In some ways it doesn’t feel like D4 has much endgame because what it does have is so easily and quickly trivialized. And so you’re wondering what’s next? You could grind 2-3ga’s/paragon buy why? why get your character stronger if undercity, dark citadel, helltides, uber bosses, infernal hordes, world bosses, legion events is already a trivial, oneshot, low chance of your character dying matter at t4?
T4 needs to be aspirational like the devs claimed it would be prior to S6, something to aspire to. I know there’s people that only play a couple hours a week, or wait til a couple weeks before end of season to start, or want to play 10 alts. But buffing everything so that T4 is the floor means there’s nothing left for someone who takes D4 as a hobby.
I dont get it, I think all it means, is that across the board if you have your armor and resist in check for T1, you can play your way, which is a good thing.
They know the veterans and etc, can push and will try to come up with builds that they enjoy and can handle above T1, this game is played by people of all skill levels, not only meta builders.
There needs to be better end game and worthy of a grind . D4 can and should build upon what they already have and try to enhance or expand certain areas. If coming up new stuff proves too be too time consuming and making the game more convoluted in the long run, they don’t have to go that approach.
Paragon 300 is NOT worth to grind LOL. Dev said it themselves, there is a pretty big diminishing return in terms of power gain when it is paragon 250+ LOL
Actually, that’s an admirable goal to have, because it means that anybody, no matter what their physical, mental or time limitations might be, can have access to the end game, and/or anyone who wants to roll with any kind of whacko off meta build at all can play the way they want to.
This has always been one of D4’s greatest strengths - letting you play how you want - but it always fell apart when you were locked out of the end game because your power level was not adequate to do all of the content unless you gravitated towards whatever FotM meta class/build was the reigning champ that season.
This makes ‘end game’ content accessible for everybody. Those that want a greater challenge (or more chances at good drops) can push further, but you don’t have to.
Yeah actually it’s pretty good. I’m loving it. I have a stack of Mythics from T1 bosses. The drop rate for that, at least, is fine considering how trivial it is.
If anything, the problem here is that the opposite isn’t true. I have not seen significantly better drops in higher Torment tiers. The vast majority of my play time has been on T3, and some T4. And yet (in the case of good GA legendary items, anyway) I don’t see the drops being significantly better in higher tiers.
But that’s fine, while the drop rate of GA legendary items in general needs to be re-evaluated (everywhere), the key point is that players have the choice. They can pick whatever tier makes most sense for them, finding the right balance of difficulty and rewards, because there’s more granularity now.
Edit: actually I should add that of course, crafting material drops are notably better on higher tiers, this alone is enough reason to keep moving up as your character progresses in power, so that part is working well.
I am going to depart from my typical preference for objectivity in my posts and offer a heavy dose of subjective opinion here.
I think every well thought out build should be able to reach t4 (with appropriate gear) - this may mean some time spent in lower tiers grinding out the items needed to advance. this makes perfect sense to me
I’m fine with some builds being stronger than others
I think the gaps between builds and classes should be addressed iteratively to close them as much as possible
I don’t think people should be able to make a garbage build with no thought put into it and easily complete all content in t3/t4 high tier Pit etc
I don’t think people should expect to hit 60 get a pit 65 carry and then go out and smash T4 regardless of build
I think there are some players who will be happy to ever see a mythic item at all, and others who won’t be happy till they have all 3/4 star with perfect aspects on every slot, and I think the tiered end game is a sensible approach to that.
I think tiered end game allows more casual players to experience all of the content without having to have a perfect build or spend massive amounts of time grinding elite level gear
I think people who are limited on time but still want to play like a hardcore grinder will never be happy with the tiered system
I think communication is key to having players understand the tiered approach, why it is there and how to best play it to their wants/strengths
the drop amount increase also means a high chance of getting what you want isn’t it ?
No.
Let’s say Varshan drops mythics exactly 1% of the time and say that T4 drops exactly 2x the number of items.
Doing Varshan 10 times on T1 is the same as doing Varshan 5 times on T4 but you are not more likely in those sets do see a mythic drop. What T4 really does is reduce the cost to challenge Varshan but it doesn’t change the odds of Varshan.
This is a very important point because odds changing and efficiency farming are not equivalent.
And yet we will hit Paragon 300 before we replace all of our 1GA items
And that right there is the reason we will give up before we get there, the yield is just too low, and let’s face it, the items themselves are not desirable or exciting enough to keep chasing them when it’s ‘blood from a stone’ levels.
Agreed 100% . Personally experienced this myself this season I tried several different build referencing some guides and with correct skills, paragon and gears tempers etc etc and can only go up to pit 80-90 ish . (Non SB classes), i tried Necro and Sorc.
