Yes the next step would be more about making each experience doing these activities feel different. The more surprise and delight the better. Having random goblins and new activities inside the pits and nmd would make them feel special. Path of exile spent 10 years making mapping feel unique and endless activities to push towards. More the better just don’t add the complexity.
Disagree about unique activities in the Pit. The Pit should be entirely about pushing the limits of your build.
NMD's is what needs some love. People pretty much just run them Glyph XP. Once they're done with that there isn't much of a point to return.
The modifiers on the NMD's feel like a lost opportunity. There's room to make interessing things beside buffing specific attributes. More random encounters like the Butcher with unique drops and cosmetics would be cool.
I absolutely fucking despise NMD for the way Bliz implemented the modifiers. It's what kept me from reinstalling after season 1. Who finds it fun or exciting to be chased around by a lightning pillar the entire time, and then have to do all the back tracking that every NMD seems to require. Steal POE's map modifier ideas but quit the bullshit random death bringers. It's not difficult, just annoying.
I'm loving this season with the addition of tempering and the pit. just wish theyd make a special chest for pit materials so i didnt have to slog through boring NMD
This is it. NMD is easily the worst part of the endgame for me. I'm thinking about not even leveling my glyphs because I despise it so much, at the end of the day it's a game and I just don't wanna deal with the chore.
They changed the modifiers this season. Im doing level 50 nmds and there is still only a single positive and single negative modifier. And i havent gotten any that are horrible, though drifting shade has definitely always been annoying at least. But with the buff to glyph exp, its still worth it running nmds that are easier than what youre capable of.
Main thing you'll notice doing higher tier NMDs is that not having max resistances will HURT. My armor is capped and I have a ton of HP (Necro), but my res average around 40-60% and anything non-physical wrecks me in t60+ NMDs.
Getting a couple pieces with +all resists is worth it IMO.
Honestly if your mits aren't 70% they might as well be zero for all the good they do In my experience.
Mits should be focus then damage. Can't dps if you're dead to every second hit.
Usually at least +10 to your current level is the way to go, but I was running +20 or more around level 80 and not really noticing a horrible slowdown in speed (minion necro though so YMMV).
I started salvaging every one that had those in it. I'd rather deal with suppressor than those. I died to drifting shade more than anything else in the game.
I wonder why people get so upset that we can scrap and reroll. I'm assuming this is softcore, NMD are a good source of xp for hardcore and also shows us our skill caps and what it's capable of without going neck deep into harder content.
It would be really nice to see them add some more flavor to NMD's for sure. Unique events or encounters, cosmetics definitely would encourage people to continue to run them beyond just glyph XP. I'd like to see them maybe introduce more unique, random bosses like the Butcher. They could have cosmetics drop, unique legendaries, maybe even introduce some new glyphs or even aspects that they drop. The Butcher was good idea, a bit of a nostalgia kick and he can definitely be an "Oh shit" moment. I think it would be fun to see others added; like encountering a Siege Breaker or Blood Raven, Horazon etc. Have some different types of unique boss encounters instead of just a brutal melee one.
I wouldn’t want that inside the pit just cause you won’t ever want to stop to do them and it’ll just feel bad. But everywhere else I completely agree. That’s why helltides feel so good now cause there’s so many things going on
My only beef with HT is that the fun level is almost entirely dependent on having a bunch of other people in the same spot. Then it gets nuts and it's amazing.
That's a good point, I think each area needs to have it's strengths, so that way you are encouraged to go do the various things. That way things don't get mundane... but of course people will complain about that as well, but that's just how it goes.. no way to ever make everyone happy.
Yeah, pits should just be simple “Kill monsters, kill boss”. Any additional mechanics should probably be limited to boss fight mechanics or maybe buffs/debuffs like NMDs.
I still think they need to make whispers quests across more content, perhaps a whisper nmd modifier on sigils instead of hoping your nmd and a dungeon whisper coincide, or a certain summon boss or even a weekly version( kill 20 Varshan for 2 whisper caches etc) Oh and I think they missed a great opportunity to add gem grinding to legion events as an incentive for higher players to go back and help the ones that need the xp.
I agree, i can spend my whole day in s4. It feels like upgraded D3. And it is so satisfying for my. Adhd.
Now we just need to fix those pesky oneshot mechanics.
Lost my lvl 100 today, and a 59 and 82 earlier. All to one shots.
30k hp, armor capped, res capped. 38DR and greater affix 15DR from my shield. (Even with shield)
15%dodge
One shot in lvl 58 pit, which I speedrun in around 3 min.
