With the introduction of Seasonal themes for Diablo 3 many new possibilities open up. What theme for Season 15 would you want to see in the game? If your wish is not present in the poll's choices and you have an interesting idea - please share it with us in this thread. However, note that themes very likely won't involve the addition of new content, so ideas like runewords won't be a logical choice for an upcoming theme. This of course doesn't mean D3 can't become more interesting with little tweaks of the old content.
I think that these theme ideas in your poll need to be a bit more extravagant! I would like to see future themes greatly change how you play during a season. Imagine a season that buffs a particular element, or causes all abilities to deal a specific elemental damage type in place of their usual... Or what if they had an entire season where you could put legendary gems in any gem slot?
It depends how far they want to go and promote Seasons over NS, because if they go with some crazy extravagant power creep as you said this will invalidate the NS results - people speed farming GR150 with leg gems in all slots for example. And when we discuss D3 it all boils down to XP/hour in the end of the day - each change/theme they make will influence exactly this metric.
So, we can split all ideas in two groups:
1) Power creep
2) Restriction
I personally would love to see more of the 2nd scenario (caps, aging, poverty mode etc) where you will be basically punished (in terms of XP/hour) for playing Seasons.
Also, I would like to see them making Seasons 1 month flat long (like in HS) - this will perfectly suit the new themes mechanic allowing more themes rotations per year.
The double goblin event is one of the known, datamined community buffs (and one that has been activated quite regularly in the past). There's a few others that we know of, thanks to a datamine in 2.0.5:
So basically, the "themes" might be based around the following "events":
Double XP
Double legendary drop rate
Double gold find
Double rift keystones drop
Double blood shards
Double Horadric caches
Kadala's costs are reduced
Maybe there are more, can't think of anything else off the top of my head, but this datamine obviously is quite old. But that's the kind of stuff you can expect.
Double cache might be a season worth playing, as you can rack up a lot of mats for future reforging (32 mats per bounty run, so you could make about 120 mats per hour with a good group).
I hope there's other, more interesting ones. I personally wouldn't mind one that would make things slower or harder, like 10% of the XP or double enemy damage/HP or so, because last season it took me 15 hours to finish guardian (solo self-found on HC after getting a powerlevel to 70), and after that I just lose motivation to play. I wish there was something past Guardian or Guardian would be much higher (like GR100 with all classes or whatever). But as a theme they'll probably keep it more on the casual side.
out of your list "no set items dropping" is BY FAR the most interesting, the rest is pretty much almost the same. Double goblins, is like a 10-20% faster progress early season, but overall has no real impact on the game.
We shouldnt get all too excited about themed seasons. But at least it's something. I expect xp buff and double blood shards as themes going forward. So nothing to get crazy about
From what I read on the forums people are not really excited about the S14 theme (double goblins), but they ARE for themes in general. I mean sky's the limit if the devs want to push the concept further. I have written tons of posts that Seasons need to feel different than NS and now the themes mechanic is allowing exactly for this.
I agree with you horrax1, themes which drastically alter the way you play the game are much more exciting. These will usually be themes influencing the:
1) Itemization:
- Drops (no set items, vanilla drop rates for example)
- Buffs/alters (gems, damage types, procs)
2) Core game stats/mechanics:
- Main stat, movement speed etc...
- GR timer (what if we completely remove it, but you lose your current paragon levels on death)
3) The interactive world:
- Maps (only caves with dead ends kappa)
- Monsters (zombies only and much of them - the Walking Dead Season)
- Elites (give them 7 affixes instead of 4)
- Bosses (put 3 of them as GR guardians)
Now suddenly the themes start to appear more like mods to the game. It's like some modder took D3 and change it to its taste. That's something to return for, definitely, but double goblins in S14... meh.
Everyone starts with the Blackthorne set. The season of trolls.
The proper troll Season would be the Season of Stash Space [SSS]. Everyone has access to 100 stash tabs during the Season. Enjoy and don't cry when it ends!
Nevalistis 6/5/2018
@WordMaster: The buff is global across modes, so Non-Seasonal players will get to join in the celebration of the Season of Greed too!
So they actually have no intention at all to make Seasons more special than NS. Just more power creep overall. Well, let's hope it works for them.
PoE just announced private leagues, which can be modified by the players as they wish.
League Difficulty Mods
During league creation, the following mods can be added at no additional cost:
Mods that separately increase Monster Damage, Life, Speed, Elemental Damage and Number of Projectiles: These mods often come in several tiers, and make monsters harder in various ways. You can add whichever combination of these various mods you desire to increase the challenge of monsters in the league.
Reduced Player Resistances: Having a blanket resistance penalty not only makes combat harder, but also increases the difficulty of finding a set of perfect gear that meets all your resistance needs.
No Stashes: This one's for the true masochists. Without the ability to store items for later, characters in a No Stashes league need to live off the land with constraints that make completing Path of Exile a lot more challenging. You can parent to an SSF league to disable trade, guaranteeing that your characters are fully self-sufficient.
No Magic or Rare Items Drop: In leagues of this type, you can only find normal and, at their usual drop rate, unique items, so you have to use every currency item you find to add mods to your gear. You'll find yourself actually using Orbs of Transmutation, running out of Essences and treasuring every Chaos Orb for its intended purpose. Trade values of currency items will likely be extremely different in leagues like this, due to opportunity cost.
