As is the case in many games, Diablo 4 players can struggle with bag space and inventory management while they are out delving into the dungeons and clearing out hordes of monsters, but a clever trick can preserve space and help players save some gold too. Diablo games are well known for the immense amount of loot that players can get, particularly in dungeons, and it is one of the favorite features of the game for many. Being able to take out mobs and dig through piles of loot for valuable items is a lot of fun, and a great way to make money, but having to keep going back to town to sell is a bit exhausting.
Diablo 4 is all about hack 'n' slash dungeon crawling and having to pause the battles to go back to town and clear out a character's bags can often be an annoyance. Developers did provide the easy access of Town Portal to quickly pop to town and back as often as needed without having to trudge across the landscape, however, it still can cause some frustrations, particularly when playing in groups. Players simply don't want to have to keep stopping to wait for someone to go sell, which is where this useful trick comes into play.
The trick was shared by Reddit user Born_Pension_8210 (via Game Rant), who showed a quick and easy way to clean up some spaces in a character's inventory. All a player has to do is socket loose gems into other items in the inventory that the player already has plans to salvage. They pointed out that when an item is salvaged at the Blacksmith, any socketed gems are returned to the inventory automatically at no cost. Unlike the Jeweler who charges a small fee for removing gems from sockets of items, the Blacksmith simply salvages the items and leaves the gems unharmed to be used another day.
Through the power of video game logic, gems in a character's inventory can take up as much space as weapons and armor do. There is no way to increase inventory space for the backpack, so unless a player wants to make frequent trips to town, they need to get creative on saving that space and be very selective on which loot they pick up. Loot that is lower quality is often better to just leave laying on the ground, but even with selective gathering players will find their bags get full quickly.
Utilizing this concept of socketing gems into items that are in the backpack allows more spaces to be freed up to collect even more of the fun Diablo 4 loot before casting that town portal. Removing a gem from a socket at the Jeweler does cost money and so the trick is not recommended for any item that a player wishes to stash away or sell. As long as an item is destined to be salvaged, there is no reason why a player should hesitate to throw a couple of gems into it if it has open sockets available.
Socketing gems into items may at first sound counterintuitive to the idea of earning gold in Diablo 4, but at lower levels players are often better off salvaging many items for materials, so they are able to then upgrade their best gear or create Sigils. Salvaging items also add the armor or weapon to the list of available transmogs if the look has not been previously added. While all of these items can be sold rather than salvaged, the materials are valuable to earn and often the loot dropped in lower levels does not sell for much gold anyway.
By freeing up more room in a character's inventory, players are able to grab more loot before their trip back to town, which means there may be more things to sell as well as salvage. The key aspect of the trick is utilizing the Blacksmith to salvage items that have gems in them, as long as a player already had plans to salvage them. This not only frees up the space in the inventory, but as the Blacksmith will return the gems for free it is a much better prospect than visiting the Jeweler and having to pay a fee to see the gems returned.
One of the biggest features missing from Diablo 4 that players have been requesting from developers is a Gem tab in the inventory screen. Being able to have an entirely separate inventory area specifically for gems would help immensely with the quality-of-life issue of bag space. Even from a roleplay standpoint, having a separate small bag to put the tiny gems into does not seem out of line, and hopefully later updates or DLC will add this feature to the game to make things easier for players.
The video game community is a wonderful resource for finding hacks to solve common problems that many face in video games, such as limited bag space. Diablo 4 developers will hopefully add a Gem tab to the inventory menu at some point in the future, and thankfully the Town Portal is incredibly easy and quick to use. Even with the Town Portal, leaving a dungeon to run to town and clear out inventory space can feel like a slog and is particularly objectionable when playing in groups if not everyone has a full inventory at the same time.
Source: Born_Pension_8210/Reddit (via Game Rant)
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