage / Holy Dmg
Diamond = Reduced resource cost / Cold dmg.
More on-topic; I like the idea of there being legendary gem *plans* so that once I've found it I can make multiple copies; if the gem can roll a randomised result too that could make it fun; for example:
Akkarats Eye: Legendary Gem, mats = 1x Flawless gem of each colour + legendary crafting mat from rift bosses only;
Can only be socketed in a weapon
Increase duration of Akkarat's Champion by [35-50]% Increase IAS during Akkarats Champion by a further [8-15]%
Something along those lines would give alternative farming objectives; as well as provide some build alternatives; that was an off-the-cuff example but I'm sure you could think of some of your own
EDIT: Blizzard really need to just automatically give legendary weapons sockets ofc
So whats a bigger negative trait in the game? The fact that 90% of everyone picks the emerald for a weapon? or the jewels in the thead's original post if they actually existed??
Neither. The biggest negative is that, despite the feedback, they didn't do a goddamned thing about emeralds dominance in weapons. Inaction on such a simple thing (all they have to do is nerf the damned emeralds) is far worse than the initial imbalance.
Why bother adding MORE when you can't get the current things right? Why ad MORE legendaries when there are a ton of legendaries out there which probably need to be re-re-revisited?
Instead of "fixing" gems by making them obsolete with "legendary gems" it would be a lot better if Blizzard would show us that they understand what's wrong with gems and attempting to fix that BEFORE just slopping more shit on the pile.
thats exactly the point I was hoping to make. just different wording, but yes....my option of "90% of people all using emeralds..." and your "lack of action against the dominance of emeralds in weapons. yes. thats exactly the way I see it.
and I do agree that adding "more" of any item type or even new item types, does not does not excuse the silly garbage they have in the game right now in terms of item flavour, adding more OR redesigning items in the game are both more appealing than what we have right now. so even the most ridiculous and misguided efforts are better than no effort at all.
look at paragon points in their first way of being.. just more seemingly non existent stats that trickle in every new level up. you choose nothing. just 3% more gold...3 more main stat. a vitality point every ten fucking hours........what a joke.
.....but compared to the week prior where there was absolutely nothing? with that contrast the dumb as hell paragon levels as they were when first released were the second coming of Christ.....
I have a feeling that I'm out numbered here. but when they added the archon gear it was incredible. Even though none of the crap in the game was fixed. thats not I was comparing the new archon gear to. I was comparing it to zero item additions in the game finally becoming one new addition.
actually thinking about the game as a whole, when you dont really have a continent to explore or random quests...or new sizable adventures ...or anything else really.........just pure item hunting........ideally you would be making items quite the sizable hunk of meat to chew on.....i mean in certain circumstances.....of course their are people who just play D3 to unplug for a while and dont need all the intricacies....but.....yea.....
I have a feeling that I'm out numbered here. but when they added the archon gear it was incredible. Even though none of the crap in the game was fixed. thats not I was comparing the new archon gear to. I was comparing it to zero item additions in the game finally becoming one new addition.
As much as we have disagreed in the past, I totally understand how you feel. That WAS a good patch. However, let's be honest, even that patch had the obvious problem that it didn't FIX any of the problems with crafting, it just gave us alternatives (in a few slots) that were useful, while the other ones were still completely useless.
That was probably OK at that venture because they were probably already thinking forward to RoS at that point and re-engineering all the existing patterns probably was too much work to devote to the cause. But I really would like to seem them break away from that philosophy for the long-term. They were able to do it with Loot 2.0 because of the new level cap with RoS, but let's be honest Loot 2.0 is far from perfect (albeit better). They can't simply leave everything alone until the second expansion because they WON'T fix items real-time but instead will only try to fix them when they're introducing a new level cap and a hard item reset. That's a bad policy and they NEED to migrate away from it.
That's why you NEED ladder, despite your dislike of it. You can nerf emeralds to the ground on ladder, for example, without getting too much of an outrage.
I don't recall EVER saying I dislike ladders. I dislike ladder-specific items, but that is a very different story. I'd appreciate if you're going to comment on what I like/dislike if you'd at least be accurate about it.
That aside, I don't understand your point at all. Are you saying that it's impossible to nerf obviously-broken things like emeralds without ladders? I don't understand that at all. Why can't they nerf emeralds in normal? Because of outrage? As if they give two rats asses about outrage. In fact, I remember Josh touting BoA as so necessary because it would give them the ability to balance things WITHOUT outrage because there was no more RMAH or 3rd party real money transactions.
