[RoS FAQ] Reaper of Souls: Frequently Asked Questions
1) What is that orange diamond in front of some affixes?
2) How useful are items increasing damage of an element/skill?
3) Which skill bonuses can roll on which slot?
4) How does cooldown reduction work?
5) Is there a cooldown reduction cap?
6) How do multiple items with cooldown reduction and skill/bonus damage add up?
7) I've heard something about a guaranteed legendary item from bosses, how do I get those?
8) Any changes on Keywarden, Ubers, Hellfire Ring in RoS?
9) I'm new to class X, what is the current cookie cutter build?
10) What is the best way to farm XP/caches/legendaries/...?
11) What are the drop rates for specific legendaries?
12) What exactly do I need to do to get a design unlocked for transmogrification?
13) What's the state of life steal in RoS?
14) What happened to magic find?
15) How does the difficulty level affect the legendary drop rate?
16) What do the new paragon portraits look like?
17) How does +elemental damage bonus work, in particular with regard to "black weapons"?
18) Is there a list of all the primary stats and secondary stats?
19) How is bonus XP calculated?
20) How are the contents of caches determined? Should I open them on Torment 6?
21) I've heard there are certain cache-specific legendaries, such as the Ring of Royal Grandeur?
22) What to do with Blood Shards?
23) What are the drop rates for legendaries, crafting materials and so on?
24) Is there a list of all Torment-only legendaries?
25) What are the level 70 ubers and drop rates?
26) Can already I farm materials for the Hellfire amulet that will be added in 2.1? _______________________________________________________________________________________________
1) What is that orange diamond in front of some affixes?
Those are affixes that are not included in the item comparison (i.e., damage, toughness, and healing). One such example is the "+% elemental damage" affix: it will not be included in the damage overview as it only affects one element, not necessarily your overall damage. The orange diamond has nothing to do with enchanting - those stats can be enchanted unless they are "special legendary" stats (i.e., affixes that don't roll on rare items of the same slot).
2) How useful are items increasing damage of an element/skill?
The affixes "(Elemental type) skills deal x% more damage" and "Increases (skill name) damage by x%" do exactly what they say - they increase all damage dealt of a certain skill or a certain elemental damage type by the given amount. Usually, this affix comes at the sacrifice of another damage-increasing affix, and therefore the item seems to decrease your overall damage. This is because the elemental/skill bonus damage is not included in the sheet damage calculation. We have to do the calculation ourselves.
For example, let's assume we have an item that adds 15% damage to all our fire spells (and we are exclusively using fire spells), but reduces our overall damage by 12% according to the comparison tooltip. If an average spell will do 1000 damage, the DPS lost would reduce the damage to 880. However, the elemental bonus affix increases the spell's damage by 15%, resulting in 1012 damage. Overall, you gained 1.2% damage from that switch. As another example, if an item gives you 30% spell damage for a 25% loss, it would not be worth it: 1000 * 0.75 = 750, 750 * 1.30 = 975, so a 2.5% overall loss. The general formula to calculate the effectiveness is (((1-DPS loss) * (1+elemental/skill bonus gain))-1)*100; in the aforementioned examples it would be (((1-0.12)*(1+0.15))-1)*100 = 1.2 and (((1-0.25)*(1+0.3))-1)*100 = -2.5.
The damage type of the weapon makes no difference in this calculation; it can be a black weapon (i.e., no elemental damage) or any elemental type damage weapon. If you combine multiple items with elemental skills damage bonus they will be added together: bracers with 12% cold damage and a necklace with 13% cold damage result in 25% cold damage. The same accounts for skill damage bonus. If you combine skill damage and elemental type damage bonus it gets calculated multiplicatively. For example, if you have +10% lightning spells damage on bracers and +15% Electrocute damage, the overall increase for casting electrocute will be 1.10 * 1.15 = 1.265, i.e., an increased 26.5% damage.
daisychopper found a very informative website that offers detailed information about how elemental damage works (with pictures!):
http://bannedofgamers.com/index.php?threads/guide-2-0-1-elemental-damage-explained.1104/
There's also an excellent, very detailed explanation by Jaetch in one of his videos, where he not only discusses elemental/skill damage bonuses vs. DPS, but also "sheet DPS" vs. "real DPS". Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Dk8xiG1ic0
Note that as of 2.0.6, you can see the elemental DPS in-game as well - just click on "details" in the character pane and you'll see the percentage of elemental damage on your gear, and if you hover over that number it will tell you your elemental DPS.
