Mother of All Feedback - Part 2

PTR Feedback
1

First things first, what kind of player am I? I am a blaster. I have killed Uber Lilith on Hardcore; Cleared Pit 131 (CBA to push any higher cause no leaderboard and bosses taking four years to kill); I have landed several times, in the top 100 of the Gauntlet. Not flexing, just giving perspective on what type of player is giving Blizzard this feedback. I can’t fully give a new, or even casual gamers perspective. Just a caveat.

Endgame Testing: This time, I am doing what every content creator is doing…… making absolute pinnacle S-Tier characters that basically cannot be replicated in the real game lol. Just pushing the boundaries of what is possible, and testing to see what drop rates are looking like in Torment 4. Also, played on a max level character for about 4 hours for this feedback.

I am testing several different builds, but mostly playing the very broken, but very fun Victimize Dance Rouge made by Wudijo.

Good

New Spin-to-Win Rogue feels amazing to play and is super fun. I hope you do not nuke it into oblivion based on the feedback you are seeing, because right now, my hope is to push deep into Torment 4 with this build. Please be mindful that we will not have full ancestral gear, the right mythics, the War Cry runes, or LEVEL ONE HUNDRED GLYPHS even a couple of weeks into season start. I think this build is actually fairly balanced with those things in mind. Please do not nerf.

Bad

  • Neck Pieces are the Bane of our Existence: I have rolled a neck 100 times. And not once, gotten any of the THREE passives I want on a neck. The weighting on neck passives is so @#$%ing ridiculous, that its unimaginable. I have made separate posts about this, but blizzard please, for the love of God… fix this.
  • Ancestral Drop Rates in T4: The Ancestral Drop Rate must be higher in Torment 4 to justify that game mode’s existence. Right now, getting into T4 will be VERY difficult, when you can’t just instantly get all glyphs to level 100, have access to a full set of Ancestral Gear, AND have access to all mythic uniques. T4 is going to be quite difficult to get into, and yet, it is not rewarding enough at all. I really think its ancestral drop rate needs to be like 2x. — I did just do a Pit 80, and got two ancestrals, but that’s PIT EIGHTY. This will not be easy at all when people’s glyphs are around level 60 or so.
    • Something I know I need to be mindful of… is Infernal Hordes, and the new game modes. The only question you need to ask yourselves (blizzard) is do you want a repeat of season 5, where the best way to get anything is infernal hordes. Its also possible that Helltide drops more guaranteed ancestral gear from their chests. I will have to see. If I am getting zero ancestral gear from Helltide on T4, this system needs to change.
    • Just killed a butcher in a NMD on T4…. Not a single Ancestral Piece. I think this is a problem…. If you can kill a butcher on T4, you should get an Ancestral Piece. This is not tuned properly blizzard… this is going to hurt you on season launch if not addressed. More to this point… you should get an ancestral piece, if you kill a butcher on TORMENT TWO in my opinion.
      • Butcher should almost always be dropping ancestral gear if you want your torment modes to mean anything. Remember, just because you get a piece of ancestral gear, does not mean it is good. It also does not mean that it has two or more Greater Affixes.
    • Killed a treasure goblin on T4. No Ancestral Item.
    • I contributed to blood maiden sacrifice and killed her SIX times and got ONE Ancestral piece while on T4. In my mind, this is completely unacceptable. On T4, she should be dropping at least one ancestral per kill. I am questioning why I care about T4 at all at this point.
    • Opened a Helltide mystery chest in T4, no ancestral……… =(
    • Opened a Helltide weapons chest in T4, no ancestral……… =(
    • Turned in a whisper cache on T4, no ancestral……….=(
      • No idea why I am playing on T4, or why it matters.
    • Killed Uber Lilith on T4………………………………………………………. No ancestral. =(
    • Kill Grigore on T4………………………… NO ANCESTRALLLLLLLLLL……. @@@@@
      • Blizzard……. Please…. You gotta fix this.
  • Pulverize druid still feel kind of terrible. Overpower builds just kind of feel terrible in general. It was kind of cool running around as a stealth bear, and then one tapping the screen, but you are either overpowering for 1 billion damage, or you are hitting for 17 damage as a typical druid does.
  • Tried to make a minion necro… I did literally zero damage. I will let much better theory crafters than me look into minion necro, but for me, this was absolutely unplayable past like Tier 50 of the Pit. Keep in mind, I had level 100 glyphs, full ancestral, and so forth, and could not breach into Torment 4. May need some numbers tuning, cause the minion necro fans are going to be very sad if it launches in this state from what I tested. Might be wrong, but I see minion necro in like C-Tier right now.