Post-2.0, they SHOULD be at even more liberty to make these changes. That's THEIR logic, not mine. And, even so, they could have nerfed emeralds in 2.0/RoS pretty easily. Even if it added a full week (you know, every person on the D3 team working solely on that problem for 5 business days) to the release date, I doubt most people would have cared because it is largely viewed as necessary.
But, when they had the opportunity to do so, they didn't. And that's alarming. I don't think there was one person in this community who actually thought that emeralds wouldn't get nerfed. What was shocking was that they DID have the perfect time to do it (when there would be no, or minimal, outrage) and they completely passed on it. So to me that seems like the "outrage" argument is not very valid. If outrage was the only thing they were trying to avoid.... then they should have done it with 2.0/RoS. Right?
Well, yes. They should have done it in 2.0, among with fixing OWE and other stuff. I don't know why they didn't yet, though it may have to do with the difficulty of tweaking existing items. Legacy legendaries aren't BoA, unless I remembered wrong.
While the affixes on those gems might not all work or really be that great for diablo 3...of course they'd be changed to fit diablo 3. What about having a rainbow facet that added 5-10%element dmg, crit chance, crit dmg, life oh hit, etc etc etc and having a chance to do a combo of any of those just like an item.
This is the last thing, that people, who complain, want. Just another stat-stick.
Akkarats Eye: Legendary Gem, mats = 1x Flawless gem of each colour + legendary crafting mat from rift bosses only;
Can only be socketed in a weapon
Increase duration of Akkarat's Champion by [35-50]% Increase IAS during Akkarats Champion by a further [8-15]%
This is rather what might attract some people.
I personally think, that the game could really benefit from a new typ of socketable (jewels). They could come as blue, rare and legendary item types, even sets are imaginable. And while I agree with shaggy that a balance of vanilla gems would be desirable, those jewels would blow them out of the water anyway, so I wouldn't bother at that point.
One thing, Blizz might also consider is the idea to seperate sockets from affixes again like it was already brought up (sorry I can't find the poster right now). I'm not decided on this subject though, it might be good, it might not.
I'm totally against charms. I already carry some Nemesis Bracers and other stuff around in my inventory. That's fine, that's what an inventory is there for: extra stuff to pull out when needed. There is no need for stuff that's designed to be in the inventory.
IMO socketables are just gold sinks. Blizz could just aswell just remove sockets and build the stats from the socket right into the main stats of the item.
IMO socketables are just gold sinks. Blizz could just aswell just remove sockets and build the stats from the socket right into the main stats of the item.
Thus why you introduce sockets that completely change the weapon itself, or add something new, and while it would be a stat increase or change..it could be meaningful.
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I'm a big fan of legendaries affixes that changes the behaviour of skills, like the Instant Bolas quiver or the Buriza and i hope they will make Legendary gems that way....
The quickest and simplest way is not to introduce another socket "type" or "something to kept in inventory", but another type of socketable item.
While it may be desirable just to stack DPS, obtaining materials that "when combined with an existing gem, provide some additional legendary-type(s) of effect" could be potentially game-changing.
For example, "Chance to cast frost nova on hit or point of impact" would be quite interesting for weapon-type gems. Or something like the effect of Fulminator, but on a bow.
Introducing a plethora of these "combine with gem to get effect" types of things would be far better than searching for specific types of gems, because sooner or later you will have bits and pieces of things that you found (like making do with what you have). Should it become a "specific item" hunt, then definitely RNG is going to castrate some people (myself included--I havent picked up anything good in two weeks).
We allready have +skill damage % and +element damage %, I dont see why we need more of it on gems.
And wether this will fix itemisation or not : the problem is that blizzard thinks that itemisation is the entire game. Itemisation isnt bad at the moment. The problem is that there is absolutely zero endgame. All you do is grind and grind to get better gear to grind more. A few long term goals would be great. Or at least making the game open enugh that players can create long term goals themself.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
I think the problem is that Blizzard made Itemization the entire game, and then blinked a few times and hoped everyone would assume it was not. Then they can shift their focus elsewhere while items as a whole sit and rot away.
I don't understand why when a new Idea is brought forth or an old idea that was new at one time and then was deleted from the game is brought forth players will so quickly punch a hole in it and basically are thankful that it is not in the game....
That's the root of that joke that echoes across the forums. A thing existed in the game, or might have existed or was hoped to exist....and then it does not exist.....and the players shake their heads in frustration....and some one quotes Bashiok....arent you thankful?
the joke means aren't you thankful for what could have been and will never be...
people say "I'm glad we dont have to pick our stats." im glad we dont have items that function from our inventory" im glad they got rid of skill trees. all I did was pick points on the tree"
in your quote above Two flower? instantly "We allready have +skill damage % and +element damage %, I dont see why we need more of it on gems."
well my reply is that that % skill damage and ele damage it took us two years to get put into the game.
