As an example, going from T2 to T3 increases gold and experience by 20%, but monster HP is increased by something like 1000%. I don’t know how much the increase to item drop rates or seasonal stuff is, but I doubt it matches the HP increase. This makes it feel like it isn’t worth advancing to the next difficulty until I can destroy everything in it instantly. Is that how the game is meant to be? Mindless boring grind of XP and materials, and then occasionally a high pit run to level up glyphs? Though TBH with my current build even pits don’t really feel interesting - I just stand there holding one button and occasionally pressing others until the monsters die, then I move to the next group and repeat the process. At the boss I at least have to dodge some of the worst mechanics.
Honestly I probably shouldn’t even have started this season, but FOMO is a powerful thing.
5 Likes
The problem isn’t that the reward isn’t worth it. It may or may not be but won’t change much, the actual problem lies in the way the Pit works
It is a risk-averse pushing feature/mechanic in the game (probably wrote about this 15 times already :P)
2 Likes
Yes.
I do the same. There currently is no point in progressing, until you are ready to clear the next tier.
The only thing that makes it somewhat worthwhile is the rate of obducite gets bigger in NDM and IH. (and the rate difference in T1 and T2 is not really that big)
But the gear alone is just one or two more pieces of the useless stuff you throw away anyway. It is not like the gear itself improves.
So in s9 they said this would change, however, I did not notice it on the PTR.
Just more proof they do not actually playtest their game outside of component testing. They have no idea how dull and repetitive it is with the current distribution of loot.
4 Likes
What build is that? That is the kind of build I want to play. I haven’t found one yet.
This used to be peak blood surge, but playing my barb vs my sorc my sorc just feels incredible. I think Death trap is basically a 1 button build lol didn’t touch it this season though. Honestly if I didn’t make a sorc or maybe went rogue instead to farm I would have quit this season week 2. Barb is my favorite class but compared to a sorc with perma teleport or DT rogue it feels like your moving in molasses
As for OP t4 really isn’t that aspirational because everyone who was in t4 before for multiple hours was in t4 again this season. You need to make it into t4 for better chances of loot from the bosses. I was soloing Belial as a ww barb on t4 by the weekend of seasons release and I started Thursday and work full time.
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Flurry rogue. With the legendary aspect that makes it hit enemies in a full circle and some size increase tempers it hits half the screen at once. The improved flurry upgrade makes it dash to nearby enemies as well, though I still have to steer in the general direction I want to go. Improved flurry’s healing plus the passive granting barrier for spending energy give ridiculous amounts of health regeneration so I mostly don’t have to care about enemy attacks. I didn’t use any build guide to make this, but the flurry rogue build on maxroll.gg looks like it can probably support a similar enough playstyle. I don’t know if my homecooked build can reach as high pit levels; so far the highest I’ve done is pit 50, but I’m still working on getting more paragon points, leveling up my glyphs (only one is legendary so far) and fine-tuning my gear.
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The rewards in T4 are just not good enough. Do the boss circuit and get auto salvage items of level 750 or 1 GA. You can get that in T3 and be a God.
It depends right. If you are efficient in any increased difficulty you will have higher rewards. However, if your playing non-meta T3 is likely more rewarding because your able to kill demons at greater speeds.
T4 also isnt exactly hard but you do need to hit the gear/build check. If you are as efficient in T3 to T4 rewards are superior in T4.
Disclaimer: RNG still exists in all difficulties
That is exactly my point. You need to be efficient to the point of killing everything instantly. If you go up a difficulty and killing elites now takes 2-3 seconds your total rewards per time spent will be worse. Cruising across the land as an invulnerable demigod may be fun for a bit, but it’s hardly interesting gameplay.
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Thats how all arpgs are. PoE, PoE2, D2, D3 ec
Now some of those tie some loot to the hardest difficulty where D4 does not. Example D2 tals armor only drops off baal, chaos and pit in hell difficulty.
