Diablo 3 - Reaper of Souls

Still over two weeks out, Mudcrush was surprised when I logged in just to look around. From what I read on the forums they are really taking the ban hammer to botters and cheats so kudos to them for that.

Next season seems boring too, with barely any new item powers or actual content. Feels like the patch with the least additions so far - how hard can it be to throw in some fun legendaries for each class? After wrapping up S5 I went and played some PoE the last few weeks. Might actually keep playing that league until end of May instead of going for S6.

That's a way to stretch things out, yes. However, with their set power-level leapfrogging upwards every patch your are usually locked into only one or a few sets per class if you want to work on the season journey. I had to do the 6 sets to grift55 conquest last season so I'm fairly up to date on sets for the classes I like.

New features, art assets, maps etc might not be possible 'for free' (counterpoint: fucking charge money, but for the love of god add stuff to the game). But adding a few legendary effects for each class should be an hour of work, or at most half a day. Can't tell me with a straight face they cannot manage that once every 3 months if they wanted to. I mean, they don't need to make items that need to be balanced finely enough to create the new min-max meta for gr90-110. Just make stuff that takes some builds or item combinations from 'not worth touching' to 'might be good for efficient 50-80 grifts or T10 speed runs'

Even with this smaller patch they ARE introducing new legendary effects. Beyond balancing issues, we're going to start running into the problem of loot pool creep too. They've largely been taking existing pointless legendaries and adding cool shit to them, but at this point they've hit the majority of those and are going to have to just add more to the pool, which can already be super tough to get the right items out of. I'm ok with them polishing off existing items and tweaking from there mostly. I completed the season journey only using 2 classes (Wiz and Sader) and didn't even hit all the sets/playstyles those 2 classes have. I'm planning on Monk for this season which I actually have hardly played (despite being my favorite class) since most of the sets being reworked. Also have DH (again, barely played) and most of the WD sets that I could grind if I needed just multiple sets that I haven't messed with before.

We just lived through a season of Superwizard and his sidekicks. Basically the fault of one item that slipped through the balance testing. That will always happen. I didn't really mind that and had fun this season because a handful of new items especially for DH allowed a nice diversity of builds to reach a good level of grifts. I mostly played wizard and DH this season with a sprinkle of Barb for gr55.

The very high end was a fixed-build meta, but who really cares about that? And really, even if balance is near perfect the internet/streamers will decide what the 'perfect' group is and only accept that. If you want to compete for top100 you'll play whatever is best - it does not matter of the best is 1% better then the other classes or 40%.

I guess my point is I prefer more item diversity for the 99% over leaderboard balance for the 1% (and botters).

Amzin_sl said:

Even with this smaller patch they ARE introducing new legendary effects. Beyond balancing issues, we're going to start running into the problem of loot pool creep too. They've largely been taking existing pointless legendaries and adding cool shit to them, but at this point they've hit the majority of those and are going to have to just add more to the pool, which can already be super tough to get the right items out of. I'm ok with them polishing off existing items and tweaking from there mostly. I completed the season journey only using 2 classes (Wiz and Sader) and didn't even hit all the sets/playstyles those 2 classes have. I'm planning on Monk for this season which I actually have hardly played (despite being my favorite class) since most of the sets being reworked. Also have DH (again, barely played) and most of the WD sets that I could grind if I needed just multiple sets that I haven't messed with before.

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I admit I might have missed some new additions, do you have any updated test server notes? For me the most interesting changes are to some of the legendary gems and the stacking changes and I didnt see many new legendary effects. Most of that is mechanical in nature and doesn't create new playstyles. Also, unfortunately, plenty of changes can be summed up with 'doubled the damage bonus' - those are pointless power creep unless they carefully boost something that's actually underpowered to the same level as other gear (haven't seen Blizzard manage that often, mostly they go overboard).


Your other concern makes sense - and before Kanai's cube I would have taken the same stance. Now, with the cube and bloodshard inflation I think a bigger legendary pool would not be an issue. With gambling and potentially upgrading rares it is easy to target specific items (even weapons which is the weak point of Kadala). RNG will RNG but that is always a factor in D3, no matter what you do. And with reforging legendaries you only need the item once to keep trying for better stats/ancient (not ideal obviously - but it is possible). They could also shave the drop chance for new items off those you get a ton of. Here's a radom drop chance list from the web, not sure if it's actually true but bear with me:

Aether Walker 6,06%
Blackhand Key 12,12%
Chantodo's Will 12,12%
Fragment of Destiny 12,12%
Gesture of Orpheus 12,12%
Serpent's Sparker 6,06%
Slorak's Madness 12,12%
Starfire 12,12%
Unstable Scepter 12,12%
Wand of Woh 3,03%

There are still some that could simpy get a new effect. And once they have one, you can start halving those 12% drops and adding a new wand without diminishing the odds for getting the rarer ones. I'm sure similar patterns exist for other slots/classes.

