DiabloFans

I suppose i should start logging in again and follow the Diablo things all over again.

In the end, desptite whatever anyone of us thinks of D3 (both positive and negative), we're all huge Diablo nerds in here. We want it to be good, we want to waste hours on it, we just want it.

I'm really happy about Magic Find entering the picture (i heard about it from MMO-C), hopefully the community will come back alive.

I know you're all there. I'm just waiting for you all.

Honestly i had envisioned this situation before they wen live.

A random low-level GR with an incomplete/bad designed build is crap. Anyone can clear it, no thinking required, and rewards are pretty MEH. Competition wise, they suck because clears are so fast and anyone can luck their clear out.

Challenge rifts should be about a 55-65 clear with a thought out build. It doesn't need to be higher so you have a lot more leeway into building, plus it represents a decent entertainment since the run isn't done in 2 minutes. Also, builds should be validated fisrt to avoid stuff like the NA/KR LoN with no ancients build crap.

There are a lot of fun builds possible in game that just get rekt because GR simply suck ass as endgame promoting the "one and only" mentality for each class. There are synergies working that aren't played just because some others deal 10x damage. While these builds are not feasible for Ladders and GR pushing, they're still a nice change from meta and deserve more visibility.

I wondered too what it actually means.

Honestly i hope they don't go the MMO route. They have WoW already, comparisons would be just automatic and community would just split into the ones who like it and the ones who hate it. One thing i would absolutely not like is to have a world/maps full of random people and slow-ish MMO combat; Diablo is absolutely not about that.

Anyway, some MMO stuff may be pretty interesting:

- instead of small zones/maps, have a huge persistent world with bigger zones and no loading screens (waypoints still good)

- more character customization: both cosemtic (model) and though secondary skills like professions

- tied to above, a more robust crafting system

- while zones should be istanced for solo/small groups, you can have a central hub (or more) where you can see/trade/chat with other players

- static dungeons to tackle in solo/small groups; they could add lots of them over time to have more content/rewards to hunt for

- a gear grind that makes more sense than the one we have in D3 (way too fast, sets defining everything and basically removing nearly all the item hunt)

- while i don't like it, that is the chance to make trading right

Basically a fully online ARPG with some MMO structure. Stuff like raids should be avoided like a plague.

Well, 15 games are just a bunch - especially you can just group up and go against AI in "hurrdurr" mode.

Honestly i don't like that a lot - but that's more personal preference than anything else.

I love about Akkhan that the set is pretty generic and everything is tied to a single ability, leaving it up to players what skillset to use - by mixing various legendary items. Putting specific bonuses to specific skills to me is a step back pretty much. But again, personal opinion.

What i agree is that Akkhan needs some kind of buff/rework to make it more appealing. I support the idea of a perma-champion set, but only if you need absolutely to run with it and other sets have no access to this.

Quote from The_Mootrix»

So the necro beta test is live.
It looks like necromancers have physical, poison, and cold... and the COE (on the beta test) is cycling through those 3 elements.
Of course it's a beta- I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up with a 4th (new) element for them... blood power or something.

Necro Skills: https://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/20682541

Well, Blizzard stated they wanted only 3 elements for the Necro, and CoE being more powerful for him as been addressed with "we're going to make even more interesting rings so you should have options and possibly want other stuff than CoE".

Quote from BlackcurseLT

i have to disagree there since dinosaur fossil primal relic ancient items havent been added to the game yet.

So if i have to stay in the same line, it's not worth using Caldesann on Ancients since we already have Primals. It' just better to not use Caldesann at all to, since we don't know what can be in game in the future.
Anyway, given the abysmal feedback Blizzard has received on Primals V1, i don't think they're going to add other tiers of items like that in the future.
Hell, i would prefer real tier sets (different sets) with increasing powers that drop in definite GRs ranges. And i know already that this idea would piss off lots of people.

Quote from chiburi_noto»

Primals = fail for those who already have caldesann's despair on their gear. Correct me if I'm wrong folks...

As said above, Primals are completely optional.
A well rolled ancient with Caldesann on top is very likely to be already better of the "common" Primal. If you manage to get a Primal with all the right stats, then it's worth farming another Caldesann for it imho, since you won't find anything better ingame.

