I’m not against a paragon cap. The paragon cap simply creates a limit to our power as well as put more focus on character building as opposed to endlessly grinding +5.
The game will now revolve around finding the right items per slot and then [augmenting].
The issue I have is with the gameplay loop of augmenting which I have been voicing over the past few years on this forum.
With these changes, we will be augmenting more than ever since we are losing primary stat from paragon and you will really want as much augments as possible to min/max.
So where is the issue?
Clicking the +1 button for gem upgrades every greater rift with that extra time in-between every click. I already did the calculations in my previous posts. You are adding hundreds of hours of playtime from the upgrade gem screen without realizing it. Next time you run a greater rift, calculate how much time it takes you to upgrade your gem +5 then multiply that number by the amount of times you need to do it.
Well, we have 13 item slots.
Each slot can get 150 primary stat each being +5 so 150/5 = 30 GRs per item slot assuming 100% gem upgrade chance.
30 GRs per item slot x 13 item slots = 390 greater rifts. This number is assuming every gem upgrade is 100% and you are using a set of gear you won’t replace. Which is highly unlikely.
Realistically, you will be doing thousands of greater rifts if you want to max out.
Before these changes, you could simply farm paragon levels and be “ok” with non-optimal +120 gear for example. You could simply make up the difference with paragon levels.
After these changes, the entire game shifts focus from paragon leveling to itemization. (Which is good if the gameplay loop wasn’t tedious to upgrade gems)
How do we fix this issue?
1.) Add a button to “upgrade all” with 1 button click.
2.) Make the upgrade gem animation near instant so we can go to the next GR faster. If even it has to be an option we toggle on via options.
