DiabloFans

2.5.1, 2.6.0, 3.0 - call it how you like - poll is for patch after 2.5.0 and Necro DLC is not 0% to appear during S11. All options from the poll are possible.

I just checked diablorank.com and saw that it has paragon filter now. Great job!

We know what is coming with patch 2.5.0, which should go live in March, but what are your expectations for patch 2.5.1?

@Nachten: I pretty much expect primals to drop with the next patch. I mean, this is Blizzard, even if things are not optimal, they will just bring them to live.

@homerjnick: What you say is logical and it will be super cool if it turns out just like that. What the other posters are saying is that due to the history of consoles, in the future might appear *new* ways to brick the pure environment you described. I don't enjoy consoles and I have no clue, are there programs like thud there for Diablo or other games?

And btw, the purest form of gameplay mode in Diablo for PC are going to be the Challenge Rifts.

Ban waves should become a weekly event, because when the primals drop officially it is going to get ugly.

I like the post from Joe and the direction they have taken with GR balancing. It is far from optimal atm, but their philosophy is right and with the time things will become better.

Quote from Arydor»

It's like talking to the toaster and expecting it to understand. I'll say this, here, officially; If you accept the term that Diablo is in MM, you are a fool. The points you've made are foolhardy. They serve only your interests, not the game as a whole. While I've agreed with you that paragon is a problem, you've theatrically attempted to prove that I somehow am contradicting myself.

Ok, I just realized I was feeding a troll:

http://www.diablofans.com/forums/diablo-iii-general-forums/diablo-iii-general-discussion/130338-paragon-10000?page=2#c30

http://www.diablofans.com/forums/diablo-iii-general-forums/diablo-iii-general-discussion/130338-paragon-10000?page=6#c126

Ironically after 2 years we are again talking about paragon and mainstat cap.

Quote from Skelos_bg»

Discussion is far from over Arydor. The ship just leaved the harbor. I expect such threads to be re-created on the forums during the whole Season 4. This topic will be re-discovered and re-discussed by the players just as the topic with the trials mechanic was. It all boils down to when blizzard will finally hear the community.

Quote from Arydor»

You want people to play for 3 months. You want them to be excited for 3 months. You want them to have fun for 3 months.

Yep, that is why the devs are putting the primals in the game: Nobody is excited when he has to farm paragon. But, wait... You said primals are "a horrible idea". You are contradicting yourself again. Primals are exactly added to keep people excited, because with or without mainstat cap 99% of the players are gone after 2 weeks of season's start.

Just to make one thing clear:

1) Primals without seasonal mainstat cap are good for the casuals and bad for everybody else, because of the RNG

2) Primals with seasonal mainstat cap are good for everyone

Quote from Arydor»

The issue I take with a seasonal cap, is it devalues time and effort.

-Seasons ARE different from Non-Seasonal. They are timed.

You have it written yourself, but you fail to see it. Let me make it easier for you: Because seasons are time limited, time and effort from a player during a season are limited too. Seasonal mainstat cap devalues nothing.

About the RNG: With a seasonal cap, the role the RNG plays gets smaller. Finding some primals will grant you extra mainstat, but since it is capped at some value, it won't matter if it was belt, armor etc... At some point during the season a player will reach the cap and he won't care about the RNG anymore. It will be just: 1) having fun, 2) aiming LBs, 3) switching to NS for more main stat.

Quote from Arydor»

How do you not see this as Primal Ancients? It is by definition, power creep.

I never say they are not power creep, maybe you misread something.

Quote from Skelos_bg»

As of now primals are only power creep and some motivation for the dedicated players. But they are a step in the right direction.

Power creep is not always something bad.

Quote from Arydor»

The mainstay issues are that they continue to just add layers...

That is why we need a seasonal cap on mainstat. What this will achieve is the following:
- Players will be free to choose how they want to progress and acquire mainstat: through grinding paragons (grs) or primals (rifts/bounties)
- Public games grouping will improve tremendously
- The RNG layers will be put down to rest
- Competitive, solo and casual players will be on even grounds with the 24/7 grinders
- Botting value will decrease
- Seasons will finally start feeling different from non-season besides stash tabs

Downsides of capping mainstat on seasons only: None.

And if something like character aging is implemented on seasons, botting value will be zero there. But it is a mechanic, which I doubt we will see, while D3 is on maintenance mode (aka too much work for the team).

I see a lot of people in the thread are using the term power creep incorrectly. This could be, because they don't know the true meaning of the term, which is this:

Power creep is a process that sometimes occurs in games where new content slowly outstrip the power of previous alternatives. This leads to players abandoning previous options in favour of the latest and more powerful alternatives, resulting in an inevitable increase in power throughout the game.

About character aging:

Quote from SpecKROELLchen»

I think "character aging" is a very bad idea. This game is supposed to give a reward for putting time into it.

Character aging would be extremely bad idea for non-season. It is a great idea for season.

