Let me picture this:
Many of my friends (on my f-list since day 1 since we played together since the 90s) haven't played Season 8. Now imagine I invite them to S8, and play with them. Since I have no use for many of my gear anymore after doing Years of War/Masters of the Universe, I can just give them a ton of great loot, including well-rolled ancient items. They log in, get powerleveled to 70, get fully equipped and can faceroll Torment 11+. 15 minutes are logging in. They have all the gear, no need for Haedrig's Gift, no intention to do the Season Journey (otherwise they would've played before) - so what are they playing for?
Diablo is a loot-based game. If you give your friends all the loot, you're removing the sole purpose for them to play. (Unless they're the one in a million who like to grind paragon).
And of course the illegal 3rd party websites will find a way to exploit this as well, as others have mentioned. Thankfully, trading is not coming back. And it's good that way. You want loot? Slay monsters. That's it. There's no shortcut to get it from your friends. You want to give your loot to your friends? Well, group with them. Otherwise it's good that you can't give it to them; you'd lessen their game experience.
I know that people like trading, but please think about it: as good as it sounds, it's just bad in so many ways from every single perspective. I'd love to see the 2 hour window being extended to 5 or 10 (or at least for as long as you're in a game with someone), but beyond that - please no trading. It made D3 a better game.
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So, I decided to do the Season Journey up to the stash tab on PTR (good info, as soon as you unlock it you get it in non-season and Hardcore modes, too). It took me a little bit less than 24 hours of playtime (Friday to Sunday, averaging 8 hours), I got power boosted to lvl 70 though, but most of the things (gem leveling, speed requirements, killing certain bosses within time limits I did solo). PTR on those lower levels kinda empty these days.
Here the video with list of Season Journey goals and Conquests:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIq8FpNOFZA
Also videos to:
Here the complete list in written form:
Chapter I:
Chapter II:
Chapter III:
Chapter IV:
Slayer:
Champion:
Destroyer:
Conqueror: (finishing this gives Stash Tab)
Guardian:
CONQUESTS:
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For gods sake, it's really simple.
You have a non-season character you played a lot with and are attached to it's name, like it's number of elite kills or whatsoever.
So, you decide, to play with that character in season (to keep the above mentioned things about it) and you decide to rebirth it.
Rebirth makes that character a new seasonal character, and like any other seasonal character it will start from zero in season (unless you already have done some paragons on another toon in season). All the items of this toon (if not stripped off before) are sent to your non-seasonal mail and you have 30 days to claim back that gear in non-season.
After the season ends, the same toon will be transferred back to the non-seasonal character pool.
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...didn't even consider about it, but it said it is my personal best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFcy_Y4Ei3M
How do you fare in that regard?
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Video of my GR67 clear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNk_lePxils
Need to change few gear pieces a bit and then will try to attack GR70, as it sounds like a magic number to me!
Well, paragons and higher ranked gems would help me too, but no luck to get into decent groups.
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To the above poster, PTR usually also has XP boost, don't forget that.
Still it's confusing to me that running a GR45 nets much more XP than a full TX rift. But they won't lower that now.
1
They should add SSS Sustained Attack to the 6pc bonus - and like on PTR 2.3 let other EP runes stack on each other (not like now, when the old one is just overwritten with the new one). I would be so nice to burn enemies down faster and faster.
Just yesterday I checked on PTR, there was a GR80 clear with Uliana, a lot of CDR and no mantra at all! The guy was using Traveler's Pledge/Compass Rose combo, with CoE and Unity in cube - and Serenity + Desert Shroud. Obviously a lot of CDR involved, he probably could be able to have almost perfect Serenity uptime (with it being down while he was in SSS).
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Yes, there should be a reset bounties button, and a close Grift/rift button (however, the later one could have big repercussions on Public Games)
It was mentioned on the latest PTR feedbacks, but nothing really happened. So far.
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I'm playing all classes in non-season, and am trying to have at least one of each set around (I don't have any Invoker pieces there, Shadow Mantle and so on). To keep all set parts and useful legs I already need to have 2 toons of every class, just to hold items for those classes around.
My first stash tab is gems, legendary gems, machines + uber organs, up to 5000 mats of each, bounty mats, and few rings amulets I change on my mains that I play that moment.
2nd tab is full of different rings and amulets (I had 2 stashes of that, and seeing how I destroyed many very useful Traveler's pledges/Compass Roses I would bite my head off...)
3rd tab is Bovine's, Puzzle rings, all mats in groups of 5000, cosmetics (dye's), Black Rock ledger pages, Whimsyshire staff.
4th and 5th tab are there to put in stuff from one class, so when I play I play with that class, with kinda free "personal" stash. I destroyed many good items, and if need room for a new toon (season or so), I immediately have overfilled stash.
To keep it that way, I really destroyed a lot of meaningful stuff. However my season stash (where I usually play 2 classes, as that is the limit I get for free character slots) is already overfilled again. At each end of season I need around a week to get it somehow together...
Even with 10 stashes, the situation would be just a bit better, sadly. Especially with all the new items and in theory every ancient can be useful with a LoN set-up from 2.4 on.
I will do the Season journey in season for sure, and work forward to the stash tab, but it's a cheap way of getting players to stay in the game, to get only one additional tab each season...