The streamers I have been watching who are testing the Expansion are all saying just play Normal difficulty until you are Level 60, and then go straight into Torment 1 (don’t bother with Hard, Expert, or Penitent difficulties), mainly because the rewards for playing those higher difficulties (XP) don’t rise proportionately, especially when it comes to Fortresses and Bosses – you will spend TONS more time with very little reward.
This is sad for anyone like myself who wants a good challenge playing the higher difficulties, but be rewarded for it, and therefore shouldn’t play them if we want to be efficient.
This is something the DEVS mess up on quite a bit.
Higher difficulties should always reward the player proportionately more than lower difficulties. If I do a Fortress or a Quest Line on Normal difficulty, and then do another on Penitent difficulty where it takes alot longer and is otherwise a harder fight, the XP, drops, etc for doing it on Penitent should be ALOT better than the rewards for doing it on Normal. But, from what I have hearing, the rewards are only “slightly” better, and therefore not worth the extra time it takes to complete them. How sad that the only way to play the game efficiently is to put the game in “Easy Mode”.
I will be playing it on Penitent, starting from Level 1, but it will be somewhat depressing that others who will be playing it on Normal will be progressing more efficiently than me, and may even be getting rewarded better, since playing on Normal would be more efficient.
There is supposed to be a “Day One” patch for the Expansion/Season. I pray that the DEVS are addressing this issue in that patch, and will increase the rewards for playing the game on Hard, Expert, or Penitent…
You can play more efficiently on Penitent when leveling an alt, especially if you have a level 1 Mythic item or someone to carry you. Playing on Normal is only more efficient when starting a new season. Originally, Penitent was meant to be locked until level 50, but after players asked for more challenge, Blizzard allowed it to unlock at level 1. It’s meant for challenge, not for efficiency.
Not sure how they can make the highest difficulty be the most efficient as well. What I mean by that is, should it be the most efficient for someone who dies 10 times for every mob they kill?
What ‘better reward’ is there really? This is going back to Sacred and Ancestral gear. Higher difficulty tier gives higher item levels. Nobody wants to live in the lower difficulty tier since it’s all redundant.
Yes that’s my point. What does TC mean by ‘better reward.’ Infernal Horde already allow us guarantee Ancestral in Season 6. I can get the same exact rewards with less effort.
I disagree with that philosophy in the age of streamers and every aspect of meta being known immediately.
All such a philosophy does is ensure everybody has to play exactly that way – since the hardest difficulties would require it. Gear farming efficiency should cap out lower, and higher difficulty should be for novelty challenge with cosmetic and title rewards perhaps.
There’s never been a Diablo game where you have to deal with bullet sponge mobs to farm efficiently. And I believe such a game would have the same problem mythic plus participation has in World of Warcraft. People would drop it.
Torment 2, maybe 3 should be the sweet spot. And speed farming should net you the most good gear. Granted, torment 4 should reward more on paper, but since you can’t go through it very fast, in the end, you will get be getting less gg drops per hour. And that’s the way it should be designed.
Too much of this game’s playerbase is super casual to lock them out of said rewards. The content would get nerfed or power creep injected to get rewards to be more accessible and you’d lose the difficulty.
You gotta be able to appreciate difficulty or challenge on its own merit without better rewards if it is to co-exist with super casual.
what are you talking about… they do already. Torment 4 drops a lot more ancestral uniques and higher chance for mythics unique than Torment 1, 2 and 3.
Are you talking about leveling ? no one cares about the leveling experience it is just a journey everyone needs to take to get more powerful.
The easier that process is the better. I think blizzard is doing a fantastic job on that department. They understand what the majority of the players are looking for.
This isn’t dark soul where you try do dodge every attack of a normal monster and spend 5 min killing 1 thing … This game is all about power fantasy and blastin down entire screen of demons , and dopa of getting the loot that you want.
I agree 100%. Why bother even having other difficulties. Just goes back to d3 and trying to please the most casual of casuals. If certain drops are only available in Penitent or have a greatly increased drop chance the forums will light up with “its not fair” and “Im a gamer dad” (me too and I play with my son and dont complain) and “I have a job” (also me too but I deal with it) complaints and soon the gear will be delivered by mail. Already headed that way with Mythic drops
This change was made to appease the small amount of people that were crying the game was too easy and some content creators that struggle to make content beyond a couple weeks because they break the game running the same boring content over and over while skipping the entire game. I dunno what you are on about.
You do get higher rewards, in that you have a higher MF at greater difficulties.
What you are asking for is exclusive rewards, ones that cannot be earned unless they defeat the most challenging content.
That is not D4’s approach. Go play Wow for that. This is a game targeted at casuals, and they should all be able to earn BiS gear by playing at they choose.
The season rep grind no longer provides sparks. With how common mythics are it was not an efficient strategy to farm mythics.
My tin foil hat tells me when they introduce set items they will be coop dungeon rewards. Imo Im okay with this. However, it should follow D3 seasonal powercreep set philosophy.
I have not pay attention to the rep system as I have been in Eternal since s4. But I don’t think mythics are going to be common as Stygian stones are removed. Lurkin who play the review copy told us it is hard to get mythics from boss. I saw Rob2628 vid on SB lacking a lot of Mythics as he used to get full Uber Unique even the first PTR which he needs to farm it.
As risk mitigation approach, I have spent my entire stockpiles of duriels mats and farmed 20 Mythics today to craft the mythics when new season started.
My theory is my legacy Mythics will able to retain the original stat as it will be re-roll to the range follow the item power of 540 range. Mythics affixes are fix, so my theory is its stat will be unchanged. Let’s wait 8 more hours to test this theory.
We need to have at least 20 spare mythics to salvage and craft the GA version of the strongest one. Last seasons used to be Shakro, but now we need a GA for the new Mythic helm.
I really like the demotion of Shakro as the it is harder to get the GA CDR. The new Mythic, sorry cant remember the name, its affix are all offensive. So it is fine if my crafting randomly land on one of the 4 affixes.
Crafting/finding a mythic now guarantees at least 1 ga. I dont play on eternal but if I did id likely be able to craft all mythics on day 1 but Id need to salvage the 100+ mythic items im hording