Neutral Observations /Thoughts for Consideration

  • Noticed that there no longer is a living steel cache in Helltide. Interesting choice, but it make sense, given that living steel was the easiest material to farm. Also noticed that I got a bit more from opening the mystery chest.
  • Noticed that you made it easier to get knocked off your mount. Bold Choice, we will see how that plays out overtime lol.

Bugs

  • When I try to make 20 NMD Sigils at once on T4, it only gives me one.
    • Can make nine at once, once I try to make 10 at once or more, it just makes one instead.

Nice to Haves

  • I wish, that when you made a new character, the pet you had out on your last character, was already defaulted on, on your new character. Every time I make a new character, I start the game forgetting to get my pet, and then realize after missing some gold or something, that I need to get a pet out. Mildly annoying…. Not the end of the world.
  • Going to say it until it happens: Pit Leaderboard. Not so D4 can be an “e-sport”. But so I can see where I rack and stack globally on my class, and see if I can push myself further. This just makes the game so much more fun for me. Its what drove me to play D3 for years.
  • Going to say it until it happens: Auction House. The game needs it badly. The idea that RMTing would cause problems for an Auction House is a poor excuse to not give players the QoL needed, for trading in the game. Just ban known RMTers.

Key Points Summary:

  • I feel like ancestral drops should feel something like this:
    • Torment 1: 5% Chance
    • Torment 2: 15% Chance
    • Torment 3: 25% Chance
    • Torment 4: 35% Chance
  • While I am not a POE fan by any means, and I think that game does a lot wrong, their philosophy on progression is correct. There should be “haves”, and “have nots” in an ARPG; the “have nots”, will see what the “haves” have, and want to strive for it. This concept is what made WoW so amazing, especially in the earlier years.
    • If you can only play one or two hours a week, you should not have what blasters have. Furthermore, people should be greatly rewarded for being able to farm T4. The fact that you basically don’t get any more ancestral gear, from any source in T4 is a crime, and makes me question why I would even bother pushing into T4. More Masterworking Mats? Maybe… Slightly higher xp for paragons points that don’t really matter? Not at all…. We really need to see a rework on how ancestral gear is distributed.
    • I WANT to want to push to endgame and make the most insanely powerful character possible, but with the way ancestral drops in T4 are at the moment, I am not sure why I would even bother.
  • Blizzard, if you do not fix ancestral drop rates, here is what is going to happen. People are going to love your expansion and new zone, class, game modes, and story…… for about two weeks. Then the lack of ancestral drops in T4, is going to become the point of friction that people talk about. Out of all my feedback I have given. I think this point is the most serious. You have to make T4 rewarding, so that people are interested in pushing towards it.
  • It absolutely makes sense, that in T1-T3, it does not rain ancestral gear…. But in T4? Make it rain blizzard.
  • Neck pieces are still atrocious… but I have made a separate post on that. Bottom line, you need to delete like 50 of the worst affixes on necks so that a GG neck (or at least a neck you are happy with as a player) is actually possible.
18 Likes
2

I leveled two characters to 60 from 1 before the cheat vendor and got to Torment 4 within 10 hours. This was with passing no gear and obviously leveling the glyphs to 46 myself as once again before the cheat vendor.

I also grinded for 5-6 hours doing various activities and was able to fill about half a stash tab of ancestral gear the first night.

