When you say that something is viable or not is it because you tested it yourself or because someone else told you it wasn’t? I can’t imagine that every single person found no way to make something work. If that’s not what you mean by ‘viable’ then what do you mean?
For me “Viable” means there is a route to making it work for the content in Torment 4 at some point in the progression comfortably.
Most usually mean it can’t push the top pit the streamer they saw playing…you know because they won’t actually ever play those themselves. But at least the build they copied won’t be the reason “why”.
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They said when introduced torment difficulties and season 5, if a build can kill any boss at torment 1, then it is viable. They don’t care if 90% of builds can’t reach pit 100, their standard of viability is torment 1.
And that is because it is easier to do, and they want to cut the effort as much as possible
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The issue is that the new baseline of what is “viable” has become dependent on how it performs with the gimmick powers, which means most things are always going to be equalized in terms of power. Rather than do actual core game balancing. Now it’s “slap on these powers and you’re all relatively equal” is the new lazy route for the devs not to have to do their god damn jobs.
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Again I don’t think it is lazy, they just seem like they are bad at it.
Everything they said in the campfire was heading in the right direction to get balance closer. Now we just need to see the results. Intentions are great and all but…
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Being able to get glyphs to 80 in a reasonable amount of time so that I can do all content on torment 4. Having a boss take me 5-10 min is not viable: 2-3 min is ideal.
To me this means being able to run pit 75-80 in about 3-5 minutes.
Being able to run undercity tributes in 5 min; or being able to run the mythic tribute and not having to worry that I can’t.
Currently I would classify S-tier and A-tier builds viable.
Edit: all of this should be able to be done on the eternal realm without seasonal powers…. These should allow it to push to pit 100 in 5-7 min or less.
As someone in upper management you start to recognize when certain employees are consistently bad at their jobs with the intent to have the expectations of them be low so they can perform lazily.
There is a difference between making a mistake, and always making the same mistakes. This, from them, is deliberate.
The problem is we’re going to S9, how much we have to wait for a decent balance? Making the same mistakes and not learn anything is not only doing bad, it is fully laziness
I’m not defending them, I barely ever do.
Just saying what I heard them say. All of it looked like they are interested in fixing what is wrong. But you can already see the backlash threads popping up because some people would rather have their “Easy” builds than balance.
When these people are the source of your continued income, you and I don’t know if the person in charge doesn’t step in and say “yeah we’re not doing that because…”
Also why I said, let’s wait and see what we actually get…
If you can’t do torment 4 at glyph 46, glyph 80 won’t change that.
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So they locked content and still says it’s viable. Locking the ability to max out your glyphs and calling it “viable” is a pretty terrible definition of “viable”.
Something is “viable” if they can actually complete the game and finish the content. Maxing out your build is one of the most basic tasks in any ARPG. If you are unable to do it, then your build is not viable at all.
“Viable:” A build that can successfully complete D4 content.
Once we accept that definition, then it’s time to start moving the goal-posts in order to fit our personal, expanded definition. My own personal definition is that you can get to T1 & solo bosses; everything beyond that is “aspirational.” Because of this definition – which I note appears to closely track Blizzard’s – I think that requiring any tier above that in order to complete the “season journey” is a bad idea.
Obviously some will disagree with this, & that’s fine, & I don’t care. I’m only attempting to answer the OP’s question; I’m not going to try arguing this.
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He said “All Content” which includes the Bosses…so if you are saying there is no difference between lvl46 and lvl80 glyphs this would be objectively wrong.
I mean unless you are riding the PooWave or something similarly broken which does not really care about game mechanics.
If you mean it’s them buying time, yeah, it is.
This is why I asked this question. Everyone’s answers, the serious ones anyway, allude to different expressions. One thing that is true is that in most ARPGs you never actually max out before beating the game. In fact, you beat the game well before being maximum level in general in most games and perfection is rarely the bar. What’s strange is that what ‘content’ represents is also not stable across individual opinions; to be objective about it would mean saying that T1 is all content, it gets no more interesting, and nothing is really beyond your grasp at that point insofar as in-game experiences. From then on you can do as you see fit to go as far as you can but T1 Varshan has the same moveset as Tn Varshan.
In my reading of it, and really all the opinions including the dissent for Blizzard in general, I think the greatest confusion that needs to be really remedied by the developer is where their game really ends. I think about other iARPGs in this space and they all have very clear ends to their stories but D4 specifically pushes a cliffhanger “To be continued” feel which I think is toxic to it’s own ability to divide when self-assertion begins and the story ends. The seasonal track and content don’t help with this either because, in the case of Belial, the fact that you can’t engage the season until the campaign is really over fails to create the line between “end game” and “story”.
The same with the Pit. You can’t tell when it’s the Ex-dungeon vs the internal progression system due to Glyphs. Some people say they end at 45, some 100, and the difference in these definitions is night and day. If they end at 45 that’s T4, a nice cut-off, but if they end at 100 that’s just a totally different game. The lack of clarity from the dev is just wild on this particularly powerful topic. I still can’t think of a single game that has this particular problem; even new games in EA have clear ends and tell you upfront when the Maps / Ex-Dungeons begin and the main campaign ends.
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I believe this 100%
They made T1 and T2 easier then introduced boss powers to propel literally ANYTHING into T1.
My build with ONE skill level in frenzy as my ONLY skill made it to tier 3 off of boss powers aspects and passives. All bosses too, including Lilith killed on T2.
And next season more borrowed power to push people in T1 and T2
This is how I see it. Higher T-levels have monsters with more health, & more chances of getting the very best gear, but other than that there’s no difference in the actual content.
There are times I suspect this confusion is deliberate, in that they don’t wish to specify an end point, but would rather push the illusion that D4 is a “forever game.” I can’t help thinking that in their mind, finishing the seasonal journey represents the “end point” & that’s why they want to draw out the process of getting there.
FWIW, I agree that this is a major issue. I don’t see it changing any time soon, either. I think the devs are well aware of all the cracks in their foundation, & since tearing the entire structure down to fix those cracks isn’t going to happen they paper them over, throw on a fresh coat of paint, & move on.
Same thing with the azerite powers and all the stuff in WOW