So essentially all you want to do is play one character to get loot for all characters you want to play.
No, as Pietrak said, I don't want to "play one character" and "get loot for all characters."
What I want to do is play ANY character, and have a legitimate shot at getting loot for ANY character. As it stands now, if I want dex gear (including for my followers) I basically have to play monk/DH. I don't want each character to have to go through the gear progression individually. Like I said, Paragon 2.0 was supposed to fix the fact that Paragon 1.0 basically locked us into a single character if we wanted items. But smart drops remove the freedom to play whichever character we want because smart drops are so dominant that you very rarely find items that are of the other primary stats. It's an inside-out system that pushes us back to a system where the character we're playing matters.
We should ALL be free to farm with whichever toon we like. Period. There should not be "if you want int gear, get on a Wiz/WD" or "if you want str gear, get on a barb/crusader" or "if you want dex gear, get on a DH/monk." That's really stupid and it's definitely going to cut into the longevity and enjoyment of the game for many people.
When they first proposed smart drops I thought, max, it'd be around 20% of the time. As it stands now it looks like we're dealing with well over 50%. That is a major problem.
Currently on the PTR there are 2 itemization problems: - Small drop rates of legendaries (Blizzard admitted it's too low, though). - Too big frequency of Smart Drops. In my opinion it shouldn't be more than 25% chance for a Smart Drop. Now it looks like it's about 70% - I'll try to do some math here next time I have a long playing session.
Both of these would contribute to a more enjoyable "item hunt" for me. Aside from exploiting guaranteed boss legendaries, the drop rate is way too low (disclaimer: Master, level 60). If I can't trade legendaries and there are 200+ of them out there, one per run on average just isn't close to enough. I have yet to find a single legendary that my WD (or Wiz) would use. It's disheartening, even considering that I'm not putting tons of effort into the beta (I'm more experimenting with potential builds) because none of it is permanent.
For me the inability to find gear for other toons, though, cuts into my ability to enjoy the game. I *AM* interested in finding gear for my barb/crusader/DH/monk while playing my WD/Wiz. My WD/Wiz are my best-geared farming toons. I don't want to have to go onto another toon, ratchet the difficulty down (therefore making it less-effective farming) just to get loot for that toon. Paragon 2.0 was supposed to free us up from the "MUST FARM ON X TOON" situation yet smart drops are so damned prevalent that they force you to farm on the toon that you want gear for rather than whatever toon you feel like. It's backasswards. And smart drops have completely fucked up crafting. The 1.0.7 system was better than what we have now, quite truthfully. If you want to craft something and you think "well I would have to leave this game and switch toons to do that" then something is simply wrong.
Like I said, RoS is great. I love clans. I love the skill fixes and rebalancing. I love the new legendary items (even though I don't find them!). But smart drops are completely overwhelming. I'd also estimate at least 70% of my items found on my WD/Wiz are int and less than 10% are str or dex. That simply violates something that MANY of us find very fun - finding gear for other toons.
People hated going through story mode 4 times on every toon. Why should every toon basically go through the same gear progression (because twinking is basically nonexistent now) on every toon? If they get itemization right there really shouldn't be a need for smart drops to be more than 1 out of every 5 or 10 items. The fact that the rate seems so high right now baffles me.
They're looking to appease mouthbreathing neckbeards who keep chirping about the "emotional value" of items and how trading makes them cry tears for the Virgin Mary instead of making a game that actually has lasting power like its predecessor.
lol wtf
A simple: "I disagree with your opinion," would suffice.
Sorry bud. I'm just frustrated with the short-sighted "I want all my drops to feel special" mentality that brought us to this point. When I play RoS beta I realize I'm playing a glorified online single-player game where smart drops are seriously screwing up gameplay that many of us enjoyed in D3 and in previous titles and other games in the genre. I mean BoA is bad enough, but the fact that I don't even find items that I can give to my other toons.... WTF?!??!?!?!
I mean I hate BoA, but even worse than that is feeling like the "to account" part of it is meaningless since I rarely find things that matter for my other characters. I will, eventually, come to terms with BoA, even though I do truly believe it will cut short the total "fun" I get from the game. I'm not going to let that stop me from buying the game. But these smart drops are just too much. When I finish a run I shouldn't have a bag full of int items and nothing else. They have to stop treating this game as if it's 100% self-found, 100% single player. It's online, we have co-op games, we all have a bevy of toons on which we enjoy playing. The design has to reflect and embrace that so that we can all have something enjoyable.
*sigh*
EDIT It's just frustrating that, first, I can't trade with my friends. Now, I've come to realize that smart drops are so dominant that I can't even "trade" with my other toons. I'm so firmly against this degree of social-engineering that I lack words to express it properly, and that's probably why I come across as a foaming-at-the-mouth asshole on the subject. I've used the word "frustrated" several times in this post, and truthfully the frustration is boiling over at this point. They HAVE to be able to provide good itemization and interesting items without going down this road.