3) Which skill bonuses can roll on which slot?
Entropy datamined this information and put it into a nice format, I'm just gonna redirect you to his post, be sure to give him a +1 for that:
http://www.diablofans.com/forums/diablo-iii-general-forums/diablo-iii-general-discussion/82397-list-of-skill-affixes
4) How does cooldown reduction work?
The formula is quite simple: New cooldown = (original cooldown) * (cooldown reduction 1) * (cooldown reduction 2) * (cooldown reduction 3), and so on. For example, Slow Time with a 60% Orhpeus Gesture, 10% cooldown reduction from paragon, and 20% cooldown reduction from Evocation will result in 3.456 seconds (instead of 12 seconds) cooldown. As you can see, you can reduce cooldowns significantly, but never get to zero cooldown.
5) Is there a cooldown reduction cap?
The hard cap for cooldown reduction is 90%. However, there is a "soft cap" as to how far items and skills allow you to reduce the cooldown so far. It depends on class/choice of items/skills; you can see the maximum amount of cooldown reduction (CDR) for every class and skill here:
http://bannedofgamers.com/index.php?cdr/
6) How do multiple items with cooldown reduction and skill/bonus damage add up?
Cooldown reduction suffers from diminishing returns, the formula is like this: 1-(1-cdr1)*(1-cdr2)*(1-cdr3) and so on. If you have 8% cooldown reduction from paragon, 20% cooldown reduction from skills, and 6% cooldown reduction from an item, your entire cooldown reduction is not 34% but 1-(1-0.08)*(1-0.2)*(1-0.06) = 1-0.69184 = 0.30816 (or 30.816%). However, it doesn't mean that stacking high cooldown reduction can't be worthwhile; sometimes it's even worth going from 65% to 70% or higher (monk with Epiphany, for example), although it takes a lot of additional cooldown reduction to get there.
Bonus damage for skills or elements works differently; if you have an amulet with 11% increased fire damage skills and bracers with 13% increased fire damage skills, your fire skills will deal 24% more damage. Nevertheless, if you are already at 100% increased fire damage and add 20% the relative increase of DPS is not actually 20% (a spell that did 1 million without fire gear will deal 2 million with 100% increased fire damage, and 2.2 million with an additional 20% item; so the relative increase is only 10% because your elemental bonus is already quite high).
7) I've heard something about a guaranteed legendary item from bosses, how do I get those?
There are two ways to get guaranteed legendaries: 1) If you are below level 60 and kill an act boss for the first time, you will definitely get a legendary item. 2) After you did a full reset of all quests (or if you haven't completed the last quest yet), Malthael will always drop a legendary item. Here's the catch: in order to get this drop, you need to hit the "Reset Quests" button, and you can only reset the quests if you finished every single quest in the game. Yes, no easy way to exploit this! Just play through the entire game. You can run through it in Normal though - of course, you won't get any Torment-level legendaries then, and no Imperial gems.
If you can't hit the "Reset Quests" button it means you didn't finish every single quest yet. To see which quests you haven't done yet check this amazing website: http://xinair.net/diablo3/ (credit to creator Bleedus from Reddit). Note that some people have reported that the quests reported by this tool were not the right ones; another solution, if this doesn't work, is the one proposed on Reddit in this discussion.
8) Any changes on Keywardens, Ubers, Hellfire Ring in Reaper of Souls?
