Does anyone know if this applies to all Legs/Sets designed with a specific class in mind or is a one off. A real shame if it isn't possible to find other class legs/sets even if it's only a tiny chance as I was ecstatic when I found my Triumvirate while playing as my WD, and promptly switched to my Wiz to have a play.
Yeah, that's stupid, just to be nice; i could say something a lot more offensive.
What happens if i drop a Wizardspike on my DH? Two things: 1) I can give it to my Wizard and work a build around it; 2) I salvage it.
They really need to stop making the item hunt as linear as possible with smart drop and now restricting specific legendaries to drop only when you play that specific class.
Your experience with that Triumvirate you've found is the perfect example on how exciting can be finding an item for another class and play it for a change of pace. I did something similar in HC when i dropped a Cindercoat with str and vit when i was playing my DH and i leveled up a Barbarian just for it.
Well, i just want to add my feedback on the matter i posted on the EU forum right now: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/9338743869#1
This is a special occasion, because i avoid that place like the plague, but this change rubbed me the wrong way. If i didn't post my concern directly to Blizzard, or at least tried, what will happen next? Set Items dropped only when you play that class?
While I do miss playing any class and receiving any-kind of legendary/set..its a pro and con.
Pro - Finally finding legs that are good, and will work with the guy you are playing.
Con - As Maffia and Seifa said, finding legs for any class was nice, it promoted playing others classes because of that drop.
End Result - I still like how things are, if somehow they could make legs still drop for whatever class it would be nice. But as far as I am concerned (my opinion..) I enjoy spending the time finding and hunting. I LOVE that you can finally find pieces for that guy you are playing right then, as that was one of my biggest hates about D3V.
Guys, you realize this is again something the community asked for, just like smart drops?
The majority of people isn't farming Keeps with their barbarians to get an upgrade for their witch doctor.
I can see why you dislike it, and many people will dislike it just like you, but I personally am fine with it. If you really want non-class specific loot while farming with your wizard, team up with other classes and exchange legendaries when they drop.
I got so many Natalya chests on my wizard, I'd rather not see a single one ever again (until I switch to my demon hunter) than seeing my one legendary a day to be a completely useless item for me and instead to be a drop for my least favorite class.
The community asked for difficult 5man heroics for Cataclysm in World of Warcraft and the game lost so many subs for it. The community doesn't always know what it wants and doesn't understand the consequences.
Call me a nostalgic, but when i was farming in D2, if i find something great for another class, i could just put it away and as soon as i'm tired to play my current character, i could level up a new one with that specific piece of gear i got while i was hunting.
Freedom to play what i want when i want and how i want.
I understand you don't want to have more drops for off classes when you play a Wizard, and it probably won't be the case if smart loot is balanced (which is not right now, way too frequent), but if you want to have loot specific only for you class.... well, at this point this game could be a single player RPG like The Witcher.
I think we need to not overreact here. Most likely, it's unique to the WIzardspike because it is called Wizardspike.
And remember - on the whole using loot on different characters thing - there are very few stats that are class specific; it probably won't be very hard to enchant a drop your Barbarian found to work for your Wizard.
EDIT: It may also be due to the fact that the Frozen Orb cast by the Wizardspike is now the Arcane Orb:Frozen Orb spell itself (instead of a special thing).
I understand the reason and am 100% behind the whole 'smart loot/class specific drops' idea, but personally I think this is another example of loot being too smart. I would like to feel that there is a small chance of finding a game changing leg/set item for a class I'm not currently playing that would encourage me to try that class again.
I understand the reason for that kind of change (if it is the way we assume), but this is another huge hit to people who enjoy playing multiple classes (like me).
When playing with my strongest character, I won't find as many upgrades to my other chars, and I will probably never even play those weaker characters because of how bad it is farming with them (much less efficient than using my main).
This kind of change really worries me as to how far the dev team is willing to go to hold people's hands and make them feel good about themselves.
I understand the reason for that kind of change (if it is the way we assume), but this is another huge hit to people who enjoy playing multiple classes (like me).
When playing with my strongest character, I won't find as many upgrades to my other chars, and I will probably never even play those weaker characters because of how bad it is farming with them (much less efficient than using my main).
This kind of change really worries me as to how far the dev team is willing to go to hold people's hands and make them feel good about themselves.
This worries me more than BoA, actually.
If I switch from <main toon> to <other toon> that means, for all intents and purposes, I have to start all over again. Ultimately that means I might play the other toons casually, but I will never have any kind of serious investment in them because I'm NOT going to replay the item hunt with every toon I've rolled. It's too much busy work.
A major part of the fun in this game for people (which started with D2) is finding an item and twinking with it. Having a game where smart drops take over and you aren't finding twink items is just killing off another aspect of the game that people find enjoyable.
