People who think they'll be announcing D4 are pretty naive. You got to understand that Blizzard is a company, and the developers hands are tied by profits. They won't release D4 until D3 has been completely exhausted.
Why invest triple the money and time into a new game engine and system when you can spend a minimal amount of effort on an expansion with the same price tag and the same number of people will still buy it?
While it's true they will exhaust D3 (probably by making 1 or 2 more expansions), if there are any possible plans of a D4, they started working on either enhancing the D3 engine or building a new engine from the ground up for a possible D4. The wonderful thing about engines is that they can be modified and enhanced if they decide to scrap a D4 and it can be used for something else.
That said, I'm not expecting any news on a D4 anytime soon, but that doesn't mean they aren't already investing money in early development of an engine.
On top of the fact that there are a lot of outstanding issues on the PTR (WD sets to be buffed and retested, shenlongs needs a nerf/rework, Vyrs is pretty much useless), August is also when school starts for both high school and college, meaning that players who are students, faculty, or staff at educational institutions will be preoccupied with start of school activities.
Those combined make me think that it will be later in the month of August or after.
I am still confused as to why this is considered cheating. I didn't use the exploit, I was working when I heard about it, scheduled with my friends to do the exploit, then found it an hour later that they were going to hotfix it and punish the exploiters. Too bad for me.
However, I don't see this as an exploit, much less a cheat. How is using game mechanics to your advantage cheating? A similar example from WoW(Vanilla): UBRS drakes; line of sighting their aoe by stacking your 40 man raid in a corner of a door jam. This is using game mechanis: line of site, and a doorway, to progress. This was just a strat. How is it any different than than the blood shard thing? It isn't.
Also, another example of exploiting game mechanics: having set bonuses for 1 class whose damage stats are separate multipliers as opposed to other classes set pieces being additive bonuses. This set up a certain class, DH, to be the best dps where the other classes couldn't compete because their set bonuses were additive and not separately multiplicative. Should all DH's from season 2 get punished for exploiting a bug in game mechanics to their advantage?
As a side note, capping the max bloodshards that drop to 250 for every rift level above, what is it? like 45 or something? to fix the bloodshard bug is ridiculous; as evidenced by my ridicule.
Also, I think there may be a bug with wizards and slow time bubble damage and pain enhancer gem. See guys doing crazy damage from that gem with the time bubble buff when they have 2.2 million stat sheet dps buffed not counting elemental damage modifiers, and no +physical damage. If anyone else could test this out, I don't have a wizard, to see what is going on, that would be great.
This is actually pretty fascinating. The only reply I can muster is that I takes all the intellect of a human mind to decipher the answer to that question "will I get banned?".
Rather than blather on about stories winding all the way back to Everquest and Ultima Online, And how once upon a time a pro gamer Athene triple checked a crazy boss "strategy" with a GM AND screen-shotted the conversation AND STILL had the kill wound back and nullified,
I'll just say answering the question "will I get banned?" is more of a craft than a science.
When I view the blood shard situation in this thread, I'm not even the least bit surprised to hear that bans were issued, because of how my mind processes all the little aspects of it.
I'm also not at all surprised to hear the poem of silly fuck ups associated with the list of previous exploits and "situations" as the came up in D3...
This whole situation has just made me sad at both some of the playerbase and the developers.
The fact that people keep calling this "cheating" is beyond me. Everything about this game is an exercise in exploiting game mechanics, intended or otherwise. Rift fishing, exploiting game mechanics. Conduit fishing, exploiting game mechanics. Rolling a DH, exploiting class imbalance. Perma-fear docs, exploiting game mechanics. The list goes on and on.
The point is, this is a game that is about finding the most efficient route to an end goal. If that goal is to top the leaderboards, then you exploit every single game mechanic that exists to get the gear needed to compete for a top spot. Just because this was an unintended bug by the developers, doesn't change that fact. To me, the fact that they should have known it existed in the PTR, and didn't fix it, places the blame squarely on their shoulders, and punishing players for that mistake is a joke itself.