There is a completely new Hellfire Ring on level 70, with new keys, a new Infernal Machine crafting recipe, updated stats to level 70 (including 45% instead of 35% bonus XP), and an additional fourth portal you need to open. Give it a try! You cannot wear both the level 60 and level 70 Hellfire Ring, so you probably want the level 70 ring in the end.
The Keywardens gained some nasty new abilities in 2.0.1; Xah'Rith (act 3) gained the ability to multiply himself, Sokahr (act 2) occasionally reflects your spells, and Odeg (act 1) became a coward and will occasionally run away through the entire Fields of Misery, happy chasing. The ubers' mechanics haven't changed though. The new drop rates (for keys and organs) range from 25% (Torment 1) to 50% (Torment 6) - yes, significantly lower, but also realize that there is not Nephalem Valor anymore. The exact drop rates from T1 to T6 are 25%, 28%, 33%, 38%, 43%, 50% (no drops on difficulties lower than Torment).
9) I'm new to class X, what is the current cookie cutter build?
About 3 months into RoS it's safe to say that there are a few (1-3 builds) per class that stand out in end-game ("efficient" T6 rifting). However, if you're new to class X, those builds are probably not available to you as they all rely on very specific gear that takes some time to acquire (specific weapons, gloves, or helmets; complete class sets; a RoRG for that class, a suitable SoJ and amulet. For a compilation of some builds check out the build section on our website or the class forum of the class you started playing.
That being said, for all other cases (pre-endgame, just starting a class, not having all gear available, or not being interested in efficiency) "cookie cutter builds" are not as important as in Diablo 3 Vanilla - in other words: while there are a few builds that shine for each class on T6, there are countless builds that work at least on lower Torments (up to T3-4 you can run almost every "sub-optimal" build). That's the beauty of Reaper of Souls! Also keep in mind that new items are being added and new builds are being discovered constantly, so never stop thinking about new potential builds in case you ever get bored with your "cookie cutter build".
If you start with a class, your best bet is to try out all skills to see which playstyle you prefer and which spells you like, and as you find legendary items just try out builds that the special effects on those legendary items unlock. In case your new class is a wizard, Blizzard MVP and Diablofans Mod Jaetch created a very nice guide on "how to create a build" (the basics apply to other classes as well).
10) What is the best way to farm XP/caches/legendaries/...?
There are many different things to do, and certain things are better suited for a specific goal than others. That being said, almost every one of those choices comes with a downside, so in the end it's mainly "do what you like". For example...
- Rifts are probably the best overall way to get a good mix of legendaries, XP, blood shards, and gold. In terms of efficiency, choose a Torment level high enough that you can clear in reasonable time (i.e., elite packs die within less than 10 seconds and a rift clear takes between 5-10 minutes on average until spawning and killing the rift guardian). Works best in groups or solo with Unity and a follower with Unity.
- XP is probably gained fastest by killing Malthael or other bosses. The problem is that you either need to find your way through Pandaemonium Fortress to his chamber (takes too much time) or leave the game before the quest completes (you get NO LOOT) or re-open the game with another character (lots of time/effort with character switching and new game creation). This "method" is boring as hell, does not yield and blood shards, and probably not as many legendaries as rifts. A well-coordinated high Torment rift group can get a lot of XP as well, is less boring, and will overall net more "other" stuff than just XP.
- Blood shards can be acquired fastest by doing "Rift it Forward". Join one of the "Rift it Forward" communities, hang out in chat, and join games to grab the rift guardian kill and lots of blood shards. However, you might spend lots of time just looking at the menu if you don't get any invites; you might run out of rift key fragments soon; and overall you will not get as many legendaries as doing rifts.
- Caches/rift key fragments can only be obtained by bounties, and there are different ways to go about this as well: Many prefer "split farming", which means that 4 people do bounties in a group, but never play together; everyone finishes a different bounty. It's the fastest way to get as many caches as possible. The drawbacks are that you get less rift key fragments (you only get them for the bounties you were present at), and you might miss out on legendaries (all chest and destructibles are "world drops", i.e., while you are killing Izual someone might open a chest in an act I bounty and it might drop a Wand of Woh for you).
