In my opinion devs tried to put in the game players idea about fixed rifts and they failed at it.
Biggest problem of challenge rifts is that they are totally disconnected from your char. In the game that is all about character progression and item grind we got a mode where we don't use our beloved char ... what ?
This could be a really nice addition if they would snapshot some rift once a week, then make weekly leaderboards and allow people to compete for those weekly rifts but with their own chars. That would remove grift fishing and would introduce creative ways of playing our current toons to squezze maximum of those static rifts.
Last season was also like 3 weeks due to necro pack. Not starting new season same time as Destiny 2 makes kidna sense, cos lots of d3 players gonna check Destiny 2 i think.
Locking leaderboards is very interesting move. I have some issues with the reasons they stated on official forums. My biggest bet is that they locked it to avoid whining from ns players that seasona players will come and jump into ns leaderboards. This makes no sense since seasonal players didn't get any adventage over ns players, so theres nothing that you could call "unfair". They should be locking leaderboards with the new patch, but new patch isn't yet live. Locking leaderboards also have one big downside, noone will be pushing so the issues that might appear with live leaderboards will be moved in time to when season starts. Good thing is that we will be starting new season withour really knowing what will be s12 best builds for all classes, sure there were ptr leaderboards but they really didnt show clear winners so this might be very exciting.
And there we are. Guys, things you are proposing are just band aid to the disaster called "pimal ancient". To be atleast bit usefull they should remove the limit of only one affix reroll per item for primals. You can't really tell what is good and what is not good affix, not only now but also for future developments (imaginary legendary power that increase our power based on bonus xp secondary for example), so they have to stay random.
- item that is very rare but also easy enough to obtain so even very casual players can get it
- item that is powerfull and exciting and gives new ways to play the game but without power creep
- item that can be crafted in cube but at the same time can not be crafted in the cube (figure this out blizzard !)
- item that drop is gated behind finishing solo greater rift X (X is special formula that takes player skill and available time in the account, in many cases its just gr 1 or just no gr at all)
This is how to scrap the idea with pretending that its not scrapped. Even without lowering the drop chance, its super hard to get any usefull primal on ptr now. In the time needed to collect primals with correct stats everyone will already have good rolled ancients. Most of the time we will be just getting forgotten souls from it.
Casual players will never see those (except some primal blackthorns i guess), and hardcore players will already have nearly perfect gear before they will be able to gather those. Also getting just 15 souls from salvaging it is a joke.
Blizzcon was a disappointment, but not because DLC. This game needs steady income to move forward (people already forgot that there was crap load of stuff added to the game after ros released - grifts, cube, ancients, seasons, legendary gems etc.), complaining about paying extra money for necro is just bad. Blizzard is not a charity institution, you have to pay them somehow if u want to have steady stream of high quality updates.
DLC will come too late, we will have like 8 months of stagnation from now, prolly with some new items added here and there and quality of life changes like armory. Game will be in a terrible state when we get a DLC and without fixing other important issues (paragon, very short progression) i have feeling that
The goals depend on player. Some play for leaderboards (pushing greater rifts), some just like to start fresh and advance character to high level. Some focusing on finishing off adventure journey (its a set of goals/achievements u can obtain by playing seasonal game, that gives you only cosmetics - portraits/pets etc.).
Journey is good for starting, because u have clearly defined goals you can chase (check small icon at the right top corner on your screen when u are in game).
Goals might be different, but actually everyone plays similar way. You have to farm gear to compete on leaderboards or to reach higher tiers of journey. The main difference is that if you not competing on leaderobards you dont have to worry that much about gaining alot of paragon levels, because you dont need them to fully finish journey.
You can't target a specific legendary. You will get them all while farming rifts and greater rifts. Bouties are good for specific items that you can find in bounty caches, and also gives materials that are important for minmaxing your gear and putting stuff in cube.
There are 2 ways to focus more directly on pieces of gear you need:
- spending shards at kadala, will allow you to select item type you are interested (for example, you need set pants, you click on pants and then you have small chance to get a legendary pants of any type that fits your char).
- using cube to convert rare item to legendary. Again you can't target a specific legedary, but for example u can convert rare axe, then you will get a legendary axe that can be used by your class. Convering costs are high so choose wisely.
Last thing is the full set that you can get almost for free for the 1st character you level to max in season. When you hit 70, you will get mail with 1st two items (mail icon is at the bottom left corner of screen). Then for next 2 pieces of gear you have to kill Izual on torment 2 or higher difficulty (boss in act 4). Then for last 2 pieces you have to finish solo greater rift level 20 (you have to finishi it within 15 min timer).
There was no torment difficulty in vanilla. There was a monster power (1 to 10).
You said you stopped playing 2 years ago, so how can you complain about the game that you didnt really play ?
People like seasons because they like fresh start, not because of some items (fyi seasonal players don't get any new items now). Seasons are old idea from diablo 2.
Current version of D3 has ofcourse some flaws and issues but still its a years better game than vanilla D3.
About mmo's and market: biggest mmo called World of Warcraft doesn't allow people to sell most of gear. Stuff you obtain from dungeons/raid is soulbound to you mostly, so no you can't buy all the gear from ah. Sure you can trade mats, and some boe gear, but thats all.
2
In my opinion devs tried to put in the game players idea about fixed rifts and they failed at it.