Instead of "smart drops" we need items to be of quality, regardless of what class they are for. We don't need 75%+ of the items that drop to be locked by primary stat to the class that we're currently on. There are six classes in the game for a reason. There are twelve character slots in the game for a reason.
The problem with "smart drops" is that they are increasingly treating each character like an individual entity, and not treating the whole account like an individual entity. Why do we even have a shared stash when there is precious little to share? Why are items BoA when they may as well be BoP due to changes like this?
Achievements, stash, crafters, battletags, clans... all account-wide. Why aren't items being treated in the same manner? Why isn't the ACCOUNT the basic unit for items? I know it's not safe to assume that everyone has one of every class, but it's equally dangerous to assume that everyone has just one character and even more dangerous to assume that people don't want to find loot that doesn't correspond exactly to the class they're currently playing.
In all seriousness, how many of you are going to re-boot the item hunt once per character? I know I won't, and I worry that this is just another change that is putting a pre-defined shelf life on the game due to designed TEDIUM. Farming Torment 3 on your WD? Swap to your DH and you're stuck in Master because you don't find gear to give the DH. Is that REALLY going to be an engaging thing for you? For me, it almost certainly means "play one toon til you're done then hang it up" and that is pretty nonsensical given that twinking out alts has definitely been a big part of Diablo for lots and lots of players.
You seem to forget that there's reforging. I've got half of the equip for my crusader and monk already by keeping items in the stash that were either 1) not subject to smart loot, i.e., I've got a STR chest and a DEX chest that are (without any reforgements) already better than my wizard's INT chest; or 2) items that have four good primary stats, but that I don't need on my wizard, so I can re-roll the INT to STR or DEX, whatever I need.
I get your point, I really understand both of you, but to act like this is the end of the world is, in my opinion, just ridiculous. A game will not fail because the loot you get is more suited to the class you actually prefer to play. If you have one main class and play with that 90% of the time, why should the game keep throwing unusable items at you, forcing you to switch? If you play all classes, then you will get loot for all classes. If you play your wizard for 500 hours and then decide to switch to monk, it'll take you a couple of hours to get him completely geared up IF you did not stash non-smart loot before (and this loot exists). In D3V, I was getting so many useless items but never ever a single legendary/set that was useful for myself. And switching to another class meant you had to invest hundred hours to level up paragon.
Besides, if you made progress with your wizard to enable him to farm Torment 6 after hundreds of hours, how the hell are you gonna explain to me that his lazy ass monk sitting in the tavern for the last few years all of the sudden gained the right to jump straight into hell-mode difficulty as well? "Listen here u lil shit... earn your spurs."
I get your point, I really understand both of you, but to act like this is the end of the world is, in my opinion, just ridiculous. A game will not fail because the loot you get is more suited to the class you actually prefer to play. If you have one main class and play with that 90% of the time, why should the game keep throwing unusable items at you, forcing you to switch? If you play all classes, then you will get loot for all classes.
See, that's the whole problem with your perspective...
The game shouldn't be tailored for people who play one class 90% of the time any more than it should be for people who play six classes evenly. It should be FAIR AND BALANCED FOR BOTH GROUPS.
I have no idea why you'd espouse that the game should be perfectly fair for someone who plays only one class, and that in order to achieve that, if it becomes unfair, tedious, and annoying for people who play multiple classes that is a casualty of war. It's not. Why in the world would you even bother to portray people who play multiple classes as some kind of fringe element of the community that deserves no recognition?
This is just another extension of "killing monsters is fun" turning into "therefore, the only fun in the game is killing monsters." This whole train of thought where there is only one correct way to enjoy the game, and everyone else is just flotsam and jetsam, is toxic. And I fully expect the developers to be above that. Unfortunately, yet again, they're proving that they don't really understand what is fun, they're just grasping at straws.
I have absolutely no idea why you're reacting that way. You either completely misunderstood what I wrote, or what you're proposing ends up to actually give those who play all classes a bonus.
Player A plays 600 hours on his wizard, player B plays 100 hours with all classes.
Player A gets only wizard items, has a very nicely geared wizard (because he invested freaking 600 hours in it), but his other 5 classes are completely useless.
Player B gets items for all six classes; of course just the same amount of loot as player A got, but equally distributed among all classes. They're all average in terms of equipment; his wizard is worse than player A's wizard, but the other 5 classes are well-equipped, too.
If you don't have any form of smart loot, player B has 6 nicely equipped characters, while player A has only one nicely equipped character (same equip as player B's wizard), but because player A only wants to play the wizard, 83% of his loot was just salvaged.
Is that fair? I don't think so.
