Thoughts on Uniques

[Krancher]

It is true, and I think unfortunate, that many uniques are worthless; some are truly crap, in that rare, crafted, or socketed items of the same level all outshine them; others are borderline useful, but given one usually finds uniques that would be useful at level 10 only after reaching level 20, they are still essentially crap.

I love the fact that rares and other items are actually useful in ME; I think it is ridiculous that whenever I hear about people play-testing the 1.10 patch, it almost always seems that they are doing so with an entire library of uniques at their disposal, since those are not only the absolutely best items in the game, but also--from the sound of it--the only ones with which one can actually finish the game. However, there is an undeniable thrill to the legitimate finding of that one glowing golden item every 20-or-so hours of play time. And it saddens me that 9 times out of 10, that thrill turns to disappointment when I realize the unique I just found is, in essence, a mid-grade rare with a special name.

I would not want uniques to dominate my equipment list, but it would be fun if they were at least useful, and moreover, special. And when I say this, I am thinking back to some of the uniques in D1 (I'm afraid I never played the ME mod of that game, since I only play single player, and that mod advertises itself as multiplayer only). Specifically, those that followed the age-old trope of powerful artifacts: that they give you power untold, but *at a terrible price.* I remember the shiver that went down my spine the day I found the Constricting Ring. Max resist all? It was godly! Constant life drain? It was evil! Evil evil EVIL!!! It was not an item I wore constantly; it was something I broke out only when I was desperate, and going up against the uber-hordes. I would love to see the uniques in ME for LoD be more like this. Items to be feared by both the monsters *and* the characters; items that can be of great use in certain situations, but which do not encourage constant, mundane usage.

[Khan]

Uniques which are negative and positive are even more difficult to balance. But we did enhance the uniques for the next version to make them more useful.

From our testing it seems to work now (got currently some uniques in my equipment of various characters)