DiabloFans

Quote from Autocthon

Pylons in rifts are overrated, they have a trivial effect on GRift progress standings. Even if all things were made completely non-RNG they'd still have trivial effect.

Excuse me? A conduit pylon can be used to clear 20%+ of a rift in a matter of seconds. For some classes, it's the only way they can kill the Rift Guardian.

It's also the number one complaint about Grifts. If nearly everybody agrees that they're a problem, how can you argue that they're not?

Quote from knolty

true end game will only become available after all content is released, all patches and expansions, so you don't have to rethink your entire game strategy every time a major change comes in and makes your build look like a shopping bag picked up by the wind.

It doesn't HAVE to be that way, though. WoW has "true end game" and it gets updated with every major patch and every expansion. There's no real reason that Diablo 3 couldn't have a "true end game" as well, as long as they continued to balance it.

Of course, they'd have to come up with something that isn't random, for once (like the boss rush idea I posted above :P)...

Quote from akajakob

Quote from Twoflower

Just make greater rift maps static. The main complaint seems to be about the RNG in greater rifts.



Oh, and if you want competitive, how about implementing good pvp?



But I gotta agree with Kripp. D3 is not a competitive game.

I really believe that static grift would be extremely boring to farm.

It would be incredibly boring to farm, I agree. But it's the only real way to have true competition. Randomness defeats the entire purpose of leaderboards.

Quote from ConundrumNSA

Quote from Catalept

Perceived patterns always indicate underlying structure. Perceived differences always indicate significant variables. Perceived changes always indicate a manipulating agent. Do not believe in so-called 'experts'. They are either deluded, or actively working to hide the Truth. Be vigilant! Never stop working to make the Truth known!

RNG is

I would say it in a slightly less conspiracy theory way, but I agree. I suspect there is very little RNG in D3s RNG. There is so much tweaking and weighting of certain drops.

Or has everyone just forgotten the "login drop". That legendary you ALWAYS got within 15 minutes of logging in assuming you were actually playing. Now the wannebe "experts" just derp about RNG, but there were multiple threads and multiple comments on it...then one day the :login drop" just went away.

Blizzard mucks with timers and droprates more than most people can possibly imagine. That's why sudden patterns pop up across many different players and just as quickly go away.

That's why I honestly think the "RNG is RNG" crowd is a special kind of stupid...all while trying to appear smart.

I kind of think I get where you're going with this, but I want to make sure: You know that the "login drop" was never real, right?

I get the impression that you already know this and that was kind of your point, but I wanted to make sure

It sounds like you have M6, but not the quiver and not, say, Tasker and Theo.

Personally, I started playing T6 the moment I got my M6. It wasn't super fast, but it was alright. I also took the opportunity to start leveling my legendary gems, at this point. Those gems will make your clear speed much faster.

If you haven't started leveling your legendary gems, I'd say to focus on Grifts until you get them to around level 25. By that time, T6 should be easy and quick. If you don't have sockets in your jewelry, then either get them or disregard my post.

Quote from akajakob

I believe that, with this simple, easy and very cheap system...

I have two problems with your idea:

1. You're assuming that it's simple, easy, and very cheap. You're almost certainly wrong. The matchmaking system, alone, would probably have to be all new. What happens if one player disconnects -- are they instantly removed from the competition? There are a variety of potential issues here.

2. Can't be matched with people who are offline. Odds are that you will never be matched with any of the "top players." Points don't really mean anything in the context of this idea, so the competition becomes direct: You're no longer competing against the playerbase as a whole, but with these 1-4 other people. I don't think such competition would be very popular. This is really a PvP idea for a game that doesn't have real PvP. Group vs Group is fine, but (Group vs Rift) vs (Group vs Rift) isn't what I consider to be competition.

I don't think the idea is terrible, but it could use some improvements. One that I'd suggest is this: Make a Grift mode where every level is pre-made and every player who gets to that level gets to experience the exact same mobs and layout. Bam, instant parity amongst all players and now people have actual, non-random competition.

Note: Rating (points) based systems are probably fine for PvP modes, such as rated battlegrounds and arenas in WoW. I wouldn't like a rating based system for Grifts, though, because it doesn't actually provide a direct, in-game comparison... it just shows that you beat a bunch of randoms.

