As someone who dont watch fireside chats, i didn’t know about this decision.
So, what is the point of Seasonal Ladder? It feels like a long 3 month PTR to see if the event is worth keeping, and that we have to pay for some unique cosmetic.
At least im keeping the gear, but my necromancer build depends upon auto cast corpse skill and auto decrepify. (Frees up skill bar.)
The auto corpse saved my butt plenty of times because it casts while i’m cc’ed.
Currently - the consensus is no. Malignant Hearts will be eliminated once migrated to the Eternal Realm.
However - things can (and do) change. Players might be able to keep the hearts/gear they have found. That’s a distinct possibility. But given how Barber has played out, I doubt the devs are going to be inclined to allow it. If Barber didn’t exist, I’d be inclined to think keeping the hearts wouldn’t be so terrible. Barber definitely changes that, rofl
In either case, I highly doubt that new Hearts will drop in Eternal, nor will more colored sockets appear. Some of the socket powers may appear as new affixes, however.
There’s a pile of fun D3 builds taller than the Empire State Building that are forever dead because seasonal powers don’t carry over. D4 is just continuing that trend.
Pray tell, what is this?
This is how seasonal ARPGs work. Sometimes the season mechanic will make it to the eternal realm, sometimes it won’t.
I do agree that automatic corpse consumption is absolutely essential to Necro. Hopefully they build that into the class by default in some other way, because it just feels so damn good to play.
Actually no. D3 did the exact opposite with bait and switch power creep on set items. Every season they just buffed 1 set which became the meta making everything else irrelevant.
Its why some set pc bonuses are like +80,000%.
Removing something does not add power creep.
I actually enjoyed the seasonal meta change, personally. Same in PoE. If they buff / nerf stuff every season so 3-4 new meta builds emerge, it gives me a reason to keep playing. If the meta in D4 stays the same through the first 5 seasons a lot of people won’t bother coming back to play because they’ve already played those builds.
Honestly, if I were designing the curses for Necromancer, I would design it thusly:
Curse (Decrepify/Iron Maiden)
Passive - Creates a (curse name) aura of X radius around the player with (curse effect).
Active - Cast (curse name) of 3x radius at a directed location.
Each Skill Point increases X and (curse effect).
There ya go. Brilliant design. Not really, but it’s lightyears ahead of what we’re given. In fact, nearly all skills need an overhaul like that. Skill points should make the skill better, not just higher numbers.
Now that i think about it, its going to be a chaotic transition. For example, my entire build of minion/tendril/CE/curse/bonestorm melee is entirely dependent on the Hearts.
That said, the transition to Eternal realm will force me to respec, and reassign my skills for a whole different playstyle… (i might have to go Range and no Bonestorm)
In fact, my Paragon Board is synergistic with the Hearts! I have to respec that too?!
Yikes. I hope the devs would make a good decision near the end…
Huh? You’re thinking of something completely different. There are tons of good builds that no longer work because the seasonal them doesn’t carry over. Strafe/Impale is the first one that comes to mind. Power creep wasn’t even mentioned.
Power creep is an extreamly lazy way to develop something. If you have a standard bar for what meta is than that should be the benchmark. Bring underperforming skills/builds to that bar so you have multiple meta builds.
If someone enjoys 1 build that gets gutted 3 months later whats the point. The whole philosophy was “play your way”.
So first you have to realize a few things:
Blizzards goal is to get you to play each season to sell their product, eternal realm has been and always will be an after thought. Although if they were smart they would offer the battle pass to people who play in the eternal read, it would have to be tweaked some, but easily doable.
The other issue is the seasons came out way too fast for your average gamer. Casual gamers (their main audience) were barely finishing up the campaign and experimenting with paragon boards and endgame content. Now they have to start all over again.
In previous Diablo games it took a long while to even get a new season. D2 got its first ladder on oct 28, 2003 over 2 years after launch, and that ladder season lasted until July 2003, 9 months later. Diablo 3 was no different, game released on May 15, 2012, first season was August 29th, 2014 and lasted until Feb 3rd 2015. Granted D3 flopped hard just like D4 did but that’s irrelevant.
The main point I’m making is players had a lot more time before seasons/ladders even started, a good two years to explore the game, have fun with it, get bored with it. D4 on the other hand just feels rushed, not only in its seasons but it’s development as well, average players haven’t had the time to really do much before having a brand new season shoved down their throats and a huge dose of FOMO if they don’t play the new season.
Thank god, malignant hearts would be awful to keep.
Don’t get your hopes up. Like I said - if Barber didn’t exist, I could see devs allowing Hearts permanently. With Barber, it’s a no-go. They will NOT be repeating Barber again and will happily see it die on Oct 17th. In the best case scenario, they allow all of the non-Wrathful Hearts; but again, I don’t see it happening.
Nope. You won’t even keep the seasonal codex powers you earned either.
Is that speculation, or has that been confirmed somewhere?
Mouse over it. At the bottom it says “expires at the end of the season.”
S1 came out a bit too early, but S2 is still 2 months away. My significant other plays quite casually, and is currently lv 79. 2 months is a very long time…
Self-identifying Troll Alert
Don’t upset the black knights, they love seasonal gameplay, cause that’s all that’s ever existed…if you’re 15-20 years old. Or maybe you’re a really young 30 year old. (I felt that way, but it was during different times)
As a life long gamer that doubles that age group, I’ve had a chance to play in both cultures…and speaking on behalf of the older culture, you hit the nail on the head.
Really, what is the point of seasons? Baseline, it’s dividing an entire mass of players…and for what? Leader boards? & Cosmetics? As the OP said, a PTR?
This was never part of the original Diablo concept. Ladder and seasons were implimented as a reaction to cheating.
Yeah, a few other, mobile click bait games have done it better…but seriously, this isn’t a tradition worth holding on to. It was a weird implementation to begin with…not sure why Blizzard’s “willing to die” on this hill.
From an older perspective, what they’re doing is more about a product and less about a game.
That’s false, sort of. Many (all?) of the Seasonal Codex Powers were in-game Aspects prior to the Season. You’ll still have those Aspects, they don’t expire - you just won’t (probably) have access to them via the Codex as far as we know currently.
But who cares?!? Codex Powers are the lowest Aspect form, and should only be utilized as you level up. After you start finding them on actual Legendaries, that’s your go-to.