Diablo III:3 Kanai Fix It?

[Psyren]

They certainly do, but I have a different goal from theirs. Blizzard's goal is to maximize the profits of the game. My goal is to make the game more fun.

You seem to still be having considerable difficulty distinguishing between short-term fun and long-term health of the game. Making all legendaries equally desirable while keeping the same high drop rates they have now would certainly be more fun. It would also kill the game quite rapidly as there would be nothing left to hunt for. I question why you're playing a loot-slot-machine-style of game at all if you dislike the randomness this much.

Also, you already bought your copy of the game (presumably), so cynically citing a profit motive is specious.

[Erloas]

Having all of the legendaries be equally valuable overall doesn't mean they are equally valuable for an individual or build. If I really want to use skill X and I have to farm for a near perfect legendary Y has the same end result of "legendary Y is necessary for the required skill in build X." If you want to use that skill then you have to work until you get that legendary, that doesn't change. The fact that the legendary in question is required because its the only one worth using, or required because it best fits how you want to play the class, doesn't change the time required to farm it. But one gives the player agency in their choices and the other says "you have to do this" and takes that choice away.

[The_Jackal]

You seem to still be having considerable difficulty distinguishing between short-term fun and long-term health of the game. Making all legendaries equally desirable while keeping the same high drop rates they have now would certainly be more fun. It would also kill the game quite rapidly as there would be nothing left to hunt for. I question why you're playing a loot-slot-machine-style of game at all if you dislike the randomness this much.

Also, you already bought your copy of the game (presumably), so cynically citing a profit motive is specious.

Straw man argument. I'm not advocating for the re-writing of the existing item pool, nor am I advocating for the 'push button to get me maxed-out gear' gameplay. If you'd read any of my many posts about the importance of challenge, achievement, and yes, the benefits of item rarity. None of those are my position. My position is that 9/10ths of the content Blizzard adds in every season is costmetic wank with no real ability to foster choice, fun, and engagement. Putting a new banner, portrait frame, and vanity pet in the Season 11 rewards will keep me busy for a few hours, but it won't make the game any more fun, because when I get my Unhallowed Essence set this season, I'll be more or less done with the Seasonal journey.

I'm not saying there's anything *wrong* with a profit motive, and you're fooling yourself if you think Blizzard doesn't have one, it's what game companies should do. But there's a smart way to drive engagement, and then there's a cheap way. Diablo II had virtually NO cosmetic options, no vanity pets, no fluff of any kind. They added rune words, sets, and legendaries, as well as completely revamping the skill system late in the game's lifecycle, all to the benefit of the players, and keeping the focus where it ought to be: The gameplay. That's not to say polish isn't important, it IS, but it's worthless if the game is staid, and that's what Diablo III has become.

I played TONS of DII:LoD. Hours upon hours. And it stayed fun a lot more than DIII. Maybe that's some nostalgia talking, but I don't think so. DIII's runeword system had immensely rare items you could drive toward, as well as small incremental leveling gains. But more importantly, it drove the majority of the customization of your character into your BUILD, not into your gear. Yes, gear was absolutely, crucially important, but in DIII now, your character IS their pants, literally. Take off the gear, and there's NOTHING discriminating your character from anyone else's, not even Paragon points, since those are just a 'fill out this form in this order' test, whose only variation is, once again, driven by your set bonuses/outfit. Got a build with lots of resource consumption? Get RCR. Need uptime on a key skill? CDR?

So, if my character is my pants, then at least put in enough different kinds of pants that I can play the character I want, without making me inflict 1/20th of the damage of one of the mainstream builds. If you're going to gate achievement on having us complete a set, then put in more sets that support more playstyles, instead of funneling everyone into the same handful of hyper-optimized builds.

[Vaz]

You said that they are pushing for maximum profit. How are they pushing for max profit, when they've had only two new paid content update, and new content within the game has otherwise been free?

[Psyren]

My position is that 9/10ths of the content Blizzard adds in every season is costmetic wank with no real ability to foster choice, fun, and engagement. Putting a new banner, portrait frame, and vanity pet in the Season 11 rewards will keep me busy for a few hours, but it won't make the game any more fun, because when I get my Unhallowed Essence set this season, I'll be more or less done with the Seasonal journey.