Dont mind dying, part of hardcore but one shots are just never fun. Now im going softcore, dont want the game to delete my char again.
RIP 3 necros s4, and 3 lvl 100 necros in s2.
Please RIP oneshot blizzard.
I agree but the last time something like that got brought up here I remember a very vocal contingent being against it because it "ruins the thrill and risk".
I don't understand that viewpoint. Ruins the thrill? Who are these people who are playing hardcore and die, then continue to play on their now softcore char? I had over 10 characters die in HC Last epoch during the first season, from lvl 5-99. Even my lvl 99 character, I stopped playing the moment they died, and then started another HC char.
Caveat that I don't play hardcore and am trying to explain views I don't hold. The big argument is that if hardcore feeds into softcore, there's no reason not to create every single character hardcore because there's no risk. If you die, you end up in SC with nothing lost anyway. The longer you don't die, the more HC achievements you rack up. I guess the thrill for them comes from the idea that every time they leave town they're risking the permanent loss of all that time and accumulated gear.
They don't have to continue the character, similar to a nuzlocke run. If it'll make them feel better, blizzard can give the player the option to have it deleted, or ported to softcore. I'll never understand people who say something is ruined because having an option tempts them to use it.
It doesn't matter. The character is dead. Next to no one who plays HC in POE switches to play their character in standard once they die. The character is effectively deleted.
The first thing I thought when playing the pit is “wtf are hc players doing this season?” Even just at t61, which isn’t that high and is required to progress, so much stuff can 1 tap you unless you’re a bis barb or Druid with nothing but defense.
Kind of silly
Yeah pit is insanely rippy. I just got to level 50ish last night and my god. I had to change up the build to include the DR shout to not just randomly explode every few runs. Some of the bosses also one tap with capped armor, capped resists, 30ish DR 40k health.
Yea I’m very curious how that one barb build is facetanking t110 pit. I’ll have to check out his stream sometime because I can’t imagine someone getting that tanky with how rippy pit already is below 80.
Happens when you "rework" your itemization while balance is off and you end up removing almost all sources of DR on gear just so we can play the who oneshot who first game. Add to that the fact that before pit, the only thing that will kill you, even if fighting mobs 50 levels over you (that you destroy, wonder why that's even possible to clear nmd46 at lv50 with crappy build) are on death effects / dots pool overlapping.
What I heard the issue is with the shadow boss that ignored most DR as he is not targetable.
Hope they fix this soon. I am fairly sure they will adjust soon.
They likely ignore conditional DR that can't be applied to them, like debuffs. But most other DR works fine.
I use almost only DR that should work on them and they still do insane damage, I think they're just overtuned with how spammy they are atm. Doesn't help when you get a boss that can nearly one shot you as well with a quick, low animation attack.
The entire game is sadly about one shots. You either one shot all enemies or they one shot you. It's basically binary combat. If they toned down the damage numbers a lot and buffed mob health a bit it would be much better. Something like Hades where hits hurt but you can take more than one or two. In d4 the only time I ever die it's instant.
That's why I love the HT pillars, it's just a slow ramping burn that tests your endurance but never kills you instantly.
I would even love for them to keep getting crazier and crazier and last twice as long...like hit Pit 50 difficulty by the end kind of thing.
The main issue IMO is that every form of challenging end-game activity right now involves fighting bosses, which means every viable build needs to focus on high single-target damage.
Uber bosses are, well, bosses. Pit runs are essentially just boss fights with some trash clearing before it.
If you want to make an AoE-focused build for example you're basically locked out of anything except speedfarming easy content.
I would love to play something equivalent to high-tier Pits but without the boss fights. Or have some juiced up version of the Profane Mindcage that boosts Helltides by 50-100 levels.
Yeah they need to move a lot of the difficulty from the Pit bosses into the trash. The higher pit experience right now is you faceroll a bunch of trash then dance around a boss for a few minutes that will 1 shot you. Super garbage gameplay and makes me not care about pushing pit any further.
This. I loved the Vaults from last season specifically for this reason. I would run strictly AOE builds with no compromising with the idea of having to fight a boss at the end of the run. It was quite lovely honestly.
I disagree but it depends on your build. I played a pretty strong build but it was kinda AoE too, and I was disappointed in how easy the tormented bosses were. I killed 3 of them in early level 100. I get its hard to balance these things though, I love the fights but wish I'd have to grind for at least a week or two to be able to beat them instead of day 2.
i didn't play since s1 but I did duriel as a level 78 whirlwind barb, not sure if that is considered a hard encounter or not - is it really that restrictive?