If everything stays similar all “blasters” and people who have a well put together build will be Torment 4 the first night of the season/expansion launch. If they make the gear “rain” in T4 people will be done with the season within 24-48 hours of launch of a 3 MONTH CYCLE/SEASON.

3 Likes
3

Did you measure out your 200 paragon points overtime, to simulate the fact that you wont have them all at season start? Depending on what build you played, I find it hard to believe you made it to T4 in 10 hours. Not saying its impossible, but you likely used your 200 paragon points the moment you were in T1, and you likely were playing something that is highly likely to get nerfed prior to launch.

It took Wudijo 16 hours to get all 200 of his paragon points back on softcore when he leveled completely fresh.

Even if that is true, then just make T3 and T4 harder, but more rewarding.

Right now, according to you, you get to T4 instantly, and it’s not rewarding. I want it to be difficult but rewarding.

Just because you had half a stash full of ancestral, did not mean they were max GAs, had the right stats, and would have tempered correctly. Getting Ancestral Items does not mean that they will be good.

I don’t know why it’s hard to get on board with the idea of the final tier of the whole game actually giving you decent drop rates of higher quality items.

If I could meet you in the middle, I would make T4 start at Pit level 75 or Pit level 80, and then adhere to my recommended drop rates above. What do you think the drop rates should be for T1 through T4? Cause right now, the drop rates appear to be basically the same… which is an indisputable problem.

I would be fine with T4 starting at Pit 85-90, if it actually dropped good gear. Right now, it drops the same trash you can get in Penitent.

The OP of the following thread does a better job than I arguing about this: Ancestral Drop Rates: The Casual Player Killer - PTR Feedback - Diablo IV Forums (blizzard.com)

But basically, the last two seasons I have put at least 70 hours into my main character while making 3-4 alts, so having ancestral items actually drop in T4, is not going to cause blasters to quit the game after playing for one week; its just going to make the end game bearable.

9 Likes
4

We had loot raining out of our ears in S5 and yet it was the most played season by both Blasters and normal players. So your point is null and void.

Artificially making game a boring grind is not the way. Artificially reducing basic items its not the way. We where there before and its only pulls away players esp casual ones, that pay for most of the game honestly.

15 Likes
5

“We had loot raining out of our ears in S5 and yet it was the most played season by both Blasters and normal players.”

I think that point can’t be made enough, the idea is to get more engagement, not less. People advocating for punishing grinds will only result in less engagement overall.

This means less players logging in, it means less players buying things out of the shop. It’s a seasonal game, players should have an easier time receiving powerful items as it only resets the next season. People play ARPGs to get that power high, pushing them into long grinds is not the way to achieve good engagement.

10 Likes
6

That’s exactly right.

7

spin to win rogue is op as heck. It needs to be nerfed to be inline with other characters or the other chars need buffs to be in paar with it. If it makes it to live, it will be the most broken built since the season of the barb…

8

Just a question, there is no better drop rates for ancestral in T4. Or they are just small?

Noone would ever play T4 if drops won´t better.

Don´t tell me they are not aware of basic formula harder content=better rewards.

9

I agree with the T4 ancestral drop rate is too terrible.

normal unique just allowed to master work to level 4, plus the low drop rate of ancestral unique is quite discourage player to continue playing.

How about allow player to use 4 normal unique plus some rune to craft the ancestral version of that unique?

10

We don’t know the drop rates at the moment, but right now, based on my testing and some other testing:
Torment 1: 1.80% drop rate
Torment 4: 2.50% drop rate

lol…

EDIT: To clarify, I am just guessing these drop rates. Maybe Torment 4 is at 10%, but it sure does not feel like it.

11

Thanks for confirming this.

absolutely love this play style. Could not agree more.

1 Like
12

Its super fun though!!! They will nerf victimize. We will see how much damage that does skill.

Ultimately, blizzard is going to want their new toys to be good. So I have hope it will stay viable.

