Remember how before ROS all Blizzard was saying is how much more diverse the gametypes will become and the itemisation and how every legendary you find will open up new and unique builds? Now please go and check your favourite class...
Usually there are 2 or 3 top items per class (which is probably the 2-3 items that the 2-3 top build use) and around 90% of the entire player base is using them. Those who dont use them probably have not found them yet.
Can we finally admitt that BIS is a concept that will always be around in this kind of game and stop trying to find new ways to try to prevent it? Just accept it.
I don't think anyone ever denied this. Unless every item is identical, there will always be a best. As long as people want to compete or copy the "best", then you will see this in the game. There are more T6 viable builds than ever. You can do anything but the highest GRifts with the build you like.
What you are complaining about doesn't contradict what they said. It is instead, a matter of gamer behavior. Now, that doesn't mean the game couldn't use some more things to make gear interesting, but it does mean they did what they said.
While it is possible for one to explain how wildly diverse items are in Diablo 3, its easy to cite dozens of items that make your eyes grow wide with wonder over how they might promote certain abilities, or how much gear as improved when it comes to how interesting items can be, Overall I think they are missing the mark by a long assed mile....
"BiS" only applies to all characters and is only an absolute all the time if they only have one thing to do. In D3's case everyones job is "do damage".
Ideas of specialization, are sadly lacking. They the ideas, were little tiny seedlings when the game was released. and how .....years later........are tiny little budding blades of grass, when they should be a bloody forest. Bonus damage to demons appears on about 1 weapon. or is it 2 weapons?
% rates of proc effects like freeze or charm were listed in single fucking digits....
Healing spells are as scarce as can be. taunt abilities were and still are, in my opinion tragically lacking.
It took years for cooldown reduction to drip into the game.
these concepts were VILIFIED due to the fact that they were harvested from MMORPGs, and this lynching was so ingrained in everyones behavior and thought?
they lost sight of the bigger picture.
The mysticism and the god like power that the character were hopefully supposed to have. And much of that progress could have been harvested off of the backs of virtually every role playing game you can name.
So here we are years into the games release, a full fledge expansion well under way, and every character is slogging away looking for the same items.
just. like. vanilla.
Several runes are regarded as pure useless shit, and sit idle and unused overall.
just. like. vanilla.
Legendary items have been through SEVERAL teardowns and rebuilds. SEVERAL. and they are still in a state of limbo. still being worked on.
Hell just yesterday, I found out that we have to wait....several months for one of the two end game monk sets to be improved so that it was even desirable???
It is so hard to explain this without becoming frustrated.
It's a merry go round we have been on since 2012. Players enter the game and they split in two groups.
One group wishes and wants for more to think about as far as how to increase character power. As they grow upset the other group rises up to justify.....whatever is currently in place. they coin catch phrases, they cite data, they describe philosophy.
And when that side wins out, and it absolutely does for a long list of reasons that I don't have the strength to yap on about, the game sits idle and admires itself in a mirror.
are we really so divided that we can't agree that several skills should be the centrepiece of combat scenarios and instead are laughed at?
That hundreds of legendary items are laughed at, that overwhelmingly certain rune combinations are adopted at the complete abandonment of countless others?
Are we really so divided that next phase items come with 200 mainstat 500 average damage and a golden border and the reception of those changes range from glacier cold to the surface of mercury?
are we really that divided that some people wish that a game about items and characters had more to do with the intricacies of items and characters?
its sickening to me. it's sickening to know that it would only flesh out and strengthen the quality of the game, and its literally categorized as "troll nonsense. just mindless game bashing negativity jeered by onlookers and ignored by Hype-men with blue text...
When i run into another monk...another player, a fan of the game, who wants to go "loot trade" with me and we are looking for the exact same fucking set, because its best in slot.....and this happened yesterday..
its sickening in a way....just beyond comprehension that some players view this state of the game as oh so admirable.
I simply cannot describe it on paper in text with enough clarity.... and everyone knows Ill find another person doing the exact same thing next week.
if its not the Furnace you crave its the RRoG or the SMK. or Kridershot.......
So I can't claim with certainty that my position is the correct one. and that diversity is a thing that is to be HATED. but when I see how many ideas end up in the toilet and retain that knowledge and the knowledge and experiences in the past 20+ odd years of role playing game exposure....I see a missed opportunity. I HATE it.