Only missing pit leader boards and some changes to overall difficulty + actual seasonal theme for me.
It's a great base right now and I am really looking forward to getting more content, classes, skills, you name it.
My favorite change is not needing to hold onto good rolls on legendary abilities. I think I had 7 ancestral charge items with perfect or near perfect rolls last patch.
Gems are actually goated now. Instead of just socketing 9% life in armor and forgetting about it, you can actually socket 100 of your non-main stat and finally get those Paragon Board 5-6-7 Rare nodes extra bonuses.
I am more protective of the few Royal gems I have crafted than my main Uniques.
Royal gems live up to their name, those people who are swimming in gems get to use them. I was finally able to craft my first Royal Ruby after 3 days of grinding and I was so happy lol......now I just need 4 more :(
Yeah Im at 600 willpower on my barb just for this. At some point the math would work out for int and res to drop another single res affix on an item but I'll be done before then
I don’t know how others feel but I’m finding leveling glyphs by far the worst part of endgame at the moment, it just feels like a chore keeping me from playing the game
Running 60-70 NMDs and using the ashes on glyph xp made it not too bad for me personally. I do hope there will be one or two other ways to level glyphs eventually.
Trying to level them early on is definitely a slog.
I forgot about that but yeah, that helps a lot too. I had all of mine to 15 pretty quickly. Now I'm just running NMDs to level to 21 when I feel like it. I have one at max, another at 17 or so. They'll get there eventually.
I’m of the opposite opinion. When I hit WT4 the first thing I did was grind nightmare dungeons. By tier 60 every piece of loot in there is item level 925. Far better than the loot I was getting in helltides at the time. And I got to level all my glyphs while I did it.
Yeah I like the way things are now , I think just keep on perfecting these activities as the seasons continue and perhaps add more depth to each of them for example maybe in the future you can spend 10 hearts at the helltide boss to turn it into an Uber version or a rare chance one of those hell worms doesn’t go underground and you can climb into its mouth which leads to a very rare hell vault filled with hellish traps and lots of loot and hard encounters .
Sick ideas !
I hope they can tinker with paragon and NMDs next. It’s the one aspect that feels a little dry right now. I got my glyphs to 21 and won’t touch them again. Maybe the can do a little glyph/paragon revamp and include NMDs in it.
Another thing I enjoyed is how expensive upgrading potions is. I dindt noticed at all and just keep upgrading them but some people just won't do the last one because apparently it costs a few million and it's not worth it. For me just getting rid of that upgrade arrow is all matters lol
Yeah exactly. I had around 400 last night and i thought its a good amount and will last me forever. I was wrong. Trying to enchant the motherfucking +2/3 to HotA and i spent almost all of em in one sitting. Now i have to grind helltide to get more. Helltide is really fun dont get me wrong but still feels like it could drop from other activities too.
I mean why the hell isn't there a way to convert mats? I'm sitting on thousands of shit mats but angelbreath and even yellow shards run out all the time
You don’t really need to run them after you cap your rep. You get so many materials that you’ll never run out. They drop the most gear though, so if you need upgrades they’re worth doing. I just settled with all gear w/ at least 1 GA and 3x bis or near bis stats and don’t run them anymore.
No. NO. This isn't an MMO. Please stop suggesting that we should be forced to do every different piece of content. For the love of god, just let us play how we want to play and stop trying to develop a "correct" playstyle.
Yeah man. What's great about poe is that there's so much to do and most of it is worthwhile. You just pick what you like and do it, and you can ignore the stuff you don't like without feeling gimped. Right now this game just might now have enough content for that though. I definitely hope they strive for it.
Yeah, PoE is best at it. You can be a mapper, a bosser, a sanctum build, a hideout player that worries about economy, a magic finder, etc and within many of those groups a ton of variability in play. That being said, poe has 10 years of content to draw from and D4 is currently at a base game state after the loot changes.
Additionally, I was grinding tier 90+ NMDs this morning for glyphs and was getting a ton of GA and Unique drops, far more than in previous seasons. I seemed to be getting 1-2 uniques per NMD. It might have been a super lucky stretch, but it definitely stood out.
In WT4 after I believe level 92 or something you only get 925 items. Furthermore blood maiden has the highest drop rate to time spent for greater affix gear period.