In the end, play what you enjoy most, because that's what the game is about. What's the point in playing a game in a mode you don't like, wearing it out quickly such that you stop playing after a while?
If you want a second opinion on this, here's a well-known Dfans community member, streamer, official Blizzard MVP and ultimate game knowledge resource stating his opinion about "farming routes": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRMpLbkBGJo#t=307
11) What are the drop rates for specific legendaries?
We don't know if this information is 100% accurate, but it seems to be generally in line with what people experience:
Legendary roll percentage sub-torment
Legendary roll percentage torment
Legendary roll weight (determining probability for a specific item category to drop)
Find the item in your Torment/sub-Torment table, then check in the third link how high the drop chance of that item category is. It'll give you the drop chance of any legendary item being your desired item. Note that 1) for Kadala you need to look at the Torment table (link #2) and dismiss the "non-smart loot" column because Kadala will always give you smart loot legendaries. Also note that as of 2.0.6 some of these charts have become obsolete (class set items are now as common as all other set items, such as Blackthorne's).
12) What exactly do I need to do to get a design unlocked for transmogrification?
Legendary/set items are unlocked for transmogrification as soon as they enter your inventory. That means, you will get the design as soon as you identify it (because at that point the item is in your inventory), or if one of your group members finds it, drops it, and you pick it up, you will get the transmog as well. Of course - this requires a lot of trust as there is no way to demand the item back!
For crafting recipes the same principle applies: the item needs to be in your inventory, which means only every item of a crafting recipe that you actually craft unlocks for transmogrification. Learning the recipe is not enough. Note that this currently does not seem to work for legacy crafting recipes, i.e., you need to craft the level 70 version of a crafting recipe to get the transmog design. Some people said that they didn't get the design until they actually *equipped* the crafted item, so if you don't get the design from crafting, make sure to equip it as well.
13) What's the state of life steal in RoS?
Life steal used to return 20% life (on Inferno) before 2.0.1 and has been reduced to 10% since. Up until level 69, life steal is still 10%... and as soon as you hit level 70, it will be useless (returns 0%, technically speaking).
14) What happened to magic find?
Magic find was too powerful and became a requirement to find any loot in Diablo 3, which is why it was heavily nerfed: 100% magic find will increase the chance to find blue items by 100%, but only increase the chance for finding rare (yellow) items by 30% and for legendary/set items it is only 10%. That means that if you equip your character with 300% magic find, you will only get a 30% higher chance of finding a legendary. In addition to that, magic find has been removed entirely from paragon and from future rare gear (it still exists on pre-2.0.1 items, the so-called legacy gear). There are items in Reaper of Souls that have magic find as a stat (e.g., Nagelring or Cain's Set), but it is not worth it to sacrifice a lot of damage for a small amount of magic find.
15) How does the difficulty level affect legendaries?
Higher difficult levels yield a higher legendary drop rate. The exact blue post reads as follows: "Playing in Torment difficulty does not provide a bonus to the Magic Find stat. It does however confer a bonus to legendary drop chance, but this bonus is not visible anywhere on the character details pane." (source: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/11914882166)
There is no increase/decrease in the quality of legendaries based on difficulty though; you will not get higher affix rolls if you play Torment 6, the affix range remains the same. Here's a bluepost to make this pretty clear:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/12091349617?page=5#89
There are certain legendaries, mostly sets, that you can find on Torment only; here is a list of all those items.
16) Will there be new paragon portraits?
The new paragon portraits went live with 2.0.4, take a look at them here (for level 200 to 800):
http://www.diablofans.com/news/48021-undocumented-patch-notes-several-legendary-items
17) How does (legacy) +elemental damage bonus work, in particular with regard to "black weapons"?
