Changed for the worse

PC General Discussion
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1.) The bonus nodes on the skill trees need to come back. (The small circles you could put up to 3 points in that have small passive boosts) These were key to fine tuning a character build to suit your play style, focusing on what stats or attributes were most important to the player. I’m livid that these are gone.

2.) Auto-salvage NEEDS to be a part of loot filtering. Even at higher levels of play, we may not be interested in entertaining gear without at least 1 or 2 greater affixes, but we still need the materials from salvaging, lesser gear. Currently this requires multiple trips back to town just to pick up and sort through the dropped gear from a single boss kill. And in Helltides…. You’re traveling back to town every 2 minutes!!! And helltides are time limited!!! So much time wasted going back to town repeatedly!!!

3.) Inherent boosts to weapon classes need to come back. For example (and these may not exactly right): Swords have an inherent boost to crit damage, plus 4 random affixes…. Daggers have an inherent boost to crit chance, plus 4 random affixes…. Quaterstaff has inherent boost to block chance, plus 4 random affixes…etc etc etc…. These inherent weapon boosts are now gone. We want them back.

4.) Uniques are relatively useless now…. Uniques are no longer that ‘game changing’. The best part about the old Uniques, was that the affixes played straight to the support and enhancement of the skill that the Unique legendary was intended to greatly amplify….. now, you constantly get Uniques that one loves the Unique legendary, but it has 4 random affixes that are totally useless to your character build….. boo to you dev team. Change it back.

5.) Drop rate and accumulation of crafting materials is terrible. Even at torment 1 level of gameplay, I can’t even change the legendary affix on an otherwise perfect piece of gear, because I don’t have anywhere near enough Baleful Fragments!!! This is ludicrous for this level!!! Level 70 character at Paragon 100, and the legendary gear drop rate is so low, I can’t salvage enough Baleful Fragments to customize my gear!!! This was never an issue before. Either drop rates need to be improved, or materials costs need to be lowered, or both. And don’t even get me started on gem fragments, obducite, and scattered prisms!!!

6.) KEY PASSIVES!!! Why did you take these away?!?!?!? These were so incredibly important to truly making your character ‘specialized’ (we’ll call it). These we fundamental. Bring them back!!!

7.) Many good runes are gone!!! For me I miss the barbarian earthquake rune. But there were many others that offered good customization that are now gone…. Thumbs down devs.

8.) Bring back elixers and incense. Enough said. We liked these. Please bring them back.

9.) Bring back kill streaks!!! Bonus XP from longer and longer kill streaks were a regular part of Diablo 3 gameplay. We liked this. Bring it back.

10.) Lack of good Glyphs. Every character should have at least 5 Glyphs that either amplify rare nodes or magic nodes. This is largely what gives us non-super-ultra geek Diablo players a fighting chance to get to those upper Torment levels.

11.) Terrible drop rate of treasure breech dungeon keys, 10 round compass keys, etc etc etc….. in the most recent March of the Goblins event, the appearance rate of goblins was terrible. Even in non-special event gameplay, the drop rate of nightmare dungeon keys with legendary affixes is terrible. As is the drop rate of 10 round compass keys, lair boss treasure keys, etc etc etc.

12.) This one is minor, but we still LOVED this. The Paladin was the only character that could both wield a shield AND wield a 2-H weapon in a one hand. (Diablo 3 Crusader Character). BRING THIS BACK!!! This is what made him so unique. There’s already other characters that can already wield a shield and a 1-H weapon. This is nothing new or special. Please bring back the shield and 2-H weapon capability of the Paladin.

Ultimately, this newer format of Diablo seems to be geared toward rewarding only the highest level of super-ultra geek Diablo players. Ones who play Diablo full time, 24-7, with no traditional daytime job, who create spreadsheets and formulas and crack the secret codes of the game to exploit.

For those of us who work full-time, but loved playing diablo a couple hours per night, and maybe all day on a weekend, our gameplay experience with this new format is highly disappointing, discouraging, and depressing.

My wife and I have been avid and loyal couch co-op Diablo players ever since Diablo 3 debuted on PS3. We’ve spent hundreds of dollars and thousands of hours on the Diablo franchise. This most recent change to the game format has left us very disheartened with Blizzard, and the Diablo developers.

Please bring back a Diablo that players of all levels can truly enjoy. Thank you.

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The skill tree change is a net overall wash. They went from mandatory passives to mandatory 15 in all skills as there is nothing else to get. How is this better? Its not. Its about the same level of poor design.

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I was saying this when ppl were asking for a loot filter. Ppl didn’t want a loot filter but an auto-salvage option with the pet.

People don’t know how to ask for what they actually want.

Not exactly. They are definetly more exciting. They were far to common to have fixed stats and you have a lot of different options now chasing what your looking for.

I havnt found that. End of the season I have a lot of mats. Just need to play the game and you passively get what you need without much effort.

