I’ve been a long-time player, I’ve been around since before season 1, and I have enjoyed each season despite how little some of them have offered or how they reused the borrowed time mechanic. That being said, I think the devs are once again repeating the same tired trend of reworking core systems when they really don’t need to be reworked.
I’ll first start with the armor and resistance changes since those will probably be the quickest to talk about. Straight up, I just don’t think these need to be touched since they have already been reworked before from a similar system that they are introducing now. The current system we have now is honestly perfectly fine and very simple to understand and to build up. From my understanding of the new system, you can’t reach 100% damage reduction from a certain type, so the resistance being uncapped really doesn’t do much more the the current. Also, the addition of a new physical type of resistance will just cause more clutter on sanctification. Along with all that Armor, which will now reduce all damage, will just be the only stat people will care about, and they’ll only stack it, which is the problem we had with the previous system. I just feel this is an unnecessary rework to a system most everyone likes and enjoys, and is making it similar to an old system that not a lot of people liked and was also not very intuitive for most. I’m not opposed to the devs making the game slower-paced and having to rely on defenses more, but I feel that they did not need to rework this system in order to accomplish this.
For this next part, I’ll talk about something that I actually do like/Don’t really mind them changing. Starting with the monster changes. It’s new and refreshing, and the new additions are a good way to shake up the gameplay. I think it its cool and immersive for the monsters to be deadlier and smarter, and for the wanderer to need to take their time in having to dispatch these elite packs. As for the healing and potion changes Im pretty neutral, the potion change is kinda whatever, although losing the ability to upgrade your potions might be a missed opportunity to maybe reowork that system into something such as maybe having the ability to your potion grant you effects based on how you build/ upgrade it, maybe sorta combining it witht the elixer system or something but its a whatever change for me. The healing updates, though, are welcome. I’ve never used any of the healing affixes willingly, so the devs making them more appealing/ better is cool, although I still don’t really see the appeal in using them unless your class just doesn’t really have access to fortify.
This brings us back to some of the issues I have with this updates and that is fortify, now i honestly dont mind the whole fortify rework if it wasnt for the fact that some classes, erm sorc, that dont really have access to a whole lot of fortify, so if combat is truely ramping up as much as i think it is sorcs will be forced to take healing affixes instead of utility or damage affixes while other classes that can easily fortify wont have to as many if even any at all. Speaking of Sorcs, I also am not a fan of the teleport enchantment nerf. While I understand it, it’s not something that is super easy to achieve and is really only something you unlock when you have high enough Cooldown Reduction or Lucky Hit Chance. It’s something that can be done without, but regardless, still slightly annoying since barbs are going to be leaping all across the map this update.
Now time for the big one, the Masterworking and Tempering changes. I’ll start by saying the tempering changes aren’t all bad. Finally being able to choose which exact temper you want is so nice and is something I’ve wanted in the game for a long time; however, now that you can only have one temper on an item, a lot of the utility tempers are essentially dead now. Since damage reduction will be harder to come by, we will need to focus whatever extra non-damage tempers we can spare on defensive tempers now, which is pretty sad because a lot of the utility tempers are so nice and can make the build you are creating flow nicely and smoothly. Personally, I just would’ve made it to where you can select whichever temper you wanted for both of them, but made it more expensive and maybe require a special resource, maybe one you could get from the tower?, It would make your item progression journey incremental but impactful. It would require players to take their time to work toward items that can be the best that they can be. I don’t think there is a problem in giving the players the ability to get a perfected item through hard work. This sentiment also applies to the Masterworking changes. Theremovall of the affixes, upgrading as you masterwork the item, hurts and makes the system feel like you are really improving the item until you hit the GA Capstone bonus. It makes the system so much less interactive than it was before. That being said, I do like the capstone bonus, however, and I think a pretty cool feature. I just wish it could be somewhat combined with the current feature that we have. Like every 4 masterworks would still upgrade an aspect by 25% then the last and final master work would transform an aspect into a GA version. Another improvement that could have been done for this system that iI’ve seen many people ask for is the ability to reset the master working progress every 25% increase. That way, people could more reliably masterwork one particular aspect 3 times. The devs could make this more expensive or require a special resource for this to happen. I’ve just never understood why the devs don’t want to give players a goal to reach or a way to deterministically max out an item instead of just leaving playing to deal with the gods of RNG.
Lastly, the seasonal theme feels like another borrowed powers theme with some boost to activities, but my main grievances aren’t really with the seasonal theme; it’s mainly with santification. The idea that sanctification is supposed to be your final and most impactful upgrade you can give to your equipment, and honestly, I think that’s really cool. However, the fact that you can easily destroy a brick or an item by sanctifying something is not all that cool. Imagine finding a GG item, getting high tempers, and a Capstone GA on the right affix, and then you give it that angel powder, then… a really important affix gets replaced with making your item indestructible. While I was testing on the PTR, this happened to me quite a few times; not all cases were as bad as what I said above, but still very frustrating. If this happened to me during the season and not PTR, I’d probably quit for the rest of the season. The way the current system works, you’re incentivized to not complete your progression journey with certain items and are actively encouraged to hoard other items and NOT sanctify your GG items due to the unpredictability of it. Personally, it just seems very counterintuitive to what should be happening. Personally, I’m fine with sanctification being the end of item progression, but at the very least, let us use Heavenly Sigils to reroll/completely redo the sanctification process so we don’t have to throw away useless bricked items that we potentially spent hours to get and may never get another one again, especially mythics. I feel that this season mechanic just benefits the people who have plenty of time to grind this game, and really, really hurts the casual players.