Relative to the game balance blog post,
Did your worldwide data include China or not?
For the table with 5K paragon, I assume that it was not 5K exactly but a range of paragon. When I looked at the final era 11 leaderboard for the America region, there was about 1,000 entries on the leaderboard in the 4.5K-5.5K range.
What was the range that was considered ~5K [e.g., ±/- 500 paragon (i.e. 4.5-5.5K paragon)]?
Build balance is centered around GR130 @ 5000 paragon. 5GRs over warrants a nerf.
Sadly, it looks like most classes have builds that are subject to a nerf.
It is not biased read. It is read based on previous experience. I know you did not intend to create zdps builds because I am here from day 1 of vanilla.
We had many big patches and content updates in the past but monk and barb supports kept their spot in meta groups. Maybe that changes in the future but I doubt it.
Edit: Area Damage is the main reason why we need supports in party. To take full advantage of area damage.
I don’t see any good reason to exclude China.
It is more of just trying to figure out what data they used. For the API, I have problems consistently downloading the China data. I got it to work once and then could not get it working again. I think that on January 11 that I was able to download the other 3 regions but China was a no go.
*Eats Soon™ and replaces it with Lone Starr’s Schwartz Ring™*
Yes, stats were taken world-wide and averaged out. They were also adjusted to meet the scale mentioned, and then the final regional results were averaged out to represent a global number. The numbers in those tables are both averaged and calculated up or down based on Seasonal/Non-Seasonal data from a few weeks after the 2.6.7 Patch.
This made the Seasonal data effectively projected at the time, since most people were only around 1-2k Paragon when that snapshot was taken. Everything’s calculated from real results and data entries, they’re just not “exact” results on their own. Based on a combination of time, luck with GRift fishing, and developed skill for various builds, many of these numbers have gone up over time (Matt and I were looking over more recent ones just last week). That’s part of why we look at a LOT of data and never just one snapshot; sometimes issues take time to settle or show up later than anticipated.
I just checked it for you right now. For me it is working fine.
And you do take into account other sources of power like legendary gem level and augment level? If I remember Matt said, like 1 month ago, you do.
The eras really should have been ending at the end of each season from the beginning. Their snapshot data is flawed in that because the era contains both in-season and post-season rollover paragon accumulations, the latter tends to “overwrite” the old snapshots from the same era because while total possible paragon accumulated at the end of the era remains the same, the items themselves do change, usually incrementing in power creep, thus invalidating any previous snapshot of the same era.
It’s much cleaner and easier to discern changes in the player microcosm when eras and seasons are aligned than after the former has been cross-contaminated with additional accumulations and item changes after the end of season rollover. Otherwise, comparisons like the ones in the blog are entirely apples to avocados.
I must say that in general I am happy with blog post. Waiting for PTR.
It would be interesting to share more data with us - like for example solo vs group percentage, overall player population during Season length, Season vs NS players etc… Even without the exact numbers (just graphics or proportions) this would be interesting to see.
Like in the good old times:
And maybe people should stop caring about stroking the META Epeen because the difference between using a DH in a role versus other classes is like 6-7 GR levels. Sure it makes a major difference if you are a 4-5k pusher. But for most of us…HAVE FUN!!!
“Average amount of gold per character: 9.7 million” gave me a good laugh.
This is so interesting though, I’d love to see an updated version of this.
He was looking for “In the realm of Threemonthyhood”
Yes, it’s 7 years old. We definitely need an update, that’s what I thought exactly when I read “a lot of data”. Monitoring the data is good, but we can help them strengthen the game based on it.
Like, if they show us a graphic in which only 10% go above P2k during a Season, we may advise them to put a Seasonal cap on paragon for one Season to see how that would influence the players’ desires. Or if a major portion of the player base is playing solo-only to strengthen that aspect with an SSF mode.
Having the data is good, using it properly is better.
From the infographic we can see that softcore to hardcore percentage is 91 to 9. Has this changed during the years? Does the current generation of Diablo 3 players enjoy the hardcore mode more than before?
Would be great when solo would reach same gr levels as a group does…
Solo feels forgotten or unwanted play style.
Getting higher grs and paragons playing solo is so much less rewarding compared to group play… 
Ty for this blog. Always good to know reasons behind things.
Also ty for letting us know ptr is targeted for next week.
Besides the new content, sets and balancing, please come up with a nice solution to provide more stash space.
If you like the patch, support them and buy Digital Deluxe edition if you already don’t have one.
Dear Nevalistis, I would be very grateful for your comments regarding development plans to solve the group game issue on consoles. I mean that right now consoles players have not equal benefit from party due to no loot changing in season on party. This approach really limits console players, compared to PС players, especially at the start of the season, when party players join into the groups with different classes and can jointly develop they heroes. The drop exchange helps party members to obtain the necessary skills, abilities and ingredients, access to which specially at the start of the season is simply vital (for HC in the literal sense of the word). But we (console players) are deprived of such opportunities.
Do you have plans to change this approach?
P.s. i start playing DIII in 2013, and thanks to my son, who wanted to play Diablo III on the console, I returned to the game again, but into console part of it.
That argument applies to every gear in the game. Not really a valid point.