I DO NOT see that Diablo 3 is in good shape. Not by a long shot, and not compared to what possibly could be in terms of item, character and ability development and design.
its disappointing to say the least
I dont want to go home and look for SWK like every other monk on earth....i don't want to grind away another 10 thousand monsters just so i can ditch my just completed Raiment because it fucking blows a goat. I don't want to wear a fucking RRoG.
but i have no goddamn fucking choice. and i'm not even wetting my toes on a greater rift higher than 19 or 20....but thats irrelevant. its irrelevant in the face of the argument that overall, everyone wears the same shit and uses the same skills.
every barbarian leaping around like a fucktard, every demon hunter dropping turrets, and every Monk spamming monkey clones...is not some mathematically disproven fallacy. its the state of the game.
I have no choice because diversity is as substantial as a paper bag. I wish i could be optimistic, but unfortunately Seven Sided Strike is laughed at like a clown and im wearing the same items as everyone else on earth. I just dont even understand it.
Gear in vanila was flat (some mix of main stat, vit, AR, crit, crit dmg and AS), the BiS legs were considered BiS because they could roll aditional props or/and props not seen in other items of the same category.
In RoS we have almost the same thing, but now set bonuses are more than stat sticks (sadly, only 6p bonus is that impactful). In my opinion this alone is enough, they affect gameplay (some less than others, Akkhan set is just stupid). Im happy with 2~3 viable builds. I think Furnace is the new Skorn and everyone is ok with it.
Then don't! Why must you look for the exact same items?
The very fact that there are any characters capable of roles like ZDPS WD shows that there is some variety.
Pet doc, smk doc, jade doc, zdps
Fist of Heavens sader, pony sader, condemn sader, Roland
WoL monk, zdps monk, etc
In fact, just click the "Builds" link in the top of this very site. If you are going to limit yourself to what theorycrafters decide is the best, then you can. If you want to play other builds, then you can still play all but the highest GRifts. If you really think it is possible to have more than 3 builds for every class be so close to even that it doesn't matter, then you have no idea how complex that task is.
Edit: None of this is to say that they shouldn't work on having more variety, but the game is definitely getting better at it. No matter how much variety they add, however, there will be 1-3 best builds and that is all you will see because that is the most common gamer mentality.
1) There will always be "BiS gear" and "cookie cutter builds" that dominate. When it comes to getting to top ranks on the leaderboards, you're fishing for every little percent, such as a 50 dex upgrade on a Marauder chest - and if a build is supposedly 5% better than another build, there is no way you're not playing that build. And that connects to the second point...
2) 99% of players, including many of those at the top of the rankings, just "copy/paste" what they see from others. There are extremely few clans/players that actually do theorycraft and create new builds and try pushing the limits.
Those two points, however, are extremely intertwined and therefore lead to statistics as the one seen above. Let's assume there's a perfect equilibrium of 3 different builds for one class. As the race comes to a point where everyone is playing at their limit, someone takes the definite lead - maybe because of insane gear, maybe because of very good gameplay, maybe because of an insanely lucky rift. Or all three of that combined. Everyone from rank 2 to 100 tried to beat him, but can't. Eventually you wonder if your build is just worse, so you switch to his/her build+gear. And eventually, you might beat him - using his own build. Now, in a perfect world all those perfectly balanced builds would alternate at the top, but that's not what happens. Once a certain build starts dominating the leaderboards it's extremely difficult to "swap", and it takes time even if a new, more superior build appears - because people need to acquire the new gear and get familiar with the new spec.
Now you might say "but it just doesn't happen because builds aren't balanced". This might be true, but then look at the situation for DHs since 2.1. From day one on PTR until 4 weeks (!) into the ladder almost everyone was exclusively playing Cold/Fire. Almost everyone in the top 100 was using that build and gear. Then wudijo hit #1 - using a spec that was nothing new; you can find tons of threads and guides that were proposing this as early as the new Meticulous Bolts was available - but no one believed in it. I remember asking many DHs about lightning and they all said "nah, go ColdFire or Fire, with Lightning you lose too much damage, it's crap". Actually, I suggest everyone to do a Google search with a timeframe before September 24 (date of Wudijo's guide) about Meticulous Bolts. The quotes are hilarious and show ignorance and arrogance of people, and the "fear" of trying something they don't know. Then fast forward to today: Lightning DHs are probably straight out 5-8 levels better than Cold or Fire DHs, given similar "perfection" of gear. Nothing changed - well, nothing but the fact that someone told you about a new build. It took some time for Lighting DH to overtake the leaderboards though - because as I've mentioned above, it takes time to acquire the new gear and get familiar to the new spec.
