rezaf
2641
Amen to that. I have a few decent legendaries by now, and those with unique “abilities” are often quite cool, but even after the major loot overhaul they’re still doing not nearly enough with this.
But I guess, since it’s a multiplayer system, they can’t constantly increase the power of players significantly, and the dum … err … steamlined stats system means they only have so many things to play with. I guess they could do a LOT more with unique effects and kill off legendaries that don’t have any, but other than that, I’m not sure what could be done. Do you have any suggestions?
rezaf
No, because my WD is in mostly rares. I can probably solo torment 2, maybe. I am far from having every item in the game.
stusser
2643
It is, but in Diablo2 you could trade unusable or duplicate items with other players, so every powerful drop was valuable, even if you personally had no use for it. In D3 they’re trash.
LockerK
2644
As stusser alluded to, there is no trading which is part of what made D2 thrive for so long in my eyes. Now with the auction house gone (good riddance) there is no secure avenue to swap gear with other players which makes the grind that much worse. The best course of action would be to implement a D2-style trading system, and include mats and possibly gold. I’m torn on the gold because it would make gold selling a thing again, but gold and mats are resources that everyone has use for and ability to acquire which would make trading more robust.
Remove specific stat rolls for quantity. While the idea that an item can have 10-20% increased damage is cool if that item drops frequently, it is not if that item is super rare. This just ends up resulting in a large amount of the items you get that want not being good because you got unlucky in that final roll. They can still keep the randomized attribute types, just not the quantity.
Review all legendary items, with special attention to those without unique abilities. If an item has no unique ability, it better have insanely good stats or something else special about it.
Make sure all legendary unique abilities are actually worth a damn. Sadly only a fraction of legendary items have unique abilities and many are not useful.
Do not allow unusable legendary items to drop.
Those changes are basically required to make the loot system good.
Beyond that it would be nice if changed all items from being “bound to account on pickup” to being “bound to account on equip.”
I’m honestly not seeing how implementing a win button makes the game good. It’s item gambling-- the fun and addiction, long term, require that not everything be good. If you make it so that only “good” legendary will drop each time, you either have to reduce the rate of drop significantly or expect players to max out very, very early on.
Adding a secure trading option would be a good. Handing out the best items like candy is a bad thing.
lokiju
2647
But trading is also an easy way to get what you want, no? I’d rather just get better drops (Presently, I can only use like 1 out of every 10 legendaries I get in T1, if that, and I’m still in some rares) than have to deal with trading. Legendary items should, on average, be somewhat better than rares, even without perfect stat rolls. Right now they are not, often giving up better stats for silly special abilities. I also hate getting legendary items meant for other classes. That is not smart loot.
Getting a legendary is tough enough, then you have to hope it rolls stats you want, then worry about high enough rolls, then whether they can be used by your class and even worry about it being a double or triple of what you’ve already gotten. The chance for real upgrades is so miniscule that I don’t feel like them upping the “smart” in the loot would be like handing out candy.
If they made enchanting much much cheaper it would solve most of my item worries I think.
Maybe we’re missing the point: perhaps legendaries are meant to be yellows+other effects, not the ultra ne plus yellows we’re expecting. I.e. working as designed. That being said, Blizzard can fuck right off with legendaries like The Crudest Boots.
I agree, which is why this is completely not what i said.
Right now, even assuming you can get a legendary or set item to drop for you, there are a lot of elements that make it likely to be useless:
-You might not even be able to use the item type
-You might already have the item (very common for the same item to drop multiple times in a day)
-Poor attribute choices
-Poor attribute rolls
-Underpowered item
-item without a unique legendary ability
-Item with a legendary ability that is underpowered
I want to remove the bolded items. This would indeed have the effect of making more items you find not enchanter trash, but you would still have situations where your thunderfury rolls with health regen, vitality and no socket (example i just made up) or where you get an item you didnt want.
In my opinion, it devalues the experience of getting a drop when you realize “oh it is just another thunderfury with shit stats that makes it useless” or “damn, not another legendary without any unique ability, this thing is useless.”
These changes would just lower the grind to a more acceptable level.
Also do remember that all of this assumes you even got a legendary to drop for you.
It’s an interesting question: whether powerful items should always be “good”, but drop less often - or what D3 currently has, with a lot of Legendary items that are fairly commonly available but are just slightly more powerful versions of Rares.
As for getting the drops, anyone who plays regularly gets Legendary items, especially if they’re in Torment difficulty, and/or doing Rifts. But an awful lot of those legendaries aren’t that interesting or useful. The gearing up process is obviously designed around that, with the expectation being that players will salvage less useful Legendary items into materials, to craft or enchant other Legendary items.
With all the upcoming loot changes, there will be more of an incentive for players to push into harder difficulties, and an overall increase in Legendary/Set items obtained per hour spent. But that won’t change their quality; there will always be that tension between the idea that Legendary items should be rare and powerful, and the players who just want to see that orange beam more often.
lokiju
2652
I’m still relatively new to Diablo 3, and even I don’t get overly excited when a legendary drops because there’s a 95% chance it will suck. That shouldn’t be the initial feeling over legendary items. Must not be a lot of adventure and excitement in these parts if some of these items are legendary. Blizzard has created a misnomer.