Elemental damage bonus does not spawn on loot 2.0 anymore; items that used to roll it before 2.0.1 now roll the "new" elemental damage bonus that it just tied to the skills you are using. See Stone of Jordan for an example of such an item (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/stone-of-jordan) and more infos about the "new" elemental skill damage in this FAQ. If you are using legacy items such as the old Stone of Jordan, the "black weapon" bug is still present. For those of you who don't know what black weapons are or what he issue is, here's an explanation: http://old.diablofans.com/topic/84199-guide-wizard-gear-guide/#blackweapon
18) Is there a list of all the primary stats and secondary stats?
Those are all primary stats:
Splash Damage, Cooldown Reduction, Resource Cost Reduction, +% damage to Physical damage skills, specific Class Skill Bonuses, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Vitality, Critical Hit Damage, Critical Hit Chance, Attack Speed, Life per Second, Armor, +% Life, Bonus Damage to Elites, Bleed Damage, All Resistance, Sockets.
And all secondary stats:
Gold Find, Thorns, Bonus Experience per Monster Kill, Chance for (Fear, Stun, Blind, Freeze, Chill, Slow, Immobilize and Knockback), Ignore Durability Loss, Bonus Healing to Health Globes and Potions, Bonus Pickup Radius, Single Resist, Life After Kill, and Level Requirement Reduction
Source: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/12671560##Items (thanks to sKingX for pointing this out)
19) How is bonus XP calculated?
There's an app for that! Go to this website: D3resource.com/xpcalc/ (thread over here, if you have any comments or spotted a mistake). There's also the formula for bonus XP - as of now derived from testing because there's no official word on the formula, yet.
20) How are the contents of caches determined? Should I open them on Torment 6?
The cache's contents are rolled as soon as you receive them, so that you can't cheat the system: if you complete the bounty on any difficulty lower than Torment, no Torment-only legendaries will drop from the cache, even if you open it on Torment 6. However, the rolls on the items (smart loot, main stats) are determined when you open them. This means you can farm caches on your barbarian, open them with your wizard, and get lots of intelligence items!
21) I've heard there are certain cache-specific legendaries, such as the Ring of Royal Grandeur?
Yes: certain legendaries can only drop from bounty caches; the difficulty level doesn't matter, but they only drop from caches from two acts each (act 4 and one other act). Those are all currently known bounty cache legendaries:
- Avarice Band - Act 3 and Act 4
- Boots of Disregard - Act 3 and Act 4
- Burst of Wrath - Act 3 and Act 4
- Cloak of Deception - Act 2 and Act 4
- Coven's Criterion - Act 2 and Act 4
- Death's Bargain - Act 4 and Act 5
- Envious Blade - Act 3 and Act 4
- Gloves of Worship - Act 2 and Act 4
- Golden Gorget of Leoric - Act 1 and Act 4
- Helltrapper - Act 4 and Act 5
- Ilusory Boots - Act 2 and Act 4
- Insatiable Belt - Act 3 and Act 4
- Mad Monarch's Scepter - Act 1 and Act 4
- Overwhelming Desire - Act 3 and Act 4
- Pandemonium Loop - Act 4 and Act 5
- Pauldrons of the Skeleton King - Act 1 and Act 4
- Pride's Fall - Act 3 and Act 4
- Ring of Royal Grandeur - Act 1 and Act 4
- Salvation - Act 4 and Act 5
- Sanguinary Vambraces - Act 1 and Act 4
- Soulsmasher - Act 4 and Act 5
(Sources: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/12249795001 and http://www.diablohub.com/database/sorting/bounty-bags)
22) What to do with Blood Shards?
Blood Shards currently can only be used for gambling items at Kadala, so feel free to spend them all. There is a cap of 500 Blood Shards, so don't save up too many. Also note that you cannot obtain any legendaries that only drop from Horadric Caches, as well as no follower items or bottomless potions. All other items (including Torment-only legendaries such as sets) can be acquired from Kadala. If you didn't get it yet it just means you're unlucky.
