DiabloFans

It's pretty much terrible.

1) There is no incentive to create competition.

2) As far as "new builds" goes, it's more like an old build with mistakes in gearing/talents.

I actually care about 0% between primal 1.0 and 2.0. Both of them would have roughly 0 effect on the way I play my character since all they do is a minor stat increase. To actually be exciting, they would need to do something that actually alters gameplay or the way my character looks in some way. Doing 0.25% of a GR tier higher after finding a primal is pretty much a 0/10 for excitement.

Paragon leveling is one of the reasons my friends list is so empty in D3. Most of the players that are still playing regularly more or less accept the paragon system for what it is. The issue is that the paragon system prevents players that left from returning to the game due to the large disparity in stats. Depending on the goal of D3, it's either a big problem or not a problem at all.

The main problem with turbohud is that blizzard isn't banning players for using it.

Cheats should always come with a major risk, and in this case there simply isn't one. As a side effect, it makes competing extremely difficult for players that choose not to use it. THUD users should have been banned like botters since the start, but they left it around untouched so long that even a lot of casual players use it now.

No idea what Blizz is thinking.

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I agree with many points, especially about solo benig actually viable and not abysmally inefficient compared to group these days. I have also some points i don't agree and/or need better explanation.

- gearing choices: choosing between MF and offense means you either farmed for gear or progressed with your char and it was simply awful. Ok, it was based on a completely wrong base system, and it would probably work now, but still i don't think that gathering two sets of gear and using one to get the second is a good approach. Most players like the game as a "log in, do stuff, log out" thing, and this woukld just add an arbitrary time layer which doesn't accomplish much.

- skill choices: i agree completely. Sets are cool but at this point we don't have builds, we have sets and the skills are chosen based on them. Sets should have been something on the line of "your fire damage is increased by 500%" and have only like 4 pieces bonuses (while being part of a 6/7 pieces set) so you could use a set and combine it with a bunch of legendaries to actually make your build. This anyway won't stop the search for the "best one" and i simply think that most players will in any case just run with the cookie-cutter spec.

- longevity: i agree that gear is extremely fast to get, but imho season duration has nothing to do with it. There are many players that start the season immediately, farm 24/7 and complete verything in a week, but most players play like 1 hour/day and they still need a chance to at least complete the journey, which requires some time if you have very short sessions. Too many stuff to do would become annoying, but a too short season would just make playing time matter much more and imho it's not a good meta to follow (as it is now paragon farming).

Quote from RRenaissance»

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I miss D3 vanilla too. The interesting thing is nearly all my D3V friends never came back, even after RoS. Makes me wonder how many of them would have still been playing now if D3 wasn't changed so heavily from how it was originally.

D3 vanilla obviously had plenty of issues, but it's not like everything is great with the current variation of D3 either. I could probably list 50+ issues with D3V, but here are some of the main things I miss from D3V:

1) solo being viable.

In D3V I can log in and play when I want. Now I have to log in and find a group to do anything even remotely efficient.

2) gearing choices.

MF vs actual stats was a pretty big choice. There were also more times when taking offense vs defense was actually a choice. Current gear comes with everything, and everyone wants the exact same rolls. Also there were actually choices of what to waer, and yellows could be better than legendaries. Right now sets make most non-sets useless. Every yellow item is bad.

3) skill choices.

Right now the only viable skills are the ones that go with the sets.

4) longevity.

This season it took like 10 hours per alt to pick up enough gear to get on the solo leaderboard. Seriously screwed up how fast you get gear right now. If gear drops so fast, the seasons need to be significantly shorter. I'm not going to say the drop rates of D3V were perfect - they're not. However, the current system is just way too short to gear up. The funny thing is the game is hardly even about drops anymore. Like 90% of my gear came from the cube or kadala.

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The current version of D3 really feels too much like a game on training wheels. The game is missing choices, everyone is looking for the same items. Everyone runs nearly the same comp for exp and progression. It's really kind of like there's 1 path to follow.

