Quote from miles_dryden
Quote from CardinalMDM
So, uh...anyone else checking out that "possible properties" list?
Reduce Cooldowns of all skills?
Reduce Resource cost of all skills?
And the widely demanded...SOCKET!? That's gonna make some people happy.
Also...funky new crafting materials, check that out!
If I remember right, they said adding a socket to items felt necessary, which is why they didn't give that ability to Haedrig. I'm guessing the fact that you have to drop a stat to get the socket balances it out?
But ya, this is a nice little preview of things to come.
They did say that, yeah, that adding a socket shouldn't be a chore. But like you said, this does seem to balance it out pretty nicely. On the one hand, if you have a piece in desperate need of a socket, and it only has stats you don't need, a socket is an easy choice. Then again, if you have a damn near perfect item, adding a socket might not be as good as the other choices presented.
Decision making!! I like it!
1
Well shaggy, I think what Zero was saying was that, as a way to spice up what types of Bounties of appear to break up all the "kill 50 mobs + this guy", they should include more of the rarer Events from the Campaign Mode. Which is why I think they threw Events in as Bounties to begin with. There are likely people who have never done hardly any of those Events, so adding those as Bounties alone increases the variety. However, very often, as Zero was saying, they're not really enough.
Though I can agree on both accounts, more variety in Bounties AND Events would be great. More of both, I'm all for that.
I was saying to Elendiro before that I feel like Bounties are a good intro point. The "Bounties" feature is being added, and if people aren't satisfied with the variety, it's not hard to add more types, more styles, even some with multi-tier objectives. I mean, they're just simple randomized mini-quests, it's easy to write in more. But the main purpose of them, I think, seems to be working. People are doing them, getting rewarded, and not running the same zones over and over.
Truthfully, I'm looking forward to completing Bounties, but when I get a bit tired of them, or I find myself running into certain dungeons, I'm just gonna go off the trail a bit. Bounties in Adventure Mode are definitely going to be profitable for both XP and loot, however part of their purpose is to send you all round. Which means, Zero, that even if they don't include more occurrences of the Wheel from Act 2 or the Tower from Act 1 as formal Bounties, I want to say you can still visit those zones to see if they spawned. Even if they're not offering Bounty rewards for completing them, you're still bound to get a bunch of enemies and maybe a Resplendent Chest.
0
The lower level requirement thing, in case you aren't aware (I'm not going to assume either way), is a known bug. I want to say I read something to that effect, it was kind of a buried blue post. I believe they're looking to fix it in the next patch...
Anyway, overall, I'm having an insane amount of fun on the PTR. It's not Reaper of Souls, but it's still really awesome working with the updated skills. I originally started D3 with a Wizard but since moved to a Monk as kind of my main character. Seriously...I'm having a hard time finding builds that don't work. Even with gear that isn't super synergized.
The new passives show tons of promise. Love all the elemental additions to some of the skills, like...making a Cold Monk. Not even feasible in the live game, but definitely a build style in the expansion. Another thing I love is the increased shield that Mantra of Healing grants. Combined with Chant of Resonance, that now reduces the Spirit cost of Mantra Active effects, and enough Life Regen, I can use Mantra of Healing as a slow type of life restoration method. Also, I can combine Mantra of Healing's shield with Guiding Light when low on life for a pretty sweet damage buff that I'm pretty sure spreads to allies. And that's not even mentioning how they changed Dashing Strike to be really effective as a fantastic escape skill, but also has one or two really decent damage runes. Oh, and Hand of Ytar getting a major buff was fantastic as well. I've been dying to make a build around that, and I'm glad it's finally doable in the expansion. Looking to put together a long distance build using that, maybe Explosive Light and a few others. Definitely excited.
As for legendaries, I agree, I haven't been rained on, but a little bit more has helped, certainly. I found a Dovu Energy Trap amulet that increases Stun Durations. I found the Barter Town Pads shoulders that supposedly make casting Town Portal uninterruptible, but when I tried it, it didn't work. Maybe they deactivated it (temporarily)? My Monk's also wearing a Band of Hollow Whispers that randomly Haunts enemies. Proc is pretty strong, too. Oh, and my Demon Hunter got a high level Balefire Caster that was more powerful than my live game Windforce...as well as a Bombadier's Rucksack quiver that allows me to summon 2 additional Sentires. Put together with Custom Engineering and Ballistics? SWEET!
Not to mention the Nemesis Bracers, that summon an elite pack when activating shrines. Very fun to keep the battles nonstop.
Density...a lot of people have complained about it since the PTR started, but my thought is...even when not calculating in elites I summon with the Nemesis Bracers, I feel like I've been tripping over elite packs. Which honestly, I'd rather have that than denser groups of white mobs...but I did read that they "adjusted" Act 1 density...could just be an illusion but I do feel it's been upped slightly and that's nice.
