Ethereal Drop Rates

With the PTR vendor I dont think they even need the insane drop rate buff anyhow.

I’d also split the PTR in 2 for these types of tests. First week set the drop rate at whatever they felt it should be out of the gate, then the second week tinker with it based on the data collected in the first week. At least behind the scenes there should be much more fine tuning of these things by making big adjustments early and smaller and smaller adjustments until the sweetspot is found.

D2 and D3 are completely different in their design. You can complete Hell naked in D2 whereas D3 has insane multipliers. D2 has the power in the skills themselves whereas D3 has put the power in the sets.

The problem with ethereals when it comes to drop rates for those that want a more D2 experience is that ethereals are non congruent with how itemization works in D3.

D3 because of the scaling gives you everything up front so you can quickly gear up and move up the tiers. D3 itemization is about getting the minimum necessary to play a specific build and then slowly upgrading.

Ethereals dont work that way. They give you the big power drop up front, but the randomness comes in getting the parts to match. That would be fine in another game, but in this one the giant multipliers in the sets and complementary items means you cant easily pivot from build to build. That just leads to frustration as you get these really powerful ethereals that you really cant use.

And frustration rarely makes people play the game longer.

How about instead of a Primal at 70 you get Ethereal??? That would be sweet.