For the first 2 years our only form of elemental damage was a tool tip that was blatantly incorrect and a boost to damage that was both basically a glitch and wildly more powerful and desirable than most stats in the game.
I just hate seeing new ideas and possibilities and different Ideas shot down from the sky and trampled while for the last 2 years the sky has been empty. and they get shot down FAST.
Itemization is a joke compared to what it could have been. But we will never know because the developers and even players all seem to follow suit.
they strip away stats and they leave new item ideas on the cutting room floor while chanting "analysis by paralysis"
Just like ruksak said. they took away a laundry list of different item types, and replaced them with thin air.
Like I said " I'd rather suffer the illusion of choice in all of its cunning fakery...than the honestly of nothing...."
So whats a bigger negative trait in the game? The fact that 90% of everyone picks the emerald for a weapon? or the jewels in the thead's original post if they actually existed??
in the end its about potential. if a player whips up a new item or new item idea...and people rush in an point out a spelling mistake or a scenario why that item fails....the bigger picture eludes them; everyone and their dog was wearing the same items. BiS was the same in many cases regardless of class. but many times that is never mentioned. They just point out a flaw in the new thing and turn around and walk away. and then new things do not get introduced....its really kind of heartbreaking in a way....
thats why I flew off the handle with my post in this thread about all the vomit and what-not......
I would still have the current skill system where you pick the effect, but have the rune be more of a catalyst to the spell. Maybe adding a powerful effect to the spell but it no longer does critical damage and maybe not even weapon damage or main stat. Possibly it could use other stats as a catalyst.
Why bother adding MORE when you can't get the current things right? Why ad MORE legendaries when there are a ton of legendaries out there which probably need to be re-re-revisited?
Instead of "fixing" gems by making them obsolete with "legendary gems" it would be a lot better if Blizzard would show us that they understand what's wrong with gems and attempting to fix that BEFORE just slopping more shit on the pile.
Except it isn't simple. Remember the IAS nerf and the rage it gathered? The only way out I could see them doing is to separate sockets from affixes, then drastically buff the rest of the gems.
While the affixes on those gems might not all work or really be that great for diablo 3...of course they'd be changed to fit diablo 3. What about having a rainbow facet that added 5-10%element dmg, crit chance, crit dmg, life oh hit, etc etc etc and having a chance to do a combo of any of those just like an item.
At the end of the day there is always room for improvement in terms of itemization and game mechanics..blizzard just has to take the right approach to it. When you consider that after awhile ,rares, blues, whites all just end up as crafting mats..why not find a more suitable use for them?
I'd love to see rune socketables come back into play to add other time of item affixes or on-proc affects that would be either a side grade to crit dmg or something even better. At the end of the day, you'll always have an item that is clearly better than another..so its really unavoidable to make everything be the same..because really whats the point then.
Hell I'd love to be able to combine rare items with gems/runes/whatever to have them transmute (or have a chance to transmute) into a legendary item with random affixes and/or set ones.
I'd love to see charms make it back into the game, because at the end of the day outside of picking up items forever and salvaging them..the inventory space could be used for a bit more creative options. Yeah they didn't want charms to feel mandatory...but so what paragon is mandatory but everyone wants to min-max.
I think Blizzard would rather make new stuff to obsolete the old so 1) People are not retroactively punished by just waking up one morning and seeing their gear/capabilty nuked into the floor (which if emeralds were nerfed, would not completely destroy people, but I don't doubt it would lead to a fair number of people having to drop a Torment level or 2, not fun) and 2) Give more meaning to finding stuff.
Ultimately, from what I gather from this thread and elsewhere, is that people want the journey to be as varied as possible, regardless of the destination. For example, people thought it was fun to use a Skeleton Necro in D2, even though it was totally ineffective in Hell, you needed Revive. But people didn't care.
If I had to tweak the existing system, I would permit Blue items to roll any skill rune, and let the rolls have a huge range, with the upper range making them possibly BIS for that skill (so like +1 to 100% to a skill, doubling a skill damage would be very much worth dropping almost everything else I would think). Since blues are common enough, it would mean RNG woudl let the average player arrive at getting a decent skill boost, but you could enchant or look for the higher range ones. Do the same with rares, but for elemental damage or possibly just skill damage, but the entire skill, not a singular rune.
Socketing Ring/Neck with:
Ruby = Crit hit chance / Fire dmg
Emerald = Area Damage / Poison Dmg
Amethyst = %Armour / Arcane Dmg
Topaz = Crit hit damage / Holy Dmg
Diamond = Reduced resource cost / Cold dmg.
