I suppose i should start logging in again and follow the Diablo things all over again.
In the end, desptite whatever anyone of us thinks of D3 (both positive and negative), we're all huge Diablo nerds in here. We want it to be good, we want to waste hours on it, we just want it.
I'm really happy about Magic Find entering the picture (i heard about it from MMO-C), hopefully the community will come back alive.
I know you're all there. I'm just waiting for you all.
Honestly i hope they don't go the MMO route. They have WoW already, comparisons would be just automatic and community would just split into the ones who like it and the ones who hate it. One thing i would absolutely not like is to have a world/maps full of random people and slow-ish MMO combat; Diablo is absolutely not about that.
Anyway, some MMO stuff may be pretty interesting:
- instead of small zones/maps, have a huge persistent world with bigger zones and no loading screens (waypoints still good)
- more character customization: both cosemtic (model) and though secondary skills like professions
- tied to above, a more robust crafting system
- while zones should be istanced for solo/small groups, you can have a central hub (or more) where you can see/trade/chat with other players
- static dungeons to tackle in solo/small groups; they could add lots of them over time to have more content/rewards to hunt for
- a gear grind that makes more sense than the one we have in D3 (way too fast, sets defining everything and basically removing nearly all the item hunt)
- while i don't like it, that is the chance to make trading right
Basically a fully online ARPG with some MMO structure. Stuff like raids should be avoided like a plague.
Or, they could do what PoE did this league. Make a completely separate ladder for characters that have spent 100% of the time Solo, self found.
This pretty much. Make a toggle when creating a character for Solo, separate ladder, and if you decide to migrate it to standard play you get removed from solo ladders.
No more balance issues.
For Rimeheart to proc, you need to hit frozen enemies - which is not a big problem with Wizard due to Frost Nova/Halo of Arlyse or other skills. I can see a setup using Ice Blades for more chance to freeze people, maybe adding an Iceblik gem to make the blades chill everyone automatically.
However, there are some fundamental flaws on this (and it's not Iceblink though it's a big hit on damage).
First of all DMO doesn't buff all character damage but only some specific skill damage. So while with an Ice Blades setup you could potentially deal quite some damage, Rimeheart damage isn't actually buffed. Basically, it's not another Manald Heal until you use Tal Rasha (the set buffs all damage including Manald Heal, that's the reason why TR/Archon/MH was strong in S9 and why it is in S10 with Hydras).
Second, Rimeheart procs on freezed targets - which is bad, because of diminishing returns on CC which hits the uptime of freeze pretty hard. While you can theoretically spam freeze around you, the actual time the targets are freezed is much lower, thus hitting hard the Rimeheart proc. MH is so strong because it procs from a passive and doesn't matter of the stun connects or not, the damage will still be triggered ignoring the CC diminishing return.
TL;DR: DMO with Rimeheart may work, but the performance won't be good, mostly because Rimeheart is a bad proc mechanic compared to a similar item (Manald Heal)
Primals are just a carrot on a stick for players who don't care about ladders and wanted a long term objective. Usually those kind of players don't care much about character power/stats but more about "completion".
Primals are not needed for competing in ladders, and if you have a badly rolled one it's a shard like any other item.
Really, they are 100% optional. Expecting to have a full Primal well-rolled character is completely bogus (until you dedicate lots of hours on that char).
You did endless Baal- and Diabloruns in Diablo 2. This was your highly praised endgame ... Now you do speeds and in the end you try to push as far as your grinding allows you. The same in Diablo 2: the more time you invested, the better was your result ... there is no difference.
The major difference is that in D2 progression wasn't tied to an infinite scaling difficult content. And it make the whole thing completely different.
As you said, in D2 you had boss/farm runs, over and over and over. In D3 you have GRs runs, over and over and over. Both grinds and farms. But in D2, no matter the build/character you had, you could do it and you could find gear to support your own build and make your character stronger.
In D3, gear is thrown at you and everyone reaches the same plateau very fast. Then if you have the right class/build you can just progress further than anybody else because the only progression left is Paragon (LOL) and Legendary gems. The wrong/less optimal build will make you go only so far then you're locked into lower GRs with nothing to hunt for but +5 mainstat after some playtime.
