One of the best things about D2 was its accessibility - run thorugh (or teleport through) a dungeon to get the boss. You can do it anytime. No special requirements. Sure, there were time-gated and grind-gated ubers, but that was just two items and you could trade for it freely.
D4? ehh…
You have to grind for different mats by doing ridiculous activities that provide absolutely zero resistance: in helltide, everything just dies instantly to a level 80+ character, pretty much no matter what build you’re using. Some of those mats are locked behind time-gated events (like Malignant Hearts) and there’s RNG on top of that (Grotesque Debtors spawning or not).
So in the end, you have to do braindead tasks for an hour just to get a shot at Uber Duriel.
I understand you don’t have to farm Duriel at all and there’s really no reason to (after AoZ got retired), but the next big upgrade is usually gated behind Duriel and it’s not just the uber uniques: many builds require things like Tibault’s and Duriel is the best source of those.
It takes about an hour to gather mats for 2 Duriel runs, sometimes more depending on whether a Malignant heart dropped or not. You’re expected to repeat the same pointless activity over and over, with absolutely no challenge (or resistance for the matter) of any sort.
Why aren’t those mats rewarded for NMDs 80-100, for instance? That would at least give you something engaging to do.
Or, even better: cut Duriels’ drop rate by a third or something and remove mats completely, making him fully accessible? It’s still a dull activity, but at least it won’t be time/RNG gated.
It doesn’t have to be so frustrating. There’s no reason for it to be like that.
It needs to be a raid and this whole “Duriel raid” is the actual content (no hard barrier of entry, you can enter anytime you want but high chance you might not be able to clear it). The Ubers are just the carrot at the end of the stick.
I hear you, but can we get some newer ideas and references than from 20 year old game? People keep bringing up that ancient game. They made d2r and no one plays it. Lets get some fresh ideas.
It’s a fair comparison because D4 fails at so many things which were already figured in D2. The concept was good, but for some reason it was not used as a base for D3 and D4. D2R doesn’t work because it’s outdated and doesn’t bring anything new to the table.
ARPGs evolved: running a boss isn’t considered a great endgame activity to keep players engaged anymore. BUT, if they did introduce Uber Duriel and made him drop the most sought after items in the game (that are practically unavailable otherwise), their decision to lock him behind RNG/time gated braindead content is baffling.
Why would I ever want to waste my time on Helltide after a certain point of the season? The mobs die when I look at them. The rewards aren’t good for the amount of time necessary (garbage compared to Vaults). I can see myself running it from time to time to get my forgotten soul stack up, but that’s it. Unfortunately, if I want to get certain items, I have to run the helltide. And do whispers.
Why?
S2’s idea could be improved: a player would transition from helltides/legions, to Vaults/NMDs, to Uber Bosses, and finally to AoZ.
However, they scrapped AoZ entirely and kept the time/RNG gated Ubers the endgame, which is baffling.
I’d guess it’s part of the original plan to include a lot of time wasting mechanics to make the in-game shop more profitable. That’s not even too far fetched considering how much Blizzard relies on their precious “data”.
I’d wager they use their data to find what people that spend in the shop do in game. Then cater the game around what they are doing and enjoying. That is their target gamer after all. That explains why everything is fast paced, with flashy gold piles falling from the sky.
You are completely right about everything in your post. Unfortunately, it is purposely designed this way, to be a meaningless time-sink and they know it, they just don’t have any better ideas and hope you buy a $50 cosmetic off the shop instead
It’s funny watching people talk about pay to win mechanics and the shop when there’s no pay to win. LOL. Imaginary problems, wish that was all I had to deal with.
not a problem for many players who are just buying duped mats with rmt.
those ones for sure will never complain abut duriel or maybe just " i’ve done 2000 duriels and no uber ! ouin ouin ".