I do feel that seeing the orange beam should be like Christmas morning with a choir of angels singing, but typically I find it overshadowed by the thought that this thing is probably not going to blow my mind.
Shame really, since they have obviously improved so much. I think they are at least on the right track, but still need to tweak legendary items and figure out some trading.
Adding some extras that drop specifically from certain bosses would be nice too. I don’t want to spend all day farming a certain boss, but it’d be nice to know that you have a better chance for something specific instead of always being random.
The grind is the game. It always has been, and always will be. If you’re trying to avoid the grind, you’re doing it wrong. If you want the slot machine to payout better, know that the end game will arrive that much sooner, because the item progression isn’t infinite.
Physically, there is no difference in running Hard vs. Torment if your gear is appropriate for the difficulty. Being decked out in all super gear frankly means little, in and of itself. Yet, you believe that reaching that mystical point some how makes the game different. It doesn’t. Rather, what the designer needs to do is keep dangling the lure of better in front of you. No because better truly changes the gameplay-- just that it is new. They can only do that if they 1) control the rate of “better” so that it takes a certain amount of random drops to get you there, 2) reduce the rate of drops significantly so that only good drops show up, or 3) continually inflating the power curve by creating better and better and better.
People complained that legendary drop rates were way, way too low. Now you’re demanding that each drop is a significantly improved in quality. Players will either plateau earlier or Blizzard will need to constantly impose item inflation.
Some fairly high percentage of drops will not be improvements over your existing gear. As you get higher up, the rate of drops increases, but the odds of it improving decrease, as you’re close to plateauing. There isn’t some magical way to work all that out.
Thongsy
2655
Honestly that’s what I feel a lot of the complaining is about. A lot of people have plateau to a certain extent and they start finding fewer and fewer useful legendaries. It’s that way for me now where there is only a few items that will frankly improved my character and those items are in the super low droprate tier. I would like to someday complete my sets and get a Cindershot but if it doesn’t happen it doesn’t happen.
This is my single biggest complaint, and actual /boggle. This is such a fundamental miss-understanding of the basic psychology involved in games like these. The single worst decision Blizzard has ever made, was their constant march away from having bosses drop the best loot. It’s just a horrible decision on so many levels.
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Knowing that BOSSX has a chance to drop specific items that you are after does one VERY important thing psychologically, it builds anticipation. The entire time you’re slogging through the minions to get to Baal, the anticipation grows the closer you get to him. Once again, this is such a basic, fundamental psychological hook to these games, it’s amazing that so many people signed off on getting rid of it. This is one of the big problems in D3, there is very little anticipation, and it’s not focused into a time frame, such as boss runs used to be. This gives people some sense of control over their own Pavlov responses, and goes a long way toward keeping people responding.
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Getting the exact same drop off a boss, or random skeleton #22488284…which one of those is more exciting? The boss is, for another important reason. You’ve spent art, story, and time assets all to build up these bosses, so the outcome of a fight with them carries more weight that random mobs spitting out loot. Having random mobs have a chance to spit out good loot is actually important, but not to the exclusion of bosses. Absolutely idiotic idea.
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It instills more hope in people, that they can farm for a build THEY want to try out or complete. Once again tied to anticipation, but a separate problem. Once you get decent gear, your odds of getting the piece you actually need are astronomically small, and this creates a sense of hopelessness in the player, which very quickly leads to anger, forum posts, threats of quitting, actual quitting, etc. Once again, it’s a loss of some amount of control by the player to follow the path they want.
/shrug. Maybe it’s just me, but it’s hard for me to figure out how such a talented company, making a game with so many eyes on it, could miss what I consider some very fundamental principles about player motivation and retention.
Diablo II devolved into people running Meph as fast as they could, over and over again.
I think adventure mode and the rifts are incredibly better than hitting the same boss, with the same mini-bit of level, over and over again.
Adding some interesting item (but not a top-tier item) as a specific drop for each of the bosses would be a nice trophy-type drop, but I strongly disagree with going back to bosses being the best loot piñatas, for time spent.
Also, I think you have to take the whole boss thing separately from the issue of being able to get high end gear (i.e., your point #3). The two aren’t related, as that is more about tweaking overall drop rates (from whatever source). If they wanted to increase loot drop rates, they can do it on bosses or not.
Thongsy
2658
I could buy into the Boss idea if the level designs are more interesting or something. But they’re not and bosses will be speed killed so it’s not like the fights will be interesting either. And well they do kind of two items in which you need to run the same thing over and over, the Grandeur ring and Pride’s Fall helm and people are bitching about having to do that so I doubt making boss specific loot will help much. Honestly I’m not sure what they could or could not do, some people will be fine and some will be angry no matter what they do.
Yup, truth. In an action RPG, if you don’t enjoy the grind for items and tiny incremental character boosts (paragon levels in D3), it’s time to quit. I’ll reach that point, and so will you. Then we’ll roll an alt (who will enjoy far faster dings for a while), play another game, or wait for ladder season. Basically, either the combat and item dings are sufficient to interest you, or they aren’t. Faster dings are exciting briefly, but in the long run they mean fewer and then no upgrades in less total time. Plateau sooner or plateau later are the only real choices.
MadGav
2660
Yeah, horribly designed game - no ones playing!
Oh wait
