Each time players managed to complete and easily beat the highest difficulty, Blizz would just create a ‘new torment’ with higher numbers and no other changes, followed shortly after by bloating damage on sets. Then they would wave that about saying it’s new content.
Oh! let’s not forget PRIMAL ANCIENTS! OMG maxed out numbers on gear to find that you already have, with no other changes! new content! WOW! Instead of giving us new gear with new abilities to create new builds, it was more of the exact same with bigger numbers.
People have been beating the highest difficulty in Diablo 3 for nearly 8 years, they just kept moving the goal posts thinking doing so was creating more content.
The you were finished when people did monster level 10. Nothing has changed since then besides larger numbers. I guess they are working on tossing in a new set for each class this year. But in terms of difficulty? Nothing changed.
Just because more powerful gear is added to the game, that does not change that the difficulty was increased.
The problem with D3 is the lack of intermediate gear for the intermediate difficulty levels, and that is due to the developers catering to the people that don’t want to refarm gear.
What changed? They released the same gear with just bigger numbers shortly after they increased the HP/Damage on mobs in a new torment, effectively allowing you to kill the mobs just as fast as you did before these ‘changes’.
If they would have added new abilities to the monsters at the higher difficulty, or new mobs, or new gear with new affixes, things would have changed. But bigger numbers that are immediately countered by allowing the players to get bigger numbers on their gear? What exactly changed?
I don’t mind farming gear, providing the new gear is different from what I already own in terms of build opportunities. What I do mind is them releasing ‘a new version’ of the gear where the new piece is the exact same piece with new numbers so you feel like your existing gear is obsolete and that you need to find the exact same piece with these bigger numbers.
No new builds are released, no new challenges from the mobs. Just bigger numbers. Whoopty. Why play D&D with a 20 sided dice when obviously a 100 sided dice would be more awesome? Bigger isn’t always better.
Being OP at Tier X is the same as being OP at Tier 1. There is no difference gameplay wise. That’s why farming for stats is viewed as useless by many.
Reaching paragon Y could be the goal of a 10 year old boy who never played such games, but a grown up person should understand the treadmill effect at some point.
If we compare paragon grinding to real life - it’s like a person who doesn’t stop eating when he receives the needed energy rather he continues to eat in order to get more fat. But eating for the sake of eating could be replaced by any type of activity - it’s neither logical nor productive - you don’t experience anything new. If there’s a competition for the fattest man on Earth then eating could be viewed necessary in that context to win the competition, but there is no paragon ladder in Diablo 3 and the people who hate OP idea don’t hate it because it will stop them from participating in such ladder (they hate it because they deny the possibility that being not fat could be fun).
But of course everyone is free to do whatever they like if they enjoy it.
Here’s a poster that gets it. There are people out there that consider moving goalposts (as you so accurately describe it) to be the same as increasing the difficulty. Extreme ignorance on display.
Another one that gets it. Really these things should be considered elementary by now. I get that people enjoy their fake progression but to actually sit there and pretend it’s more difficult to clear high rifts now than it was 18 seasons ago is disingenuous. And really once you understand that it isn’t then the realization that you didn’t actually progress yourself should automatically follow. These goalposts that are being moved between patches create this illusion of progress and I can’t find myself caring much for those higher numbers when they don’t actually mean sh1t.
I would if done well. I for one don’t really care about greater rift number. What matters to me more is season themes being interesting and changes the way you gear or play meaningfully.
Illusions are powerful weapons however. Look how many people have been and are still lured by them. Even when they are told word by word of what the illusion consists.
The change is that you had to farm new gear to farm the new torment levels effectively. The change is that you get more experience at higher torment levels/GRs. The change is the new gear also lets you farm the old difficulty level cap much faster.
Obviously new mobs and abilities would be great too. But D3 doesn’t have a monetization model that allows them to invest in those things. We’re lucky that they’re adding anything at all.
Just because you don’t like this kind of progression doesn’t make it cease to exist.
There is nothing special for reaching paragon 10k - no special reward is bound to it. You aren’t given THE X3000 THUNDERGUN that grants you something others can’t enjoy. Thus farming rewards (main stat) for the sake of rewards in D3 is an illusion in itself.
Except for that player that cleared T100 can clear T1 while T1 player can’t clear T100 no matter how time T1 player trying to “convince” himself come out of the illusion.
We are talking about illusion of progression here.
If I make you a game where you click one button to get more power (and that’s the whole game), you would progress in power (by clicking the button), but your gameplay won’t progress (since the clicking required stays the same). That’s why we call it an illusion.
