I thought it wasn’t before it came out.
Its basically re-doing Season 1-3 Trials from back in 2014 and 2015. The majority hated it. So the got rid of the trial system and introduced Greater Rifts.
I played PTR for 8-10 hours and saw this season if anyone plays it will last about a week.
No major rewards, no seasonal buff, and coming from S23-S25 fun buffs.
This makes this season so dull it’s unreal.
Anything past wave 150 noting happens. And BTW the conduit pylon doesn’t work. lol
It is great that they evolved an old game mode into a new activity.
We are approaching April Fools. Will some insane update notes show up?
“Due to feedback gathered on PTR 2.7.3 we have decided to include an exciting series updates in our next patch, we will troll out patch 2.8.0 with 52 updates on April 6th to celebrate Diablo 3’s upcoming 10 year anniversary. Here are the 2.8.0 patch notes.”
Closely examine these numbers to see the future of Sanctuary:
April 6: 4 + 6 = 10
April 2022: 4 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 2 = 10
2.8.0: 2 + 8 + 0 = 10
52: 5 x 2 = 10
This is 10 times more likely to happen if you forward this message to 10 friends.
Oh yeah… anything multiplied by zero is…
Been doing them Echoing Nightmares now for a couple of hours, already bored of them… this season needs something more spicy to go along with the “new” gamemode, I can’t see myself playing this season more than the first weekend in the current state, so dull.
Yup this is shaping up to be the most boring season we ever had tbh. Comming of season 24 and 25 with their giant powerboosts to a season with basicly nothing feels underwhelming at best. Yes the new feature is neat but is in no way enough to carry a season. Give us something extra like a 4th cubeslot or something. Just something that would make S26 worth playing.
I think they should be clear what their intentions are. If this is just a temporary thing for one season only then yes it’s obviously disappointing for a season theme, but if it’s to become part of the game from now on then fine, we dealt with the “Follower season” which wasn’t a season theme at all since it applied to NS because they made so many item and class set changes.
If this is just a season to test this out, then yeah you’re going to have the pros be excited about the GR changes to push but all the regulars and casuals might get over it quickly. Ethereals and Shards kept you around hunting for those items, this is just augmenting quicker. I don’t think they should make them rarer to have that illusion either, because Ethereals and shards were worth the wait, 500 main stat isn’t.
I mean at this point in the games life it might just be we have to temper our expectations here on mind blowingly amazing theme power. Then again, why can’t these augmentations have a little more juice if just for the season?
What if you could augmenting the different types gave you more than just one stat?
Like Topaz = INT + CDR
Diamond = AR + RCR
Amethyst = VIT + LOH
Ruby = STR + Elite damage reduction
Emerald = DEX + Armor
Idk something like that… something extra.
We’re going from a season where the shards not only did all extra stats, but 2 powers. #Feelsbadman to just get 500 main stat.
I will share my two cents from a very casual point of view. When the PTR was announced with S26 theme, at first, I was very excited about it. What I had in mind for the Echoing Nightmares was some kind of “Endless Tower” as seen in some MMORPGs where you would be going forward those levels until you are indeed overwhelmed and defeated. I think more dynamic progress between tiers would have been more interesting instead of the arena-like wave style. I also expected to see ghosts of players as enemies or at least as bosses, I mean, assuming all stats are accurate and balanced, how cool would it be for you to fight a Valorsader? or a LoD Rat Necro? Builds that players use - this would give a great immersion to the lore created for this season. I don’t think a new “mob” would be realistic, but it would have been cool!
On sad news though, what we have for S26 in my opinion, after setting up the bar very high with two GREAT previous seasons, the current mechanic is simply not enough - and I don’t think we are asking for anything impossible here… and considering this will be the 10th anniversary… it was only natural that people would expect more…
With that being said, I did download the PTR but I did not play yet - I have been watching D3 streamers on and off and the main reason I decided to not play is to not get bored even before the real season starts… as sad as it sounds, just by watching them I am already burned out.