Also 100% agreed
absolutely…
LOL this is gonna be hard one. hey, some people think their home brew build is perfect you don’t tell them what is garbage build what ain’t
yea this is a lazy way to play I think majority players aren’t going to play this way though
The nature of mythics have changed since S4. Now most top S tier build “requires” mythic to function optimally. Can still play without it but, most players expect to have these now and it is gonna be hard to change this mentality back to where it was S1. Mythic have been reworked to a point where build almost needs it. bad or good, up to personal comprehension
Agreed…
This one gonna be hard to argue as well. Because people manage their time differently and it is a hard balance to say how many hours 1 should put in to this game to be successful as a measure stick.
success or failure in the game should tell them if it is a garbage build or not. I have no desire to be an arbiter of what is good and what isn’t, but if you randomly choose a bunch of gear and skills and don’t think about synergies at all then you should not expect a good result. The problem with this is that right now even if you do consider those things you are not guaranteed a good result
RE: time spent
I don’t think there needs to be a benchmark for how many hours you should have to put in to succeed, and even if one wanted to do this RNG would make it a very difficult task. One person/character might get all 2GA+ in a week and be crushing while another may be stuck for months with 1GA, such is the nature of RNG. That said there are two things I believe to be universally true in this regard
more time played trends toward a stronger character.
if you can only play for 3-4 hours a week, it is unreasonable to expect to achieve the same thing as someone who can afford to give 20+ hours or even more so a professional streamer that can play 40-60 hours a week because it is literally their job
RE: Mythics
Some players don’t know or care about S-tier builds. Having played many games casually i can say that there are indeed people as described above who want to just log in once or twice a week, go do a dungeon or a boss or two and see what they get. Who knows what the percentage is (I doubt it a majority) but their way of playing is no less vaild than anyone else’s
I honestly think SB power this season should be the Pinnacle for all classes, the problem is its to easy to attain while other classes can’t attain it at all, if the end all be all bis build does this that’s fine but it should take time and effort to obtain. No one that I know of wanted equal footing mobs, everyone likes to blast through hordes but the bosses should pose a challenge. Just my opinion
TLDR, the excitement and dynamics of the class should be the benchmark. The power? maybe not so much
I think the dynamics of the class and the wide variety of possible ways to approach SB builds should be the benchmark for sure. The power level though I’m going to have to diverge.
Imagine if they kept pit capped at 100 and spiritborn did 2x the damage of most classes instead of 10K or more times the damage. Even better imagine if they didn’t roll back the 2X dmg on primary stat, or at least only scaled it back instead of reverting entirely.
I think some people would still grumble about OP new class etc, but I also think peoples view of the season and the state of the game would be much more positive than it is now.
They did a good job of tuning most classes to a max pit 100 world. The disparity between non SB classes is as small as I have seen it. Yes there are issues with several classes having very limited sometimes bug dependent options to achieve class parity. There are clearly issues internally to classes where some builds can be considered unplayable by people who want to achieve the highest tiers of play.
I believe they touched on this in the midseason campfire chat with all the class parity talk. It makes sense to me to get the classes close to each other overall first and then address internal class issues with build vs build balance
The best build for each class being around the same level is a good start, ie should of been like that since release. However there are builds and within each class that a very far from that line, matter of fact most skills would fall in this category, while I give credit for getting to this point minus SB it’s a year and an xpac into this game and the balance is still horrible unless you play the build they deemed worthy this season
Preaching to the choir bro… I play sorc, which given currently available knowledge means i get to play firebolt shatter or not push pit next season
I would also be happier if we get there sooner, i’m just pointing out that where we are seems to be in line with what they have said. It seems like early in the game they realized just how important class parity was ogint to be and came to the conclusion that the way it was built was going to be a challenge for this… so they tore the whole thing apart to get it in a state that would make that tuning easier, now they are starting the tuning. getting classes close was first and it seems like they are starting to move into intra class balance now.
I have been managing software devs for decades so I think it is just ingrained in my personality at this point to harshly criticize the bad but also offer kudos for the good.
The problem is they don’t even “deem” it or plan it at all. It just becomes whatever slipped under their radar and became the bug of the month meta build.
And because of the no mid season nerf policy that bug of the month will stick for the whole season.
Edit: I guesz I have no proof that it indeed slipped under their radar. Maybe it’s also intentional. I have no proof either way lol
Veracity nailed the heart of the current season problem with this. The game plays like it is built for the players he describes here. The ones who don’t use guides or read patch notes. The ones who simply jump in and go. The “wow, I’m in Torment 1” crowd. The ones who aren’t necessarily sure why the orange piece might be better than the unique in that slot. In short, the ones who don’t min/max and don’t care or even notice abyssmal drop rates when you are trying to fine tune and end game toon.
In that light, even the Torment levels make sense. It makes sense they would make the statement that they are happy all builds are reaching Torment 1. They’ve built the game for ultra casuals and literally forgotten everyone else in the process.