QoL wise...even without Adventure Mode, jumping around using the region map, and not being required to hit a Waypoint to travel is SOOOOO nice. Especially in bigger towns like New Tristram. When I'm done with whatever, all I need to do is teleport to the Waypoint instead of walking all the way to the New Tristram Waypoint. Paragon Points are also really fun to play with. It should probably have some kind of cost to respec it, but they'll have to think about how to do that right...too little, respecing becomes trivial...too much, and it becomes too heavy a chore. I do think it should cost gold, though. I find I'm mostly salvaging loot so I can craft more, and not vending as many items, and since gold isn't as easy to come by, it's the best thing to use, in my opinion.
I think the only thing I can complain about is how Smart Drops effect legendaries. I really like Smart Drops, and think it's a healthy change to make boring affixes like mainstat and vitality easy to get...items are then made special based on the other stats they have, not to mention it reduces guilt enchanting those stats off of gear knowing they'll just pop up again easily. But here's an example of what I mean...
This is what the Storm Crow looks like on the live game. Lightning Damage, +90-100 to all attributes, Life on Hit, Arcane Power on Crit, +damage to elites, a fireball proc and one random property...this combo of things made the Storm Crow special, desirable. However, this one time, someone linked a Storm Crow they found on the PTR and all it had on it was Intelligence, Vitality, and maybe a couple other standard things. It looked pretty generic. I'm not saying this as an argument against Smart Drops, but I try to imagine if that Storm Crow had the same affixes as the live game, but with expansion quality numbers. That'd be a pretty impressive Wizard Hat. I suppose the other side of the coin could be that by removing the ability for the Storm Crow to have all those specific things, maybe it's preventing the item from being BiS? I can't test the Mystic, but maybe it's possible that that Storm Crow can have the original Storm Crow's affixes from the live game enchanted onto it? It'd add an extra step to making it a great item, but at least it'd be something.
All in all, though, love how the game's turning out and changing, and like the direction it's going in.
1
I think it's great, too. It's one of the things that really keeps me having a lot of faith in the D3 devs. They clearly don't want people to exploit the game, and I appreciate their dedication in fixing areas where that can be stopped. Though, when I think about it, not only are they curbing exploitation, they're also changing how an activity like "farming" goes in a game like this.
Peoples' routines have been so strictly held to the idea that in order to get the best items, one has to identify the zones and enemies that generate the most/highest quality loot and "run" them as many times per hour as possible. Which is why boss runs in D2 were so common...because players knew that bosses dropped the best stuff, and since they were easy to repeat, they'd jack up their characters to the max, run bosses over and over, and be drowning in loot. Fast forward to D3, players are suddenly confused why such an allegedly "fun" thing was eased out of the game.
By leveling out loot generation, and spreading it out across the game, running certain spots over and over isn't really the way people will go about getting loot and XP anymore. And I'd rather play a game like that, that has me jumping around the game and compels me to go all over the place, than have the devs suddenly tell me that drop rates on bosses have been quadrupled or some such bull.
0
I can agree with you, Elendiro. At the very least, I see Bounties as a kind of stepping stone. Even if that particular feature is rather shallow at first, just being added to the game means they can be added to later on. Kinda like the Mystic. Her services are great, but if it turns out she could be doing one or two more things later on, like adding a property to blue items or creating magic or rare items from white items somehow, another feature that isn't hard to add later on.
So yeah, a little more variety would be nice, but...I'm glad Bounties are going to be there at all. I'd rather have the variety of environments, enemies, and challenges of randomized targets and clearing dungeon floors than farming via "hey, there's this one dungeon that has insane drop rates, let's only go there over and over to generate mountains of loot, because FUN!"
0
Yeah, I'm very glad I have 4 pre-loot 2.0 Hellfire Rings, one for each mainstat. Don't necessarily use them all, but the Strength one will come in very handy when leveling a Crusader.
0
0
I'm only in the PTR, so I haven't been able to play the beta, nor any multiplayer within it...however, from what I gather, it seems like that's how it works to begin with.
Like, you warp to a zone, and the Bounty kind of immediately activates. You run around, kill the 50 monsters before the boss (for example), then get the boss kill, and the Bounty ends there. Now...I honestly don't know what happens if one player in the game enters a Bounty zone, kills a few monsters to start the process, then another joins in at that point. When they join after the Bounty starts, does their kill count match that of whoever started it? Or does it start from zero? So I don't know if it recognizes range for Bounties, since they seem to monopolize whole zones...
If players can split off in different directions, finish separate Bounties and everyone claims the prizes, though, there is something that shouldn't be happening. And I'm glad the devs are on board to fix that.
0
Yeah, not to take apart your observations, but with all due respect, it seems a bit overcomplicated a solution. But then again, my idea might not be all that sound to begin with, so...it might need an overcomplicated solution to fix it, and in which case, may just be easier left out. I'm willing to admit that, :-)
0
0
Agreed, :-) What Travis said about split-farming doesn't seem to leave room open for this, and even from an efficiency standpoint, there's not a whole lot to be gained. Just the option to not follow the group if you don't want to.
Question then becomes...what do they have in mind to combat this, if this idea isn't going to be the answer? And I'm not asking that rhetorically either, like my idea is the end-all be-all, I'm just very curious, :-)
0
Hard to disagree. It'd be an option for a sliver of the community that wanted to go this route, but most people, I'd like to believe, feel this particular way. You want to play solo, play in private games. You want to play multiplayer, join the group and contribute. That's why the devs said 4 people to a game is better than 8...because when it's only 4, everyone's contribution is more noticeable, while when there's 8, people either constantly get left behind or are sometimes not even acknowledged.