I'm not saying there's anything *wrong* with a profit motive, and you're fooling yourself if you think Blizzard doesn't have one, it's what game companies should do. But there's a smart way to drive engagement, and then there's a cheap way. Diablo II had virtually NO cosmetic options, no vanity pets, no fluff of any kind. They added rune words, sets, and legendaries, as well as completely revamping the skill system late in the game's lifecycle, all to the benefit of the players, and keeping the focus where it ought to be: The gameplay. That's not to say polish isn't important, it IS, but it's worthless if the game is staid, and that's what Diablo III has become.

This is a prime example of rose-tinted goggles in action. Yes, Diablo 2 kept people playing ladder without needing cosmetic rewards to do so. But you're conveniently forgetting the real reasons for that:

1) Ladder-only items and recipes: Want to upgrade your runes past a certain point? Want that shiny new runeword or unique (including slotless items like Anni and Gheed)? Guess what, you're playing Ladder.

2) Rampant cheating: Even in so-called "Closed BNet" lots of game files were still stored locally, leading to all the exploits we know and love. Duping was the most common, but they also did stat transfers (leading to things like Occy rings) and of course, lots and lots of botting. Ladder gave them both a means and an excuse to periodically reset everybody back to the same starting point so that the cheaters couldn't get too far ahead, which was particularly needed back then when they could not edit items server-side.

3) The multiplayer landscape at the time: In Diablo 2's heyday, there was almost nothing competing for our gaming time. MMOs were barely a thing. Other than Diablo, the big multiplayer games were Starcraft, Counterstrike, and Unreal/Quake. Most of us were teenagers with little disposable income, so we had to make our games last, and the ones without a sub fee were especially attractive. Wikis and datamining didn't really exist yet either, so a game we already clearly understood had a strong leg up on anything new (especially RPGs). The biggest resurgence of D2 was when they added skill synergies and Ubers in 2003 (Patch 1.10), over a year before WoW debuted.

So when you point to bad design and say "at least people played ladder without incentives back then" it's a nonsensical argument. Negative incentives are still incentives. There may not have been pets or portrait frames, but people were still rerolling for good reasons, and Blizzard was no less profit-focused in those days than they are now.

I played TONS of DII:LoD. Hours upon hours. And it stayed fun a lot more than DIII. Maybe that's some nostalgia talking, but I don't think so. DIII's runeword system had immensely rare items you could drive toward, as well as small incremental leveling gains. But more importantly, it drove the majority of the customization of your character into your BUILD, not into your gear. Yes, gear was absolutely, crucially important, but in DIII now, your character IS their pants, literally. Take off the gear, and there's NOTHING discriminating your character from anyone else's, not even Paragon points, since those are just a 'fill out this form in this order' test, whose only variation is, once again, driven by your set bonuses/outfit. Got a build with lots of resource consumption? Get RCR. Need uptime on a key skill? CDR?

Runewords are the most godawful design I can imagine them conceiving. Taking iconic class abilities like Teleport and HOTO and giving them to everyone caused all kinds of problems. Take Hammerdins - one of the weaknesses of that build was meant to be its close rang, while one of the weaknesses of teleport is that it was on a class that tends to be squishy at high difficulties. Enigma eradicated both of those, giving what was already one of the toughest builds in the game the ability to drop on top of enemies or blink their way through an 8-person hell difficulty game and drop everyone off at the boss room unscathed. In short, Runewords meant nobody wanted to be caught dead in their class sets anymore.

Funnily enough, this is the exact same problem you claim D3 has (pushing everyone into a small handful of builds and loadouts) except runewords were even more annoying because you couldn't do anything to increase your drop rate for them. At least with uniques and sets, D2 presented an interesting problem whereby you had to balance your clear speed against your magic find stat. It was still implemented poorly (trying to pull your punches and switch to gull/rhyme before landing the last blow is not fun) but at least it required some decision-making from the player. With runes they took even that away, leaving us with nothing to do but grind and hope. Difficulty barely affected them too, so you didn't even have D3's paradigm of running a speedfarming build vs. a progresion build.

