poe 2 should breathe life into magical (blue) items

[Nonbinary]

there is a miss in how rarities work.
rares have random amount of varying positive modifiers.
uniques are great at what they specialize at. might be a crazy boost overall if rare enough.
normal is good for modifying up from scratch with best added quality.

magical is the most looked over rarity. its just rare with much less modifiers

it used to set magical apart from rares in diablo 2 because rare was jack of all trades. though at least 1 or 2 of the modifiers were hardly considered worthwhile. not only did magical often spawn with two powerful modifiers in comparison, they were also able to spawn with modifiers that was limited only to magical, and with an advantage in modifier level

the item level needed for higher modifiers to spawn on magical was lesser than rare ones. if you picked up a rare and magical from the same monster, the magical had the potential to have stronger, more high level modifiers than the rare. it could become a choice between 30% cold resist and 40% fire resist, or a rare with 6% fire resist, 10 life, attacker damage of 3, and 10 dex. more stats on the rare, but if you really needed a resistance boost, the magical is an obvious choice

nearly all modifiers had an exclusive top tier modifier that could only appear on magical items. an affix could for example be attack rating and enhanced damage percentage, starting from warrior and going up to master. there was an extra modifier, called grandmaster, which only could appear on magical.
if you wanted to go nuts and get nothing but perfect damage for your weapon, you could home in on magical items specializing on that. it has disadvantages hyperfocusing on it, but its a sound option

i also feel like that should be part of the spirit of arpgs. a tradeoff of advantages and disadvantages. but magical is a straight up disadvantage, no reason to use it. the value can be discussed in terms of orbing it up to a rare and crafting modifiers on it, but thats still arguing for rares and not magical. you wouldnt want to wield a magical as it is

[Detergent]

Not exactly the point to what you mentioned. But just wanted to share because I think it has some relevance.
Some uniques do provide extra power when combined with magic items.
Viridi's Veil
The Ascetic
Hidden Potential
Some examples off the top of my head.

Anyways, with that out of the way. I think in PoE2, magic rarity will play a major role. I'm actually sure of it. Its just not in the way you described.

Right now in PoE, when you want to craft a item from scratch, it requires a massive about of clicking. Alteration and Augment spamming to land that 1/1000 chance, usually followed by a regal+annul brick, setting you back to the Alt spam.

In PoE2 they are removing Alterations and Chaos Orbs got reworked. Basically, you can't reroll a items affixes until you get what you want.
You will need to pick up magic items and hunt down the rare affixes. I imagine magic weapons with T1 or even T2 damage mods will be pretty valuable in PoE2.

So like I mentioned, its not what you were looking for, but magic items will have value in PoE2 (I assume, if what I said is all true).

[Nonbinary]

i might have to add that this has felt like a flaw of poe too, but can be easy to ignore at times, since for most its a welcome overbearance. it makes it easier to spot valuables. with how some modifiers trump all other modifiers in usefulness

modifiers will be ignored entirely in favor of others when you skim through them, if you dont want to take any chances, and thats a nobrainer for most to avoid punishment. instead of making a more thoughtful decision and being considerate of all mods, and just having fun experimenting

the sometimes apparent illusion of choice makes me want it not to be a choice, so it is seen for what it really is. just another implicit static modifier you dont have to consider, always there because it has to be in order for most builds to work. there should be no minimum requirements within choices made. the game should allow its own options to function

i cant come to that sensation with poe, no matter the amount of time and effort i put into experimenting with it. i feel awkwardly like a chef trying to make sense of the ingredients given. and the responses given by other chefs, "try look up a recipe online" and "this and that ingredient are a must, unless you do it just this way". its how it works best, but its rigid

in most arpgs, you could totally toast up a cucumber sandwich. its not going to be good but... its still edible. and you made a deliberate challenge, instead of following cook book instructions to play it safe

there is no rng to be found within the builds themselves. they are a strangely boring part of the game, considering its an arpg. or a more fitting abbreviation, ag. im not customizing my character into a roleplay experience

poe 2 could reevaluate a whole lot of that, but it will take a long while for me before i dare step in that kitchen again. will be easier to get informed by others feedback after some time has passed and the hype is out of the way

scuse me for the long sidequest gordon ramsay rant, but... its been too much devotion to understand some flawed game. not that i regret the experience, but i gotta put my thoughts somewhere. and im hungry

[Hiroko]

Originally posted by Nonbinary:

i feel awkwardly like a chef trying to make sense of the ingredients given. and the responses given by other chefs, "try look up a recipe online" and "this and that ingredient are a must, unless you do it just this way". its how it works best, but its rigid

This is a problem with multiplicative scaling. A small amount here or there does exactly what you want, but a small amount in a couple places that multiply creates a much bigger impact. This is why defense is basically "unkillable until you get oneshot." The upside is that upgrades to gear/builds feels more impactful, the downside is that lack of those same improvements is also far more impactful.

