As you may or may not be aware, Pillars of Eternity 2 is set to release soon. This impending release got me to go back to Pillars 1, where I discovered something odd… I never finished it. It’s not because I didn’t like it, no, in fact I LOVE Pillars 1. It’s a wonderfully designed game, the lore is engaging, overalll very well done. The problem, however, is the Item Design.
It’s not bad Item Design. It’s, in fact, TOO good. You see, in Pillars, every named item you come across is viable to use all game. Let me give you an example. The very first portion of the main quest leads you to Caed Nua, to speak to a man by the name of Maerwald. When you enter the main keep of Caed Nua, right next to you is an urn. Inside that urn, is a one handed sword, the Whispers of Yenwood.
Yenwood has specific lore related to Caed Nua, a few enchantments only found on named items, and in all other ways, is a standard one handed sword. If you so choose, you can place that item on your main character… And never take it off. Thanks to their specific design, all items have a quality tier that can be upgraded with ingredients you’ll find throughout the game. So, if I choose to use the Yenwood blade all game, all I have to do is what I would already do… Pick up everything I come across, like we all do in these types of games. When I hit the appropriate level to craft the enchantment, I can do it in moments, for the cost of ingredients I really have no other need for, and some copper. A Legendary One Handed Sword will be slightly lesser compared to Yenwood, but Yenwood will still easily compare to items you get later in the game, however, like Sheathed in Autumn, another weapon of the same item type, or Gaun’s Share, a one handed flail.
That ability to effectively use ANY named item throughout the game has kept me starting characters over and over, each slightly different, varying only by an item here or there, a talent change here, a companion I did or didn’t take… The sheer amount of options has kept me coming back. And yet, if you check… Pillars clearly has far fewer items then Grim Dawn, yet it’s managed as much, if not more, replayability for me.
For me, this raised the question… Which item system did I prefer? In Grim Dawn, you always have new items to chase, some characters won’t have perfect gear untill you’ve put 500 hours into them. In Pillars, in contrast, your character can easily have the gear they want forever early on, and you never have to search for them… Yet there are far fewer options.
Pillars isn’t the only POE with something unique to show in the item design. Path of Exile, while it has its issues in my eyes, does have one very valuable concept… The Skill Gem system. Assuming they were all equal (They are not, not at all), the system offers a massive amount of variety in a seemingly limited fashion. Take the basic Fireball for example, a video game staple. You could link Fireball to Increased AOE, to make it larger. Or the reverse, to make it smaller, but more damaging. How about Chain, so it bounces from enemy to enemy? Perhaps you even go for two Fireball setups, one for clearing waves of enemies, and one for killing the elite enmies. It’s a simple system, again with relatively few options compared to some other games, and yet the modifiers make it a clear benefit.
Skills being items is certainly a unique concept, and one I enjoy, but again it’s limiting and benefiting at the same time. Every class can take any skill, yet yet this limits the classes from feeling unique in the same fashion that other games make them. Classes are more of a stat choice rather than a style choice, and of course the game has other less than perfect areas.
Some games have tried combining the two, Grim Dawn included in a few items, by locking skills onto certain items… Unfortunately, this seems to result in either lackluster skills (Tome of the Arcane Wastes[I know it functions, but not as well as any of the non item locked skills]), or feeling forced to use the item because the skill is too good to pass up for whatever you are trying to do (Blood Orb of Ch’thon [I love the skill, but I don’t really love the item aside from that, it’s not that the item is bad, just that the lack of option isn’t great {Sorry, Ch’thon}])
I didn’t really make this thread to say anything in particular, just to point out some interesting Item Design things I’ve seen in gaming, and to look for some opinions on what others think about them, a fresh perspective. If you’ve seen a game with some kind of unique or interesting addition to their item/loot system, I’d love to know about it, even if the game is awful. (If you actually read all this, I’m actively stunned. Seriously, I have the classic video game swirly mark above my head right now, IRL.)