If they end up coming back for D3, I'll be disappointed, though hopefully they learned from their mistakes and aren't as blinded by nostalgia as D2 fans are.

So, if my character is my pants, then at least put in enough different kinds of pants that I can play the character I want, without making me inflict 1/20th of the damage of one of the mainstream builds. If you're going to gate achievement on having us complete a set, then put in more sets that support more playstyles, instead of funneling everyone into the same handful of hyper-optimized builds.

For the record, I want more viable builds too. I think every set being 7 pieces would help with that, especially if the 7th piece is a ring or amulet. But I think some skills should still be lower-tier, and going all the way back to what started the exact bickerfest I was trying to avoid, Corpse Spiders does not have to be viable.

[Erloas]

Well the simple answer is profit is income vs expenses. With income rather flat now the only way to increase profit is to reduce expenses. Which would be having fewer people working on the game. They are still selling copies of the game, be it someone that was "waiting for it to not be $60" or those that said "I'll get it once I can afford a new PC/XBone/PS4."
There is also the brand value, which is what they're "selling" the most of right now. And what could actually use the most help. I know after WoW they had no brand value left with me, and SCII didn't change that at all (the way they did the releases I didn't even think about getting it). D3 was their way to prove to me their games are worth buying. What I've found is what the problem I've had with Blizzard for a decade or so now hasn't changed. They're good at making something look good on the outside and on a low level but they're more interested in loot trapping players into their games than making the games really fun and diverse. To me none of their games hold long term replay value. I know what they do works for a lot of people, but it isn't what I want.
D3 was fun up until I got to the point where things went from "play the character you want and you can progress" to "unless you play one of these exact builds you aren't going to get any farther."
And looking at most of the other classes, I don't see a whole lot actually different there. Every class has a "run and gun/constant damage" build, they have a "stand still and make things die" build, and a "move and blast" build.
It just seems like in their effort to make sure no one class can do anything another class can't, that they have really diluted the differences between classes. It just seems like most of the differences between anything in the game is now cosmetic rather than an actual difference. Armour and resistances and the different types of resistances all fall into this too.

[Psyren]

@Erloas: How do you define "get any farther?" That's what I don't understand. The whole point of this model is that you choose your own endgame. If GR100 is your goal, then it should be expected that only a handful of builds are capable of getting there. If 70 is your goal, there's a large pile that can, and plenty of room for experimentation including with existing builds.That many of those can't get to 100 doesn't make them worthless.

If you're sticking exclusively with the handful of builds on Icy-Veins, those folks (who by the way get all their builds from one guy and his preferences) don't even care about a build unless it can clear 80 minimum (85 for LoN), and even then they limit themselves to 1-2 per set. That doesn't mean other builds aren't out there, nor that you can't tweak the ones they've come up with to suit your playstyle. Jackal said his endgame was 70 to unlock Primals, and there are many more builds out there that can do that than he seems to be aware of. I probably could make a 70-capable Corpse Spiders build if I really wanted to.

As for the classes feeling the same, I'm just not seeing it. Even for the broad archetypes you mentioned like "run-and-gun", they feel very different. A whirlwind barb,charge barb, jade WD, dashing strike monk, thornsader and flashfire wizard are all "run-and-gun" but they feel very different from one another in play.

[Vaz]

For example, I'm currently trying to gear up a LoN, no follower, no expenditure melee only set for Necromancer. I've looted an Ancient Aquila, and a pair of Ancient Rings, and I'm currently levelling a Stricken to use with it.

Anybody got any clues? I'm thinking I'll need a Hellfire Amulet and a Cubed Unity to help with that. Maybe a Cubed Hack and CoE instead and go for a Thorns-lite.

[The_Jackal]

This is a prime example of rose-tinted goggles in action. Yes, Diablo 2 kept people playing ladder without needing cosmetic rewards to do so. But you're conveniently forgetting the real reasons for that:

1) Ladder-only items and recipes: Want to upgrade your runes past a certain point? Want that shiny new runeword or unique (including slotless items like Anni and Gheed)? Guess what, you're playing Ladder.