Since all D4 loot drops past T1 its all about efficiency
I’m not sure if I’m looking at history through rose-tinted glasses, but my memory says it didn’t used to be this way. In D2 each difficulty introduced a new tier of items which simply didn’t drop on earlier difficulties, so you had to progress through the difficulties. In PoE no amount of farming level 70 maps will get you a level 80 base item, and available affixes are tied to the level of the base item. I guess it’s a bit different if you want to trade for items, since you can farm currency by speedrunning lower maps.
In D4 though, as soon as you overcome the low bar of entry to torment 1, every item in the game is available to you (at least AFAIK). T2 through T4 have no exclusive loot. It’s all about quantity, and the best way to obtain quantity is to kill things as fast as you can. There’s no point in facing greater challenges and slowly working on overcoming them; the best way is to only play content which is utterly trivial to beat.
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idk, I feel like I’m killing them plenty fast but every time I open the chest it isn’t rewarding. I meant that there wasn’t much of a difference in loot between T3 and T4.
I’m blasting T4 and can’t get a 2 GA minimum weapon to drop. I’ve finished the season long ago and was going to grind the pit but wanted to improve my gear.
In S8 I got my best loot from T2. In T3 and T4 I got very minor upgrades for a few pieces, it hardly mattered. Even my mythics came from T2. Pushing difficulties is just to get more obucite and better runes.
I’m undecided about even starting S9. I’m certainly not going to start early. I’m giving it a few weeks, waiting for feedback before I decide.
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Yeah me too. All of my current gear was from T2 with no upgrades after that.
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PoE?, yes, D3 ?, absolutely, D2 ? - only after overplaying it 500 times, PoE2 ?, getting there but still no
Also, just because there’s a “trend” does not mean that one has to defend it
For example I posted a few ways to fix that problem already by redesigning the Pit (reduce timer and make challenges more varying and progressively harder to complete on higher levels than just reward “blasting”)
That way people won’t “overfarm” Glyphs, instead they’d actually be attempting to be pushing (as well as rework the reward to actually feel rewarding when complete)
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The issue seems to be that pre-T4 is too “easy”/fast. You should not be oneshotting on T3 either.
On the other hand, it seems perfectly fine if people choose to stay in T3 instead of going to T4. Highest difficulty tier should be more of a challenge mode for those who want it. If the rewards are too good, it fails at being that and will just feel required.
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As a “casual scrub” gamer, T2 is my happy place – just enough challenge to make me “work” a bit, not so much as to be stress-inducing.
I might make T3 before season’s end, or I might not. Either way, it’s all good.
It varies, depending on builds and classes
I for example unlocked T2 at Paragon 43 and T3 at Paragon 140. Now Para 225 and still couldn’t unlock T4
So in my case I got “stuck” at just before opening T4
The problem does not lie in when it happens, but HOW
I’ve been advocating for quite some time => improve the “bad” experience of the game, make things at least look like they’re moving somewhat when stuck
Right now the only way I can unlock T4 is to get to Paragon 250, and in order to achieve that would probably have to play 30 more hours
Here’s the thing => just because I can, doesn’t mean I should. Playing for 30 hours where anything barely moves a needle except my XP bar is by definition terrible gameplay experience
That “experience” itself has to look worth whether or not entirely traversed. This is a game, not a guitar course, things should be dynamic and fun, not repetitive and demanding of perfection for the sake of doing so
3 Likes
Spot on. Very little incentive to move up in difficulty other than being able to say, I’m farming T4. All it really means is you get a couple extra junk pieces when you kill bosses.
I keep saying they are clueless on the difficulty - reward ratio. Even the difficulty piece eludes them. Look at the fiasco with the mandatory phases in the boss fights. Iit’s not hard, it’s just slow. And slowing it down to make it “difficult” didn’t increase the rewards, so why bother?
Alot of people consider it unfair but I think certain items should be locked behind a difficulty, just like d2, if you want the best gear you must brave the hardest content, I mean literally every game in history has worked that way lol