You do need to play the game and not just RMT or trade.

Because it was needed. Passives are boring. I much perfer the skill tree now then the twig it use to be. Still room to make more improvements.

Yeah but runes in general could be reworked. Let’s face it I think I used the same 4-6 runes since S6.

I’m so glad these are gone. I definitely don’t want to see a return to this. Perhaps if they made something that is rare that you can’t keep up all the time. It use to just clog inventory.

No thanks.

There are some that just overshadow others. They need to balance the game for more choices.

Well no… they are not free candy anymore and when you do get one there is some excitment. When things are to common they lose all meaning. Look at current mythics.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. RNG exists and favors no one. Yes if someone puts 1000 hours into a season where I spend 40-80 I don’t expect to be able to have the things they do. However, RNG makes both winners and losers regardless of playtime.

This can’t be further from the truth. D4 is an ultra casual game. I have a full time job that has me all across north America with minimal time at home. If I can do it with time to spare anyone can.

I understand your view. There is more then enough participation throphies to give you that D3 experience. Seasonal unbalanced metas exist you just don’t have a green bag of a free set to get 30 min after max level. D3 is an arcade blaster where D4 is an ultra casual arpg.

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It’s good that the inherent bonuses are gone. They were just add-ons that inflated the damage. What should happen is that swords come with x critical hits…daggers with x vulnerable hits, etc.

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Yo, take a deep breath and understand that change is inevitable. Whether or not you understand the intent behind the changes (and whether or not they actually hit the target), they’re not arbitrary, and they’re aimed at addressing specific problems.

On the whole I’d say it’s a net win and we’re moving in the right direction, but, there’s plenty of work left to do. I certainly agree with a lot of your points. And while I understand why certain changes were made, that doesn’t mean they work for me and my own personal preferences.

Why? They were just basic damage multipliers, for the most part. And in many cases they were essentially mandatory (was there any Rogue ever created that didn’t have Frigid Finesse?) If you like basic damage multipliers, good news, that’s basically all we get now for tempers and stats :roll_eyes:

It would help, but then again… I realized when actually scrutinizing the yield from the ‘trash loot’ that it really is trash. Sure, more is more, but just set your filter how you want and forget about it, you’re not missing much of the things you actually need (e.g. Forgotten Souls, at the moment) because you get almost none from the crap loot right now anyway.

Why? It was nice for flavor, but it pretty much restricted your weapon choice, thereby also restricting choices for visual flavor. The bonuses are now available as part of the affix pools (crit for example can now be used on any weapon) so… win win?

They’re exactly the same, just with more flexibility in stats, making them more useful. I fundamentally disagree with you here because in the past, I had to skip using most uniques just because their stats were so bad (anything without max life = trash for HC). I definitely agree that it’s harder to get the unique with the stats you want, but, that will be improved in S14, with the ability to reroll the stats in the cube.

You just have to push forward as much as you can, it gets a lot better in say, T6 and up, which is easy to reach. Agreed though in general that mats have been a bit stingy and scarce this season, not sure why it’s so severely restricted, definitely needs some tweaking.

They didn’t, they exist somewhere still. Play the game bruh and you’ll find this stuff. Using Rogue as an example:

  • Momentum → Sea Lord’s Fine Gloves
  • Close Quarters Combat → Fist of the Iron Rose
  • Exposure → Misericorde

etc.

I agree with this, reducing the count to fit in the character inventory panel was a good change I guess (for people that store them there, anyway - I can’t because HC) but even though taking away lesser used ones was well intentioned, it ultimately reduces fun, flavor, and flexibility.

I understand this perspective but it was just a requirement and therefore a ‘fun tax’ and a mats drain. I do like the whole ‘prepping for combat’ thing and feeling like you have an edge, but again, it was basically required and it’s not like we ever situationally varied it, it was just a ‘this is what I use for my build’ checkbox.

Treasure Breach is almost nonexistent, definitely agree there. Compasses, too many still drop for me, but then I very, very rarely would actually choose to do IH.

I love this idea, both for funsies and for practical reasons (e.g. double strength temper). But then again, if you get 2x Temper power you would never use a 1 hander.

They need to pick a lane. A lot of the changes are actually aimed at that audience and work (e.g. simplification of skill trees, and baking what were previously aspects into the tree, makings it faster and easier to put together a coherent build without relying on external resources for tips).

However, it’s like they don’t understand their own format; a lot of the balancing (drop rates, mats acquisition, etc) feels like it’d be more appropriate for Eternal, but in the context of the seasonal model the progress is definitely too slow even when you can throw more hours at it. RIP true casuals.

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It’s an even bigger twig than it used to be, it just looks fuller. A very, very common criticism across the board is that you cease making any meaningful decision very early in your skill journey now. Plus, some things just work better passively.