We can argue as to how much smart loot is reasonable, but like I said, in only a few dozen hours of beta time and without actually thinking about gearing up my alts I already got both my crusader and monk half-equipped with more than decent level 70 loot.
(Edit in response to your edit: Your last paragraph is really so unnecessary and does not add anything to any reasonable discussion. It's got absolutely nothing to do with this thread. Had I read this before writing my response, I wouldn't have responded, because it comes across as "I don't even wanna discuss this issue". Do you?)
The last paragraph is because you seem to think that if you play your wizard for 600 hours all your other characters should suck. I find that to be a pretty ignorant stance to take, especially given the history of twinking in the series.
What FUN GAMEPLAY does starting over on each toon in terms of gear progression actually bring to the game? How does that make the game more enjoyable? OH GEE, I'M SO HAPPY I HAVE TO START BACK ON MASTER AGAIN... THANK GOD! Do you actually think that's fun?
I'm getting really tired of this "there is only one right way to play" mentality. Like to trade? Fuck off. Like to twink? Fuck off. What's next? What's the next crusade to go on? Eliminating people who like to use a certain spell because they don't fit into The Vision? Not selling the game in China because "Chinese people are more likely to be botters?" Removing co-op games because people who don't play 100% single-player self-found are "playing the game wrong?"
In all seriousness, twinking was a major part of D2. The game has NEVER catered directly to people who have only one character. The whole point of finding loot that you couldn't use, but that another character could, was that it would get you to try new things out. You played a wizard solely, but now you have a couple sweet barbarian items lying around... try out a barbarian.
Why would you want to squash that aspect of the game? Isn't it a GOOD thing that people are trying things out? Doesn't that ADD longevity? Trying to portray it as "I played my Wizard for 600 hours but have less loot because I have no other toons" is making excuses for people who actively choose to never play any other classes and tangibly making the game more boring for people who do play multiple classes. You choose to not have any other toons it stands to reason that a lot of loot you find will be useless - enjoy salvaging it and going to the mystic. There's a shared stash for a reason.... we're supposed to be able to share items between toons, otherwise why bother implementing that? If we weren't supposed to share items, if we weren't supposed to twink, we'd not have a shared stash, we'd just have character-specific storage.... RIGHT?
Seriously, what fun is it to keep re-starting the item hunt on every toon because twinking has been mostly-eradicated? Do you really think that's a good thing that's going to get people to continue to play the game?
"I'm getting really tired of this "there is only one right way to play" mentality."
=> But that is what you're proposing here. With your approach, the game would be like "focus on one character? fuck off". Right now there are different ways to play the game (focus on one class or play many). What you're saying is: you get loot for all classes, so play all classes, or fuck off. You want to play only one character? Your fault.
"In all seriousness, twinking was a major part of D2."
=> Well, we've had this discussion just the other day (lock skills proposal) and there it went into the exact opposite direction. In D2, if you wanted to twink, you might have used loot from other characters, but you had to level up for days (or even longer) for the class to be useful. I personally found twinking in D3 to be better than in D2, but it's just me.
But seriously, you keep forgetting the main point - smart loot increases the probability. Tell me it's too high, okay, I might admit. But YOU DON'T HAVE TO START FROM SCRATCH WHEN TWINKING, DAMNIT. It's really time you get a beta account and you'll relieved to see that smart loot or BoA it not the #1 problem, it's actually not even top 10 of my concerns right now.
But seriously, you keep forgetting the main point - smart loot increases the probability. Tell me it's too high, okay, I might admit.
Instead of arguing with me, go back and read the thread. Most of us who don't like this are basically saying "smart loot is too smart." That seems to be in line with what you've said. This "class specific drops" is just another layer on top of a smart drop system that MANY people feel is already too potent. Is that really so difficult to understand?
So instead of nit-picking my stance on twinking, why not understand the jist of the argument? You've already copped to the fact that roughly 75% of the items you find on your wizard have int on them. Wouldn't the game still work if that were only, say 50%? In a world of perfectly-even drops, they'd be roughly 33/33/33 ... ignoring items that don't roll int/dex/str at all, right? So wouldn't 50/25/25 be a fair breakdown instead of 75/12.5/12.5?
Isn't that what this discussion really is about? Obviously 33/33/33 has issues. I doubt anyone really wants that. But don't you think 75/12.5/12.5 is too severe? Isn't there a better number? Is it really healthy to take a smart drop rate that is already controversially-high and then start lumping MORE smart drops on top of it? You don't see issue with that? Because that's exactly what this thread is about and exactly what people, like myself, take issue with.
I get your point, I really understand both of you, but to act like this is the end of the world is, in my opinion, just ridiculous. A game will not fail because the loot you get is more suited to the class you actually prefer to play. If you have one main class and play with that 90% of the time, why should the game keep throwing unusable items at you, forcing you to switch?