Biggest problem of challenge rifts is that they are totally disconnected from your char. In the game that is all about character progression and item grind we got a mode where we don't use our beloved char ... what ?
This could be a really nice addition if they would snapshot some rift once a week, then make weekly leaderboards and allow people to compete for those weekly rifts but with their own chars. That would remove grift fishing and would introduce creative ways of playing our current toons to squezze maximum of those static rifts.
1
Last season was also like 3 weeks due to necro pack. Not starting new season same time as Destiny 2 makes kidna sense, cos lots of d3 players gonna check Destiny 2 i think.
Locking leaderboards is very interesting move. I have some issues with the reasons they stated on official forums. My biggest bet is that they locked it to avoid whining from ns players that seasona players will come and jump into ns leaderboards. This makes no sense since seasonal players didn't get any adventage over ns players, so theres nothing that you could call "unfair". They should be locking leaderboards with the new patch, but new patch isn't yet live. Locking leaderboards also have one big downside, noone will be pushing so the issues that might appear with live leaderboards will be moved in time to when season starts. Good thing is that we will be starting new season withour really knowing what will be s12 best builds for all classes, sure there were ptr leaderboards but they really didnt show clear winners so this might be very exciting.
1
And there we are. Guys, things you are proposing are just band aid to the disaster called "pimal ancient". To be atleast bit usefull they should remove the limit of only one affix reroll per item for primals. You can't really tell what is good and what is not good affix, not only now but also for future developments (imaginary legendary power that increase our power based on bonus xp secondary for example), so they have to stay random.
1
Too bad theres no alternatives for supports. Barb + heal monk are here since almost forever.
1
Well you can say really simple what we want:
- item that is very rare but also easy enough to obtain so even very casual players can get it
- item that is powerfull and exciting and gives new ways to play the game but without power creep
- item that can be crafted in cube but at the same time can not be crafted in the cube (figure this out blizzard !)
- item that drop is gated behind finishing solo greater rift X (X is special formula that takes player skill and available time in the account, in many cases its just gr 1 or just no gr at all)
4
This is how to scrap the idea with pretending that its not scrapped. Even without lowering the drop chance, its super hard to get any usefull primal on ptr now. In the time needed to collect primals with correct stats everyone will already have good rolled ancients. Most of the time we will be just getting forgotten souls from it.
Casual players will never see those (except some primal blackthorns i guess), and hardcore players will already have nearly perfect gear before they will be able to gather those. Also getting just 15 souls from salvaging it is a joke.
1
Well if i had to choose from:
- primals and no other changes
- no changes at all
I will choose primals.
3
Blizzcon was a disappointment, but not because DLC. This game needs steady income to move forward (people already forgot that there was crap load of stuff added to the game after ros released - grifts, cube, ancients, seasons, legendary gems etc.), complaining about paying extra money for necro is just bad. Blizzard is not a charity institution, you have to pay them somehow if u want to have steady stream of high quality updates.
DLC will come too late, we will have like 8 months of stagnation from now, prolly with some new items added here and there and quality of life changes like armory. Game will be in a terrible state when we get a DLC and without fixing other important issues (paragon, very short progression) i have feeling that
it will be dead game at that point.
1
The goals depend on player. Some play for leaderboards (pushing greater rifts), some just like to start fresh and advance character to high level. Some focusing on finishing off adventure journey (its a set of goals/achievements u can obtain by playing seasonal game, that gives you only cosmetics - portraits/pets etc.).
Journey is good for starting, because u have clearly defined goals you can chase (check small icon at the right top corner on your screen when u are in game).
Goals might be different, but actually everyone plays similar way. You have to farm gear to compete on leaderboards or to reach higher tiers of journey. The main difference is that if you not competing on leaderobards you dont have to worry that much about gaining alot of paragon levels, because you dont need them to fully finish journey.
You can't target a specific legendary. You will get them all while farming rifts and greater rifts. Bouties are good for specific items that you can find in bounty caches, and also gives materials that are important for minmaxing your gear and putting stuff in cube.
There are 2 ways to focus more directly on pieces of gear you need:
- spending shards at kadala, will allow you to select item type you are interested (for example, you need set pants, you click on pants and then you have small chance to get a legendary pants of any type that fits your char).
- using cube to convert rare item to legendary. Again you can't target a specific legedary, but for example u can convert rare axe, then you will get a legendary axe that can be used by your class. Convering costs are high so choose wisely.
Last thing is the full set that you can get almost for free for the 1st character you level to max in season. When you hit 70, you will get mail with 1st two items (mail icon is at the bottom left corner of screen). Then for next 2 pieces of gear you have to kill Izual on torment 2 or higher difficulty (boss in act 4). Then for last 2 pieces you have to finish solo greater rift level 20 (you have to finishi it within 15 min timer).
4
D3 isn't mmo, its a cooperative game.
There was no torment difficulty in vanilla. There was a monster power (1 to 10).
You said you stopped playing 2 years ago, so how can you complain about the game that you didnt really play ?
People like seasons because they like fresh start, not because of some items (fyi seasonal players don't get any new items now). Seasons are old idea from diablo 2.
Current version of D3 has ofcourse some flaws and issues but still its a years better game than vanilla D3.
About mmo's and market: biggest mmo called World of Warcraft doesn't allow people to sell most of gear. Stuff you obtain from dungeons/raid is soulbound to you mostly, so no you can't buy all the gear from ah. Sure you can trade mats, and some boe gear, but thats all.