13

Thx for info, I can´t bother with testing my self…

They have to be highter, highter than previous diff.

Not sure how hight it should be, I wasn´t fan “gearing in nearly BIS in week” but I am also not sure if really low chance for ancestral is the way. Highter itm lvl or GA is not a big problem.

But gap between 12/12 and second temper is sooooo big.

14

So I just cleared a Pit 83, which while isn’t super high considering the best, most well put together builds are clearing pit 100 in like 4 minutes right now, but 83 is still very high, and most certainty will be hard after classes get re-tuned.

In order to actually clear Pit 83 on season start, you will need again, around 200 paragon points, all your glyphs around 70, and already have mostly ancestral gear.

After clearing Pit 83, I got like 15 legendary items… not one of them was an Ancestral Piece.

The drop rates are so bad, that you require better gear than you get as a reward, to be able to clear the content. That’s wild. If I were to sub out all my ancestral gear, and have level 70 glyphs, it would be a different story entirely.

You asked what the drop rates should be, I really do believe my listing above is close to the “right answer”:

  • Torment 1: 5% Chance
  • Torment 2: 15% Chance
  • Torment 3: 25% Chance
  • Torment 4: 35% Chance
15

The grind does not have to be long. It just also does not have to be short.

Also, by your logic everyone should just start at max level, have max gear and they will play longer.

18

That’s disingenuous and not AT ALL what Khebeln said. Clearly s/he was advocating for a system that isn’t as mind numbing grindy as what is on the PTR now. I played it and if they release it in it’s present state, I will walk away and not play any of my accounts for some time.

1 Like
19

The PTR is boring and mind-numbing in many aspects. To expect endgame gear to “rain” in an ARPG is also boring. Both sides of it are boring.

Part of the problem is normal loot cannot be tempered twice or masterworked past 4 times. So everyone feels they need ancestral gear to actually be strong.

Scaling is also boring after defense is solved the monsters are just sponges.

However, let me ask everyone this, why are there 4 Torment levels? Should everyone be in the most “difficult” Torment level aka 4 by day 1, day 2, week 1? Should someone who plays only 2 hours a day have the best gear and play in the same difficulty as someone who plays 6 hours or 12 hours?

20

You are really latched on to the, “make it rain comment”, while ignoring my entire proposed solution.

So… lets get down to math, is it okay for one in three (30%) of your items in Torment 4 to be Ancestral? If not, what percentage do you think it should be?

The problem that I do not think you are considering, is the fact that if T1 and T4 ancestral drop rates are too similar, players will optimize T4 out of the game, because if T4 is not rewarding enough, players will simply stick with T3 or lower, until they can speed farm T4 at similar rates.

I also just think its unhealthy for T4 to not FEEL rewarding, and right now it doeesn’t. You might disagree with that, but this is the largest piece of feedback surfacing from the PTR… so I am not even close to being alone on this position. Please tell us what you think the drop rates for Ancestral should be in T4. I say at least 30%, or 1 in 3 legendries that drop.

EDIT: I tell you what, in the spirit of testing, I am going to farm 200 items, from all sources of the game, and catalogue them, and see how many are ancestral on WT4. I will give you a break down of the sources from all 200 Items, and we will see what the overall drop rate is from T4 right now. Furthermore, I already now, cause a guy already tested it, that the Bosses have an ancestral drop rate of roughly 1.21% so I do not need to test them.

1 Like
21

The grind though will always be there at some level. The question is where do you want that gear wall to be hit and how steep is the relative time to find upgrades.

They should have metric data on engagement relative to an upgrade drop.

Some of this is gambling data relative to ongoing amydala massaging. From the days of everquest…then ultimas…the bards tale…then zork…temple of aphsai…

So if they need to get an upgrade at least once every 5 hours of farming before it’s too long and they loose engagement, where do you build that into the continuum of play for a soft exit for those who dont’ want to grind to multi GA BiS.

This can all be figured out. They have this data set in D3 I’m sure.