It's certainly not the end of the world, it just seems that it started as a good idea and has been taken to far.
Throwing loot that you can't use at you is most certainly a bad thing, and I'm certain most people don't get excited when they find a good rare dex chest for an alt, but if playing as a WD for every 10 leg Mojos/Ceremonial knives/Voodoo masks found you also found 1 class specific leg for a different class? It's hardly throwing useless loot at me and would certainly encourage me to pick up a neglected class to try it out, especially if I found that Source that makes Ray of Frost Pierce or the Daibo that removes SSS cooldown.
1) What this thread is initially about: I agree that making items not drop at all, like the Wizardspike, goes to far. If it's ONLY the Wizardspike because of RPG/name reasons and no other legendary, it's fine. If now all of the sudden orbs and wizard hats only drop if you're a wizard, it would go too far.
2) I depicted two extremes with my example in post #13. One is 100%/0%/0% and one is 33%/33%/33%. The first discourages from twinking, but is the fairest distribution. The second is superb for twinking, but is unfair for those who play only one class. I don't think a couple of hours playtime on beta justify to give a final verdict about smart loot. I think many people are exaggerating, and Blizzard also is tuning it in response to various smart loot complains on the beta forums. However, I personally did not have an issue with it; it was just "different" and took some time to get used to it, but at some point I started getting loot for my other classes.
3) You said: "The problem with "smart drops" is that they are increasingly treating each character like an individual entity, and not treating the whole account like an individual entity."
Well, and to this I completely disagree. The RPG component tells me that if any of my classes wants to get any merits, it has to earn it. I don't see why playing 20 hours with my wizard should make my monk prepared for Torment. And I bet that in current beta, if you play 100 hours on your wizard your monk will have quite awesome level 70 equipment, and this is with not even thinking about reforging.
Your posts all come across as "oh, you like focusing on a single class? fuck off. smart loot? abandon it altogether". I didn't get the feeling, anywhere in your argument, that the discussion was about 50/25/25 vs 75/12.5/12.5. If it was, then maybe we can settle and just disagree about the numbers - because I'd favor the latter. 50/25/25 would still mean players who don't twink have to salvage 50% of their loot. That does not sound fair to me, sorry. Like Yingtao said, it sounds more like you just want to play one class and gear all other classes up. In an RPG I don't like that idea. Btw: While there was no smart loot in D2, leveling your character took the majority of time (at least for me), so I've never perceived D2 to be more encouraging for leveling twinks than D3.
I don't have an issue with smart drops right now. I actually think it's in pretty good shape. Of the six legendaries I found last night, five could be used by all my characters if I simply enchant the primary stat (int) to another. The sixth legendary was a cloak (of course it rolled dex). However, I was not interested in playing my DH at the time, so I salvaged it.
I don't mind having class-targeted drops like Wizardspike if those types of items are highly limited. As in, if the loot table has 300 different individual legendaries, 1% of them can be class-targeted drops. If I really, really wanted a Wizardspike to use for my wizard, I'd go play a wizard and grind for it. If they make an item like Thunderfury (one-handed sword) targeted only for barbarians for some odd reason, I'll go run my barbarian. It gives you a reason to actually go grind with an alt, not just gather up gift wrapped presents hand delivered by your main character.
Yes, maybe I want to be an oddball and run a Wizardspike on my monk There will be people like that. However, take a look at D3V's Manticore. One of its guaranteed rolls is either dex or int. Int? Really? Who uses Manticore? DHs. I'd say 99% of players remotely serious about the game and run Manticores are DHs. Why? Because Manticore, by design, is best suited for a DH. If you happen to find a great Manticore while playing on your WD, you'd of course want to give it to your DH, understandably. If you don't have a DH, you'd toss the Manticore. If you do, great. The philosophy for RoS right now is "playing the game to get your loot." Now this can apply to just general playing, but it can also apply to playing your character to find loot that you want for that character. A Wizardspike, by design, is a wizard item. Take a look at D3V's Wizardspike. Any character capable of wielding a one-handed weapon can use it, since it's a dagger. But it rolls APoC (yes I know the Loot 2.0 one doesn't have APoC). You might as well get one if you play a wizard. If you don't, it's useless. If you really don't want to play a wizard, it's completely useless. In Loot 2.0, the Frozen Orb proc is literally a wizard's Frozen Orb. In the Design a Legendary video, the devs already pointed out that they'd try to avoid allowing classes to cast spells that are not native to those particular classes, as it ruins the original class's identity and uniqueness.
I agree twinking is an important part of Diablo's culture. However, you can twink your character without class-targeted items. I'm not fond of consistently feeding an alternate character top-end gear without playing that character at all. I want to work that alternate character up to the level of my main by playing that alternate character. I think Bagstone more or less implied it if he hadn't stated it outright.
