DIABLO III PTR 2.7.1 | Has Ended

General Discussion
#188

Imagine thinking 30+ million sales is “free” and that we should expect nothing in product development and refinement.

The problem consistently remains that the money is there, it’s just that Blizzard hasn’t chosen to reinvest. Microtransactions are not required to run a game. People aren’t allergic to robust expansions that vastly expand their game of choice, either, should we truly be arguing that more money is required. Basically, the consumer can’t be blamed for the current state of things. Some might not be ungrateful so much as unreasonable in their demands, as well.

But my age old solution also remains. Push an offline mode patch with direct connections for multiplayer and just let the players turn the game into what they want if Blizzard is so unwilling to do it themselves.

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#189

Word around the sewing circle is that Blizzard: Albany is super busy getting D2R out the door. I am super surprised we didn’t get another 6 month long season. While I would have loved to see some patch notes reflecting balance issues the new set leaderboards have revealed (buffing old sets, etc) part of me is grateful that we are getting what we’re getting.

#190

Yea its f2p i mean… obviously u need 2 buy it. No microtransactions no so no extra income.
Wouldn’t be a bad idea 4 an offline mode i guess.

#191

The last patch was crazy, this one is downright devastating! Witch doctor the weakest class why? nerf necromancer and crusader - who will kill 4 players in the target? And why isn’t nerf wizard a mirror image? It surpasses everyone and lags in the group !!! Diablo 3 has power in games and group play if you push solo playing players will leave!

#192

Agreed, but Speed demon happens by it self just by doing pub games for key farming.
You don’t need a dedicated team or anything.

#193

Pub games are by definition not solo friendly.

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#194

Note the “pub” in there. Now note my “solo friendly”. Those of us that play solo usually don’t do pub games. :slight_smile:

#195

I read the Patch Notes hoping to be inspired, but it seems this season will be skipped altogether.

The Ethereal transmogs should be unlocked with the completion of the season journey, asking people to throw away so much time just to get a transmog equals telling them it’s better to do anything else but playing this season.

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#196

I mean, if that’s as far as you can imagine the ethereals changing a build, I guess. It won’t be anything game breaking most likely, but it’s almost guaranteed to be more impactful than a hellfire.

#197

So, basically no data from the separate leaderboards were used to balance sets. There’s officially no hope for D3.

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#198

If your goal is to get all the ethereals I highly doubt it will take that much time unless you’re very new to the game.

Assuming that’s your only goal for the sake of argument, you just have to gear each class to gr90 speed farming capability for max gear per hour. If you wanna get super try hard that can be done in a matter of hours. Then it’s just however long it takes to get the 3 ethereals per class.

Again, if that’s your only goal it seems 100% reasonable to accomplish over the course of a season. I’m sure there are people who will have it accomplished in the first couple days, which isn’t realistic for most players ofc.

So, if you don’t wanna do it, fine. That’s fair. I don’t think arguing that it will take too much time is a very strong position unless you have like a total of an hour a week to play. Cheers.

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#199

I’m pretty sure Blizzard/Devs already had this info. But it just makes it more transparent that they don’t care to actually try to balance the classes, sets, or game. At this point, I’m surprised they bothered to add the set leaderboards, and did this to themselves.

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#200

I will reiterate my earlier comments.

Personally, I am taking a wait and see approach. Seasonal themes in the past do not transfer to non-season and often are power buffs that obviously expire at seasons end. We do not know yet how strong in terms of power will ethereal items be. Was there a huge outcry to have the season 22 shadow clones made permanent? No, because it was a seasonal power buff, just like ethereals even though they take the temporary form of a weapon.

I favor making it so if you find all 3 for a specific class that the transmog does transfer to non-season for those. It seems steep to play 7 classes to get the transmogs to carryover.

#201

To be fair…There was a huge outcry to allow the S22 4th cube slot to be made permanent.

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#202

True. Blizzard in general does not move a seasonal theme into non-season. The closest was the introduction of the LoD gem after the LoN season.

#203

Hell, I play the game obsessively at times and this is still a huge turn-off for me.

I’ve played every single season. Sometimes I just go for achievements and done, sometimes I grind out for a while.

What I like is that I don’t feel the need to do an insane grind. The only thing I gain is paragon and leaderboard position, so sometimes I do that and sometimes I don’t. But I don’t miss out on any other rewards if I decide to just play for the first week, and then come back next season.

I like to get every seasonal achievement. That’s what I do. That’s a HUGE part of the way I enjoy the game. I’m one of exactly two players on the NA server who has done 100% achievement every season since season 3 (when they switched from the full achievement list to the shorter list of season-specific achievements). The ethereal ‘Feat of Strength’ isn’t technically an achievement, but it’s pretty close. And I’m going to want to have it.

But it’s just going to take way too long to grind even for me, someone who will be pretty motivated to want it. It might be literally the first seasonal “achievement” I skip out on, simply because the reward isn’t worth the effort.

Good job.

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#204

So let me get this straight. Ethereals have a random weapon only legendary power that is class specific and can not be stacked with anything already in the cube.

This means the power is already in the game. How many main builds do we have that do not have a legendary power on a weapon? Or for that matter one that you would not want switched to be worn since the loss of the current weapons is valuable.

My example is WWrend. The only power we have is ambos pride. If this power was put on an ethereal would it be better then the istvans set? 30% damage/30% attack speed/30%armor is a big chuck they need to account for.

I am curious as to what other builds out there may not even use an ethereal unless they are really powerful?

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#205

Almost all builds use non-set weapons with a legendary affix. Unfortunately for barbs, the ideal ww/rend setups are Istavan’s paired blades or Bul-Kathos weapons.

For all classes including barbs, you can look at the top solo GR clears and see that the vast majoritty use non-set weapons.

#206

Exactly. This is all speculation until PTR is out but I have strong doubts. They could very well shoot base damage shy high and add crazy stats on them to make it worth it though.

#207

It sounds like the plan is to have them be powerful. The extent is unknown. All top builds for 6 piece class set should benefit with the following exceptions noted in the table below that will depend on if the ethereal item is very powerful in comparison to ancients.

Class 6 Piece class set top build that uses a set weapon/non-orange affix weapon
Barbarian Wastes
Crusader Akkhan, AoV, and Invoker (pig sticker)
Demon Hunter Natalya
Monk Rainment
Necromancer Rathma, Trag Oul, Petilence
Witch Doctor
Wizard Vyr
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