Despite loot being an integral part of Diablo 4's gameplay loop, and one of the reasons that the loop is so addicting, it can get overwhelming parsing through drops to see what gear is worth holding on to and which isn't worth a second glance. Balancing Diablo 4's loot system has been an ongoing process for most of the game's life, and it sounds like more improvements in that department are planned for the future. Blizzard has recently teased the possible addition of a loot filter for Diablo 4, and while this is a much-needed feature, it's not the end-all-be-all solution to the game's loot problem.
Diablo 4 Season 10 plans to address the existing loot system by removing the ability for Magic and Rare quality items to drop from Whisper Caches and side quests in Torment difficulty tiers, alongside a blanket increase for Unique drop rates across the board. Additionally, Lair Boss loot tables are being changed to include a greater pool of shared Uniques so that players can farm their preferred boss for most Uniques in that pool. These changes can go hand-in-hand with a loot filter to ensure only the highest quality items are displayed for players, but there is one more piece of the puzzle that Diablo 4 will need to address.
Diablo 4 Needs a Loot Filter, But It Shouldn't Stop There
As Diablo 4 players hone in on their endgame builds, the loot that drops from enemies becomes less and less valuable. This creates a situation where piles of loot earned from sources like Whisper Caches or Infernal Hordes can become overwhelming by visually cluttering up the screen and making it hard to see which items are valuable and which aren't. To remedy this issue, Blizzard acknowledged in a recent developer interview that they had reached the limit of what the reworked itemization and "smart filters" can accomplish on this front, and have heard the community's feedback about the desire for a loot filter.
How a Loot Filter Can Improve Diablo 4
Rather than having to sort through piles of loot by picking up each individual item and clogging up the player's inventory, a loot filter could ensure that players are only seeing the types of loot they want to see. Even without Magic and Rare items dropping on Torment tiers, some Diablo 4 players may want to filter out non-Ancestral Uniques or highlight armor over weapon drops. While a loot filter can definitely help reduce the overload of undesirable drops, going in the opposite direction and including a way to guarantee more desirable drops should also be factored into a reworked loot system.
Diablo 4's closest relative, Diablo 2, doesn't feature a loot filter, while its biggest competitor, Path of Exile 2, relies on third-party loot filters.
More Than a Filter, Diablo 4 Could Use a Way to Guarantee Useful Loot
Target farming Lair Bosses is currently the most consistent way of finding the Uniques a player wants, but the grind for these bosses is still real when players can't control which items are dropping from a large pool. While the Diablo 4 devs have stated they want to expand opportunities for Uniques to drop from more sources so players don't feel locked into farming Lair Bosses, this increase in overall Unique drop rates should be accompanied by a way to narrow down the pool of potential drops. Doing so can help increase the chance that players are finding meaningful drops rather than simply filtering out the clutter.
The game already has a great solution to this problem in the Kurast Undercity dungeon's approach to loot drops. Players can offer Bargains of crafting materials along with Tributes when activating the Kurast Undercity in order to specify which types of rewards they get from completing the dungeon, prioritizing drops of certain types of affixes for Legendary gear or things like more Uniques, depending on the type of material sacrificed. Since the Kuras Undercity is exclusive to Vessel of Hatred, Diablo 4 could apply a similar system to the base game that allows players to more broadly control the types of loot they find, potentially narrowing down drops to Uniques of specific gear slots or an increase in Ancestral Uniques.
Diablo 4
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 88 /100 Critics Rec: 93%
WHERE TO PLAY
- Engine
- Proprietary Engine
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, Hack and Slash