Quote from FEIF81»

the only primal u want i prolly a wepon

Surely the one that can do the most difference, but even that is just an ancient weapon max-rolled. If you farm enough for getting a good rolled one, likely you'll have one regular well rolled Ancient and the difference will be minimal anyway.

Then don't farm them. Solved.

Primals are just a carrot on a stick for players who don't care about ladders and wanted a long term objective. Usually those kind of players don't care much about character power/stats but more about "completion".

Primals are not needed for competing in ladders, and if you have a badly rolled one it's a shard like any other item.

Really, they are 100% optional. Expecting to have a full Primal well-rolled character is completely bogus (until you dedicate lots of hours on that char).

Quote from Limdul»

Then what's the point in continuing once you hit the hard cap? If anything GR's are great because they offer infinite scaling objectives, it gives you something that D2 was not able to offer.

What I dislike is that the speed at which you clear the rifts is more important than the level of the rift. Why run 100 if you can run 90 a few minutes faster. It's time that item stats scale with GR level, higher rifts should give better drops, not just more which then have just a chance to drop.

The hard cap shouldbe something that takes quite a bunch of time to reach - and most of all, it should be tied to a single character while now you can just swap the legendary gems and nuke relatively high GR with sensible less effort. When you reach the "hard cap" you still have the hunt for Primals (optional but can be a goal) or you could do it with another char.
GR offer infinite scaling, but this comes at the price that once you reached a "soft cap", you either need to play meta or you're done. With no other reason than "you're not playing meta". Which sucks a lot.
There is zero incentive to play something that's not meta. Journey and all that stuff is nice but doesn't take much and it's not a long term objective. Once you're done with that it0's either meta or farming lower stuff because you cannot realistically do anything else, also because there's literally nothing to do but GRs.

Quote from SkYlaX17»

You did endless Baal- and Diabloruns in Diablo 2. This was your highly praised endgame ... Now you do speeds and in the end you try to push as far as your grinding allows you. The same in Diablo 2: the more time you invested, the better was your result ... there is no difference.

The major difference is that in D2 progression wasn't tied to an infinite scaling difficult content. And it make the whole thing completely different.
As you said, in D2 you had boss/farm runs, over and over and over. In D3 you have GRs runs, over and over and over. Both grinds and farms. But in D2, no matter the build/character you had, you could do it and you could find gear to support your own build and make your character stronger.
In D3, gear is thrown at you and everyone reaches the same plateau very fast. Then if you have the right class/build you can just progress further than anybody else because the only progression left is Paragon (LOL) and Legendary gems. The wrong/less optimal build will make you go only so far then you're locked into lower GRs with nothing to hunt for but +5 mainstat after some playtime.
The grind is not the issue. The way the grind is done is the issue.
Side note: GRs per se are not bad. The fact everyone needs to push as high as possible to progress with their char (due to Paragon and Gems) makes everyone focus only on the strongest builds because why bothering with something that cannot let you be as powerful as other people.
D3 structure is flawed at the core. WHile ladders are interesting only for a few people, there's zero incentive to play the char/build you like because you'll just be less powerful. Fight mechanics can be difficult without infinite scaling and character progression could be not tied to GRs,
But again, expecting something good now from D3 is kinda hard honestly.

it doesn't need to be a single RNG dungeon with levels. What you describe is the PoE atlas (google it) merged in one dungeon. It doesn't need to be infintely scaling - just hard to complete and requiring time to do so.

Honestly? While i like your idea, the only way to make an endgame like this meaningful is just to remove ladders from it altogether. Then you have opened up lots of more build options just because there's no more a time constraint which favors the research of a "meta". While meta won't disappear, it becomes completely optional since you can do everything with any character/build becuase time is no more a factor.

Anyway ladders are attractive for a lot of players. That's where Challenge Rifts come - same setup and environment for everyone, fair competition/race and ladders that have a meaning. There you have your competitive environment without any impact on the endgame and meta.

I mean - IT'S SO FREAKIN SIMPLE. To me at last.

holy necro batman. closing.

Quote from Shapookya

I think people here are so content starved they'd cheer for every shitty idea because that's at least something.

I suppose you're right.