The traffic analogy that has been floating around this thread is missing some key similarities. This more akin to a 70 MPH speed limit sign being mistakenly put on a road that was supposed to be 45. The posted speed limit is 70, so even though a logical person can deduce that it must be a mistake, given the road and prior knowledge of speed limits, a cop CANNOT give a speeding ticket to a person doing 65.
Back to the game world. Exploits that do not directly affect other players (like killing other HC characters) and that do not use 3rd party software (like a map hack) should not be considering cheating, and certainly should not come with a punishment. It's using game mechanics handed to the players and finding a way to utilize them for maximum efficiency. The "holier than thou" attitude that some people seem to have adopted is just absurd.
Yeah. It has a lot to do with the double dipping on leg gems, bloodshed, and slaughter.
There are a few things that probably weren't intended to benefit from the 500% bonus that are, and that really skews how much damage the set does. Once those things get fixed, then players can test again and see if it's still out of tune.
It's certainly broken in it's current state. I just don't think that a change from 500% to 100% is the answer. I think it's more about finding some of the things that are benefiting that shouldn't be, and then checking again. My guess is that at least basic builds (WW, SS, HotA, AS) will end up being more or less in tune at that point. If the set got nerfed to 100%, many of the spenders just wouldn't be worth it.
Differing loot tables aren't bad, it's just that they invite a particular gameplay that certain people may not like (much like every other design decision).
For me, I wouldn't want differing loot tables because I would then feel compelled to farm a very specific monster/area (in the case of the OP suggestion, act) to get the item I want, thus making for a very boring play session. While rifts can feel monotonous, they do have varied monster types and layouts, which individual acts have less of (which is why bounties get boring for me very quickly).
Having different drop tables could also have an undesirable effect on multiplayer. If the item I really want to farm is on the Act 3 drop table (and thus that's the best way for me to get it), and my buddy really needs some item from Act 5, we have to sacrifice each other's efficiency at getting the item we are each looking for, in order to play together. So we either don't play together specifically because the drop tables are different, or we play together, and have a lower chance of finding the items we want in a given play session.
I’ve been thinking a lot about set design and the rationale behind it recently, and since there are so many set changes coming in 2.2, I figured now is as good a time as any to share. I’m sure someone has suggested this before, but I’ve not seen it suggested with a large explanation, so I figured I’d put it out there.
Currently most 6-piece sets only have 6 pieces, meaning your options are to wear all 6 pieces of gear, or swap in RORG and wear 5. This, to me, limits gearing options quite a bit, and in many cases makes RORG feel mandatory, as some legendary affix on an overlapping piece far outweighs the cost of a ring slot (cindercoat/Prides fall for live M6 builds). This type of issue may only get worse as more armor with legendary affixes are added to the game.
Suggestion:
I like the idea of keeping sets at the 2/4/6 bonuses, because then they can be powerful, as you have to take up 6 slots in order to get 3 legendary bonuses. The opportunity cost makes sense. What I don’t like, is that sets have so few pieces that gearing starts to feel very pigeon-holed. You have one set slot that you can choose to not use, and that’s at the cost of a ring slot. I don’t mind having to make choices (in fact I encourage designs to be that way), but I feel the current set up is just too restrictive.
The suggestion I have is to normalize the slots that sets come on, and then make each set take the same 8 pieces(gloves, shoulders, helm, torso, belt, pants, boots, bracers). I like this 8-slot set-up because each set becomes an “armor set”, making it thematic. . The goal of this is two-fold:
Allow more diversity in gearing combinations with sets
With the increased flexibility of sets, RORG may not feel required in some cases, though it will still retain it’s usefulness.
The idea here is that by having all sets use all the same slots, we know that the best a player can do for combining sets is to get the 4-piece bonus of two sets (or the 2-piece bonus of 3, if they so choose). So we know that the 6-piece bonuses will be mutually exclusive. We also know that if they choose to use the 4-piece bonus of 2 sets, they have to either use all 8 armor slots, or use 6 of them, and then use the RORG. This allows a lot of flexibility, but still offers the developers ways some knowns for balance purposes.
When the goal is to only use one set, the player has a choice of which set slots to fill, and which ones to put legendaries in, as well as the choice to give up a ring slot for an additional legendary in an armor slot. My hope here, is that as new powerful rings are added, RORG won’t feel so mandatory for all set builds, but offers the flexibility in case a player wants it.