The grind is not the issue. The way the grind is done is the issue.
Side note: GRs per se are not bad. The fact everyone needs to push as high as possible to progress with their char (due to Paragon and Gems) makes everyone focus only on the strongest builds because why bothering with something that cannot let you be as powerful as other people.
D3 structure is flawed at the core. WHile ladders are interesting only for a few people, there's zero incentive to play the char/build you like because you'll just be less powerful. Fight mechanics can be difficult without infinite scaling and character progression could be not tied to GRs,
But again, expecting something good now from D3 is kinda hard honestly.
So basically the system and random Korean/Asian P2W crappy mmo has with the whole +1/+2/etc?
LOL. Next suggestion would be for them to sell special reagents that negates the chance of breaking an item for real money.
No thanks.
I can see how popular a system like this would be with people having farmed so much for their well-rolled piece of gear just to see it destroyed by RNG.
This thing is as bad as Primals v1.
Getting to the point: the whole discussion Primals v1 VS Primals v2 is completely bogus. The relative power provided by v1 is around 2-3 GRs on a paragon 2k character - so extremely low also given the rarity of the item.
Primals v2 have on the other side next to zero impact and are pointless to hunt for the most part until you really want to "finish" your character.
The whole reason is that seasons are a game based on (freakin) ladders. Even the smallest power increase is something most players focus on and what drives the casual masses to hunt for. Anyway the reality is that only a few people will actually get some of the given the rarity.
v1 didn't have GRs requirement so ladders could be easily fucked up by some sheer luck and while Ladders imho have next to zero meaning, still it's not something anyone wants. v2 Primals just negate this possibility since a good rolled Ancient is really near in terms of power with a Primal.
The whole Primal thing was doomed before even coming to light since it's just "meh" design. The game needs different gameplay additions - i hope that with Challenge Rifts also standard ladders will just be removed since they're actually not an indicator for anything so the attention will be less focused on the fantomatic "meta" which is created by players and gives the false impression that if you don't play that exact build you're doing it wrong.
Now, what was said before is true, increasing your attack speed will increase your procs, however, there are certain limitations. CC immunity being one of them. If a mob has become stun immune, you cannot proc Paralysis on it, and thus, no Heal damage. This however isn't true of Juggs, only because of a coding error, I assume. Because Juggs are "immune" but still affected by damage multipliers like Bane of the Trapped, I can only assume that they simply aren't affected by the actual CC effect, not that it can't be proc'd on them. A good example would be Strong Arm Bracers, as they'll take an additive 30% damage, but not get bumped.
This is wrong and for the most part you're making it overcomplicated.
MH does 14000% weapon damage as lightning when Paralysis passive procs.
How Paralysis works: it's a flat 15% chance of stunning an enemy when dealing Lighting damage. MH doesn't proc on the stun, it procs on Paralysis proc. CC reduction, skill coefficionts, anything else that it's not this doesn't count shit. it procs on CC immune targets aswell on Juggernaut elites. otherwise it would be pretty useless as an item. MH + Paralysis = 15% chance on lighting damage to deal 14000% weapon damage. End. Of. Story. You use skills like AT and increase AS because it's a flat increase on the number of attacks, thus a number of procs increase. There's nothing else behind it.
There are some exceptions: Area damage doesn't work on MH; BotP bonus doesn't work completely (the elite damage part) but things like Furnace work as expected.
Third: Archon + TR build isn't the choice because of some strange shenanigans regarding MH. It's the choice because TR has hands down the biggest damage multipliers of all Wizard sets and Archon is OP as hell both for damage and survivability.
Hope this clarifies some things. Don't overthink MH, it's very simple in its functionality.
EDIT: Juggernaut elites are immune to trapped and have an hardcoded 30% increased damage taken to compensate. MH proc because it's not tied to the stun at all. It's not a bug.
But you already can - that carrot is already there Blizzard isn't giving you anything new, they are just giving the very same carrot a fancy name and dangle it in front of your face a bit slower, so there's a little higher chance that you'll eventually catch it.
Primal Ancients aren't "new, rare items" - they're nothing more than an increase to drop rate of perfectly rolled ancients with a cooler package.