No Vending: In a No Vending league, you can't buy items from or sell items to NPCs in town. You're still able to complete quest objectives, but can't rely on vendor recipes or NPC shops to gear up.
Famine: In Famine leagues, your life, mana, energy shield and flasks do not refill when you go to town. This can be added alongside other mods to create the ultimate live-off-the-land league.
Maybe we see something like this as Diablo 3 Theme some day? Even only for mobile?
With the introduction of Seasonal themes for Diablo 3 many new possibilities open up. What theme for Season 15 would you want to see in the game? If your wish is not present in the poll's choices and you have an interesting idea - please share it with us in this thread. However, note that themes very likely won't involve the addition of new content, so ideas like runewords won't be a logical choice for an upcoming theme. This of course doesn't mean D3 can't become more interesting with little tweaks of the old content.
I think that these theme ideas in your poll need to be a bit more extravagant! I would like to see future themes greatly change how you play during a season. Imagine a season that buffs a particular element, or causes all abilities to deal a specific elemental damage type in place of their usual... Or what if they had an entire season where you could put legendary gems in any gem slot?
It depends how far they want to go and promote Seasons over NS, because if they go with some crazy extravagant power creep as you said this will invalidate the NS results - people speed farming GR150 with leg gems in all slots for example. And when we discuss D3 it all boils down to XP/hour in the end of the day - each change/theme they make will influence exactly this metric.
So, we can split all ideas in two groups:
1) Power creep
2) Restriction
I personally would love to see more of the 2nd scenario (caps, aging, poverty mode etc) where you will be basically punished (in terms of XP/hour) for playing Seasons.
Also, I would like to see them making Seasons 1 month flat long (like in HS) - this will perfectly suit the new themes mechanic allowing more themes rotations per year.
- Vanilla droprates (things are way too easy right now)
- no Headrigs
- something with the followers would be nice
- solo buff vs group should be permanent
The double goblin event is one of the known, datamined community buffs (and one that has been activated quite regularly in the past). There's a few others that we know of, thanks to a datamine in 2.0.5:
https://www.diablofans.com/news/48064-datamined-patch-2-0-5-class-changes-and-strings
So basically, the "themes" might be based around the following "events":
Maybe there are more, can't think of anything else off the top of my head, but this datamine obviously is quite old. But that's the kind of stuff you can expect.
Double cache might be a season worth playing, as you can rack up a lot of mats for future reforging (32 mats per bounty run, so you could make about 120 mats per hour with a good group).
I hope there's other, more interesting ones. I personally wouldn't mind one that would make things slower or harder, like 10% of the XP or double enemy damage/HP or so, because last season it took me 15 hours to finish guardian (solo self-found on HC after getting a powerlevel to 70), and after that I just lose motivation to play. I wish there was something past Guardian or Guardian would be much higher (like GR100 with all classes or whatever). But as a theme they'll probably keep it more on the casual side.
Some of those aren't themes. They're features. We don't get features. This is Diablo 3.
out of your list "no set items dropping" is BY FAR the most interesting, the rest is pretty much almost the same. Double goblins, is like a 10-20% faster progress early season, but overall has no real impact on the game.
We shouldnt get all too excited about themed seasons. But at least it's something. I expect xp buff and double blood shards as themes going forward. So nothing to get crazy about
From what I read on the forums people are not really excited about the S14 theme (double goblins), but they ARE for themes in general. I mean sky's the limit if the devs want to push the concept further. I have written tons of posts that Seasons need to feel different than NS and now the themes mechanic is allowing exactly for this.
I agree with you horrax1, themes which drastically alter the way you play the game are much more exciting. These will usually be themes influencing the:
1) Itemization:
- Drops (no set items, vanilla drop rates for example)
- Buffs/alters (gems, damage types, procs)
2) Core game stats/mechanics:
- Main stat, movement speed etc...
- GR timer (what if we completely remove it, but you lose your current paragon levels on death)
3) The interactive world:
- Maps (only caves with dead ends kappa)
- Monsters (zombies only and much of them - the Walking Dead Season)
- Elites (give them 7 affixes instead of 4)
- Bosses (put 3 of them as GR guardians)
Now suddenly the themes start to appear more like mods to the game. It's like some modder took D3 and change it to its taste. That's something to return for, definitely, but double goblins in S14... meh.
Everyone starts with the Blackthorne set. The season of trolls.
The proper troll Season would be the Season of Stash Space [SSS]. Everyone has access to 100 stash tabs during the Season. Enjoy and don't cry when it ends!
It turns out themes will be active for NS too:
So they actually have no intention at all to make Seasons more special than NS. Just more power creep overall. Well, let's hope it works for them.No set-items and/or LoN buff.
No Set items will include the LoN Build, because its a ring SET.
No Set items will include the LoN Build, because its a ring SET.
PoE just announced private leagues, which can be modified by the players as they wish.
Maybe we see something like this as Diablo 3 Theme some day? Even only for mobile?The underlined ptr patch note opens the door for interesting possibilities. Seems like we were heard.