23) What are the drop rates for legendaries according to each difficulty?
Increased drop rates for legendaries:
- Torment I: 115% (campaign mode/bounties), 230% (rifts)
- Torment II: 132% (campaign mode/bounties), 265% (rifts)
- Torment III: 152% (campaign mode/bounties), 304% (rifts)
- Torment IV: 175% (campaign mode/bounties), 350% (rifts)
- Torment V: 201% (campaign mode/bounties), 402% (rifts)
- Torment VI: 231% (campaign mode/bounties), 463% (rifts)
(Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/diablo3/comments/26a358/new_legendary_drop_rate_chart/)
24) Is there a list of all Torment-only legendaries?
Yes, there is:
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/10189299133
25) What are the level 70 ubers and drop rates?
Unlike on level 60, the level 70 portals are not random, but there are four specific portals, each leading to a specific realm that drops a specific organ. The machines and respective realms, ubers, and organs are as follows:
| Infernal Machine | Realm | Ubers | Drop |
|---|---|---|---|
| Infernal Machine of Bones | Realm of Discord | Leoric and Maghda | Leoric's Regret |
| Infernal Machine of War | Realm of Turmoil | Siegebreaker and Zoltan Kulle | Idol of Terror |
| Infernal Machine of Gluttony | Realm of Chaos | Rakanoth and Ghom | Vial of Putridness |
| Infernal Machine of Evil | Realm of Fright | Diablo + summons random Ubers | Heart of Evil |
| Key | Keywarden | Act | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Key of Bones | Odeg the Keywarden | Act I | Fields of Misery |
| Key of Gluttony | Sokahr the Keywarden | Act II | Dahlgur Oasis |
| Key of War | Xah'Rith the Keywarden | Act III | Stonefort |
| Key of Evil | Nekarat the Keywarden | Act IV | Silver Spire Level 1 |
- Torment I: 25%
- Torment II: 28%
- Torment III: 33%
- Torment IV: 38%
- Torment V: 43%
- Torment VI: 50%
26) Can already I farm materials for the Hellfire amulet that will be added in 2.1?
Yes! This was confirmed by Lylirra (here). For more information about the Hellfire amulet and other news about 2.1, check the official blog post.
DH
Barb
Wiz
WD
Monk
Crusader
4
Oh no we don't we can't skip entire floors because there's no more fishing for that 'super dense' spot on one of the maps? Good.
1
1
Hmm, yea I think there actually is a difference.
I played on my xb271hu for awhile, 165hz and everything absolutely was a lot smoother than my old 60hz monitor. Switched to my pg348q, which is a 100hz, and again It's been smooth for months.
However, going back and forth between PTR and live, and it does seem that everything doesn't 'blur' as much with motion, especially noticeable on the edges of say buildings in town as you run back and forth. So yea, something has changed.
Also, wtf, I'm just today noticing that on live AND ptr, there's very apparent 'hitching' every couple seconds. Very annoying.
Edit; Yea, something besides an AA update is there. My guess they might have done this to relieve lag from higher Grifts, because if they did raise the cap then more dots should be able to work together.
1
Yep still not seeing 21:9 / 3440x1440 direct support, and using the work arounds is a pain in the ass.
Surprising that the first time I boot up Path of Exile or Grim Dawn they support it and work perfectly.
3
Without ever having attended one, I can guarantee you OP that every employee is briefed in a meeting before Blizzcon to smile at every question, and never shoot anything down directly, instead be vague. "Is there going to be a D4?!", *employee smiles*, "What, are you trying to get my fired?!" doesn't actually mean anything, at all.
If they weren't even ready to *announce* anything, and in the same breath tell us the Necro will be at least 8 months out, we AREN'T getting anything new, expansion or otherwise, for YEARS. We'll be lucky if they even talk about anything at the NEXT Blizzcon.
Stop hyping yourself, and just play games you enjoy, it'l make everything a lot more fun.