Lastly, I want to talk about Blizzard's popular "fulfilling the fantasy" saying. My vision, I don't know if others share the same viewpoint, is finding awesome items for my character with my character. If I main a wizard and I have an alt monk sitting around, I don't want my monk to suddenly get a whole set of ridiculous end-game gear falling from the sky (via shared stash). Some, okay, that's fine. But I would much prefer to use my monk and discover an amazing item for my monk. Same applies for all my characters.
If I'm playing my wizard, I'd prefer a Triumvirate to drop, not a Thing of the Deep. If I'm playing my WD, I'd prefer a Thing of the Deep to drop, not a Calamity. If I'm playing my DH, I'd prefer a Calamity to drop, not an Immortal King's Stride. Once in a while, sure, oooh, surprise. But again, if I wanted those alt items, I'd be playing and grinding with my alt to find them.
If I switch from <main toon> to <other toon> that means, for all intents and purposes, I have to start all over again. Ultimately that means I might play the other toons casually, but I will never have any kind of serious investment in them because I'm NOT going to replay the item hunt with every toon I've rolled. It's too much busy work.
Ah, but that's what prolongs the game, whether some people like it or not. Like, if I'm playing a random Pokemon game, I'll have different teams set up. Breeding and training them from level 1 to 100. Takes a lot of work, but it's worthwhile work.
I don't have an issue with smart drops right now. I actually think it's in pretty good shape. Of the six legendaries I found last night, five could be used by all my characters if I simply enchant the primary stat (int) to another. The sixth legendary was a cloak (of course it rolled dex). However, I was not interested in playing my DH at the time, so I salvaged it.
Well that answers the main question, looks like it's probably just for that specific item rather than a general rule then.
In the Design a Legendary video, the devs already pointed out that they'd try to avoid allowing classes to cast spells that are not native to those particular classes, as it ruins the original class's identity and uniqueness.
The restriction doesn't stop this though, I could farm a Wizzardspike on my Wiz, give it to my WD and got Frozen Orb crazy
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Looking through the patch notes I spotted this:
Does anyone know if this applies to all Legs/Sets designed with a specific class in mind or is a one off. A real shame if it isn't possible to find other class legs/sets even if it's only a tiny chance as I was ecstatic when I found my Triumvirate while playing as my WD, and promptly switched to my Wiz to have a play.
While I do miss playing any class and receiving any-kind of legendary/set..its a pro and con.
Pro - Finally finding legs that are good, and will work with the guy you are playing.
Con - As Maffia and Seifa said, finding legs for any class was nice, it promoted playing others classes because of that drop.
End Result - I still like how things are, if somehow they could make legs still drop for whatever class it would be nice. But as far as I am concerned (my opinion..) I enjoy spending the time finding and hunting. I LOVE that you can finally find pieces for that guy you are playing right then, as that was one of my biggest hates about D3V.
Guys, you realize this is again something the community asked for, just like smart drops?
The majority of people isn't farming Keeps with their barbarians to get an upgrade for their witch doctor.
I can see why you dislike it, and many people will dislike it just like you, but I personally am fine with it. If you really want non-class specific loot while farming with your wizard, team up with other classes and exchange legendaries when they drop.
I got so many Natalya chests on my wizard, I'd rather not see a single one ever again (until I switch to my demon hunter) than seeing my one legendary a day to be a completely useless item for me and instead to be a drop for my least favorite class.
The community asked for difficult 5man heroics for Cataclysm in World of Warcraft and the game lost so many subs for it. The community doesn't always know what it wants and doesn't understand the consequences.
Call me a nostalgic, but when i was farming in D2, if i find something great for another class, i could just put it away and as soon as i'm tired to play my current character, i could level up a new one with that specific piece of gear i got while i was hunting.
Freedom to play what i want when i want and how i want.
I understand you don't want to have more drops for off classes when you play a Wizard, and it probably won't be the case if smart loot is balanced (which is not right now, way too frequent), but if you want to have loot specific only for you class.... well, at this point this game could be a single player RPG like The Witcher.
I think we need to not overreact here.
Most likely, it's unique to the WIzardspike because it is called Wizardspike.
And remember - on the whole using loot on different characters thing - there are very few stats that are class specific; it probably won't be very hard to enchant a drop your Barbarian found to work for your Wizard.
EDIT: It may also be due to the fact that the Frozen Orb cast by the Wizardspike is now the Arcane Orb:Frozen Orb spell itself (instead of a special thing).
I understand the reason and am 100% behind the whole 'smart loot/class specific drops' idea, but personally I think this is another example of loot being too smart. I would like to feel that there is a small chance of finding a game changing leg/set item for a class I'm not currently playing that would encourage me to try that class again.