More on-topic; I like the idea of there being legendary gem *plans* so that once I've found it I can make multiple copies; if the gem can roll a randomised result too that could make it fun; for example:
Akkarats Eye: Legendary Gem, mats = 1x Flawless gem of each colour + legendary crafting mat from rift bosses only;
Can only be socketed in a weapon
Increase duration of Akkarat's Champion by [35-50]% Increase IAS during Akkarats Champion by a further [8-15]%
Something along those lines would give alternative farming objectives; as well as provide some build alternatives; that was an off-the-cuff example but I'm sure you could think of some of your own
EDIT: Blizzard really need to just automatically give legendary weapons sockets ofc
and I do agree that adding "more" of any item type or even new item types, does not does not excuse the silly garbage they have in the game right now in terms of item flavour, adding more OR redesigning items in the game are both more appealing than what we have right now. so even the most ridiculous and misguided efforts are better than no effort at all.
look at paragon points in their first way of being.. just more seemingly non existent stats that trickle in every new level up. you choose nothing. just 3% more gold...3 more main stat. a vitality point every ten fucking hours........what a joke.
.....but compared to the week prior where there was absolutely nothing? with that contrast the dumb as hell paragon levels as they were when first released were the second coming of Christ.....
I have a feeling that I'm out numbered here. but when they added the archon gear it was incredible. Even though none of the crap in the game was fixed. thats not I was comparing the new archon gear to. I was comparing it to zero item additions in the game finally becoming one new addition.
actually thinking about the game as a whole, when you dont really have a continent to explore or random quests...or new sizable adventures ...or anything else really.........just pure item hunting........ideally you would be making items quite the sizable hunk of meat to chew on.....i mean in certain circumstances.....of course their are people who just play D3 to unplug for a while and dont need all the intricacies....but.....yea.....
That was probably OK at that venture because they were probably already thinking forward to RoS at that point and re-engineering all the existing patterns probably was too much work to devote to the cause. But I really would like to seem them break away from that philosophy for the long-term. They were able to do it with Loot 2.0 because of the new level cap with RoS, but let's be honest Loot 2.0 is far from perfect (albeit better). They can't simply leave everything alone until the second expansion because they WON'T fix items real-time but instead will only try to fix them when they're introducing a new level cap and a hard item reset. That's a bad policy and they NEED to migrate away from it.
That's why you NEED ladder, despite your dislike of it. You can nerf emeralds to the ground on ladder, for example, without getting too much of an outrage.
That aside, I don't understand your point at all. Are you saying that it's impossible to nerf obviously-broken things like emeralds without ladders? I don't understand that at all. Why can't they nerf emeralds in normal? Because of outrage? As if they give two rats asses about outrage. In fact, I remember Josh touting BoA as so necessary because it would give them the ability to balance things WITHOUT outrage because there was no more RMAH or 3rd party real money transactions.
Post-2.0, they SHOULD be at even more liberty to make these changes. That's THEIR logic, not mine. And, even so, they could have nerfed emeralds in 2.0/RoS pretty easily. Even if it added a full week (you know, every person on the D3 team working solely on that problem for 5 business days) to the release date, I doubt most people would have cared because it is largely viewed as necessary.
But, when they had the opportunity to do so, they didn't. And that's alarming. I don't think there was one person in this community who actually thought that emeralds wouldn't get nerfed. What was shocking was that they DID have the perfect time to do it (when there would be no, or minimal, outrage) and they completely passed on it. So to me that seems like the "outrage" argument is not very valid. If outrage was the only thing they were trying to avoid.... then they should have done it with 2.0/RoS. Right?
Well, yes. They should have done it in 2.0, among with fixing OWE and other stuff. I don't know why they didn't yet, though it may have to do with the difficulty of tweaking existing items. Legacy legendaries aren't BoA, unless I remembered wrong.
This is rather what might attract some people.
I personally think, that the game could really benefit from a new typ of socketable (jewels). They could come as blue, rare and legendary item types, even sets are imaginable. And while I agree with shaggy that a balance of vanilla gems would be desirable, those jewels would blow them out of the water anyway, so I wouldn't bother at that point.
One thing, Blizz might also consider is the idea to seperate sockets from affixes again like it was already brought up (sorry I can't find the poster right now). I'm not decided on this subject though, it might be good, it might not.
I'm totally against charms. I already carry some Nemesis Bracers and other stuff around in my inventory. That's fine, that's what an inventory is there for: extra stuff to pull out when needed. There is no need for stuff that's designed to be in the inventory.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841