A similar situation can be seen in 3 player groups and 4 player groups. The only thing that remained unchanged since day one of 2.1 is the WD; but DHs switched from Cold to Fire to Lightning; wizards became obsolete as soon as the Lightning DH was discovered; monks were the #1 support class and are now considered useless; crusaders rose to the top. And there are still many many many many many groups that don't realize how a barbarian can push the limits of a 3p/4p group (especially 3 players). Oh, and don't even get me started on trials, where we are still, 3 months into the patch, are gaining new insights almost every week.
Even if you have perfect diversity (which we don't, just to make that clear!) people wouldn't even notice it, because the overwhelming majority of players just copy/pastes stuff. I'm also amused to see how people already want to have figured out what the definite 2.1.2 cookie cutter builds will be. When it took people weeks to figure out the Lightning DH, and months to figure out how powerful Crusaders and Barbarians can be, I think it's premature, ignorant, and arrogant to pretend that we already know it all. In fact, I think we know as much as Jon Snow ;-) There was a bluepost at some point admitting that there will always be cookie cutter builds and there will always be BiS gear, at least for the people on top. That being said, just because a thousand people is using a certain gear set doesn't make it "best" in slot, it's only "most popular" in slot.
Btw, I believe there is great diversity if you go 5-10 GR levels down. There are like 5-10 builds for T6 for many classes and a handful of builds for GR35. Not for every class, but things like the Carnevil build or Rolands, that don't work (or don't work well) on GR40+ are simply dismissed as "useless", but I think they are a lot of fun. It just doesn't work for your progress night on GR50+, but when you're just farming lower GRs for 1% gem upgrades or even T6, those are things you should try to avoid boredom.
TL;DR: Yes, there isn't good (any?) diversity. No, the link doesn't prove anything. It only proves that many people aren't willing to be creative.
Can we finally admitt that BIS is a concept that will always be around in this kind of game and stop trying to find new ways to try to prevent it? Just accept it.
Remember how before ROS all Blizzard was saying is how much more diverse the gametypes will become and the itemisation and how every legendary you find will open up new and unique builds? Now please go and check your favourite class...
Usually there are 2 or 3 top items per class (which is probably the 2-3 items that the 2-3 top build use) and around 90% of the entire player base is using them. Those who dont use them probably have not found them yet.
Can we finally admitt that BIS is a concept that will always be around in this kind of game and stop trying to find new ways to try to prevent it? Just accept it.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
What you are complaining about doesn't contradict what they said. It is instead, a matter of gamer behavior. Now, that doesn't mean the game couldn't use some more things to make gear interesting, but it does mean they did what they said.
"BiS" only applies to all characters and is only an absolute all the time if they only have one thing to do. In D3's case everyones job is "do damage".
Ideas of specialization, are sadly lacking. They the ideas, were little tiny seedlings when the game was released. and how .....years later........are tiny little budding blades of grass, when they should be a bloody forest. Bonus damage to demons appears on about 1 weapon. or is it 2 weapons?
% rates of proc effects like freeze or charm were listed in single fucking digits....
Healing spells are as scarce as can be. taunt abilities were and still are, in my opinion tragically lacking.
It took years for cooldown reduction to drip into the game.
these concepts were VILIFIED due to the fact that they were harvested from MMORPGs, and this lynching was so ingrained in everyones behavior and thought?
they lost sight of the bigger picture.
The mysticism and the god like power that the character were hopefully supposed to have. And much of that progress could have been harvested off of the backs of virtually every role playing game you can name.
So here we are years into the games release, a full fledge expansion well under way, and every character is slogging away looking for the same items.
just. like. vanilla.