This worries me more than BoA, actually.
If I switch from <main toon> to <other toon> that means, for all intents and purposes, I have to start all over again. Ultimately that means I might play the other toons casually, but I will never have any kind of serious investment in them because I'm NOT going to replay the item hunt with every toon I've rolled. It's too much busy work.
A major part of the fun in this game for people (which started with D2) is finding an item and twinking with it. Having a game where smart drops take over and you aren't finding twink items is just killing off another aspect of the game that people find enjoyable.
Instead of "smart drops" we need items to be of quality, regardless of what class they are for. We don't need 75%+ of the items that drop to be locked by primary stat to the class that we're currently on. There are six classes in the game for a reason. There are twelve character slots in the game for a reason.
The problem with "smart drops" is that they are increasingly treating each character like an individual entity, and not treating the whole account like an individual entity. Why do we even have a shared stash when there is precious little to share? Why are items BoA when they may as well be BoP due to changes like this?
Achievements, stash, crafters, battletags, clans... all account-wide. Why aren't items being treated in the same manner? Why isn't the ACCOUNT the basic unit for items? I know it's not safe to assume that everyone has one of every class, but it's equally dangerous to assume that everyone has just one character and even more dangerous to assume that people don't want to find loot that doesn't correspond exactly to the class they're currently playing.
In all seriousness, how many of you are going to re-boot the item hunt once per character? I know I won't, and I worry that this is just another change that is putting a pre-defined shelf life on the game due to designed TEDIUM. Farming Torment 3 on your WD? Swap to your DH and you're stuck in Master because you don't find gear to give the DH. Is that REALLY going to be an engaging thing for you? For me, it almost certainly means "play one toon til you're done then hang it up" and that is pretty nonsensical given that twinking out alts has definitely been a big part of Diablo for lots and lots of players.
You seem to forget that there's reforging. I've got half of the equip for my crusader and monk already by keeping items in the stash that were either 1) not subject to smart loot, i.e., I've got a STR chest and a DEX chest that are (without any reforgements) already better than my wizard's INT chest; or 2) items that have four good primary stats, but that I don't need on my wizard, so I can re-roll the INT to STR or DEX, whatever I need.
I get your point, I really understand both of you, but to act like this is the end of the world is, in my opinion, just ridiculous. A game will not fail because the loot you get is more suited to the class you actually prefer to play. If you have one main class and play with that 90% of the time, why should the game keep throwing unusable items at you, forcing you to switch? If you play all classes, then you will get loot for all classes. If you play your wizard for 500 hours and then decide to switch to monk, it'll take you a couple of hours to get him completely geared up IF you did not stash non-smart loot before (and this loot exists). In D3V, I was getting so many useless items but never ever a single legendary/set that was useful for myself. And switching to another class meant you had to invest hundred hours to level up paragon.
Besides, if you made progress with your wizard to enable him to farm Torment 6 after hundreds of hours, how the hell are you gonna explain to me that his lazy ass monk sitting in the tavern for the last few years all of the sudden gained the right to jump straight into hell-mode difficulty as well? "Listen here u lil shit... earn your spurs."
The game shouldn't be tailored for people who play one class 90% of the time any more than it should be for people who play six classes evenly. It should be FAIR AND BALANCED FOR BOTH GROUPS.
I have no idea why you'd espouse that the game should be perfectly fair for someone who plays only one class, and that in order to achieve that, if it becomes unfair, tedious, and annoying for people who play multiple classes that is a casualty of war. It's not. Why in the world would you even bother to portray people who play multiple classes as some kind of fringe element of the community that deserves no recognition?
This is just another extension of "killing monsters is fun" turning into "therefore, the only fun in the game is killing monsters." This whole train of thought where there is only one correct way to enjoy the game, and everyone else is just flotsam and jetsam, is toxic. And I fully expect the developers to be above that. Unfortunately, yet again, they're proving that they don't really understand what is fun, they're just grasping at straws.
I have absolutely no idea why you're reacting that way. You either completely misunderstood what I wrote, or what you're proposing ends up to actually give those who play all classes a bonus.
Player A plays 600 hours on his wizard, player B plays 100 hours with all classes.
Player A gets only wizard items, has a very nicely geared wizard (because he invested freaking 600 hours in it), but his other 5 classes are completely useless.
Player B gets items for all six classes; of course just the same amount of loot as player A got, but equally distributed among all classes. They're all average in terms of equipment; his wizard is worse than player A's wizard, but the other 5 classes are well-equipped, too.
If you don't have any form of smart loot, player B has 6 nicely equipped characters, while player A has only one nicely equipped character (same equip as player B's wizard), but because player A only wants to play the wizard, 83% of his loot was just salvaged.