I can't speak for other people, but I never found the ladder exclusive gear to be all that compelling, and never spent much time working the ladder, rather I played my non-ladder heroes and enjoyed playing, because a) there was a trading market, so I could trade my legit items for, well, whatever it was I was getting. I can't guarantee that I wasn't getting dupes. We'll get more on that later.

2) Rampant cheating: Even in so-called "Closed BNet" lots of game files were still stored locally, leading to all the exploits we know and love. Duping was the most common, but they also did stat transfers (leading to things like Occy rings) and of course, lots and lots of botting. Ladder gave them both a means and an excuse to periodically reset everybody back to the same starting point so that the cheaters couldn't get too far ahead, which was particularly needed back then when they could not edit items server-side.

Rampant cheating only ruined your OWN game, if you indulged in it. I didn't, and I had a fine time. The game had more build diversity, because set items weren't character defining (or even remotely best in slot, because runewords and legendaries were mostly better), and a good portion of your character's power and distinctiveness came from their own skill choices, not from their equipment. How the presence or absence of duped items in the item economy change that, I'm not really sure. I am not, nor have I ever been particularly interested in topping the leaderboards. What I am interested in is meaningful progression and playing with a playstyle that doesn't come off of a cookie-cutter build.

3) The multiplayer landscape at the time: In Diablo 2's heyday, there was almost nothing competing for our gaming time. MMOs were barely a thing. Other than Diablo, the big multiplayer games were Starcraft, Counterstrike, and Unreal/Quake. Most of us were teenagers with little disposable income, so we had to make our games last, and the ones without a sub fee were especially attractive. Wikis and datamining didn't really exist yet either, so a game we already clearly understood had a strong leg up on anything new (especially RPGs). The biggest resurgence of D2 was when they added skill synergies and Ubers in 2003 (Patch 1.10), over a year before WoW debuted.

Yes, and those skill synergies and new content totally revitalized the game, and is the standard against which DIII is judged. It gave the player MORE input in how they played their build, made previously non-choices viable, and added a bunch of new builds to a game that had, I will admit, been stale for some time.

So when you point to bad design and say "at least people played ladder without incentives back then" it's a nonsensical argument. Negative incentives are still incentives. There may not have been pets or portrait frames, but people were still rerolling for good reasons, and Blizzard was no less profit-focused in those days than they are now.

I'm not saying people played without incentives. What part of

But at the end of the day, banner icons, portrait frames, vanity pets, and transmog items do not bring the boys to the yard. Gear and content do.

did you not read?

Runewords are the most godawful design I can imagine them conceiving. Taking iconic class abilities like Teleport and HOTO and giving them to everyone caused all kinds of problems. Take Hammerdins - one of the weaknesses of that build was meant to be its close rang, while one of the weaknesses of teleport is that it was on a class that tends to be squishy at high difficulties. Enigma eradicated both of those, giving what was already one of the toughest builds in the game the ability to drop on top of enemies or blink their way through an 8-person hell difficulty game and drop everyone off at the boss room unscathed. In short, Runewords meant nobody wanted to be caught dead in their class sets anymore.

The skill homogenization wasn't a problem with 'Runewords'. It was a problem with 'those few runewords'. Just like Convention of Elements isn't a problem with 'Rings', it's a problem with that one ring. What I like about Runewords isn't their borrowing of other class skills, that could go on any piece of gear, if the developers chose, rather, it was a way to add a 'collection' element to itemization without tying up 5-6 gear slots. Simply put, cubing runes gave you a goal you could work up toward, without relying on astronomical luck. It took the slot machine out of the gear progression. What we have now is a, "Get a set, then farm for the ONE good build for your class, which you MUST use to clear GR70, then you might be able to go about farming primal ancients to make something creative, except, wait, it will still suck unless it's a cookie cutter build".

Funnily enough, this is the exact same problem you claim D3 has (pushing everyone into a small handful of builds and loadouts) except runewords were even more annoying because you couldn't do anything to increase your drop rate for them. At least with uniques and sets, D2 presented an interesting problem whereby you had to balance your clear speed against your magic find stat. It was still implemented poorly (trying to pull your punches and switch to gull/rhyme before landing the last blow is not fun) but at least it required some decision-making from the player. With runes they took even that away, leaving us with nothing to do but grind and hope. Difficulty barely affected them too, so you didn't even have D3's paradigm of running a speedfarming build vs. a progresion build.

