A few things…
I’m giving this advice as both a player who cares about the future of this game, and as someone with a relevant degree in the subject of game design. (B.S. DEGD, grad 2009 ITTtech, LV NV.)
Please, do not leave online non-ladder players out in the cold. I can understand the reason singleplayer isn’t getting it just yet, you cant fix bugs in singleplayer content with live patches like you can multiplayer, but that limitation does not exist for nonladder online multiplayer. A lot of us do not want to compete in the ladder, we just want to enjoy playing the game, and a place to level up besides baal is something we’ve been wanting for a VERY long time. It would be horrible for nonladder players if the ladder players went from 1 to 99 with the new terror zones, and then became nonladder players and we all were stuck at 95 or 96 because we just can’t bear to do any more Baal runs. You got all our hopes up with this one, don’t rip it away from us now.
From the perspective of a player, having to wait an entire other ladder season for this change to be available to the more casual players on nonladder will likely be perceived as a slight, and cause more players to stop playing. Even if it’s temporarily, players quitting is a very bad thing as there is no guarantee they’ll come back when the content actually releases to them because they wouldnt necessarily even be paying attention to this game anymore. 4 months is more than enough time for someone to find a new game to be interested in.
The other thing, that you didn’t say explicitly but implied… DO NOT nerf currently working classes. Hammerdin, Javazon, Blizzsorc, they are able to work fairly well at the top levels of gear, and work minimally at lower gear levels. If you nerf them they will only be viable with best in slot gear like a few other builds are. This would be an extremely bad idea, and would take the game away from proper balance, not towards it. What you need to do is slightly improve (SLIGHTLY, not heavy buffs) survivability or damage in a few of the other classes and builds that are struggling. You could do this for multiple classes at once by improving the stats and abilities of some of the lower tier items used by those classes, or improve their class set items to mostly just affect their class, or simply give slight buffs to a few abilities in struggling builds to make them a little more viable etc.
If you nerf Hammerdins (and presumably the other classes that say the content is too easy) you are nerfing them for the whole game, not just the new terror zone content. Youve gotta understand that. They are working as intended right now, and clear about as well as they should given the gear level they’re equipped with. What this should tell you is twofold.
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Terror zones aren’t quite as dangerous as you intended them to be. Improve the challenge a little bit perhaps.
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Classes that were having a difficult time handling terror zones are not up to par for the rest of the game either. They’ve been limping along with best in slot gear, but that won’t fly if you improve the terror zones to be harder than the current endgame content.
I do hope you take these concerns of mine into account, as they are given in the best faith they possibly can be. As mentioned I really care a lot about this game and want to see it continue to be fun and popular for people going forward. Thanks Blizzard, and we’ll see you in Hell.
Edit: I have been reminded that there should be something said about your informal partnership with Mr. Llama. Mr. Llama has neither the experience, nor training, to make good suggestions for this game and has continually made suggestions that would be a detriment to the game’s future whether its relating to build diversity, fun, or balance. I regularly see comments outside of Llama’s streams saying such, and commenting that he is out of touch with the needs of the players. Please do not take him to be a representative of the playerbase. He is not a good choice for that. You have an entire forum of players to represent themselves, bring back customer care people to the forums.