I feel I must disagree here. It is quite a fallacy to assume that your friends left because of the changes. Changes to d3 have tried to make the game more rewarding and give us more varied content (which I think has extended it's longevity tremendously). I'd wager that your friends were simply done with diablo and started playing other games or cut back on gaming altogether.

1) Furthermore, you mention solo, but your argument does not make sense to me. You can still log in and play when you want. Sure, if you want max XP, you'll need a group. If you want to push your gems to 80+, you need a group. However, you can dick around in campaign mode, push solo GRs, play without being bothered by others, or simply join public bounties and speed rifts. It seems like with time, you've become obsessed with efficiency (given that you can gear a character in 10 hours for leaderboard would support that you do that very well). Maybe you wanted to be efficient in vanilla too, which entailed farming content that was too hard for a goblin and pray for clusterfuck RNG lv 63 6 affix yellows, or some other rediculous exploit that we had back then that mostly had to be done solo because groups were not rewarding.

2)Gearing choices: I was very happy to finally be able to do away with cheesy tactics like switching gear at the last minute for 'more efficient gameplay', or gimping yourself just for those couple of legendaries. That did not make for fun and rewarding gameplay, and blizzard agreed and removed it. The same discussion can be held for XP gear, and the extreme consequences it has for high end players in terms of plvls. Furthermore, we still have to make stat choices, how much CDR on gear, how much vit, getting that extra armor roll just to survive big hits. To me, the big difference is that the community is highly informative. The build section on this website alone is incredibly informative, and streamers like Quin have the time and knowhow to think about all these stat choices for us. This does not mean there are less choices, it means that information is more readily available on what the best option for each choice is.
Sure, sets are key, because they give an extra dimension to skill usage that would be harder to implement otherwise. And sets have always been a big part of diablo. Sure, we could do without them, but i see no reason why it is not good to have strong legendaries and sets that are stronger than rares. Remember all the flak blizzard got when rares would roll better than legendaries? Maybe every yellow is bad to you, but i'm always happy to get more resources or to gear my leveling character.

3) skill choices: that's an overly simplified view, and again a matter of information that we get from the 'professional' community. There will always be a most efficient build, and i'm glad that blizzard aims to rotate this with different patches, that increases the longevity greatly.

4) as a said previously, if you can gear your character in 10 hours, you are indeed very efficient. However, that makes you part of a small minority that is that efficient, and for the rest of the playerbase that has maybe 10 hours a week or less this gives them the chance to actually decently gear up in a season, maybe even try different classes. The fact that so much of your gear came from craftables tells me that you've been very efficient in acquiring bloodshards and mats, because you usually have to force thousands of shards down kadala's throat before she shits out a decent item.

TLDR: All in all, to me it seems like you're obsessed with efficiency, and playing for maximum efficiency indeed limits the rich experience that you can have with the game, because you need to do everything in a certain way to be efficient. I see no blizzard-based solution for this, because there will always be a most efficient way to play.

I miss D3 vanilla too. The interesting thing is nearly all my D3V friends never came back, even after RoS. Makes me wonder how many of them would have still been playing now if D3 wasn't changed so heavily from how it was originally.

D3 vanilla obviously had plenty of issues, but it's not like everything is great with the current variation of D3 either. I could probably list 50+ issues with D3V, but here are some of the main things I miss from D3V:

1) solo being viable.

In D3V I can log in and play when I want. Now I have to log in and find a group to do anything even remotely efficient.

2) gearing choices.

MF vs actual stats was a pretty big choice. There were also more times when taking offense vs defense was actually a choice. Current gear comes with everything, and everyone wants the exact same rolls. Also there were actually choices of what to waer, and yellows could be better than legendaries. Right now sets make most non-sets useless. Every yellow item is bad.

3) skill choices.

Right now the only viable skills are the ones that go with the sets.

4) longevity.