Not remotely true, because there wasn't an astronomically escalating difficulty that Diablo III features. There was Normal, Nightmare, Hell, and Ubers, and the Cow Level. That's it. Yes, you could itemize magic find to improve your drop chance, but the amount of magic find you'd want to put in a build was actually remarkably low, because after 100, it was so harshly penalized by DR, you may as well not have bothered, and I certainly didn't, nor did most of the folks I did Baal or Travincal Runs with. What's more, MF made NO difference in farming Runes. You were actually better off running no MF, and doing the Cow level. But this is all actually irrelevant to my point. Yes, old DII had repetition just like the new one. What made it have replay value wasn't doing a 200th Baal run, it was that you could actually experiment with different builds, and your skill choices mattered, due to synergies. Yes, the stat system was dumb, you invariably wanted to stack health after you equipped enough main stat to equip your gear, but getting another rank in a firebolt synergy actually MEANT something.

If they end up coming back for D3, I'll be disappointed, though hopefully they learned from their mistakes and aren't as blinded by nostalgia as D2 fans are.

I'm not advocating for the return of runewords, per se. I'm advocating for more options for players. I'm advocating for a head-fake towards balancing the skills against each other, both in their base form, and at the itemization level. I'm also not advocating for the return of DII. I like primary skills, and want them to have a use in the game, I want the builder/spender system to actually MEAN something.

For the record, I want more viable builds too. I think every set being 7 pieces would help with that, especially if the 7th piece is a ring or amulet. But I think some skills should still be lower-tier, and going all the way back to what started the exact bickerfest I was trying to avoid, Corpse Spiders does not have to be viable.

This is where we fundamentally disagree. If you're not going to make a skill useful, don't put it in the damned game to begin with. Making every skill scale, making every skill meaningful, that was supposed to be the point of getting rid of skill points, trees, and synergies, and I want to see that promise delivered. I also don't see how the game is weakened by making corpse spiders or hungering arrow not be hot garbage once you're itemized.

In concept, Arachyr is supposed to be a spider-themed set, with a 2-piece bonus that makes it strong. But it doesn't deliver, which is why the Firebats build doesn't really care whether you wear Firebats or Helltooth. And I think that's sad.

Well the simple answer is profit is income vs expenses. <...snip...>

Basically, yes. Work on DIII at this point is largely marketing for DIV. If all Blizzard cared about was sales, they could have dumped the entire Diablo team and called it a day after they sold 15 million copies, but if they did, they'd just have 15 million disgruntled fans who'd never buy a Diablo title again, and the way DIII has gone since RoS, I'm on the fence as to whether I'll buy DIV. It's not that I think the Diablo team is underfunded or doesn't work hard. It's because they focus on the wrong things. The E-sports bro mindset has overtaken the company, and literally everything gets tied to this Sisyphean ladder. DII had 3 difficulty levels, and had plenty of replay value. DIII has reached over 100, and yet its replay value is worse, because to get there, you've got to play someone else's build, not your own.

[Psyren]

What "skill choices?" 1.10 killed that via Synergies. If you wanted a fire sorc, a bone necro, or a javazon, you had 80 points spoken for immediately, or else you sucked in Hell difficulty. There was even less choice in D2 than there is in D3. But the rose-tinted telescopes you call goggles just won't let you see it.

As for useless skills not being in the game - so did you do this much complaining about Teeth? Dim Vision? Raven? Attract? And the entire Zon passive tree was one-point wonders except for Valkyrie. But D2 was so much better.

and the way DIII has gone since RoS, I'm on the fence as to whether I'll buy DIV.

I honestly hope you don't. I could use the peace.

[The_Jackal]

What "skill choices?" 1.10 killed that via Synergies. If you wanted a fire sorc, a bone necro, or a javazon, you had 80 points spoken for immediately, or else you sucked in Hell difficulty. There was even less choice in D2 than there is in D3. But the rose-tinted telescopes you call goggles just won't let you see it.