Also, trying to balance the individual monster killing XP and gold rewards with Strength in Numbers active and telling it to not calculate other people in the game could get really buggy as well.
0
Zone reset isn't a bad a idea at all. Dare I say...Path of Exile does it with their zones or instances. You stay out of a zone long enough (I think it might be 8 minutes or so), and it resets all the monsters and such. Obviously, 8 minutes wouldn't work in this context, but...maybe some kind of game-wide player vote to reset all the particular created game world or something.
Then again, that is part of the downside of playing this way...that one person can't clear all the Acts on their own, while in the same game as another person, because the other Acts are being cleared simultaneously. They could institute a zone reset, but that'd just separate people further than they already are separating themselves by playing solo in a game with one or more other people.
The idea I'm proposing may not be that great an idea. I'm willing to admit to that. I was just thinking the community likes options, instead of "you have to play this particular way." The idea could work, but it'd be a tad awkward, for sure.
0
Yeah, if you mean a numerical timer, the only time I've seen that is occasionally when there's a buff that comes with a time limit, the buff icon itself (as opposed to the skill icon on the bar) will occasionally show the count down if you mouse over it. However, active skills on the skill bar don't have an innate timer shown beyond that sort of shadowy clock shape that "ticks down" until the skill is fully lit up again.
0
I can't believe there's already a name for people splitting up in Adventure Mode games and collecting each other's Bounty Rewards, but it's great to know the devs are looking to kill that ASAP.
However, I did have a thought....what if multiple people want to be in the same game, but are okay with doing their own Bounties and collecting their own Bounty Rewards? After all, it's their own risk being in games with other people, raising the difficulty of monsters and going their separate ways, when they could just work together and make it way easier. And I FULLY FULLY agree that people splitting off and collecting each other's Bounty Rewards, without actually participating in a particular Bounty, does suck.
But...and I don't meant to start another BoA/trading fiasco...but in a case like this, where people are simply collecting their own Bounty Rewards in the same game, they are still able to trade legendaries and set items with each other because they were present in-game when the item dropped.
For instance...if I play with my friend in a game, and we do the same Bounties together, we get the same rewards. We do a clear of Act 3 Bounties, we get the same XP, gold and Cache at the end of the Act. All fine and good, conducive to multiplayer.
But let's say, I play with a friend and I want to do Act 1 Bounties, he wants to do Act 2 Bounties. He can play Act 2 all he wants and get HIS OWN Bounty Rewards, I can play in Act 1 and get MY OWN Bounty Rewards. We don't share the immediate XP, gold or Horadric Cache rewards for each others' Bounties (i.e., when he finishes his Act 2 Bounties, I don't get a free goodie bag or any of the XP or gold for him completing his quests, nor does he collect on me finishing mine), but if I find an interesting legendary that rolled good general stats for most classes, and I want to trade it to him...I can.
I'd be fine with the devs killing any manner of split-farming, as it does sound very exploity...but I figured this caveat could act as a slightly different style of multiplayer, and maybe possibly open up the window for trading high end items by a slight crack.
Thoughts, anyone?
0
Yeah, I'm gonna offer up a big NO to the multi-tiered Rifts thing. You're making it a very simple idea, dousie, however keep in mind...if you make Rifts multi-tiered the easy way you're suggesting...people are pretty much ONLY going to be doing the highest Tier Rifts. They're not going to bother with lower Tier, why should they when they the higher Tiers offer better rewards all around? And if everyone's doing the highest Tier Rifts, then you're giving a simple mechanic and concept a ton of extra steps. Blizzard is far better off buffing the difficulty of Rifts a smidge and increasing their rewards. They're meant to be an extra randomized feature of Adventure Mode and Bounties anyways, and the way they're looking to increase the reward for right now seems to at least raise their appeal, as the more Rifts you do, the more legendaries of yours you can enchant.
Increasing the chance of getting pieces of a set if you're already wearing a piece of it...eh...if there wasn't a feature like Kadala, where people can target specific slots, I might want this a bit, but...don't think it's necessary. Between Bounties, dungeon farming, Caches, Gambling, Rift Guardians and all the other ways to get loot, kinda think this is unnecessary.
In regard to Enchanting itself...I don't think the Mystic should be able to Enchant 2 affixes. Most Rares only have between four and six anyways. Two could be half the item. Just one is fine. However...I like the idea of adding one property to a blue item. It may only mean blue items have three or four maximum affixes, but the right affixes could mean potentially competing with a Rare in a slot, and that's pretty nice. Whites on the other hand...I'm torn...I want to say I like the idea of adding properties to a white item as a project to make it into a Rare, but honestly...if you want a Rare for any slot, just talk to the Blacksmith. He's crafting Smart Loot now, it's going to be way faster. You may not get exactly what you want immediately, but you may at least get a good foundation to start with that you can then enchant.
I'd comment on the split farming thing, but I think I might post my own thread/idea about it. Though, I do want it to be limited/removed like you do.