Is that fair? I don't think so.
We can argue as to how much smart loot is reasonable, but like I said, in only a few dozen hours of beta time and without actually thinking about gearing up my alts I already got both my crusader and monk half-equipped with more than decent level 70 loot.
(Edit in response to your edit: Your last paragraph is really so unnecessary and does not add anything to any reasonable discussion. It's got absolutely nothing to do with this thread. Had I read this before writing my response, I wouldn't have responded, because it comes across as "I don't even wanna discuss this issue". Do you?)
The last paragraph is because you seem to think that if you play your wizard for 600 hours all your other characters should suck. I find that to be a pretty ignorant stance to take, especially given the history of twinking in the series.
What FUN GAMEPLAY does starting over on each toon in terms of gear progression actually bring to the game? How does that make the game more enjoyable? OH GEE, I'M SO HAPPY I HAVE TO START BACK ON MASTER AGAIN... THANK GOD! Do you actually think that's fun?
I'm getting really tired of this "there is only one right way to play" mentality. Like to trade? Fuck off. Like to twink? Fuck off. What's next? What's the next crusade to go on? Eliminating people who like to use a certain spell because they don't fit into The Vision? Not selling the game in China because "Chinese people are more likely to be botters?" Removing co-op games because people who don't play 100% single-player self-found are "playing the game wrong?"
In all seriousness, twinking was a major part of D2. The game has NEVER catered directly to people who have only one character. The whole point of finding loot that you couldn't use, but that another character could, was that it would get you to try new things out. You played a wizard solely, but now you have a couple sweet barbarian items lying around... try out a barbarian.
Why would you want to squash that aspect of the game? Isn't it a GOOD thing that people are trying things out? Doesn't that ADD longevity? Trying to portray it as "I played my Wizard for 600 hours but have less loot because I have no other toons" is making excuses for people who actively choose to never play any other classes and tangibly making the game more boring for people who do play multiple classes. You choose to not have any other toons it stands to reason that a lot of loot you find will be useless - enjoy salvaging it and going to the mystic. There's a shared stash for a reason.... we're supposed to be able to share items between toons, otherwise why bother implementing that? If we weren't supposed to share items, if we weren't supposed to twink, we'd not have a shared stash, we'd just have character-specific storage.... RIGHT?
Seriously, what fun is it to keep re-starting the item hunt on every toon because twinking has been mostly-eradicated? Do you really think that's a good thing that's going to get people to continue to play the game?
Instead of arguing with me, go back and read the thread. Most of us who don't like this are basically saying "smart loot is too smart." That seems to be in line with what you've said. This "class specific drops" is just another layer on top of a smart drop system that MANY people feel is already too potent. Is that really so difficult to understand?
So instead of nit-picking my stance on twinking, why not understand the jist of the argument? You've already copped to the fact that roughly 75% of the items you find on your wizard have int on them. Wouldn't the game still work if that were only, say 50%? In a world of perfectly-even drops, they'd be roughly 33/33/33 ... ignoring items that don't roll int/dex/str at all, right? So wouldn't 50/25/25 be a fair breakdown instead of 75/12.5/12.5?
Isn't that what this discussion really is about? Obviously 33/33/33 has issues. I doubt anyone really wants that. But don't you think 75/12.5/12.5 is too severe? Isn't there a better number? Is it really healthy to take a smart drop rate that is already controversially-high and then start lumping MORE smart drops on top of it? You don't see issue with that? Because that's exactly what this thread is about and exactly what people, like myself, take issue with.
It's certainly not the end of the world, it just seems that it started as a good idea and has been taken to far.
Throwing loot that you can't use at you is most certainly a bad thing, and I'm certain most people don't get excited when they find a good rare dex chest for an alt, but if playing as a WD for every 10 leg Mojos/Ceremonial knives/Voodoo masks found you also found 1 class specific leg for a different class? It's hardly throwing useless loot at me and would certainly encourage me to pick up a neglected class to try it out, especially if I found that Source that makes Ray of Frost Pierce or the Daibo that removes SSS cooldown.
1) What this thread is initially about: I agree that making items not drop at all, like the Wizardspike, goes to far. If it's ONLY the Wizardspike because of RPG/name reasons and no other legendary, it's fine. If now all of the sudden orbs and wizard hats only drop if you're a wizard, it would go too far.
2) I depicted two extremes with my example in post #13. One is 100%/0%/0% and one is 33%/33%/33%. The first discourages from twinking, but is the fairest distribution. The second is superb for twinking, but is unfair for those who play only one class. I don't think a couple of hours playtime on beta justify to give a final verdict about smart loot. I think many people are exaggerating, and Blizzard also is tuning it in response to various smart loot complains on the beta forums. However, I personally did not have an issue with it; it was just "different" and took some time to get used to it, but at some point I started getting loot for my other classes.