Several runes are regarded as pure useless shit, and sit idle and unused overall.
just. like. vanilla.
Legendary items have been through SEVERAL teardowns and rebuilds. SEVERAL. and they are still in a state of limbo. still being worked on.
Hell just yesterday, I found out that we have to wait....several months for one of the two end game monk sets to be improved so that it was even desirable???
It is so hard to explain this without becoming frustrated.
It's a merry go round we have been on since 2012. Players enter the game and they split in two groups.
One group wishes and wants for more to think about as far as how to increase character power. As they grow upset the other group rises up to justify.....whatever is currently in place. they coin catch phrases, they cite data, they describe philosophy.
And when that side wins out, and it absolutely does for a long list of reasons that I don't have the strength to yap on about, the game sits idle and admires itself in a mirror.
are we really so divided that we can't agree that several skills should be the centrepiece of combat scenarios and instead are laughed at?
That hundreds of legendary items are laughed at, that overwhelmingly certain rune combinations are adopted at the complete abandonment of countless others?
Are we really so divided that next phase items come with 200 mainstat 500 average damage and a golden border and the reception of those changes range from glacier cold to the surface of mercury?
are we really that divided that some people wish that a game about items and characters had more to do with the intricacies of items and characters?
its sickening to me. it's sickening to know that it would only flesh out and strengthen the quality of the game, and its literally categorized as "troll nonsense. just mindless game bashing negativity jeered by onlookers and ignored by Hype-men with blue text...
When i run into another monk...another player, a fan of the game, who wants to go "loot trade" with me and we are looking for the exact same fucking set, because its best in slot.....and this happened yesterday..
its sickening in a way....just beyond comprehension that some players view this state of the game as oh so admirable.
I simply cannot describe it on paper in text with enough clarity.... and everyone knows Ill find another person doing the exact same thing next week.
if its not the Furnace you crave its the RRoG or the SMK. or Kridershot.......
So I can't claim with certainty that my position is the correct one. and that diversity is a thing that is to be HATED. but when I see how many ideas end up in the toilet and retain that knowledge and the knowledge and experiences in the past 20+ odd years of role playing game exposure....I see a missed opportunity. I HATE it.
I DO NOT see that Diablo 3 is in good shape. Not by a long shot, and not compared to what possibly could be in terms of item, character and ability development and design.
its disappointing to say the least
I dont want to go home and look for SWK like every other monk on earth....i don't want to grind away another 10 thousand monsters just so i can ditch my just completed Raiment because it fucking blows a goat. I don't want to wear a fucking RRoG.
but i have no goddamn fucking choice. and i'm not even wetting my toes on a greater rift higher than 19 or 20....but thats irrelevant. its irrelevant in the face of the argument that overall, everyone wears the same shit and uses the same skills.
every barbarian leaping around like a fucktard, every demon hunter dropping turrets, and every Monk spamming monkey clones...is not some mathematically disproven fallacy. its the state of the game.
I have no choice because diversity is as substantial as a paper bag. I wish i could be optimistic, but unfortunately Seven Sided Strike is laughed at like a clown and im wearing the same items as everyone else on earth. I just dont even understand it.
In RoS we have almost the same thing, but now set bonuses are more than stat sticks (sadly, only 6p bonus is that impactful). In my opinion this alone is enough, they affect gameplay (some less than others, Akkhan set is just stupid). Im happy with 2~3 viable builds. I think Furnace is the new Skorn and everyone is ok with it.
MeatHeadGaming - YouTube - Twitch - Facebook - Web
The very fact that there are any characters capable of roles like ZDPS WD shows that there is some variety.
Pet doc, smk doc, jade doc, zdps
Fist of Heavens sader, pony sader, condemn sader, Roland
WoL monk, zdps monk, etc
In fact, just click the "Builds" link in the top of this very site. If you are going to limit yourself to what theorycrafters decide is the best, then you can. If you want to play other builds, then you can still play all but the highest GRifts. If you really think it is possible to have more than 3 builds for every class be so close to even that it doesn't matter, then you have no idea how complex that task is.
Edit: None of this is to say that they shouldn't work on having more variety, but the game is definitely getting better at it. No matter how much variety they add, however, there will be 1-3 best builds and that is all you will see because that is the most common gamer mentality.