You had fewer builds, but far more of the build was determined by what you chose, not what dropped out of some monsters rear, and you did have options. You could play a Bone necro, or a Poison Necro, or a Skelemancer, and you know what? You didn't need to have one uber build to keep progressing, because the infinite difficulty creep, and the incredibly high loot variance in DIII. The only people who cared about getting some busted sick build were people who wanted to play the doltish bolted on PVP, everyone else just picked a build that worked, and had fun with it. Plus, if you got a good piece of gear for a different build, you had an organic reason to reroll, if you wanted to try it out, or you could just trade it on the forums for something for your own build.

As for useless skills not being in the game - so did you do this much complaining about Teeth? Dim Vision? Raven? Attract? And the entire Zon passive tree was one-point wonders except for Valkyrie. But D2 was so much better.

SO. MUCH. STRAW MAN. Read what I'm saying, or just don't respond. I've already said I don't want DII back. Several times, in fact. I'm not trying to revive skill trees. But I do want OPTIONS. Real choices. What the game gives you now are non-choices. There is a 'correct build' for your class, or you're really wasting your time.

I honestly hope you don't. I could use the peace.

"Someone is wrong on the internet, I can't rest!" <eyeroll>

[Vaz]

I don't really get your problem with D3, apart from it being a game you don't want to play. I don't want to play Call of Duty. So do you know what I do? I don't play it.

What issue is there with playing a build that has GR70 or GR100 as the end goal?

[Psyren]

SO. MUCH. STRAW MAN. Read what I'm saying, or just don't respond. I've already said I don't want DII back. Several times, in fact. I'm not trying to revive skill trees. But I do want OPTIONS. Real choices. What the game gives you now are non-choices. There is a 'correct build' for your class, or you're really wasting your time.

D2 has no more options per class than D3 did, and (especially while leveling), far fewer.

I don't really get your problem with D3, apart from it being a game you don't want to play. I don't want to play Call of Duty. So do you know what I do? I don't play it.

It's genius, isn't it?

[The_Jackal]

I don't really get your problem with D3, apart from it being a game you don't want to play. I don't want to play Call of Duty. So do you know what I do? I don't play it.

What issue is there with playing a build that has GR70 or GR100 as the end goal?

I want it to be better? I want the second best build for a class to be only, you know, half as good as the best build, instead of 1/6th as good. What's wrong with that?

D2 has no more options per class than D3 did, and (especially while leveling), far fewer.
It's genius, isn't it?

Almost as ingenious as your ability to counter the half of my argument you seem to want to. I don't want DII. I want DIII to be *better*. I want DIII to live up to the potential of its design. Because a design that funnels everyone into one or two builds per class is simply unfun. Maybe it's fun for you. Maybe you LOVE Firebats. Maybe you really like that the Season 11 leaderboard looks like this:



If that's your idea of a well-designed, well-executed game, then I guess there's nothing left to discuss.

[Psyren]

A huge chunk of those are abusing artificially inflated leggems they got from the Frailty bug, hence the high concentration of necros. It has nothing to do with build diversity.

And even if that weren't the case - why do you care so much what people at GR 95+ are doing? Is your fun that fragile? Do you need to keep up with the Joneses that badly?

[The_Jackal]

A huge chunk of those are abusing artificially inflated leggems they got from the Frailty bug, hence the high concentration of necros. It has nothing to do with build diversity.

And even if that weren't the case - why do you care so much what people at GR 95+ are doing? Is your fun that fragile? Do you need to keep up with the Joneses that badly?

I don't. What I care about is that when there's a 15 rift level gulf between the top-tier build and the other sets, and when there's an even bigger gulf between those other sets and what you might be able to get with a non-cookie-cutter build, then it matters.

When the chance to get the best loot is gated behind the GR70 wall, and when 5 greater rift increase equates to a ~15% increase in drop chance. So thanks to the infinite logarithmic difficulty curve and terrible itemization and class balance, you're basically working way, way, way, WAY harder to get gear if you don't play the cookie cutter.

