Sound good to me too.
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Grouping and multiplayer in general makes them more money. It will be always like that in D3~D[last].
PoE is a different game where its mechanics are bad for grouping.
It’s better for sure the disparity to be less so people that switch between groups and solo do not feel so punished. But if the disparity is really small more people might start playing solo almost all the time eventually, and it seems they don’t want that to happen. They want people to play in groups most of the time and in D4 they are going to monetize this hard with MTX.
Those who want to measure their solo performance (the SSF-ers) are of no interest to them atm and they are failing to give a proper explanation why this is the case indeed when many streamers endorse SSF and this promotes their game.
I get the financial reasoning from Blizzard. It just saddens me.
I am not going to buy their MTX cosmetics no matter how much they push other players in my face. At best they can earn a game copy purchase from me, plus subsequent DLCs. At worst, I dont by the game in the first place.
I wish companies would be more content with also getting those sales from some players, and not only trying to maximize MTX customers.
Seems like it would not be that difficult to satisfy everyone on this particular issue (something which can be incredibly difficult on other game design topics).
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Don’t forget to take into account popularity of builds. I haven’t seen a WD all season. There is no reason to make a WD unless that is your main class, you are stubborn, or you wanted to just for fun.
It is likely the least played class right now since nothing has changed for quite a while other than LoD gem.
Likely the GR efficiency, at least in some part, is due to the lower amount of people playing the class and only the die hard WD mains pushing…
I would suggest that WDs are not terribly popular in seasons or non-seasons.
If it is your main class that suggests that you know how to play them and your classes’s clears would not be brought down by casuals who lack knowledge/skill.
Popularity of classes is incredibly important to making a good model. The problem is if there are difficulties in their scaling where popularity causes dramatic differences for the same class at the same time between season and non-season, it might suggest that there could be scaling issues with comparison between classes within non-season.
In Blizzard’s defense, it could have been way to early to try to extrapolate seasonal data to a 5K player. However, if this is the case, would it be too early to make a good model for non-season? For this, the data might be better since gear may already be around and not need to be farmed. The problem is there non-season data does not match real data for ~5K paragon players.
10 GRs difference is equivalent to a 5X difference in monster health.
That is certainly a possibility.
Consider though even if the data points are fewer for both non season and season…the data points are spread over the spectrum of say 100-10,000 paragon where as the seasonal data was taken early in the season and the data points are likely 100-2000 paragon. In this case all data from season is scaled up where as the non season data is scaled from both sides of 5k and seeing how there isn’t 5k players that early in season, the scaling can’t be as accurate.
Since they balance on non season, I don’t think it really matters if their scaling model works perfectly for seasons and given that seasons are going to have varying buffs (and buffs that affect classes differently) the data is unreliable in the first place. It probably would have been a better idea to not even show the table for seasons since it is bringing up the discussion about the reliability of their model.
Edit: Also, I don’t believe they said they were making any of their balance decisions off of the specific table they provided. It was more for illustration. They said they continually monitor so most likely the decisions on nerfs/buffs will be made from a completely different data set.
I think you are absolutely correct. The non-season data should be more reliable than season.
The non-season data also has a similar issue. Take WDs. There are only 92 clears in the entire world that are at GR 130 or above in non-season. Therefore, it would seem to me that they had to be more reliant on upscaling that class’s data in comparison to some other classes. In contrast, there are 759 barbs who cleared GR 130 or above. Certainly, I would need to cross reference paragon levels but I think that you can see the point that I am getting at.
Remember that they are trying to model the “average” player. Lets use human height as an example. You can imagine that one surveys 100,000 in the male population versus 10,000. You should still get very similar results for the average human height.
That’s the case - sometime in the future however.
I guess with all the averages compared to mine, I’m below average.
Pretty fast with keeping the sader in check when you allowed wizard to go on as long as you did.
The weird thing is that the PTR did not have buffs to necromancers or DH. It sound like it was a timeline issue. I’m just surprised that they did not try to buff a set multiplier or item multiplier.
P.S. 5K paragon witch doctors are clearing 10 GRs lower in season than non-season according to their table in the game balance blog post.
Nothing weird - they are a skeleton crew now - what they plan at this very moment would happen around Blizzcon 2020.