To be fair, I didn't say there were MANY legendary changes, only that there were some I don't have the PTR notes in front of me but diablo fans or just somewhere on the official forums they probably exist. In some cases doubling damage bonus is pointless but in others it allows for builds that weren't competitive before to actually be used towards season challenges, or at least carry you farther. Either one I'm good with. That was part of the problem I had with the sets - it's not that the builds weren't fun, or varied, but the majority of them were not on a level playing field and so I couldn't use them the way I wanted to. In some cases boosting the damage is boring but exactly what is needed.

I forgot about the legendary gem changes. I think overall they're good changes, and hopefully we can see more than 4-5 gems used this season, but I haven't been keeping track of what people are doing on the PTR.

And you have a fine point about the drop rates. In that situation in particular, statistically, it would work perfectly, although I'm sure RNG would still RNG an annoying amount.

It's great that they're buffing so many different things and really stretching out the builds you can do for classes, but I don't really see a reason a particular set should be inherently capped below another aside from the massive scale of numbers in the game making balancing hard. It would be nice to be able to use the set I want to use and group with people using the sets they want to use, and I would rather Blizz focuses on that (personally) than adding even MORE builds to the game.

Amzin_sl said:

It's great that they're buffing so many different things and really stretching out the builds you can do for classes, but I don't really see a reason a particular set should be inherently capped below another aside from the massive scale of numbers in the game making balancing hard. It would be nice to be able to use the set I want to use and group with people using the sets they want to use, and I would rather Blizz focuses on that (personally) than adding even MORE builds to the game.

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Totally agree with that. They should take a look at their sets, their various power levels and aim to buff the weak ones to match the better sets. The last patch server comment on Firebird states just that, actually. For some reason so far they mostly missed the mark and went too far on the latest buff in a neverending cycle.

I'm inclined to think they do plan on having another expansion or major patch in a year or two and that's why they can go full power creep mode because it will simply reset with a higher level cap (and hopefully an extra affix on all gear). Until then it will be seasons of 3-4 week players and then the grinders who stick it out to see if they will end up on the top of the leaderboard when the ban waves go out.

If I had pushed a few more grift levels before I dropped off I probably would have been top 1000 despite not playing since February, how sad is that.

Malakriss_sl said:

I'm inclined to think they do plan on having another expansion or major patch in a year or two and that's why they can go full power creep mode because it will simply reset with a higher level cap.

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While that's true they will keep on trucking with the power creep so the reset is nothing but just another season start, with the season 3 months later toppling said reset and power creeping higher, and repeat. Tbh I would prefer they take lessons learned and make a D4. I love how smooth it usually runs compared to other ARPGs on the technical side, but you also have constant reminders to the shitty design decisions they dared to launch with in 2012 with the 'checkpoint reached' messages in adventure mode that were probably hardcoded for the story, the screen going dark for a moment when entering boss areas, outdoor maps generally being the same layout, etc.

Engine design and game development happens too slowly these days for a D4 to come out in the near future unless they've been hiding some super secret coders in the basement that haven't seen light in ages.

The majority of the power creep is coming from multipliers and set bonuses these days, the actual raw stats on items only changed with the addition of gem augmentation. A level jump and base stat rise by 200 on each item while reseting the set bonuses is what I expect, but yes they would fall into the same pattern of incrementally buffing across the board in quick order.

Wasn't the original plan for two expansions? Do we have another expansion on the way for another year or two from now?

Patch 2.4.1 Preview: Cosmetic Items - Diablo III

* New Transmogrification Items
* New Pets
* Extra Rewards for the Extra Diligent

Season is ended.

In other news, I reworked my farmer UE6 DH.

Stuff really explodes now, especially groups of monsters.

After investigating why, I found I have AE% of 151.

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a c i d.f l y_sl said:

Anyone played with the PTR? Any news on wizzies other than being able to get Archon mode through GR80+?

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Archon is dead unless Blizz changes the recently discovered on PTR. Another 3 months of throwing twisters at the wall. People pissed as fuck on the forums the last 2 days

First Look - Season 6 Journey - Diablo III

Here are the objectives that will reward set pieces for Season 6:

Chapter III: Reach Level 70
Chapter IV: Defeat Izual at level 70 on Torment II or higher
Chapter IV: Complete a Greater Rift Level 20 solo.

Isn't that the same as it was last season? Or close enough. Looks pretty easy thankfully