I don't care about the leader board. I DO care about progression, and the 'this is the one good guild to progress' makes the game far less fun than it should be. The best part isn't that the Necromancer is dominating the leaderboard, it's that they're all the same build. It's Trag'oul corpse lance all the way down. But hey, if you pick a witch doctor, you might get the choice of TWO whole builds to choose from (Firebats or Spirit Barrage). Praise the Lord, your cup runneth over!

[Psyren]

If your definition of "progress" is"GR 95+" then yeah, you're in for disappointment. You can deal with it, or not.

[The_Jackal]

If your definition of "progress" is"GR 95+" then yeah, you're in for disappointment. You can deal with it, or not.

No, my definition is 'getting better gear'. Which is something that stops happening depressingly early.

[Vaz]

There's always going to be an ultimate end game set, though. Regardless of how narrow the difference is, there will be a set that will be more viable than the other.

If your goal is coming up with specific sets and getting a GR as high as you can, then do it? If you want to gear up, then take a Speed Farming Set until you're geared and away you go.

Do people in the Dakar Rally complain abput not being able to do well in Le Mans? No. It's a different playstyle. Let people interested in topping leader boards use the best gear. Otherwise, make your own fun.

[The_Jackal]

There's always going to be an ultimate end game set, though. Regardless of how narrow the difference is, there will be a set that will be more viable than the other.

If your goal is coming up with specific sets and getting a GR as high as you can, then do it? If you want to gear up, then take a Speed Farming Set until you're geared and away you go.

Do people in the Dakar Rally complain abput not being able to do well in Le Mans? No. It's a different playstyle. Let people interested in topping leader boards use the best gear. Otherwise, make your own fun.

No there isn't and engame set. It's not profoundly more difficulty to assemble a Trag'oul's build than it is any other build. Yes, LoN requires additional gear, but LoN still only enables one viable build, because the itemization in the game is so skewed. End game set implies that there's a progression from one set to another. That's not what happens. What happens is that if you want a rift pushing build (which you by definition do, since you need to push bigger rifts to get the highest level of legendary gems to sac into your gear), you're far better served by making that one optimal build than you are by using another, far inferior option.

What's more, there's no reason it should need to be this way. What should determine the top rift-running build should be the player's facility with their skills, and the quality of their gear.

[Psyren]

No, my definition is 'getting better gear'. Which is something that stops happening depressingly early.

So you have primals in every slot then? And it didn't take you much time to do, right?

[The_Jackal]

So you have primals in every slot then? And it didn't take you much time to do, right?

/headdesk

It doesn't matter what condition my gear is in: Given gear that's rolled equally well, the top-tier build is objectively better, and you'll therefore be only grinding longer if you delay adopting it, because the 15% per 5 grifts levels improvement in drop rates will compound your advantage. To say nothing of the fact that it takes less well-rolled gear to push the top build through GR70 to unlock primal ancients. Upshot: There is one viable build, if your aim is to progress. Doing anything else is just goofing around.

[Psyren]

Are you ever going to define "progress?"

[The_Jackal]

Are you ever going to define "progress?"

Have done, plenty of times.

[Legoshrimp]

Given gear that's rolled equally well, the top-tier build is objectively better.

This is true in every game...

Edit: except if the top tier build requires high rolled items to hit a break point of some sort.

[The_Jackal]

This is true in every game...

Edit: except if the top tier build requires high rolled items to hit a break point of some sort.

No, sorry, not in every game is the second best build for a character 1/8th of the strength of the best build. D3 is special. ;)

[Legoshrimp]

No, sorry, not in every game is the second best build for a character 1/8th of the strength of the best build. D3 is special. ;)

That isn't true in D3 either. Also that is an entirely different claim. But if you are trying to top whatever version of the leader boards in the game, it doesn't matter if the second best build is 98% as effective or 10% as effective either way you will go with the top build.

[Vaz]

You've defined progress as pushing GR's. But unless you've got Primal Ancients, Augmented 13 pieces of gear to 500+, have 3 L100 Legendary Gems, 4000+ Paragon levels, and some other way of mitigating the RNG of Rift spawns, you're not pushing GR's anyway.