When it dropped, the sense of accomplishment, of what I had earned myself and myself only by actually playing the game and farming, was astounding.
Really?
I have not felt any sense of "accomplishment" over any legendary I've found on the PTR. Mainly because everyone else has already found them, usually multiple times over. Like Zero said... when everyone is winning the lottery, it kinda makes winning the lottery less special. In fact, I'm finding smart drops (coupled with BoA) to be more frustrating than I ever thought they would be. I RARELY find non-int gear which means my scoundrel has little chance of getting upgrades. If I want to craft a non-int item I have to STOP PLAYING and switch characters.
70%+ of my items have int on them. Less than 10% have dex/str. Paragon 2.0 was supposed to make it such that it didn't matter what character we were farming on. Smart drops completely fucked that concept from here to hell and back. GENIUS!
I feel like Blizzard has turned D3 into an always-online single player game, and I don't like it. It's just not as fun as it should be. RoS has the potential to be a lot more fun, but it's falling far short because Blizzard decided that 100% self-found is the only "right" way to play the game. Mark my words, if they keep going with this the longevity of the game is going to suffer. There's no way I'm going to keep grinding for items in this system. It's actually WORSE than the AH + shitty drop rates.
EDIT Don't get me wrong, I'll buy RoS and get my $40 worth. But my expectations have gone down significantly after playing the PTR. I realized that Blizzard isn't looking to make a game where the item hunt is engaging. They're looking to appease mouthbreathing neckbeards who keep chirping about the "emotional value" of items and how trading makes them cry tears for the Virgin Mary instead of making a game that actually has lasting power like its predecessor.
No, as Pietrak said, I don't want to "play one character" and "get loot for all characters."
What I want to do is play ANY character, and have a legitimate shot at getting loot for ANY character. As it stands now, if I want dex gear (including for my followers) I basically have to play monk/DH. I don't want each character to have to go through the gear progression individually. Like I said, Paragon 2.0 was supposed to fix the fact that Paragon 1.0 basically locked us into a single character if we wanted items. But smart drops remove the freedom to play whichever character we want because smart drops are so dominant that you very rarely find items that are of the other primary stats. It's an inside-out system that pushes us back to a system where the character we're playing matters.
We should ALL be free to farm with whichever toon we like. Period. There should not be "if you want int gear, get on a Wiz/WD" or "if you want str gear, get on a barb/crusader" or "if you want dex gear, get on a DH/monk." That's really stupid and it's definitely going to cut into the longevity and enjoyment of the game for many people.
When they first proposed smart drops I thought, max, it'd be around 20% of the time. As it stands now it looks like we're dealing with well over 50%. That is a major problem.
It's just frustrating that, first, I can't trade with my friends. Now, I've come to realize that smart drops are so dominant that I can't even "trade" with my other toons. I'm so firmly against this degree of social-engineering that I lack words to express it properly, and that's probably why I come across as a foaming-at-the-mouth asshole on the subject. I've used the word "frustrated" several times in this post, and truthfully the frustration is boiling over at this point. They HAVE to be able to provide good itemization and interesting items without going down this road.
Really?
I have not felt any sense of "accomplishment" over any legendary I've found on the PTR. Mainly because everyone else has already found them, usually multiple times over. Like Zero said... when everyone is winning the lottery, it kinda makes winning the lottery less special. In fact, I'm finding smart drops (coupled with BoA) to be more frustrating than I ever thought they would be. I RARELY find non-int gear which means my scoundrel has little chance of getting upgrades. If I want to craft a non-int item I have to STOP PLAYING and switch characters.
70%+ of my items have int on them. Less than 10% have dex/str. Paragon 2.0 was supposed to make it such that it didn't matter what character we were farming on. Smart drops completely fucked that concept from here to hell and back. GENIUS!
I feel like Blizzard has turned D3 into an always-online single player game, and I don't like it. It's just not as fun as it should be. RoS has the potential to be a lot more fun, but it's falling far short because Blizzard decided that 100% self-found is the only "right" way to play the game. Mark my words, if they keep going with this the longevity of the game is going to suffer. There's no way I'm going to keep grinding for items in this system. It's actually WORSE than the AH + shitty drop rates.
EDIT
Don't get me wrong, I'll buy RoS and get my $40 worth. But my expectations have gone down significantly after playing the PTR. I realized that Blizzard isn't looking to make a game where the item hunt is engaging. They're looking to appease mouthbreathing neckbeards who keep chirping about the "emotional value" of items and how trading makes them cry tears for the Virgin Mary instead of making a game that actually has lasting power like its predecessor.