3) You said: "The problem with "smart drops" is that they are increasingly treating each character like an individual entity, and not treating the whole account like an individual entity."
Well, and to this I completely disagree. The RPG component tells me that if any of my classes wants to get any merits, it has to earn it. I don't see why playing 20 hours with my wizard should make my monk prepared for Torment. And I bet that in current beta, if you play 100 hours on your wizard your monk will have quite awesome level 70 equipment, and this is with not even thinking about reforging.
Your posts all come across as "oh, you like focusing on a single class? fuck off. smart loot? abandon it altogether". I didn't get the feeling, anywhere in your argument, that the discussion was about 50/25/25 vs 75/12.5/12.5. If it was, then maybe we can settle and just disagree about the numbers - because I'd favor the latter. 50/25/25 would still mean players who don't twink have to salvage 50% of their loot. That does not sound fair to me, sorry. Like Yingtao said, it sounds more like you just want to play one class and gear all other classes up. In an RPG I don't like that idea. Btw: While there was no smart loot in D2, leveling your character took the majority of time (at least for me), so I've never perceived D2 to be more encouraging for leveling twinks than D3.
I don't have an issue with smart drops right now. I actually think it's in pretty good shape. Of the six legendaries I found last night, five could be used by all my characters if I simply enchant the primary stat (int) to another. The sixth legendary was a cloak (of course it rolled dex). However, I was not interested in playing my DH at the time, so I salvaged it.
I don't mind having class-targeted drops like Wizardspike if those types of items are highly limited. As in, if the loot table has 300 different individual legendaries, 1% of them can be class-targeted drops. If I really, really wanted a Wizardspike to use for my wizard, I'd go play a wizard and grind for it. If they make an item like Thunderfury (one-handed sword) targeted only for barbarians for some odd reason, I'll go run my barbarian. It gives you a reason to actually go grind with an alt, not just gather up gift wrapped presents hand delivered by your main character.
Yes, maybe I want to be an oddball and run a Wizardspike on my monk There will be people like that. However, take a look at D3V's Manticore. One of its guaranteed rolls is either dex or int. Int? Really? Who uses Manticore? DHs. I'd say 99% of players remotely serious about the game and run Manticores are DHs. Why? Because Manticore, by design, is best suited for a DH. If you happen to find a great Manticore while playing on your WD, you'd of course want to give it to your DH, understandably. If you don't have a DH, you'd toss the Manticore. If you do, great. The philosophy for RoS right now is "playing the game to get your loot." Now this can apply to just general playing, but it can also apply to playing your character to find loot that you want for that character. A Wizardspike, by design, is a wizard item. Take a look at D3V's Wizardspike. Any character capable of wielding a one-handed weapon can use it, since it's a dagger. But it rolls APoC (yes I know the Loot 2.0 one doesn't have APoC). You might as well get one if you play a wizard. If you don't, it's useless. If you really don't want to play a wizard, it's completely useless. In Loot 2.0, the Frozen Orb proc is literally a wizard's Frozen Orb. In the Design a Legendary video, the devs already pointed out that they'd try to avoid allowing classes to cast spells that are not native to those particular classes, as it ruins the original class's identity and uniqueness.
I agree twinking is an important part of Diablo's culture. However, you can twink your character without class-targeted items. I'm not fond of consistently feeding an alternate character top-end gear without playing that character at all. I want to work that alternate character up to the level of my main by playing that alternate character. I think Bagstone more or less implied it if he hadn't stated it outright.
Lastly, I want to talk about Blizzard's popular "fulfilling the fantasy" saying. My vision, I don't know if others share the same viewpoint, is finding awesome items for my character with my character. If I main a wizard and I have an alt monk sitting around, I don't want my monk to suddenly get a whole set of ridiculous end-game gear falling from the sky (via shared stash). Some, okay, that's fine. But I would much prefer to use my monk and discover an amazing item for my monk. Same applies for all my characters.
If I'm playing my wizard, I'd prefer a Triumvirate to drop, not a Thing of the Deep. If I'm playing my WD, I'd prefer a Thing of the Deep to drop, not a Calamity. If I'm playing my DH, I'd prefer a Calamity to drop, not an Immortal King's Stride. Once in a while, sure, oooh, surprise. But again, if I wanted those alt items, I'd be playing and grinding with my alt to find them.
Ah, but that's what prolongs the game, whether some people like it or not. Like, if I'm playing a random Pokemon game, I'll have different teams set up. Breeding and training them from level 1 to 100. Takes a lot of work, but it's worthwhile work.Armory | YouTube | Twitter | Clan Site