1 Like
22

Alright, So here is the Data.
Out of 200 Legendary Drops in T4, 12 of them were Ancestral (exactly 6%)

BUTTTTTT…
4 – Hell Tide Chest
----2 from Mystery
---- 1 from Boots & 1 from Neck.

The other EIGHT… were from Pit Tier 75 and 80… Which are harder than base T4.
It would seem that Pit Tier 75 has a 75% chance to drop an Ancestral (unironically)
Pit Tier 80 Seems to be 100% drop rate for 1 Ancestral and Roughly 50% for 2 Ancestral Pieces in one Pit Run.

The bigger question is where do we want Ancestral Gear to drop from? Hell Tide seems to be the “Gear” Activity.

But we will already be spending so much time in the Pit, and I don’t know if we want Pit and Infernal Hordes to be the best spots for the Ancestral Chase.

Furthermore, 99% of the player base will never be able to farm Tier 75+, so I am not sure that is the right answer either.

Here is the full Data Set:

# Source Ancestral?
1 Treasure Gob 0
2 Treasure Gob 0
3 Treasure Gob 0
4 Treasure Gob 0
5 Blood Maiden 0
6 Blood Maiden 0
7 Blood Maiden 0
8 Blood Maiden 0
9 Blood Maiden 0
10 Blood Maiden 0
11 Blood Maiden 0
12 Random Drop 0
13 Hell Tide Mystery Chest 0
14 Hell Tide Mystery Chest 0
15 Hell Tide Mystery Chest 0
16 Hell Tide Mystery Chest 1
17 Kixxrath 0
18 Kixxrath 0
19 Whisper Gold Cache 0
20 Whisper Gold Cache 0
21 NMD 0
22 NMD 0
23 NMD 0
24 NMD 0
25 World Boss 0
26 World Boss 0
27 World Boss 0
28 World Boss 0
29 World Boss 0
30 World Boss 0
31 NMD 0
32 NMD 0
33 NMD 0
34 NMD 0
35 NMD 0
36 NMD 0
37 NMD 0
38 NMD 0
39 NMD 0
40 NMD 0
41 NMD 0
42 Blood Maiden 0
43 Blood Maiden 0
44 Blood Maiden 0
45 Tree of Whispers Weapons 0
46 Tree of Whispers Weapons 0
47 Tree of Whispers Weapons 0
48 Tree of Whispers Weapons 0
49 Tree of Whispers Weapons 0
50 Tree of Whispers Weapons 0
51 Tree of Whispers Weapons 0
52 Blood Maiden 0
53 Blood Maiden 0
54 Blood Maiden 0
55 Blood Maiden 0
56 Blood Maiden 0
57 Blood Maiden 0
58 Blood Maiden 0
59 Blood Maiden 0
60 Blood Maiden 0
61 Blood Maiden 0
62 Blood Maiden 0
63 Blood Maiden 0
64 Blood Maiden 0
65 Blood Maiden 0
66 Blood Maiden 0
67 Blood Maiden 0
68 Hell Tide Chest Boots 0
69 Hell Tide Chest Boots 0
70 Hell Tide Chest Boots 0
71 Hell Tide Chest Boots 1
72 Kixxrath 0
73 Hell Tide Chest Neclace 0
74 Hell Tide Chest Neclace 0
75 Hell Tide Chest Neclace 0
76 Hell Tide Chest Neclace 0
77 Random Drop 0
78 Hell Tide Mystery Chest 0
79 Hell Tide Mystery Chest 0
80 Hell Tide Mystery Chest 0
81 Hell Tide Mystery Chest 0
82 Hell Tide Mystery Chest 0
83 Hell Tide Mystery Chest 0