As new legendaries are added to the game, the hope is that a group of legendaries should be able to compete with sets, so that players have options. Set’s could be the quickest path to power, and then as a player collects some of the rarer legendaries, they will have the option to forgo a set and build around a group of legendaries. This, in my opinion, would make the game fun for both casuals and hardcore gamers alike.
An Example
For this example, I’m going to use the current PTR version of the IK set bonuses:
(2) Set Bonus: Call of the Ancients lasts forever
(4) Set Bonus: Call of the Ancients' melee attacks deal 600% weapon damage in a 15 yard radius
(6) Set Bonus: The duration of your Wrath of the Berserker is increased by 0.25 seconds each time an Ancient deals damage
The first thing that would need to be done for my suggestion, is to change the pieces around, so that it matches the 8-piece configuration I talked about earlier. The IK boulder breaker (the weapon), can be converted to a regular non-set legendary (see BK set and BK ring for precedence).
There are currently 2 legendaries is the updated set slots that synergize with an IK build: taskers and the all-rune WOTB pants. In this model, a player will likely choose to wear both in conjunction with the set. To create more choice, more legendaries could be created that create competition. Let’s say that the following legendaries are created:
Torso : Call of the Ancients call’s an additional Ancient to fight for you.
Helm: Hammer of the Ancients deals x% more damage for each Ancient summoned.
Boots: While WOTB is active, generate X fury per second
Now, there is a lot of choice to be made. There are plenty of standard legendaries in the bracer slot that are helpful (reapers wraps, strongarms, Pathan defenders), there are barb-only belts and witching hour, there are the WOTB pants, taskers, etc. There’s always the option to use RORG and use 3 of these, sacrificing a ring slot for it.
At the same time, a build becomes possible without using the full set. A player could choose to use only the 2-piece bonus of IK (belt/shoulders), and then use taskers, the new helm, new torso, new boots, reapers wraps, WOTB pants, to create a build for which most of the damage comes from the barbarian, and the ancients are mostly there for the damage buff to HOTA, with some bonus passive damage.
There are a bunch of choices to be made here, allowing for a lot of interesting combinations. While I’m sure a “best build” for end-game would emerge from this set-up (because math always points to a best build), at least players would have options that look to be T6 efficient at the very least.
You basically just have to rift fish for the right guardian. Any that spawn adds are pretty good, as you can use them to EP explode for large chunks of the guardians health. The other thing is pylons. Getting a Power pylon to increase damage AND getting a RG that spawns adds for power pylon EP, is basically the strat after a certain point.
There are few things they can do to allow more diversity:
1) Decrease sets to 4 or 5 pieces max
2) Move to RORG bonus to paragon and have it cost 100 or more points.
3) Make all sets have n+1 pieces (much like Firebirds)
4) move legendaries with synergy to non-set pieces.
Any of those, or all of those could help with the issue. The problem is that if sets are the way to power (like they are currently are) then RORG is mandatory in circumstances (like all WD sets) where the legendaries that have good synergy with the set overlap with one of the pieces.
It does suck though, that even if you only use one set, it's often still pretty required to use RORG, as not using results in a HUGE efficiency loss.
You might for T6 rifts (or bounties I guess), which is currently the only place you'd need it really. Once you get a good 6 set bonus build going, you can totally skip out on using either of those rings and still mow through enemies in T6.
I think the idea is pretty solid, as it at least has a use for a particular type of farming.
1
While it's true they will exhaust D3 (probably by making 1 or 2 more expansions), if there are any possible plans of a D4, they started working on either enhancing the D3 engine or building a new engine from the ground up for a possible D4. The wonderful thing about engines is that they can be modified and enhanced if they decide to scrap a D4 and it can be used for something else.
That said, I'm not expecting any news on a D4 anytime soon, but that doesn't mean they aren't already investing money in early development of an engine.
1
My guess would be late August, early September.
On top of the fact that there are a lot of outstanding issues on the PTR (WD sets to be buffed and retested, shenlongs needs a nerf/rework, Vyrs is pretty much useless), August is also when school starts for both high school and college, meaning that players who are students, faculty, or staff at educational institutions will be preoccupied with start of school activities.