Agree - but this way you have a definite "carrot" instead of a blurry one called "that perfectly rolled Ancient". That's why i like them - i konw they're nothing new and fortunately they are. Another layer of power creep would have just made people bot more for the new item tier.
EDIT: adding some context to my posts. I'm not one for pushing GRs and usually i am content with the season journey and a build/gear level that lets me farm comfortably around GR 70. I play mostly solo and extremely casually until it's the season start. So Primals to me add some layer of item hunt that while being extremely this as you correctly said, it's still something i can do instead of just leaving my chars there. It's literally hunting for red pixel borders because i find it more appealing than another orange beam on screen. I'ts a pesky preference but it works for me.
1
I suppose i should start logging in again and follow the Diablo things all over again.
In the end, desptite whatever anyone of us thinks of D3 (both positive and negative), we're all huge Diablo nerds in here. We want it to be good, we want to waste hours on it, we just want it.
I'm really happy about Magic Find entering the picture (i heard about it from MMO-C), hopefully the community will come back alive.
I know you're all there. I'm just waiting for you all.
4
I wondered too what it actually means.
Honestly i hope they don't go the MMO route. They have WoW already, comparisons would be just automatic and community would just split into the ones who like it and the ones who hate it. One thing i would absolutely not like is to have a world/maps full of random people and slow-ish MMO combat; Diablo is absolutely not about that.
Anyway, some MMO stuff may be pretty interesting:
- instead of small zones/maps, have a huge persistent world with bigger zones and no loading screens (waypoints still good)
- more character customization: both cosemtic (model) and though secondary skills like professions
- tied to above, a more robust crafting system
- while zones should be istanced for solo/small groups, you can have a central hub (or more) where you can see/trade/chat with other players
- static dungeons to tackle in solo/small groups; they could add lots of them over time to have more content/rewards to hunt for
- a gear grind that makes more sense than the one we have in D3 (way too fast, sets defining everything and basically removing nearly all the item hunt)
- while i don't like it, that is the chance to make trading right
Basically a fully online ARPG with some MMO structure. Stuff like raids should be avoided like a plague.
1
This pretty much. Make a toggle when creating a character for Solo, separate ladder, and if you decide to migrate it to standard play you get removed from solo ladders.
No more balance issues.
1
Kind of a tricky question.
For Rimeheart to proc, you need to hit frozen enemies - which is not a big problem with Wizard due to Frost Nova/Halo of Arlyse or other skills. I can see a setup using Ice Blades for more chance to freeze people, maybe adding an Iceblik gem to make the blades chill everyone automatically.
However, there are some fundamental flaws on this (and it's not Iceblink though it's a big hit on damage).
First of all DMO doesn't buff all character damage but only some specific skill damage. So while with an Ice Blades setup you could potentially deal quite some damage, Rimeheart damage isn't actually buffed. Basically, it's not another Manald Heal until you use Tal Rasha (the set buffs all damage including Manald Heal, that's the reason why TR/Archon/MH was strong in S9 and why it is in S10 with Hydras).
Second, Rimeheart procs on freezed targets - which is bad, because of diminishing returns on CC which hits the uptime of freeze pretty hard. While you can theoretically spam freeze around you, the actual time the targets are freezed is much lower, thus hitting hard the Rimeheart proc. MH is so strong because it procs from a passive and doesn't matter of the stun connects or not, the damage will still be triggered ignoring the CC diminishing return.
TL;DR: DMO with Rimeheart may work, but the performance won't be good, mostly because Rimeheart is a bad proc mechanic compared to a similar item (Manald Heal)
4
Then don't farm them. Solved.
Primals are just a carrot on a stick for players who don't care about ladders and wanted a long term objective. Usually those kind of players don't care much about character power/stats but more about "completion".
Primals are not needed for competing in ladders, and if you have a badly rolled one it's a shard like any other item.
Really, they are 100% optional. Expecting to have a full Primal well-rolled character is completely bogus (until you dedicate lots of hours on that char).
2
As you said, in D2 you had boss/farm runs, over and over and over. In D3 you have GRs runs, over and over and over. Both grinds and farms. But in D2, no matter the build/character you had, you could do it and you could find gear to support your own build and make your character stronger.