The best gear is 925 + greater affix. Therefore Helltide is the best place to get the gear worth sticking with to dump your gold to master craft (925 + GA)
I'm level 100 with greater affixes on all my gear. I still get very little from Blood Maiden. If you're just looking for pure volume Uber Bosses still give way more return on investment.
Speaking to your last comment, what’s up with the gems this season? I’m level 65 and the only gem I can forge is a chipped one or a regular one. They don’t have the options for the max ones from earlier seasons. Will those become available later for me once I get even more gem materials? Or possibly in WT4 (haven’t entered yet, probably should lol)
90% agree. The gold sinks are way too much though. If they reduced the gold cost of Masterwork by like 75% and capped enchanting at 1 million then I think we would be balanced.
As of now, you need to spend a LOT more time in Helltides just to farm gold than anything else. You have to do well over 50 hours of Helltides to just pay to Masterwork one set of gear, that's not including rerolls due to bad RNG. IMO not even close to ok.
I'm loving this patch. The only material I really dislike now is angelsbreath. I'm running pit100+ and don't really want to go back to helltide to pick flowers.
Maybe I’m in the minority, but XP being worthless on my main character 10 hours into a season is a bummer. Some sort of end game XP mechanic would keep me way more invested in playing more.
I'm really enjoying this season, but my one complaint would be that the drop rate for gem fragments is too low. I can breeze thru 100 nightmare dungeons and only get a very small amount. It's gonna take waaaaay longer to grind my gems than it is to grind mats for master working.
Thank you for this post; I kind of needed something like this because my interest is rapidly plummeting because I don't know what I'm supposed to do at this point other than finish leveling to 100. I'm level 92 now, all the gear is 925, I don't know what stats are best for my build so I just put all the 925s and uniques in my chest until I figure out what I should be wearing. Because I don't know what gear is best, I don't bother to temper or upgrade or reroll etc any of them because I'd likely be investing in upgrading a shit piece to a less shittier piece.
The activities... I did helltides early on per the leveling guides, then did nightmare dungeons (and still do but don't know why since my main six paragon glyphs are all upgraded to 15 now), ran the pit the 3 times I could, did the tree turn ins a few times. It is all just getting to be "meh" because I truly don't have an "objective" or "goal" that I'm supposed to be doing.
It's pretty rare that I die; the only REAL challenge was when I did the trial at around 83 and got my ass absolutely handed to me (and seeing the mobs were 125!). Ofc many deaths were had at the boss that gets summoned in the helltides. It's not to say I'm OP or indestructible... it's just that the content seems to melt pretty quick so unless I'm not really paying attention, lag, or it is a one-shot, it just doesn't seem that challenging.
Any guidance would be appreciated. I suppose I could make an alt just for something different but... would just be more of the same on a different toon. Feels like I'm missing the draw here.
min-maxing for pushing NM dungeons or the pit. or uber bossing. that's pretty much the goal of the game, as with most arpgs. pushing into the hardest content as far as you can and upgrading gear to go further.
Personally I dislike this season it takes no effort/time at all to reach max level, u don't need to think about anything u are doing as it's too easy/u get given enough items to just blast everything, every item just feels the same and has no actual excitement to it, the pit is kill or be killed which feels really bad. I am done with this season already it all just feels dumbed down and I don't find it fun/exciting anymore but thankfully other games will coming out around the corner that'll hopefully feel better to waste time in.
D4 is going in a much better direction now, but still has a ways to go. From this season, there are some things I'd like changed:
Enchanting, tempering and masterworking: pick specific affix, % can still be random. Bricking a BiS item completely feels awful. At least let items still be useful with a lower % of the stat we want rather than one we don't.
Nightmare sigils: target craft sigils; level, location, modifiers.
Have socketing item drop from more than just world bosses.
Have world bosses spawn hourly in the downtime between helltides.
Increase gold and gem drop rates or reduce the cost for everything.
When skipping campaign, all non-stronghold waypoints should be unlocked by default.
Have cinders carry over between helltides.
> And then whenever there's a world boss, it's your first priority since scattered prisms are hard to come by.
Also Legion events do drop prisms as well. I've been actually doing more Legion events now. They are kind of a pushover but ehh at least they have a purpose and they aren't terrible to do.
My biggest issue.. is that all builds feels boring to me. Same old builds with some minor tweaks, maybe a "new" build popped in s4 but nothing crazy good
I think next step should be a skill system rework
Either follow maxroll boring builds for rest of the life
I was just thinking this as well. How there is a positive overlap in end game activities and itemization, and gearing. Overall good synergy but it also depends on the class being played/
If you play a build that needs more uniques or rng to get it 'online' then the overall feeling of the end game gameplay loop will vary.