Those combined make me think that it will be later in the month of August or after.
1
This whole situation has just made me sad at both some of the playerbase and the developers.
The fact that people keep calling this "cheating" is beyond me. Everything about this game is an exercise in exploiting game mechanics, intended or otherwise. Rift fishing, exploiting game mechanics. Conduit fishing, exploiting game mechanics. Rolling a DH, exploiting class imbalance. Perma-fear docs, exploiting game mechanics. The list goes on and on.
The point is, this is a game that is about finding the most efficient route to an end goal. If that goal is to top the leaderboards, then you exploit every single game mechanic that exists to get the gear needed to compete for a top spot. Just because this was an unintended bug by the developers, doesn't change that fact. To me, the fact that they should have known it existed in the PTR, and didn't fix it, places the blame squarely on their shoulders, and punishing players for that mistake is a joke itself.
The traffic analogy that has been floating around this thread is missing some key similarities. This more akin to a 70 MPH speed limit sign being mistakenly put on a road that was supposed to be 45. The posted speed limit is 70, so even though a logical person can deduce that it must be a mistake, given the road and prior knowledge of speed limits, a cop CANNOT give a speeding ticket to a person doing 65.
Back to the game world. Exploits that do not directly affect other players (like killing other HC characters) and that do not use 3rd party software (like a map hack) should not be considering cheating, and certainly should not come with a punishment. It's using game mechanics handed to the players and finding a way to utilize them for maximum efficiency. The "holier than thou" attitude that some people seem to have adopted is just absurd.
1
Yeah. It has a lot to do with the double dipping on leg gems, bloodshed, and slaughter.
There are a few things that probably weren't intended to benefit from the 500% bonus that are, and that really skews how much damage the set does. Once those things get fixed, then players can test again and see if it's still out of tune.
It's certainly broken in it's current state. I just don't think that a change from 500% to 100% is the answer. I think it's more about finding some of the things that are benefiting that shouldn't be, and then checking again. My guess is that at least basic builds (WW, SS, HotA, AS) will end up being more or less in tune at that point. If the set got nerfed to 100%, many of the spenders just wouldn't be worth it.
1
Differing loot tables aren't bad, it's just that they invite a particular gameplay that certain people may not like (much like every other design decision).
For me, I wouldn't want differing loot tables because I would then feel compelled to farm a very specific monster/area (in the case of the OP suggestion, act) to get the item I want, thus making for a very boring play session. While rifts can feel monotonous, they do have varied monster types and layouts, which individual acts have less of (which is why bounties get boring for me very quickly).
Having different drop tables could also have an undesirable effect on multiplayer. If the item I really want to farm is on the Act 3 drop table (and thus that's the best way for me to get it), and my buddy really needs some item from Act 5, we have to sacrifice each other's efficiency at getting the item we are each looking for, in order to play together. So we either don't play together specifically because the drop tables are different, or we play together, and have a lower chance of finding the items we want in a given play session.
1
I’ve been thinking a lot about set design and the rationale behind it recently, and since there are so many set changes coming in 2.2, I figured now is as good a time as any to share. I’m sure someone has suggested this before, but I’ve not seen it suggested with a large explanation, so I figured I’d put it out there.
Currently most 6-piece sets only have 6 pieces, meaning your options are to wear all 6 pieces of gear, or swap in RORG and wear 5. This, to me, limits gearing options quite a bit, and in many cases makes RORG feel mandatory, as some legendary affix on an overlapping piece far outweighs the cost of a ring slot (cindercoat/Prides fall for live M6 builds). This type of issue may only get worse as more armor with legendary affixes are added to the game.
Suggestion:
I like the idea of keeping sets at the 2/4/6 bonuses, because then they can be powerful, as you have to take up 6 slots in order to get 3 legendary bonuses. The opportunity cost makes sense. What I don’t like, is that sets have so few pieces that gearing starts to feel very pigeon-holed. You have one set slot that you can choose to not use, and that’s at the cost of a ring slot. I don’t mind having to make choices (in fact I encourage designs to be that way), but I feel the current set up is just too restrictive.