84 Hell Tide Mystery Chest 1
85 Hell Borne 0
86 Blood Maiden 0
87 Blood Maiden 0
88 Blood Maiden 0
89 Blood Maiden 0
90 Blood Maiden 0
91 Hell Tide Chest Helm 0
92 Hell Tide Chest Helm 0
93 Hell Tide Chest Helm 0
94 Hell Tide Chest Helm 0
95 Hell Tide Chest Neclace 0
96 Hell Tide Chest Neclace 0
97 Hell Tide Chest Neclace 1
98 Treasure Gob 0
99 Treasure Gob 0
100 Treasure Gob 0
101 Treasure Gob 0
102 Random Drop 0
103 Random Drop 0
104 Tree of Whispers Gloves 0
105 Tree of Whispers Gloves 0
106 Tree of Whispers Gloves 0
107 Tree of Whispers Gloves 0
108 Tree of Whispers Gloves 0
109 Tree of Whispers Gloves 0
110 Tree of Whispers Gloves 0
111 Pit Tier 75 0
112 Pit Tier 75 0
113 Pit Tier 75 0
114 Pit Tier 75 0
115 Pit Tier 75 0
116 Pit Tier 75 0
117 Pit Tier 75 0
118 Pit Tier 75 0
119 Pit Tier 75 0
120 Pit Tier 75 0
121 Pit Tier 75 0
122 Pit Tier 75 0
123 Pit Tier 75 0
124 Pit Tier 75 0
125 Pit Tier 75 0
126 Pit Tier 75 0
127 Pit Tier 75 0
128 Pit Tier 75 0
129 Pit Tier 75 0
130 Pit Tier 75 0
131 Pit Tier 75 0
132 Pit Tier 75 0
133 Pit Tier 75 0
134 Pit Tier 75 0
135 Pit Tier 75 0
136 Pit Tier 75 0
137 Pit Tier 75 0
138 Pit Tier 75 0
139 Pit Tier 75 0
140 Pit Tier 75 1
141 Pit Tier 75 1
142 Pit Tier 80 0
143 Pit Tier 80 0
144 Pit Tier 80 0
145 Pit Tier 80 0
146 Pit Tier 80 0
147 Pit Tier 80 0
148 Pit Tier 80 0
149 Pit Tier 80 0
150 Pit Tier 80 0
151 Pit Tier 80 0
152 Pit Tier 80 0
153 Pit Tier 80 0
154 Pit Tier 80 1
155 Pit Tier 80 0
156 Pit Tier 80 0
157 Pit Tier 80 0
158 Pit Tier 80 0
159 Pit Tier 80 0
160 Pit Tier 80 0
161 Pit Tier 80 0
162 Pit Tier 80 1
163 Pit Tier 80 1
164 Pit Tier 75 0
165 Pit Tier 75 0
166 Pit Tier 75 0
167 Pit Tier 75 0
168 Pit Tier 75 0
169 Pit Tier 75 0
170 Pit Tier 75 0
171 Pit Tier 75 0
172 Pit Tier 75 0
173 Pit Tier 75 0
174 Pit Tier 75 1
175 Pit Tier 75 0
176 Pit Tier 75 0
177 Pit Tier 75 0
178 Pit Tier 75 0
179 Pit Tier 75 0
180 Pit Tier 75 0
181 Pit Tier 75 0
182 Pit Tier 75 0
183 Pit Tier 75 0
184 Pit Tier 75 0
185 Pit Tier 75 0
186 Pit Tier 75 0
187 Pit Tier 75 0
188 Pit Tier 75 0
189 Pit Tier 75 0
190 Pit Tier 75 0
191 Pit Tier 75 0
192 Pit Tier 75 0
193 Pit Tier 75 0
194 Pit Tier 75 0
195 Pit Tier 75 0
196 Pit Tier 75 1
197 Pit Tier 75 0
198 Pit Tier 75 0
199 Pit Tier 75 0
200 Pit Tier 75 1

EDIT: Oh! And also, I got a really good Cross Bow, that I proceeded to immediately brick LOLOLOLOL

EDIT EDIT: Keep in mind, all of these legendary items, are the exact same items a level 60 would get in Penitent Difficulty.

1 Like