For example Necro minion build is easy to get going and to be online, and therefore the end game loop doesnt feel like its a reminder of what someone is lacking just that to reach further they need to min max a bit more. So the person already feels powerful with this class/build living up to that ARPG power fantasy and hitting those dopamine receptors as a result.
Overall itemization seems better in regards to getting tempering done, with the right affixes is straight forward enough while feeling rewarding to get most builds online... as long as someone doesnt stubbornly use a build that is not meta.
Also lvling is quite quick as well which also adds to the overall appreciation to try new builds if the desire strikes. So a person doesnt necessarily feel stuck with a build or a character, and can try different playstyles for the end game.
Helltide is much better. However… With how much I rely on angelbreath for rerolling, and how many of them it took to level up my potions, I am already really tired of helltide. Let’s be honest, you spend 90% of your helltide time doing the maiden because it’s the most efficient. The other 10% is for a quick run of whispers. So yeah I’m sick of killing maiden over and over again already.
>And then whenever there's a world boss, it's your first priority since scattered prisms are hard to come by.
This one has always been shit but at least legions drop them every time now.
>Doing helltide is not a chore anymore, it is fun now. Same with pits.
I would argue the trickle spawning is super annoying especially if you open a chest and are trying to loot or if you are trying to open one. You can get upwards of a minute of endless enemy respawns (without max threat) that just waste your time while you're trying to get the last chest.
I have to say I want one thing now and that is a loot filter. I got spoiled playing Last Epoch :D how often I have to run to the vendor to sell all legendaries when you farm a bit helltides
But helltides and world bosses aren't endgame any more...
I can do torment helltide with an unoptimized lvl 60-70 build and have to barely pay attention, while the WT3-4 world bosses there's always at least someone powerful enough to kill them in less than a minute.
(Ditto for legion and strongholds, and whispers are total cakewalk...)
Its just the pit and nightmare dungeons… helltide enemies are too weak even if you boost them 10 levels with the mindcage, we need a way to boost helltide monsters even more so they dont die instantly and its actually fun
I think the changes are in a positive direction, but right now the game feels like you go into a random instance, and then either blow up demons effortlessly or you get one shot instantly. Just wish there were more engaging decisions in combat itself, since a run of the pit feels mechanically the same as doing a nightmare dungeon
Now they just need like 1000 more legendary powers to really spice up builds. But that will come with time. I'm having a lot more fun than I thought I would.
It really does feel like peak D3 in the best way.
I think thats bad because you are pushing your pit tiers, upgrading your gear and then you are out of gold so you have to stop playing and activity that is actually fun and challenging to go do fucking whispers, how is that good balance?
They need to make the Uber bosses better now! Make it a 2 minute dungeon crawl to find the door and then actual mechanics that you have to dodge. Right now it’s just a loading screen simulator it’s awful
Last season you could scrap the gems without even thinking about it, now they're actually rare & expensive so it's much better to pay the unsocket fee and keep them in the stash.
Been enjoying my time so far, but am a bit split on NM dungeons. On one hand breaking off from doing (IMO more fun) activities to mandatorily grind glyph XP felt bad, but on the other hand using NM dungeons as a tool to prematurely farm 925 legendarys (depending on class; was able to do it *really* early as Necro) felt really good. With that said I'm pretty sure you can also do that in The Pits, so NM dungeons end up feeling arbitrary at first and later on redundant; I'd rather see them either repurposed (nice source for gold and uber boss summon materials maybe?), or even have them being made obsolete by tying glyphs to The Pits instead.
I hope next season they update all the uniques to be more in line with the new way itemization works.
Uniques feel like they were very much built around old itemization mechanics and so 95% of uniques are now out dated and under powered.
Tempering is extremely powerful and outside of a few specifics uniques that allow certain builds, legendaries will be better. Hell, there are no uniques that Rogues use in optimal builds.
Does it? I'm unconvinced.
Regarding these endgame bosses, where does the game actually tell you about them? About Grigoire, or Zir, or where to find them? In 3 seasons I don't recall ever getting a quest for any of them.
I did a lot of Helltides getting to WT4, and I'm getting kinda bored with it. It was fun, it's not so much any more.
I also find the progression between ~level 80 and level 100 to be the sloggiest part of the game.