This season it took like 10 hours per alt to pick up enough gear to get on the solo leaderboard. Seriously screwed up how fast you get gear right now. If gear drops so fast, the seasons need to be significantly shorter. I'm not going to say the drop rates of D3V were perfect - they're not. However, the current system is just way too short to gear up. The funny thing is the game is hardly even about drops anymore. Like 90% of my gear came from the cube or kadala.

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The current version of D3 really feels too much like a game on training wheels. The game is missing choices, everyone is looking for the same items. Everyone runs nearly the same comp for exp and progression. It's really kind of like there's 1 path to follow.

Quote from Hldemi»

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Quote from justcallmeloki»

After 50 hours played some people still dont have a furnace, ancient weapon, focus or restraint etc where as there is going to be people who found everything and Kadala must have fancied the pants of their character. example i found somewhere between 10 restraints before i got a focus to drop and didnt get a focus roll with cc untill the bounty buff. Another friend has spend all of his deaths breaths on 2 handed maces and still not got a furnace. So let me say again, there are so many random things that must go well before you even start GR60 and then there are more things that need to go well. When i cleared 60 i failed about 3 attempts and then got a rift that allowed me to finish in around 10 mins. It wasnt a good rift and i had 3 ancient pieces of gear and a mouse that had a broken button, like i said player A has a different experience to player B. Also you might want to apply for Mensa because if your finding clearly difficult tasks trivial your time is clearly wasted on Diablo 3. Just think with that mindset you could have invented and built a teleporter by now, so the quesion becomes where the hell is mankinds teleporter Hidemi get inventing

With a cube I upgraded rare to furnace in 20 tries... Give or take 10 hours of extremely bad luck of upgrading rares and every players should have one . Ancient weapon is the same process . Too easy... After 20 hours I had 2 ancient gavels, 2 ancient BB and 2 ancient fury of the vanished peaks .. The point is how efficiently you farmed those 50 hours ... If you do it like total noob or a person with a low intelligence then after 50 hours you are still gonna be in rare gear.
Me too I got 9 restraints before first focus dropped. Didnt stop me to do 60 in no time.
Hhahaha your last point is actually quite humorous . The problem is that you need to prove that 60 is clearly difficult task to do. Also why should I devote my intellectual potential to benefit the humanity. I dont have such aspirations. I would rather enjoy my time playing great games.

Well, if every single drop you get is ancient, then your game will be easy. Stop thinking it's 'normal' for drops to be that abundant. I've been trying for quite some time to get an ancient gavel. Every single one of the 40 I've crafted was a normal one. So yeah, you have no proper frame of reference.
You've had some insane RNG, whereas some people don't. You have a higher chance to get the stuff you want by being more efficient. I've been doing T8 with an IK/Sage's for DB's, upgraded a ton of 2H Mighty Weapons, still have yet to see a Gavel. I doubt I'm alone in this. I received my first Ramaldni's from a friend when I was Paragon 400. You know why? They just decided not to drop. Afterwards, you get em every single rift it seems like. You don't seem to differentiate between luck and skill. To you, they're the same.
Also, YOU could prove that GR60 actually is that easy. I agree with the poster that asked for stats; I'd love to see some of those if they're available. I truly think you'd be massively wrong about how many people will be able to clear. I'd be suprised if half of the people playing can do it solo, simply because the game revolves around specific drops to be able to clear them.
Also, I find you lack of empathy (and arrogance) disturbing. You really feel you are that intelligent? Then you have very little understanding of an RNG-based "great game" you speak of. I'm done discussing this anyway, for whoever it may concern. Nobody probably cares a hoot methinks.
Also, kuddos to the poster with the Richard avatar.
FOR PONY!

You could also prove that its not easy. I'd love to see some of those rifr clearing stats too.

Quote from Helycon»

Quote from Hldemi»

Quote from Helycon»

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It really is a fact, where as if you look at the solo leaderboards after 1 week of season (which is 50 hours the diehards) GR54 was actually #1 in the world.
Facts are a funny thing in that they are traceable......

50 hours into season from the start of the season is not the same as 50 hours into season if you lets say start to play now. Now you can create support in a matter of few hours and if you have a decent group, get to paragon 800/great gear in a matter of 20 hours.