In D3, gear is thrown at you and everyone reaches the same plateau very fast. Then if you have the right class/build you can just progress further than anybody else because the only progression left is Paragon (LOL) and Legendary gems. The wrong/less optimal build will make you go only so far then you're locked into lower GRs with nothing to hunt for but +5 mainstat after some playtime.
The grind is not the issue. The way the grind is done is the issue.
Side note: GRs per se are not bad. The fact everyone needs to push as high as possible to progress with their char (due to Paragon and Gems) makes everyone focus only on the strongest builds because why bothering with something that cannot let you be as powerful as other people.
D3 structure is flawed at the core. WHile ladders are interesting only for a few people, there's zero incentive to play the char/build you like because you'll just be less powerful. Fight mechanics can be difficult without infinite scaling and character progression could be not tied to GRs,
But again, expecting something good now from D3 is kinda hard honestly.
1
LOL. Next suggestion would be for them to sell special reagents that negates the chance of breaking an item for real money.
No thanks.
I can see how popular a system like this would be with people having farmed so much for their well-rolled piece of gear just to see it destroyed by RNG.
This thing is as bad as Primals v1.
2
Getting to the point: the whole discussion Primals v1 VS Primals v2 is completely bogus. The relative power provided by v1 is around 2-3 GRs on a paragon 2k character - so extremely low also given the rarity of the item.
Primals v2 have on the other side next to zero impact and are pointless to hunt for the most part until you really want to "finish" your character.
The whole reason is that seasons are a game based on (freakin) ladders. Even the smallest power increase is something most players focus on and what drives the casual masses to hunt for. Anyway the reality is that only a few people will actually get some of the given the rarity.
v1 didn't have GRs requirement so ladders could be easily fucked up by some sheer luck and while Ladders imho have next to zero meaning, still it's not something anyone wants. v2 Primals just negate this possibility since a good rolled Ancient is really near in terms of power with a Primal.
The whole Primal thing was doomed before even coming to light since it's just "meh" design. The game needs different gameplay additions - i hope that with Challenge Rifts also standard ladders will just be removed since they're actually not an indicator for anything so the attention will be less focused on the fantomatic "meta" which is created by players and gives the false impression that if you don't play that exact build you're doing it wrong.
2
This is wrong and for the most part you're making it overcomplicated.
MH does 14000% weapon damage as lightning when Paralysis passive procs.
How Paralysis works: it's a flat 15% chance of stunning an enemy when dealing Lighting damage. MH doesn't proc on the stun, it procs on Paralysis proc. CC reduction, skill coefficionts, anything else that it's not this doesn't count shit. it procs on CC immune targets aswell on Juggernaut elites. otherwise it would be pretty useless as an item.
MH + Paralysis = 15% chance on lighting damage to deal 14000% weapon damage. End. Of. Story. You use skills like AT and increase AS because it's a flat increase on the number of attacks, thus a number of procs increase. There's nothing else behind it.
There are some exceptions: Area damage doesn't work on MH; BotP bonus doesn't work completely (the elite damage part) but things like Furnace work as expected.
Third: Archon + TR build isn't the choice because of some strange shenanigans regarding MH. It's the choice because TR has hands down the biggest damage multipliers of all Wizard sets and Archon is OP as hell both for damage and survivability.
Hope this clarifies some things. Don't overthink MH, it's very simple in its functionality.
EDIT: Juggernaut elites are immune to trapped and have an hardcoded 30% increased damage taken to compensate. MH proc because it's not tied to the stun at all. It's not a bug.
1
Agree - but this way you have a definite "carrot" instead of a blurry one called "that perfectly rolled Ancient". That's why i like them - i konw they're nothing new and fortunately they are. Another layer of power creep would have just made people bot more for the new item tier.
EDIT: adding some context to my posts. I'm not one for pushing GRs and usually i am content with the season journey and a build/gear level that lets me farm comfortably around GR 70. I play mostly solo and extremely casually until it's the season start. So Primals to me add some layer of item hunt that while being extremely this as you correctly said, it's still something i can do instead of just leaving my chars there. It's literally hunting for red pixel borders because i find it more appealing than another orange beam on screen. I'ts a pesky preference but it works for me.