The Diablo 4 team have broken down system design in their latest post, touching on affixes, attack/defense changes, and more.
Regarding affixes, the team looked closely at community feedback in addition to internal discussion. The following are changes they’re considering, but haven’t confirmed:
- We’re increasing the total number of affixes on items, including Magic (Blue), Rare (Yellow), and Legendary (Orange). This should raise the overall importance of non-Legendary affixes on your character’s overall level of power.
- We are also introducing three new stats:
- Angelic Power, which increases the duration of all beneficial effects (like self-buffs or healing)
- Demonic Power, which increases the duration of all negative effects (like debuffs or damage over time)
- Ancestral Power, which increases the chance of on-hit effects (aka increased proc chance)
These will appear as “+15 Angelic Power,” for example. Their goal is for Legendary powers to no longer overshadow the affixes. Additionally, they want affixes to provide more choice to players specifically because their strength is tied to your relevant Powers.
Attack/defense changes were also discussed. More specifically, attack will only be on weapons, whereas defense will only be on armor. Both attack and defense have been totally removed from jewelry,
“We like the Attack and Defense stats as a way to convey power progression on items. A core part of any ARPG is the quest for more power. Just as we have skill ranks, talent trees, character levels, and so forth, Attack and Defense allows us to reflect your power growth in items as well.”
Finally, the team is removing Ancient Legendaries from the game entirely. Instead, they’re introducing a yet-unannounced consumable which is earned by killing monsters. It’ll have one Legendary affix, dropping only at endgame, and also can be used to apply on a non-legendary item.
You can read the full post here.