Which was not what you said though. It's just not doable when you start the season at all, even when starting now. Level 60 isn't as easy as you make it out to be. Your gear needs to be rolled well for it to work. That does take time and luck. Some people have more of it, some less. If you play grouped, you can share drops and gain more XP. That'll net you more power quickly. Skill is still a factor, awareness and hand-eye coordination. Not everyone has the same amount of skill. Maybe you do, but not everyone.
Level 60 is quite a hurdle and mobs deal significant damage, whilst having a lot of HP. I'm quite sure that the casual player won't do it before season end. I applaud the people doing 70+ solo, it's quite a feat.

I never specified at which state of the season my statement applies. And in that context Is is logical that I was referring to this state of the season since OP did it now.
WIth meta classes lvl 60 is very easy IMO. Definitely not for the noobs but for decent players that had some exp in d3 and know how to gear and how to farm efficiently its a piece of cake.

You never specified a thing, and it doesn't change the fact that it's still difficult if you start it NOW. That the season has been ongoing is completely irrelevant to the people starting it now. Even with a "meta class" it's difficult, you need to be lucky with gear, that doesn't magically change. It still takes time to gear up properly. The fact that you may have been more skilled or luckier or both does not diminish the achievement the OP posted. Maybe level 60 isn't as interesting to you as it is to the common player =, due to streamers posting 70+. Realise that streamers are nowhere near the norm, people playing hours each evening are not either. There are people with fulltime jobs and families playing the game as well. You may not hear about them, as they will not reach the boards or stream the game. They do it to enjoy an hour of gaming every now and then. They may still be skilled enough, but getting up to 60 is still difficult. People investing longer periods of time will see their investments pay off more easily. It's easier to focus on something when you have more time to play than when you have short bursts. To those people, 60 is nowhere near a piece of cake. Please stop trying to diminish people's achievements. It's a rude thing to do.

With all the DB and bounty builds appearing these days, and a lack of cosmic strands in said builds, i figured I'd post this.

One of Cosmic Strand's main benefits is really the increased movement speed. The free teleport from wormhole isn't on the standard GCD. So even with aetherwalker the Wizard with wormhole run will travel faster than the Wizard without it.

I know most people would be satisfied with 500-600 or whatever DBs/hour, but for some easy maximizing of travel speed, cosmic strand isn't very hard to put into most builds.

Not going to put a video of it, but you can easily test it yourself by selecting the wormhole rune if you don't want to craft a cosmic strand.

I miss D3 vanilla too. Had more fun playing that the first month than pretty much every other game aside from probably high end arena'ing in WoW.

It's unfortunate, but the nerfs in D3 vanilla arrived too soon before anything really even settled. People were in blues already complaining about inferno difficulty ~_~

The paragon atm is just a "dumping points" system, it really should be turned into a talent/skill tree system that involves choices to be made so each character felt more unique.
They could go overboard and do it like poe or less complex like d2 or even super simple like wow talents, but we need choices and more character customization.
Unfortunately the way i see it the necro will be interesting for a couple weeks until we all discover that he only does endgame with a few blizzard selected builds/sets that are the most op and we are left with a preset class instead of a class built and customized by the player.

people who thinks necro announcement which will arrive 10 months from now is a big one , have lost their minds, or just love this game no matter they throw at us...

the biggest problem with this game is, it takes 2 weeks for 80% of the players to quit seasons after its start date...

we lose nterest playing because no1 has complete 3 months to spare to compete and farm paragons etc....Its just plain boring...

i am an competitive player but thinking the whole 3 months season competions is impossible...This lead people to belive that more time spent=success

no skill etc included....

solution is to bring mini session season with rewards ... for example

2 hour hardcore session or weekend long softcore season or 1 week softcore season...so the servers keep resetting and u keep restart playing the game and accumulate points accourding to your ranking... And use the points towards in game items such as wigs banners sigils etc...

thats it problem solved....