That doesn’t mean the tree was great before. All of those multipliers were indeed redundant, but we’re seeing the ramifications of eliminating passives entirely. Of course, we could easily solve this discrepancy with the paragon board, but that would require them to recognize that even exists.

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I missed some because you had so many :rofl:

I can’t care about goofy arcade mechanics personally. So glad season of kill streaks is done. Use Varyana I guess?

This is largely unchanged? They just added a couple more from what I see on Rogue anyways.

idk seems OK to me, there’s always a good selection of options that suit your build, I have to skip some that I want sometimes. Probably varies by class though. I will say for sure though that the balancing of them is a bit off, when we ultimately need to squeeze out maximum DPS for higher tiers, some of the more fun utility ones just get disregarded.

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Passive abilities without multipliers were interesting and gave life to the classes. The paladin having a chance to block, the rogue dodge, the mage elemental resistance, etc.

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I definitely agree that anywhere where we’re lost utility or flexibility (without it moving elsewhere or being replaced with something similar) is A Bad Thing.

I get the desire for simplification and compartmentalizing things in sensible places, making it more coherent and easy to understand for the more casual players…

But yeah, some of the changes have killed some of the more fun and ridiculous builds I used to be able to make, which is kind of sad.

The new skill trees are basically just Paint By Numbers, which if course has its pros and cons.

Pros: doesn’t require too much thought or experimentation to make a solid build.
Cons: doesn’t require too much thought or experimentation to make a solid build.

Really just depends where you sit on the hyper casual → uber sweatlord spectrum as to how happy you’ll be with that I guess.

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Them eliminating passives put more focus on loot. This is not a bad thing in an arpg where loot should matter.

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Off meta builds will be terrible next season.

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everything about LoH (D4 in general) is horrible,

from the bait n switch on Paladins to the mediocre Warlock (which of course the moment Warlocks were doing good, they got nerfed)

from selling you the same content but saying it’s new (war plans)

from hyping up the new skill tree changes saying every build will be more meaning full (which is false, they made the tree worse)

D4+expansions gave a very overall mid and not captivating story line, D1 eurocentric setting gothic horror story was great and D2 was amazing for expanding beyond the setting yet keeping the horror story good, D3 …..is where everything started to go to crap.

they removed passives and key passives from the skill tree and replaced those with a charm system, so instead of choosing you now have to play with RNG for passives.

I really wish for this too, but we need to accept the reality we live in, that the Diablo series we loved and were fans of won’t return to it’s roots.

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Yes, but some passive abilities, like the mage’s which reset a cooldown upon taking damage, and the spiritborn’s ability to cast skills without cost, etc… some nodes were interesting.

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I agree, normally you would have a solid intelligent reason not to spend all 15 points in a skill unless you could make it work for your build. Maybe there are other good nodes to take that just add better utility, flexibility, or something that gives you a reason to not just simply max out a skill and call it a day.

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yep. there is literally zero friction or urgency in the skill tree. they really need to look more closely at these side branches and let them have more customization. maybe make them tiered up to 5 - 10 points with thresholds.

its pretty ridiculous that this version passed internal testing and the team thoght “yeah, this feels good”.

the faults and shortcomings of the skill tree are readily apparent once you reach level 50 or so, and its glaring during endgame content.

its a good start, if the game were in beta and not a retail product with two expansions.

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You want them back. I’m enjoying the freedom to choose my weapon type without having to consider whether a static affix benefits my build.

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The redundant multipliers basically everyone agrees had to go. Most of them served no purpose and weren’t interesting. Coincidentally, we still have many ‘passives’ but now they’re tied to active skill usage. In doing so, a game developer invites all sorts of problems like macros and botting and health concerns. There is a reason why passives exist in games and it is because they solve problems. Problems that are now more present in D4 because we decided to nuke the entire system rather than selectively seek solutions.

Passives don’t compete with loot. Loot doesn’t intrinsically get better or worse because you remove passives from a tree. It’s all in how the systems work together that defines a character.

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Not only that but If you wanted a certain type of weapon for the look or roleplaying reasons you would bork your damage. I prefer rogues use daggers, but if sword has a mandatory inherent stat on it that is better for my build I don’t get to have the dagger look, which to me looks better then a sword on the rogues.

Same thing with the ranged weapon, I prefer the look of bows over crossbows.

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Through 3 years and 2 expansions each base class has gotten 1 new skill and that includes one the expansions focusing heavily on the skill tree. What do you think the chances are they make meaningful changes to the skill tree?

We can make a huge list of what they need to do. I’m pretty sure they have such a list, too. The question is what will they do and precedent doesn’t make it likely we see the kind of skill tree expansion that’s necessary to make effective change.

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I think they removed all the illusion of choice in the new tree.

People thought they were making decisions by allocating points in certain passives but when you think about it, they really weren’t.

The thing that bothers me in the new skill tree is how low the skill point cap is at 15. I think it should be doubled.