I know there are many who may argue against this idea but I’d like to see just three simple things added that I think would make GR runs more fluid.
Add XP pool in the beginning of a run
I’m sure there are many who want to maximize their XP earned per run and thus get a pool either at the beginning of a run or at the end. I believe having one at the beginning is a good balance of making such runs more smooth (don’t have to hunt for them at the beginning) and still provides the incentive of not dying during the run. If we die, well then we’ll just have to go hunt.
Remove shard cap
Personally, most of my down time between runs is dealing with shards. By removing the cap, I can just spend it all during the end of my running session. It also helps save time for those who are using shards on another character; the constant switching characters I’m sure also add unneeded burden to the servers.
Why I don’t see the shard cap necessary:
Non seasonal players can easily acquire tons of mats to get the latest gear after a patch. The gave has evolved so much that at T16 we can acquire a lot of death breaths with the new sages set as well as T16 bounty rewards.
Shards don’t carry over from season to season so removing the cap wouldn’t affect those players.
The bloodshard cap is there specifically to ensure that you can’t build up massive reserves of them so that when a patch is released that changes the effects of legendary items (that aren’t retroactive) you can’t just gamble tens or hundreds of thousands of them for the new items.
See reasoning above. Non seasonal players either already have tons of mats to use at new patch or can easily acquire it with T16 (new sage set and T16 bounty rewards). For season players, shard cap doesn’t carry over from season to season.
If they really want to deter non seasonal players from getting new items quickly after patch, there also needs to be a cap on materials.
But my question, in all seriousness is, “Why does that matter?”
Who does it hurt to allow players to instantly dump 100+k shards to get all of the newly-buffed items? I could understand that logic if there were a PvP element to the game, or even if Diablo 3 were a purely PvE MMO. But the game, as it is, does not have any competitive aspect outside of leaderboards.
Because I’m not interested in the leaderboard chase, I may be missing something. But this game is pretty long in the tooth, so to speak. Players won’t pick up the game and then drop out after a few months because they have capped everything out. There is a ton to explore and experience for brand new players still. Experienced players will continue to do the grind at their pace.
If it’s really that important to keep a cap on the shards, then raising that cap a bit would be a good enough solution.
Another option would be the ability to set a “class” for items from Kadala. When you speak to Kadala, you’d have the option to change which class you want loot to drop for. The drop rates stay the same, the game just treats your class as something different. This could be an option for all of the crafters and the cube, to ensure you get the item you want with the stats you want (specifically primary, skill, and element). Then you don’t have to swap between characters multiple times. But this would require a lot more coding.
This could also be applied to world drops, but I would want players to have to actively select the option each time they log in. Otherwise players may wonder why they aren’t getting the right drops.
The shard cap kind of parallels inventory space. Takes 3 or 4 GR’s to fill both inventory with legendaries and reach the shard cap. Salvage inventory, burn shards, get back into GR’s. I wouldn’t mind a larger shard cap, but it is nice to get that little bonus with a new GR personal record.
I can see the point to this. I’d prefer to see it removed because in the long run, it seems a better experience compared to the few times you’ll be rewarded with an increased shard cap. But I’m fine if they would consider increase that reward with a much higher shard cap.
Spending shards isn’t exactly a fun activity. I believe the shard cap also exists to limit the time spent spending them. It already feels like a chore at times. Imagine having to spend more than a few thousand in one sitting.
Fair enough with your arguments and do see logical points. However, what is the point in pushing solo personal best if blood shard cap is removed? Currently, it is THE ONLY REWARD. Why would I bother on dragging the mfo elites from entrance and kills at end on a solo 135+ push oppose of sitting in inner sanctuary, tell the zbarb to hurry up with pullings of 5 elites and kills in 1x single blow? Much more enjoyable and easy reward on higher XP, higher blood shard per hour in group runs?
Learn to play this game efficiently, even as solo only player. I have friends who solo 134 for 1% upgrade to 150 gems.
I think the shard cap should go also. It’s not like hoarding them would be OP at this point in the game. They mostly just get salvaged for veiled crystals which we can already hoard. It’s just busywork everyone has to do between runs to reinforce our addiction.
Personally, I’d rather do them all in one sitting. I guess the issue with me is that I often spend shards on another character and the constant changing character to spend the shards is even more tedious.
I’m not understanding your argument. Are you saying you like having the reward of increasing your cap with each solo clear? If that is the case, I don’t mind if they raised the cap instead of removing it.
I’m not understanding the rest of your post. Not sure how removal of the cap (letting you keep accumulating more blood shards as you play) has to do with more blood shards gained in grps and playing efficiently.
I would like to play GRs more efficiently and that’s why I rather have the cap removed so I can spend the shards in one sitting.
@ 1700 shard cap, you can gamble decently well. That’s more than 2x inventory of armor. 120 GR is pretty low PB these days. Set pieces are pretty easy to get. Rare pieces from shards pretty much are class specific off hands and you can gamble those on ANY toon. LoN/LoD share main stat, or when your paragon is decent enough main stat isnt what you looking for too.
Majority of gg gears don’t really come from blood shard. Its from upgrading DB or reforging. En massing bounty mats / DB will get you better gear than, lets say 1 million blood shards gambled on a particular item.
No removing blood shard cap does not improve the GR efficiency. Rather is knowing what build or - knowing better players/personal that lets you leech a particular tier w/o swapping toon to gamble for start up gears to give you that “boost”.
Thing is no one is interested in carrying a player that sucks in skill or personality. Hence the get good comment.
I’m going to have to disagree with this. In solo runs, changing characters adds time and even in groups, there has been stoppage because someone else had to stop for shard cap or had to change characters to gamble.
Not sure where this is coming from since there is no mention of being carried.
I would agree that the majority probably doesn’t come from shards but a bit do. Otherwise, do you pick up shards and spend them?
This would make sense for a newly released game. But how does this impact a game that has been out for a while, and is basically on life support? Are you saying that you would be tempted to just hoard the shards until the next big patch, thus shortening and cheapening YOUR experience?
If so, then why play that way? Why not just spend the shards as you get them?
