Diablo 4 has attempted to make strides in being a distinctly different game to not only its competitors in the ARPG genre and (A-Z)ARPG sub-genres but also with its previous titles in the Diablo series. There have been many implementations which weren't well received by a large number of people, hardcore and dad gamers alike. Instead of things not being well-received over and over, why don't we just look to our previous title, Diablo 3, and utilize systems/itemization from there! Life was so easy in Diablo 3. And now after the proposed changes during the campfire chat, we are 90% the way there!

Set Items:
In Diablo 3, we didn't have the time or want to put the effort into which items we had to equip to have our build be efficient! This is why set items were great! These items told me which skill to put on my skill bar. And if I want to play a certain skill, I can just equip the corresponding 6 green items onto my character and do 1000x more damage. I could go from greater rift 10 to greater rift 120 in an hour of gameplay!!

With the slow implementation of sets (aspects) in Diablo 4, we are getting closer and closer to the dream ease of gearing! Only difference is, the items are colored dark orange instead of green (confusing at first but I got used to it). If I want to play a cool grenade build on my Rogue class, I will just identify every aspect that says "grenade" on it and put it on my item slot. I have now created my grenade set which will allow me to unlock the full potential of playing grenades. Same with dust devils! Instead of having to theory craft and waste time on problem solving, crafting or loot hunting, I can just simply search for any aspect that says "dust devils" and complete my Exodia!

Yellow Items? YUK!:
In Diablo 3, we trivialized the use of yellow gear by how much stronger the affixes are rolled on legendary gear! Picking up yellow items on the ground are just a roundabout way of acquiring "veiled crystal". I personally LOVED just having one relevant tier of items: legendary!

In Diablo 4, we are getting closer to our wish of making yellow gear just as useless as blue gear! Having the ease of knowing that the yellow item on the ground is just a means to get a crafting resource when salvaged is reassuring. I don't want to complicate things, just give me 1 more affixes on LEGENDARIES. Thankfully, we got it!

Overall Progression:
In Diablo 3, time was very well respected by letting us hit max level in a few hours of meaningful gameplay at the start of a season! If lucky, you can even be BiS'd out in every slot with every green piece you need to complete the highest form of difficulty (TORMENT SIXTEEN) in a decently long first day play session. I love skipping all that fluff in the beginning and just being geared with BiS gear and affixes in no time.

In Diablo 4, we are inching closer and closer to what us fans of the S-ARPG want in terms of getting juiced to the t*ts (sorry family friendly)!! Not only have the affix pool dwindled, they also roll on items dropped with only sweet stats like MAIN STAT, %DMG, HEALTH! Better yet, the highest level of content will only drop the highest level of gear which means (you guessed it!), less grinding and quicker access to your BiS affixes across all slots! Time to equip our set aspects to further juice it up! And the best part about it is that we don't have to waste time on insignificant progression during the 90% first portion of the game because we have 250% juiced xp to get us to the end quicker! BONUS BONUS BONUS, we have more avenues to acquire that sweet 925 gear. I can't wait to slot my character out in 925 legenderies as fast as possible.

Greater Rifts:
We get our greater rifts in D4 only after a year of release!

With all this said, I can't wait to see all of the interesting maxed out builds at the end of day one of season 4! See you in Sanctuary!