Quote from FinalFencer

I would actually like to switch the topic at this point if we can. We now know that there are people that do feel there is no "end game." Let's say that someone that could potentially could influence the direction of D3 sees this. I'd want them to see some ideas on what direction they could take this to fix the problem. I have an idea or two, but I'm sure plenty of people could give better input than myself as they've probably played way longer than I have. ...

edit: Sorry for the triple post.

I like the idea of multiple tiers of gear, but I'd want a pretty solid difficulty revamp if that's the direction they're going to go. I'd also like for there to be more source-specific legendaries. Like how some legendaries are restricted to caches -- have other legendaries restricted to other modes, or to bosses, or to chests, etc.

I came up with a mode that I'd like to see in Diablo 3. I'm going to copy and paste my reddit post.




One of the most common complaints I see about the Greater Rift system is how random it is. It's supposed to be competitive and, yet, no rift is the same... so, I was thinking... what kind of activity is easily measured and still competitive? BOSS RUSH!!!

What Is It?

Boss rush mode is a fairly common mode in action games where the player faces off against (most) every boss in the game, one after another, to see how many of them they can beat and how fast they can do so.

How Would It Work In Diablo?

Picture a large, specially designed room. Probably somewhat circular, though with little nubs along the edge. Plenty of room to move around in and pick strategic positions. Upon entering this room, you could click an object (or button) to start the Boss Rush mode. After a short countdown, the first boss appears and you kill it. Upon death, the next boss spawns. And so on until you finally kill Malthael. At this point, the bosses would start cycling through again, more powerful than the last time.

Okay, But Can't We Spice It Up a Bit?

Absolutely! You remember those little nubs around the edge of the room that I mentioned earlier? Well, let's put orbs there that will allow players to spawn the bosses early. That way, those of us that can kill each of the first wave's bosses in seconds can just spawn all the bosses right away and clear the first wave, bringing down our overall time.

Also, there could be specially placed buff shrines (non-random) that will recharge after a certain amount of bosses are killed, allowing for more potential strategies.

Let's Go Over Some Specifics

How would we start this mode? Well, people are starting to get bored of Greater Rifts already, so we could either add another drop to the final Greater Rift Guardian (meaning, you get it when you either choose not to upgrade your rift key or when you fail the timer). Alternatively, the Keystone of Trials could be used as the key.

Difficulty? Simply set the difficulty based on the game's difficulty level. Torment 6 players automatically start with Torment 6 bosses. Naturally, the only really interesting leaderboard for this would be the Torment 6 leaderboard, but other difficulties would still be present for those that can't handle Torment 6. Boss difficulty would obviously increase with new set of bosses.

Rewards

There would be three obvious sets of rewards for this mode...

Leaderboards: Fastest wave clears, most waves cleared. This way you could either choose to go for speed or for longevity.


Loot: Players would obviously expect some kind of loot reward, so why not add some more legendaries to be dropped specifically from this game mode? Utility items like Ramalandi's Gift could also be included. Perhaps the player would be guaranteed one item that would add a specific affix to a piece of gear for a specific slot. Say, you get an item that adds an All Resist roll to a ring, or an item that adds Cooldown Reduction to your helm. There are any number of potentially appealing items that could be made specifically to drop in this game mode.


Achievements: 'Nuff said.

Wouldn't This Just Get Boring, Eventually?

Much like everything else in Diablo 3, yes, repeated use of this game mode is bound to get boring after so long. But now that we've got this system in place, what's to stop Blizzard from updating it on a regular basis?

Tired of Boss Rush mode? We'll add a new challenge! New bosses! Bosses from Diablo 2! Famous Nephelem of legend to test yourself against! There could be the Set Item challenge, where you fight bosses based upon the set items in the game. Finally, you get to fight Bul-Kathos, Natalya, Roland, and everyone else! Danger mode, where you have to actively avoid non-random (or random, though I'm trying to avoid that with this idea) environmental affects that limit your ability to navigate the room while fighting bosses. Really, there's no end to the new challenges they could come up with.

Tell Me What YOU Think

I think that this could be a great addition to the game... how about you? Comments, concerns, critiques? Go for it!

One last thing:

This just occurred to me, but Diablo 3 could really use something like the Brawler's Guild from WoW. For those that don't know, Brawler's Guild is an Arena where you fight progressively more difficult and unique bosses.

Quote from Zeriel

Quote from Dorakrab

Hows Gr100 for endgame? At least 50 at this point in the game (solo)

Greater Rits are more akin to scoreboards on an arcade game than leaderboards. They serve basically no purpose for improving your character, and are purely optional.