1
On the topic of loot, it boils down to personal preference. I'd personally rather see less items dropping, and the more rare / powerful ones actually be rare again. I feel that having the loot hunt turned into 'find all items multiple times, and instead hope they have higher stats' isn't near as fun as 'oh man how awesome would it be to have X drop!'. Again, personal preference.
4
While I sure do not speak for everyone, I think it's a safe bet to say most of us are grateful for all the free updates Diablo 3 has gotten since launch, and since RoS. So I highly doubt any of us are mad at the new content coming forth, even if it's not free. However, we're.. I wouldn't even call it actually upset... we're more worried than anything. It really feels like Blizzard has decided the current state of the game is fine, and only slight additions now and then is all that's needed.
I'm going to get dangerously close to name calling here, but please understand I'm just trying to articulate some opinions. Essentially, when it comes to my own personal feelings about Diablo 3, I feel that the game has become a hallow shell. A paper thin, no-depth arcade game. It's no longer meant to be a game you spend a lot of time with, and I can just envision the mission statement on some plaque; "The game you can have fun with for a couple hours a weekend!". It is really arcade in the simplest sense; legendary items rain around you as you deal trillions of damage to anything on the screen. The loot hunt has been reduced to 'hoping you get the same ancient version of what you have with better stats', and the builds and skills culled down to 'well there's 4 sets for your class, so you get four ways to play your class!'
So while I don't have any patch notes to quote for you, OP, here's what has disappointed;
Coming soon! A couple new legendary powers, and some quality of life improvements!
In january, for one month a year, play a homage to Diablo 1 in a 16 level dungeon!
And, at least 8 months from now, most likely more, play the necro, and get yet ANOTHER type of rift that'l sit alongside regular rifts, greater rifts and set dungeons. Oh and you have to pay for this.
So we're not upset about the free, and paid-for, stuff. We're upset that this is quite literally how the life of Diablo 3 is going to play out. The necro isn't releasing until at LEAST close to fall of next year. That means there's NO new expansion anywhere NEAR the horizon, or otherwise they'd have announced it and saved the new class for that.
So I get it, you like the game and want others to like it too, no need to be rude about it. There's just some of us that feel this game could be so much more than a console arcade game.
1
1
The only core problem that's SLIGHTLY being addressed is the power cap, with challenge rifts.
No new Diablo game (didn't think there would be one though). No new expansion (bummed about that), but, not even a big patch close down the road to look forward to. Just... an anniversary event. Which is cool! don't get me wrong! But man, when that's ALL, ya know?
And now we know that the Necro patch is sometime 'in the second half of 2017'?
Pretty uh, I feel pretty strange. If they're not even going to try to fix the core problems, the reasons WHY people say it doesn't feel like an actual Diablo game, I just don't know.
At least a new class in a year.
3
So this is a quick thread I wanted to make following the opening panel at Blizzcon. I'm very excited for the necro, and new areas are always welcome. I also hope that this is a sign of a new DLC type system for the Diablo franchise, so it can bring in steady income and thus we can get more and more content.
However, the following is a list of the deep problems myself as well as many others have with the current state of Diablo 3. I'm going to try to make it quick, so if I don't cover something please feel free to add. In only a somewhat particular order, here's my five problems with D3 that, when put together, has caused me to actually contemplate whether I'll really love this game again; (I know I know, dramatic, but still).
1. Paragon
A great idea of a system, it unfortunately fell to all the early changes in the game, and couldn't keep up. Originally meant to be an extra reward for slaying monsters and not getting loot, it's character specific leveling and the fact that it granted Magic Find meant no one wanted to play any alts. Fast forward to Paragon now being account wide and near infinite. Magic Find is gone, and drops dramatically increased. Alas, Paragon still rewards power, but instead of increased drops it now gives the player direct stat upgrades, and there's no cap. There's MANY ways to change paragon, and in the end the power needs a cap somewhere, or it should be completely removed. My ideal situation is that past a certain level, the only rewards are cosmetic. And instead of just filling every available stat upgrade, you only get a certain amount of points to distribute, IE a skill tree but for stats. However it's done, it needs fixing.