[acirb]

If they made Magic items better, we could just use Regal Orbs and Exalts to make even better Rare items.

That would make identifying regular Rare items a waste of time in comparison, since their rolls would be truly random and Magic items would usually have just high tiers.

They did a similar thing with Talismans a while back. They added a system to make Talismans have more synergy in their modifiers, instead of having random mods. This made them more likely to be extremely good, but they were indeed too good to keep in the game.

--

As Detergent mentioned, there are items that rely on you using Magic items, if you want.

A lot of crafting is also done with Magic items, using Alterations and Augments. Sometimes even thousands of Alterations are used.

[Nonbinary]

Originally posted by acirb:

If they made Magic items better, we could just use Regal Orbs and Exalts to make even better Rare items.

That would make identifying regular Rare items a waste of time in comparison, since their rolls would be truly random and Magic items would usually have just high tiers.

They did a similar thing with Talismans a while back. They added a system to make Talismans have more synergy in their modifiers, instead of having random mods. This made them more likely to be extremely good, but they were indeed too good to keep in the game.

--

As Detergent mentioned, there are items that rely on you using Magic items, if you want.

A lot of crafting is also done with Magic items, using Alterations and Augments. Sometimes even thousands of Alterations are used.

could this be resolved by making regal orbs much rarer? if magical items are treated with respect instead of an unfinished project, orbs upgrading them could get the same treatment. i dont see the clash with items relying on using magic items, neither do i see it as a solution to the problem

[acirb]

Maybe a new base type for some items? Implicit "30 % increased effect of explicit modifiers if the item is Magic"

Then you could have both the current version and something you are describing. This would be similar to some Unique item effects, like The Adorned (or Darkness Enthroned).

[Nonbinary]

Originally posted by acirb:

Maybe a new base type for some items? Implicit "30 % increased effect of explicit modifiers if the item is Magic"

Then you could have both the current version and something you are describing. This would be similar to some Unique item effects, like The Adorned (or Darkness Enthroned).

hmm thats not a bad idea. if its coupled with magical items having the potential (but not guaranteed) to roll higher item level mods than their current item level, that would overall make magical items worth looking at. magical can be a promise of enhancing exactly the mods you want out of your gear, while rare still takes the cake in giving a full patchwork

[Nonbinary]

might also have to make that implicit modifier invisible until identified, or its gonna be more sifting through trash on the ground

[Hiroko]

maybe, when upgrading magic to rare you either:
A) can't upgrade if one of the mods is a magic-only modifier
B) magic-only mods are downgraded to their equivalent (or cap) rare mods
C) rare items with magic-only mods receive a 10% decrease to all modifiers that are not magic-only.

[Nonbinary]

Originally posted by Hiroko:

maybe, when upgrading magic to rare you either:
A) can't upgrade if one of the mods is a magic-only modifier
B) magic-only mods are downgraded to their equivalent (or cap) rare mods
C) rare items with magic-only mods receive a 10% decrease to all modifiers that are not magic-only.

those are decent ideas too. i had thought of the b) one too, but i think its ultimately going to discourage using regal orbs

the a) one could work, youd just hear that error sound and get a text message saying the modifiers are too strong for rare (compared to item level). might be a bit disruptive though, maybe too much trying around for any who cant tell

i like c) one the most. it retains the power but reduces the extra mods, to.. idk. lore stuff. but sounds sensible in terms on gameplay. maybe instead of being 10% decrease, it could just lower the item level of those extra mods, so they are always worse tiers

some thought i had is if magical is going to compete among the other rarities, there could be an opposite orb to regal orb. where it takes 2 random modifiers of a rare, removes the rest, and makes them more powerful. turning a rare into a magical. useful if you see some modifiers you want to improve on a rare, dont really care about the rest, but its a gamble if its gonna pick the mods you wanted