The suggestion I have is to normalize the slots that sets come on, and then make each set take the same 8 pieces(gloves, shoulders, helm, torso, belt, pants, boots, bracers). I like this 8-slot set-up because each set becomes an “armor set”, making it thematic. . The goal of this is two-fold:
The idea here is that by having all sets use all the same slots, we know that the best a player can do for combining sets is to get the 4-piece bonus of two sets (or the 2-piece bonus of 3, if they so choose). So we know that the 6-piece bonuses will be mutually exclusive. We also know that if they choose to use the 4-piece bonus of 2 sets, they have to either use all 8 armor slots, or use 6 of them, and then use the RORG. This allows a lot of flexibility, but still offers the developers ways some knowns for balance purposes.
When the goal is to only use one set, the player has a choice of which set slots to fill, and which ones to put legendaries in, as well as the choice to give up a ring slot for an additional legendary in an armor slot. My hope here, is that as new powerful rings are added, RORG won’t feel so mandatory for all set builds, but offers the flexibility in case a player wants it.
As new legendaries are added to the game, the hope is that a group of legendaries should be able to compete with sets, so that players have options. Set’s could be the quickest path to power, and then as a player collects some of the rarer legendaries, they will have the option to forgo a set and build around a group of legendaries. This, in my opinion, would make the game fun for both casuals and hardcore gamers alike.
An Example
For this example, I’m going to use the current PTR version of the IK set bonuses:
(2) Set Bonus: Call of the Ancients lasts forever
(4) Set Bonus: Call of the Ancients' melee attacks deal 600% weapon damage in a 15 yard radius
(6) Set Bonus: The duration of your Wrath of the Berserker is increased by 0.25 seconds each time an Ancient deals damage
The first thing that would need to be done for my suggestion, is to change the pieces around, so that it matches the 8-piece configuration I talked about earlier. The IK boulder breaker (the weapon), can be converted to a regular non-set legendary (see BK set and BK ring for precedence).
There are currently 2 legendaries is the updated set slots that synergize with an IK build: taskers and the all-rune WOTB pants. In this model, a player will likely choose to wear both in conjunction with the set. To create more choice, more legendaries could be created that create competition. Let’s say that the following legendaries are created:
Now, there is a lot of choice to be made. There are plenty of standard legendaries in the bracer slot that are helpful (reapers wraps, strongarms, Pathan defenders), there are barb-only belts and witching hour, there are the WOTB pants, taskers, etc. There’s always the option to use RORG and use 3 of these, sacrificing a ring slot for it.
At the same time, a build becomes possible without using the full set. A player could choose to use only the 2-piece bonus of IK (belt/shoulders), and then use taskers, the new helm, new torso, new boots, reapers wraps, WOTB pants, to create a build for which most of the damage comes from the barbarian, and the ancients are mostly there for the damage buff to HOTA, with some bonus passive damage.
There are a bunch of choices to be made here, allowing for a lot of interesting combinations. While I’m sure a “best build” for end-game would emerge from this set-up (because math always points to a best build), at least players would have options that look to be T6 efficient at the very least.
1
sidenote: I like how they added 2 new pairs of gloves without legendary powers.
Thanks for the info bagstone.
1
You basically just have to rift fish for the right guardian. Any that spawn adds are pretty good, as you can use them to EP explode for large chunks of the guardians health. The other thing is pylons. Getting a Power pylon to increase damage AND getting a RG that spawns adds for power pylon EP, is basically the strat after a certain point.
1
There are few things they can do to allow more diversity:
1) Decrease sets to 4 or 5 pieces max
2) Move to RORG bonus to paragon and have it cost 100 or more points.
3) Make all sets have n+1 pieces (much like Firebirds)
4) move legendaries with synergy to non-set pieces.
Any of those, or all of those could help with the issue. The problem is that if sets are the way to power (like they are currently are) then RORG is mandatory in circumstances (like all WD sets) where the legendaries that have good synergy with the set overlap with one of the pieces.
It does suck though, that even if you only use one set, it's often still pretty required to use RORG, as not using results in a HUGE efficiency loss.
1
I think the idea is pretty solid, as it at least has a use for a particular type of farming.