D3 Devs, I know most of your work is sometimes taken for granted, I hope you see this topic and the feedback shared above by myself and other D3 players as constructive criticism and not just blatant complaints.
All the best.
Because people forget that the updates to GR’s and it’s QoL were massive. Anytime they try to do a QoL to make the core of the game better (let’s be real, D3 NEEDS core game updates), there’s obviously going to be less balance changes and a “not so heavy coded” theme (or in the case of S23, no theme at all).
This isn’t to say that I don’t agree with the OP, I do actually, just wanted to point out that it took a lot for them to do what they did in this patch, despite many being disappointed with a much smaller theme concept.
Honestly, I’d rather them just allow legendary gems in gear slots. Do just the 3 in chest if you want players to have to make choices and call it a day.
I really liked the 4th cube slot, though the reality is that it was completely imbalanced between the classes. If you weren’t a wizard, necro or a sader, the 4th slot was considerably weaker for you. There would need to be some changes, such as make it a utility only 4th slot if they were to bring that back.
There’s still no reason they couldn’t have added a numbers sweep, which should be low in time and effort to implement (and why I suggested it).
The GR changes are cool for leaderboards I guess, but I don’t really care for them since I mostly stick to speeds and very rarely try pushing.
The bottleneck will become the gems necessary for augmenting. Broken Crown might become mandatory on follower to generate enough gems for augmenting… not to mention what’ll happen when you need to augment upgraded gear. Beware the PTR bags and their ability to mask the grind required.
I think it’ll turn out okay but maybe we’ll see a mid-season buff like double bounties or goblins? Plus the 10th anniversary of D3 is coming up and there might be something special that Blizz is keeping under their hat.
Do you even know how many fingers a human being has?
We all want that of course (I’d love to play UE again), but it’s a very small team left doing all of the work with very limited resources. It’s easy on the outside looking in (our end) to assume what they can and cannot do as well as what they are allowed to do.
Hey, I get that. My grievance is not with the devs, it’s management making the idiotic decision to underfund continuous development despite the clear and broad interest in D3. Why they’re not capitalizing on that more effectively is anyone’s guess.
There’s already a bunch of cosmetic mtx they could do to generate revenue. Portraits, banners, pets, transmogs, wings, etc. It’s all there if they want to add it. And I don’t get why they’re not doing more.
Devs are doing what they can, but I’m not giving the company a pass for underfunding their team. They clearly could do more if they wanted to.
if no major changes happen, let’s just hope this is a short season lol.
The irony of you using the concept of “capitalism” in that sentence is brilliant whether intended or not.
Diablo 3’s main way of making money for the last few years has been by banning cheats who then buy new licences because they are addicting to those sweet, sweet late-season rank 1s. Haven’t you noticed there’s a correlation between Diablo 3 ban waves and Diablo 3 being on sale? But sadly it’s a reducing field as some cheats apparently decide to move on to new pastures.
From my experience in the software industry, no company enjoys supporting their 10 year old software. People want to move on to new designs, new tech. I remember supporting a 12 year old pile of spaghetti code. Paid bloody well but there was a reason for that. Then there was the job interview maintaining FORTRAN on old VAX machines in Australia that I ultimately turned down. So there might be that as well.
I had a theory for a while that they put their new developers on D3 to cut their teeth but I’m not sure that’s the case any more. It just feels like they have a small, conservative team on board.
As for transmogs and cosmetics, the way D3 is designed means they have to model them for 7 classes and male and female so it’s a lot of effort. That message came from Blizzard on here a few years ago. That’s not even development work, they have to pull a designer away from something else for that stuff.
If you want mtx, wait for D:I and D4. I’m sure they’ll be there. TBH I’d sooner they put their dev resources into new properties like D:I and D4. I am happy with the current amount of development work on D3. Maybe when they finally put it out to pasture, they’ll open up modding and then we can get community-based transmogs and/or balance patches that we’ve all wanted for a long time.
I just had that same thought. Kudos.
wow new update make necro completely nerfed don’t by the neco pack
so this is a early April fools joke right?
I’m holding one up now, can you see which one?
im dead