For example, Matt shared he would want to see set LBs in D3. So, if something like this is to appear in the future, we should not expect it soon since it would take time to be developed.
one can only hope that they are listening and are thinking of a way to ban the cheaters.
how you guys came up with 5000 paragon for seasonal characters is mind blowing to me. most D3 streamers who play 8 or more hrs a day dont even achieve 5000 paragons in a season. thats their day jobs. are we catering to pro players or normal gamers here?
From Limelight dot com
Gamers spend an average of almost six hours each week playing. However, there is a significant difference between casual gamers and dedicated gamers. More than 20 percent of gamers play for less than one hour each week, while almost seven percent play more than 20 hours a week. Younger gamers spend more time playing each week than older ones. With the rapid growth of casual gaming, mobile phones have become the primary device people use for gaming. However, gaming consoles are still very popular with younger dedicated gamers.
With the growth of esports and interactive online gaming communities such as Twitch, watching people play video games is rising in popularity. Gamers are spending an average of one hour and 48 minutes each week watching others play. In fact, those under 35 are spending more time watching other gamers than they spend watching traditional sports such as football and basketball on television.
They did it so they could directly compare seasonal heroes to non-seasonal heroes with 5000 paragon, to see the effect that the seasonal theme has on GR push level ability. Regardless of which mode they use, they’re upscaling / downscaling it to a standard level.
Extrapolating a 5K paragon player a few weeks into season 19 seems a monumental task if the goal was accuracy. I think that if I were doing it and one class was projected to be 10 GRs weaker in seasons than non-seasons, I would have revised the scaling/transformation or simply realize that it was too premature to make a prediction.
This probably wasn’t the goal, or they’d drop that table in the garbage bin in favour a fresher more accurate one. Only Blizzard will know why they think looking at upscaled (paragonwise) random clears from the playerbase is a good indiciation of the strength of a build. Especially a few weeks into a new season/era.
D3 is mostly played casually and I’d wager less than 5% of the playerbase actually attempts to push thoroughly. As such those very 5% are the only relevant ones when determining build strength.
Balancing from the top end down is common practice among serious competitive games yet Blizzard are here trying to reinvent the wheel for whatever reason. D3 might not be a competitive game but the same principles should apply when attempting to balance. If you as a player know that putting in the time to learn your class might eventually result in a high clear then you will feel incentivized to try.
It’s not like people started playing Barbs and Crusaders because they suddenly became more fun to play mechanically. It’s because they got stronger, far stronger. Navigating towards the strongest build is common practice and WD does definitely not sit at the same table as these other 2 classes.
My non-seasonal Barb (Meteorblade) has had a Whirlwind build of some variety since I rolled it as my very first hero way back in May 2012. I played a WW/Rend Barb in Season 19 because finally, for the first time in years, I wasn’t forced to choose between a build / class I enjoy and a build / class I can push GRs on.
I tend to play what I find fun. A couple of seasons ago it was a SSS/Exploding Palm Monk, just because it was years since I’d played Monk. Clearly, that’s got nothing to do with pushing. Last season was a pure M6 DH, again because I’d never bothered with Marauder before.
Not all of us pick a class / build for the season based on what’s going to be strongest or the flavour of the month.
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That’s sweet and all but the resurgence of said classes is down to the power buffs and power buffs alone. This was the point I was making, not that nobody enjoys playing Barb/Crus outside of crazy buffs.
The resurgence of Barbs this season has a lot to do with the fact that they can push on the class they love, rather than playing their Barbs for fun, and pushing with something else. For a long time, on my non-seasonal heroes, I’d play the Whirlwind Barb for fun / speedfarming, and I’d do higher level gem-ups using my Shadow/Impale DH. Now that I can use my Barb for everything, I do.
I love my Barbs, but I think the new set in 2.6.8 sounds awful, because it’s self-defeating (it relies on a damage bonus that requires mobs to be feared, so they’re running away and can’t be hit, and a damage mitigation that starts off low, and drops off completely if you don’t hit anything for 4 seconds, e.g. if you’re chasing after a mob, and the damage bonus doesn’t work against Guardians) so whilst I might test it on the PTR, unless it undergoes some major changes, I can’t see me playing it on live. As for Wizard / Witch Doctor sets, well, I haven’t had one of those classes in years because they just don’t interest me. So, the power level of their new sets could be god-like and I wouldn’t play them.
I just realized table shows how much each class has been played not the seasonal effect on classes.