While challenge is an important part of endgame, I make the distinction that a proper endgame has to have interlocking systems of progression and challenge. If your "endgame" content offers the same drops as everywhere else, it's not much of an endgame. Likewise, an infinitely scaling statistical system is more of a curiosity and time-waster than a structured challenge.

Greater Rifts serve a direct purpose in improving your character -- Legendary Gems.

Quote from Zeriel

It's funny seeing people claim that "ARPGs don't have an endgame" and "That's just not what this game is about" when Diablo 3 DID have a very strictly defined endgame at one point. It was called Inferno, and it was exactly what you'd expect out of an endgame: brutally difficult for most people, with really good rewards if you could clear it efficiently. Then a bunch of people complained, and it got nerfed into the ground to the point where Blizzard felt comfortable removing it entirely, since it no longer served its original purpose (you know, actual challenge). Those same people now complain about how the game feels "empty" and "boring".

Moral of the story? Most people don't actually know what they want. I wish Blizzard would go back to doing their own thing without worrying about focus testing. It resulted in better games.

Inferno wasn't end-game. It was a higher difficulty level. That's all. People complained about it because it wasn't balanced in the slightest. I agree that it was a lot of fun, but it got old knowing that my Demon Hunter would never survive getting hit by a boss or elite. I played through the entire game in one-shot mode and it was fun until I had finally killed Diablo and now had to farm gear in one-shot mode.

End-game implies that you're doing something different now that you've reached the "end" of the game. Doing the exact same content on a higher difficulty is not end-game.

edit: delete

Drops are, without a doubt, better in Seasons than they have been in recent game memory.



The reason for this is pretty obvious: They adjusted the set item drop rates in 2.0.6 and also allowed Kadala to drop almost everything. Many of us put in hundreds (thousands?) of hours pre-2.0.6 and so we had to deal with extremely low drop rates for set pieces. Indeed, my non-seasonal DH is still looking for another piece or two of marauder just for an introductory M6 build. My seasonal DH, however, is down to two or three final items to complete my build (Tasker and Theo and a better bow or amulet).



So, it all depends on whether or not you were playing before 2.0.6. If you were, then yes, things are better now. If you weren't, then they're practically the same.

Quote from Pauzi

stunning mobs denies mobs from applying reflect dmg buff to themself, so barbs dont take any dmg either. dont think being able to avoid reflect dmg means you are op

I don't think anyone thinks that DHs are OP because of reflect damage. There are more obvious reasons for calling us OP.

Quote from Jinshin

Now. How does one up the ante in the Diablo universe at this point? We've defeated the Lords of Hell, leaving Hell powerless. We've saved Heaven. We've saved an invasion of the planet from Malthael. Really, what else IS there? Well, saving the universe, of course! Inarius is going to be hating everyone and everything at this point. But how will he threaten reality without the Worldstone? Is there something else he can use?

They've set it up so that the next antagonist is probably going to be a Nephalem (or a group of Nephalem). The Nephelem used to have god-like power and that power has started returning with the destruction of the Worldstone.

That said, the Prime Evil Diablo has been released as of the end of RoS, so there's also that.

Quote from silvach

aRPG do not have end-game. This is not mmorpg.

I agree with your post when it comes to Diablo 3. This game doesn't have an end-game that is even remotely different from the mid-game.

Your attitude, however, is something I have a problem with. I might be wrong, but I got the impression that you don't think this game needs an end-game (and, after seeing your edit, I was correct). Every game needs an end-game. Not having an end-game is the #1 problem I see in Diablo 3. Farming is extremely boring and the endless-farming style of this game is why only the "hardcore" remain outside of major patches.

Endless farming isn't fun. There needs to be an objective outside of "get better gear to do more of the same boring stuff."

Quote from rajt1

What irritates me is the reason behind the change, aka

• As a result, we're working to reduce the frequency at which players need to run between Kadala and the Blacksmith to salvage unwanted items

Come on, this was never a problem. If you gambled in New Tristam you literally turned around and the Blacksmith is there. There is probably another, true reason, but they could atleast lie better than this.

I havent had a chance to gamble enough to get a feel for the change. Lets see this weekend!

If you never believe the reasons Blizzard gives, then you're never going to accept any of the changes they make that aren't made for you. Knock that shit off.