So in that case, you're complaining about not pushing GR when you wouldn't be able to push.GR anyway.

And even if the GR gap will be closed between builds, the fact that one remains top will always be true, and will allow people to push more with that build than another one, leading to the same thing.

So you are stuck in endless cycle of buff stat patch, adjust to meta, play again with new No1 build. Alternatively, you can state that you want to do X and PB it.

People who want to do best willnuse best build whether best build is 1 GR better or 15.

Let's take for example people speed running pokemon (glitchless). I can make a more powerful teams within the course of standard gameplay. My level 80+ gameplay teams, can wipe the floor with their absolute minimum calcs to facilitate speed running. My competitive battling teams can wipe the floor with my in game teams. My monotype runs are different than my nuzlocke runs.

D3 allows you to create your own endgame. Maybe you can't hit GR100 with all builds, but you can try and go for GR70+. Using the Crusader as an example, there are like 5 LoN builds and 3 set builds which can push GR70 solo. Complaining the X doesn't hit value Y means nothing.

Does it matter if you're maxing GR30 like my fiance is? No. Because she is having fun with her Wizard build. She has several ancients in other sets but is enjoying running the build she is doing. She doesn't NEED to run higher gr's. Because the only thing it does is run higher, to get better, to run higher to get better to run higher ad infinitum.

Your complaint is conceptual, and unfixable without altering the games concept, because there is no hard cap, no finite maximum, only the soft cap of build viability capping the numbers.

[Starwulf]

Woot, hit 70 and then paragon 35 tonight. Also found my 2nd bandit shrine and one of the goblins opened up a portal to the goblin realm, so now I have my boon of the hoarder gem which is cool. Now if I can just have some luck in finding the source I need that allows Ray of Frost to pierce, and I can start to move my build from disintegrate to Ray of Frost like I want :).

[Psyren]

Have done, plenty of times.

I saw you post a screenshot of the GR 95+ leaderboard. So is nothing below that "progress?" I'm honestly trying to understand your mindset here, because so far it is completely alien to me.

You've defined progress as pushing GR's. But unless you've got Primal Ancients, Augmented 13 pieces of gear to 500+, have 3 L100 Legendary Gems, 4000+ Paragon levels, and some other way of mitigating the RNG of Rift spawns, you're not pushing GR's anyway.

So in that case, you're complaining about not pushing GR when you wouldn't be able to push.GR anyway.

And even if the GR gap will be closed between builds, the fact that one remains top will always be true, and will allow people to push more with that build than another one, leading to the same thing.

So you are stuck in endless cycle of buff stat patch, adjust to meta, play again with new No1 build. Alternatively, you can state that you want to do X and PB it.

People who want to do best willnuse best build whether best build is 1 GR better or 15.

Let's take for example people speed running pokemon (glitchless). I can make a more powerful teams within the course of standard gameplay. My level 80+ gameplay teams, can wipe the floor with their absolute minimum calcs to facilitate speed running. My competitive battling teams can wipe the floor with my in game teams. My monotype runs are different than my nuzlocke runs.

D3 allows you to create your own endgame. Maybe you can't hit GR100 with all builds, but you can try and go for GR70+. Using the Crusader as an example, there are like 5 LoN builds and 3 set builds which can push GR70 solo. Complaining the X doesn't hit value Y means nothing.

Does it matter if you're maxing GR30 like my fiance is? No. Because she is having fun with her Wizard build. She has several ancients in other sets but is enjoying running the build she is doing. She doesn't NEED to run higher gr's. Because the only thing it does is run higher, to get better, to run higher to get better to run higher ad infinitum.

Your complaint is conceptual, and unfixable without altering the games concept, because there is no hard cap, no finite maximum, only the soft cap of build viability capping the numbers.

Exactly this.

My own definition of "endgame build" is "one capable of getting any item in the game." For D2, that would be one capable of soloing the Ubers to get your Torch/Anni. For D3, that would be clearing GR70 solo to get primals. D3 has far, far more builds per character capable of clearing that threshold than D2 ever did. And if you open it up to support builds (which are not solo by definition), D3 has even more.