2. Greater Rifts
A good addition to the game, greater rifts present the end game for D3, it's what you strive for. However, the biggest problem with them (and there's many little ones), is that they are infinite. Their difficulty has no cap (see a theme?). Why is that a problem? Because that system inherently goes AGAINST classes having multiple builds and options. It doesn't matter that one build is only a little bit behind in damage and survivability, because the very nature of infinite rifts is that they shave off every build but the most optimal. Greater Rifts need a cap as well, a very difficult to achieve BUT obtainable cap. Why? Because if I can clear the hardest level with a build I like AND the most 'optimal' build, then I'll play the one I like, even if it's slightly slower, because I've reached the 'end game'.
3. Sets
At launch, sets were trash. Most likely due to Blizzard not wanting them to be overpowered, which makes sense. However, instead of slowly moving the pendulum in the direction of making them more competitive, that thing was drop kicked through the other side of the grandfather clock. Now, sets are absolutely mandatory to even touch the end game of Diablo. Not only do they take up half your equipment slots, locking you out of all the other fun and interesting stand alone legendaries, they also lock you IN to very specific skills. Man, it's fun to have your generator tickle for 50m, and your spender crit for a Trillion. Sets need to be dialed back, optional. No more of this 'increase your damage with a couple skills by 4,000%'. And while the legacy of nightmares ring set has good intentions, it's again another SET of items mandatory for players.
4. Loot
Loot! The friggin focus of the game since D1! Sure there's small groups of people who would argue that they liked other aspects more, but would you really have liked PVP in D2 if there wasn't any loot? D3 doesn't seem to share the same opinion however, considering just how easy it to to get every item in the game, within DAYS of a season starting. Between multiple legendary drops per Greater Rift, gambling, a free set every season, and targeted legendaries via rare upgrading, there might as well be a loot vendor in town. The focus instead has shifted to just XP farming for paragon, and maybe hoping for another ancient version of an item you've already got three of, with 1% more crit.
The original vision for loot is what I personally think we need to go back to (after it was buffed even); About a legendary or two an hour. It should actually be somewhat rare to get them. Now I know the reaction to that; most are crap so that would suck. Right, they're crap when compared to the one that increases a single skills damage by 400%. All that insane damage increase needs to be toned down a TON.
And speaking of loot, we desperately need something to lust after, something to hope to drop, besides just weapons and armor. Rare Runes, Charms and Jewels would be very welcome. I'd also personally go as far as to remove the leveling mechanic on legendary gems (again, at least add a cap), and just friggin call em jewels.
5. Player interaction, and the catch-all category
Okay so yea this last bit has a few things in it, but they are all pretty important in my opinion. I'll just write maybe a sentence or two about each.
A. Custom games.
That games list from D2 was genius. No matter how many filters and options you want to try to put into D3's random queue public game system, nothing beats being able to make your own game, give it a title and some options. This is something I'd love to see a return on.
B. Difficulties.
Holly hell we don't need 17 + difficulties! A normal / NM / hell while leveling / getting the first bit of gear for your fresh max level would do wonders, with a final, kick-your-ass Inferno mode to top it off. You'd still have a range of Greater Rifts, but like I wrote above they'd have a cap.
C. Trading.
Lets say by some miracle that everything written was implemented. Then there'd be no reason not to re-introduce trading. With all the new items that can drop (charms / jewels / runes) as well as the lowered drop rate, there might actually be an in-game economy.
D. PVP.
Not last because I hate it, but because it's actually kind of simple. Just put back in the hostile system from Diablo 2. The creator of the game can choose whether people can hostile one another, and bam, that's that.
Alright, so, giant wall of text. Also what I listed would definitely require a LOT of work. But, hey, if I was making the next expansion, this would be the vision. Thoughts?