1) There will always be "BiS gear" and "cookie cutter builds" that dominate. When it comes to getting to top ranks on the leaderboards, you're fishing for every little percent, such as a 50 dex upgrade on a Marauder chest - and if a build is supposedly 5% better than another build, there is no way you're not playing that build. And that connects to the second point...
2) 99% of players, including many of those at the top of the rankings, just "copy/paste" what they see from others. There are extremely few clans/players that actually do theorycraft and create new builds and try pushing the limits.
Those two points, however, are extremely intertwined and therefore lead to statistics as the one seen above. Let's assume there's a perfect equilibrium of 3 different builds for one class. As the race comes to a point where everyone is playing at their limit, someone takes the definite lead - maybe because of insane gear, maybe because of very good gameplay, maybe because of an insanely lucky rift. Or all three of that combined. Everyone from rank 2 to 100 tried to beat him, but can't. Eventually you wonder if your build is just worse, so you switch to his/her build+gear. And eventually, you might beat him - using his own build. Now, in a perfect world all those perfectly balanced builds would alternate at the top, but that's not what happens. Once a certain build starts dominating the leaderboards it's extremely difficult to "swap", and it takes time even if a new, more superior build appears - because people need to acquire the new gear and get familiar with the new spec.
Now you might say "but it just doesn't happen because builds aren't balanced". This might be true, but then look at the situation for DHs since 2.1. From day one on PTR until 4 weeks (!) into the ladder almost everyone was exclusively playing Cold/Fire. Almost everyone in the top 100 was using that build and gear. Then wudijo hit #1 - using a spec that was nothing new; you can find tons of threads and guides that were proposing this as early as the new Meticulous Bolts was available - but no one believed in it. I remember asking many DHs about lightning and they all said "nah, go ColdFire or Fire, with Lightning you lose too much damage, it's crap". Actually, I suggest everyone to do a Google search with a timeframe before September 24 (date of Wudijo's guide) about Meticulous Bolts. The quotes are hilarious and show ignorance and arrogance of people, and the "fear" of trying something they don't know. Then fast forward to today: Lightning DHs are probably straight out 5-8 levels better than Cold or Fire DHs, given similar "perfection" of gear. Nothing changed - well, nothing but the fact that someone told you about a new build. It took some time for Lighting DH to overtake the leaderboards though - because as I've mentioned above, it takes time to acquire the new gear and get familiar to the new spec.
A similar situation can be seen in 3 player groups and 4 player groups. The only thing that remained unchanged since day one of 2.1 is the WD; but DHs switched from Cold to Fire to Lightning; wizards became obsolete as soon as the Lightning DH was discovered; monks were the #1 support class and are now considered useless; crusaders rose to the top. And there are still many many many many many groups that don't realize how a barbarian can push the limits of a 3p/4p group (especially 3 players). Oh, and don't even get me started on trials, where we are still, 3 months into the patch, are gaining new insights almost every week.
Even if you have perfect diversity (which we don't, just to make that clear!) people wouldn't even notice it, because the overwhelming majority of players just copy/pastes stuff. I'm also amused to see how people already want to have figured out what the definite 2.1.2 cookie cutter builds will be. When it took people weeks to figure out the Lightning DH, and months to figure out how powerful Crusaders and Barbarians can be, I think it's premature, ignorant, and arrogant to pretend that we already know it all. In fact, I think we know as much as Jon Snow ;-) There was a bluepost at some point admitting that there will always be cookie cutter builds and there will always be BiS gear, at least for the people on top. That being said, just because a thousand people is using a certain gear set doesn't make it "best" in slot, it's only "most popular" in slot.
Btw, I believe there is great diversity if you go 5-10 GR levels down. There are like 5-10 builds for T6 for many classes and a handful of builds for GR35. Not for every class, but things like the Carnevil build or Rolands, that don't work (or don't work well) on GR40+ are simply dismissed as "useless", but I think they are a lot of fun. It just doesn't work for your progress night on GR50+, but when you're just farming lower GRs for 1% gem upgrades or even T6, those are things you should try to avoid boredom.
TL;DR: Yes, there isn't good (any?) diversity. No, the link doesn't prove anything. It only proves that many people aren't willing to be creative.