Quote from ToBeRuined»

- Make a consumable that allows players to roll any stat they want on their Primals (no powercreep option)

I have suggested this last year and it would be even better now, when primals are on their way:

About the loot system: It is too fast even for casual players atm. And there is still too much variance if you want flawless ancient end game gear. So the solution is simple: Slow down the item progression and add more ways for the players to counter the variance. A good item for the last will be, let's call it the Skelos' Gift (and let's make it with a drop chance of 1/25 of the current chance for Ramaladni's Gift): Allow enchanting of all item properties. What this would give is another item property reroll after you have already enchanted an item. This way the competitive players would be able to kill the variance since they would have 4-5 of these at the end of the season. This means you would have 4-5 new re-rolls on the hardest-to-get items and you would be free to use them as you wish: create a perfect Compass Rose from scratch or distribute the Gifts to different items.

Quote from Arydor»

All in all, Primals don't add anything to the game except power creep. Which is the same problem with paragons. It's all about the creep, and not about how you play the game.

If they put a seasonal cap on main stat it would be about how you'll want to play the game - focus on GR for exp or rift/bounty for primals. As of now primals are only power creep and some motivation for the dedicated players. But they are a step in the right direction. A seasonal cap on main stat will give the player the opportunity to choose his way of progression through the season. Once the cap is reached - he can either push season's LBs or switch to non-season. With the time the optimal duration for a season based on the value of the cap will be realized.

I would even go further and introduce character aging for seasons. Each character can live for 500 real hours during a season. Once these end the player won't have the option to play any more with this character during the season. Combined with soul-bound items and mats (again only a seasonal feature) this will totally make botting irrelevant on seasons. Because botting will cost you real hours and your character will age.

@Arydor:

Maintenance mode means no core changes are coming - itemization, paragon system, skill system are going to stay the same. Necro is a DLC and that is quite ok for a MM, because it is just an addition that is not intervening with the core systems.

Primals are a motivation for the dedicated players. The casuals will have to choose wisely what items exactly they need to roll as primals, because a casual player will never be able to roll full primal gear in one season, if he doesn't bot. This however doesn't mean that the casual players won't be super happy when they see that primal rolls.

I agree with you primals doesn't offer nothing new (itemization wise), they are the same as the ancients in this regard, but we don't have to expect nothing new in this direction, because we know the game is in a MM. But when the ancients drop in 2014, D3 wasn't in a MM (ancients back then was a bad choice, the whole itemization should have been reworked). That is the main difference. The other is that the advantage from paragon now is a lot bigger than in 2014 thus primals help a little.

I agree with the things you mentioned needing a rework. Solo play and end game build diversity are the most important topics needing the dev's attention. I follow the official forums closely and there are threads about this every day. If I were a D3 dev I would get nervous only at opening my own game's forums. So I guess they prefer not to do it.

Right now I would love to see a seasonal cap on main stat. Cap it at 15k and make one season with such cap, just to see how this will affect public games grouping, solo play, casual play. I personally think it will improve the player's seasonal experience in many ways. Many old school players will return just to see this in action. And it's a very little work code wise.

D4 could be a totally different genre thus a necro there would feel different. Note that I am not saying D4 is coming, if a new game is going to get announced this year I would expect WarCraft 4.

Also, primals now have a different role than the ancients back in 2014. As of now D3 is in a maintenance mode, nobody expects miracles. In 2014 everything was still possible. The devs just choose the easy path or the marketing team said "no moneys in arpgs", we don't know. What we know is that right now primals are not a bad choice. What makes the situation bad is that there is nothing else coming. Maybe we should wait, who knows. Or maybe primals will completely turn off the rest of the people still playing D3, if trading or seasonal cap on main stat is not coming. Because when they drop it's going to be a botter's paradise.

^ You can put TLDW: 1% chance for primal and botter's game.

I have no idea about the exact chance for primals, but from what I read on the forums it is around 4%. If somebody crafts 10k legs we would be able to properly deduce it.

On the topic, as I wrote before 3 months here, something like this is needed:

- Introduce a new item tier - let's call it sacred - make it so that one sacred item has the value of 1k paragon and fixed drop chance of 1/50 of the current ancient items at GR100

- Change the paragon system completely without hurting the high paragon players, just make it diverse so the people have choices

- Cap the power of items/gems/paragons on seasons - this is important in order to have meaningful public games grouping on seasons

- Use the whole power of items/gems/paragons on non-seasons - this will be the place for the most dedicated players, those 24/7 grinders that want to acquire every sacred item, play in a dedicated group to maximize their chances and well, one ban wave per 3 months should be enough to discourage them from botting

What have we sacrificed? Trading (at least for now). This means the loot hunt will be very hard for the dedicated players, but if someday there is 64-bit client only, Blizzard could bring trading back.

Would something like this be done? I doubt it. This has to be done with a long term vision for the game in order to be effective. Power creep should be minimal in order the dedicated players to know that the items they get will be used for years to come.

Bad thing is they are implementing only part of what is needed. And thus as Angry_Roleplayer warns in his video, they are welcoming the botters once again. Good thing is Challenge Rifts are on their way and once these drop, the players will finally be able to compete in a fair environment.

However, as you can see in the above quote I say "this has to be done with a long term vision for the game in order to be effective". Players like Bagstone, who can't wait for the patch to drop, have to know that one day the "godly loot" will be invalidated due to power creep once again, because there is no such "long term vision for the game". I have warned about this 2 years ago.

That is why the people have mixed feelings about the primals. It is not a bad thing, but it should have been implemented properly.