This is going to be long winded but I want to make sure anyone reading understands exactly what I’m saying
For context: This is the first ARPG that I have pushed endgame in. I’ve played acts 1-3 in D2 a million times, I leveled 2 characters to 100 on the eternal realm for D3 WAY back and when Path of Exile came out I played a little bit of that.
I’ve been playing D4 since launch and this season I have a druid at 100 and a necro at 100.
I’ve been using druid for AOZ and all my focus is on that.
AOZ has been pretty fun for me because I’ve been using it as an opportunity to get better at playing the game. Improving my movement, pressing buttons at the right time, fine tuning my spec and experimenting with paragon stuff. I’ve basically just been running Tier 5 and 6 on repeat trying to improve but I’ve pushed up to Tier 8.
The glyph is really cool but the XP feels really bad. You are fighting your way through the most difficult content, there are so many close calls then finally you win and then you click into the glyphs aaaaand you get this tiny sliver of XP. Feels really bad on the lower tiers still. And if you are stuck down at these lower tiers, the low amount of xp means you will not be gaining enough power to make a difference.
I am currently hard stuck at tier 8 on my druid. I’ve done so much tweaking and adjustments and gear swaps and testing I am at the point where I can’t sacrifice anymore damage for DR. And I even in my best balanced setup I can’t put out enough damage to beat a tier 8.
What would be really cool, is if people stuck at these points could grind out enough glyph xp to see enough of a power jump to maybe squeeze out just 1 or 2 more tiers through damage output. As is though, that is not feasible. I tried to do that with tier 5 but at this point I need 17 runs to level it up and I will need even more the next glyph level.
What would be the harm in allowing people who are stuck a reasonable grinding path to get 1 or 2 up on their max. That would be fun and I’d put the time in but right now, thats WAY too much time for such little return in damage.
It’s great that we get good elixirs from Helltide such as the elixir of fortitude. It sucks we can’t craft this ourselves as even farming helltide all season I only had 30 of these. I would love to see more options for crafting defensive elixirs especially for content such as this.
Some of the maps feel really bad. The maps with the very tight hallways and little dead end rooms and such are death traps especially when fighting the blood seekers. Might be more of a me problem than the game but, sometimes getting the wrong map with the wrong combo of affixes on the blood seekers just means you’re definitely going to die. Theres ice circles on the ground, theres fire on the ground, theres pylons shooting electricity and you are in a tiny hallway. Not much to do other than die. Would be awesome to see some more thought go into the maps with this in mind. I’d say 90% of my deaths are being stuck in a hallway with blood seekers at this point.
There are also some serious issues with some of the maps walls/doorways/environments clipping infront of the camera completely removing visibility. Its really bad on the Hawezar themed map with all the doorways and dead ends. You can’t see whats in front of you sometimes, or you have this wall just blocking everything.
Would love to see these maps opened up a bit more so we can actually dodge all the crazy elemental damage and we have space to move around and avoid these things. Some maps are great in this regard but others are awful.
Obviously, this is an opinion from someone who is stuck on tier 8. I don’t want to see it nerfed so I can do higher tiers, I just want to see an avenue for grinding enough power to get a little bit further with damage. That would be FUN. As of right now though, I am calling it. I’m not interested in doing 17 runs to get 0.02% power increase. Thats not fun.
I want to be clear though, I really like this idea. I love the challenge and I love how much better at this game I have gotten from how difficult this is. I’m a better player and THAT is fun. Tweaking and trying to min max is fun. Getting your buns kicked is fun. Messing up and dying is awesome. I’m glad I am punished for my mistakes.
I would gladly put in 6 hour play sessions of grinding tier 5 if it meant I would get enough power over the course of a couple/few days to squeeze out one more tier.
- PC General Discussion - Diablo IV Forums (blizzard.com)