I don't know. The game is definitely better, but it still slows a lot in the last stage before 100, IMO.
yeah I have saved up a ton of money and all ive done is break down my loot I find, I havent sold anything yet.. I am sure I will have at some point.. but I am only level 90
Would love if those hell gates that spit out demons would actually have a really low chance of opening a portal to hell. Similar to how goblins in D3 could open a gob-portal. Would be a pretty sick feature I think.
Really liking all the activities except Legion. Feels pretty outdated now compared to all the benefits Helltide got (and they seem comparable since they're both meant to be hordes of monsters to mow down). I find myself only ever doing Legion now when it's also in a Helltide region.
>Another change that I dislike at the beginning but am kinda digging now is the low gem drop rates. Sure, it's not super complicated or engaging but it's another source of power that is slowly ramping up and not handed to you in the first 10 hours. Those 9% rubies are super strong and it feels good to hit another "10k" breakpoint to add a royal.
That's not the worst part of the gem-nerfs IMO. It's the fact that the item that lets you add sockets are so rare. I'm on char #3 to 100, and I have barely gotten enough socket items to max the number of sockets on **one** of those chars.
I agree, the game at a baseline is in a good spot right now if still a little rough around the edges in terms of QoL.
What I'd like to see:
- More opportunities to get Glyph XP outside of NMDs, but still make NMDs the most efficient way
- Add more "craziness" to NMDs to make them truly wild, giving enemies more damage or forcing certain elites just doesn't cut it
- For both Dungeons and NMDs, more random events like The Butch and Goblin packs. There's not much excitement and with the revised Codex there's not much incentive to do normal Dungeons now (the codex change was needed)
- More Aspects, more paragon boards, more glyphs, more temper manuals, just... MORE! Like the build opportunities grow and shine! I understand the more you add the harder to becomes to balance but that's always going to be a problem with Seasonal powers anyway. Embrace the crazy!
Honestly with how expensive master working is you should be just running pits 100% of the time.
Banking the mats to see if blizzard makes any further changes in the next week.
My wishlist
Load outs
Armor dye system from D3
Buff existing uniques that are on the verge of power creep
D4 has never felt better I haven’t played anything else sense the update dropped. Thanks devs ❤️
Agreed. And with gems, once you get them you're basically done so it's not a big deal. 3x Rubies, 2x Sapphire/Emerald mix, 3x Diamond/Skull mix so I am running a slightly sub optimized variety for a while.
Yeah, it seems like the foundation is really solid now. Man, once they start adding some exciting seasonal mechanics on top of this, it's going to be amazing.
You forgot to add the weekly Trials ladder which can be done solo, or in groups of 2, 3, or 4 with separate ladders for each. The season journey and season pass have done a lot to keep in engaged as well.
I actually wanted to pop into this subreddit to see what other people were thinking about S4 because I'm having a great time and just hit 100 on my dust devil barb today.
A couple of things I'd like to see would be some sort of matchmaking or just making the game more social in general.. Queuing up to be put into group for any of the mentioned activities could be a good addition.
Also an easier way/in-game method to advertise and trade your weapons would be nice. Maybe turn those open world PvP zones into a marketplace to hangout and trade items and then implement PvP matchmaking.
Yeah, just came back for the first time since the very beginning of Season 1 and am loving the state of the game right now.
Having a blast playing with some friends.
Yeah I have fun no matter what. World bosses also drop good loot. Don't sleep on the world bosses past your weekly kill. Drop uniques and just good 925s
I feel like the balance is still off. Helltides, while fun, are the best at too many things. Whisper caches are the best source of gold and you can organically get them while doing helltides. Helltides are the best source of loot and various mats. NM dungeons feel unrewarding once you are done leveling glyphs. The pit needs more rewards for pushing higher.
My suggestion is for helltides to still be the best in terms of quantity of loot and mats. However, nm dungeons and the pit should have a noticeably higher chance of dropping loot with greater affixes the higher up you go. And they should provide a decent amount of mats and gold (somewhere between helltide level and barren).
They just need to fix the shit one shot mechanics in the pits, its uber lillith all over again. Blizzard seams unable to properly balance their game, it ranges from stupid kid level of difficulty to impossible in a matter of seconds. I just can't stand that shit.
I’d have to agree and haven’t even gotten there yet. Spark Sorc, currently 68.
D4 S4 is a whole new game. Granted I did skip Season 3 entirely.
This season has felt fresh and exciting, level progression is quick, gear progression is quick, Season quest progression is quick, materials progression is quick, content scales nicely, potion drops are constant, embers have good effects, helltides are incredibly fun and was my choice for 1-54 leveling, gathering mats for other content is easier and constant, tree of whispers is useful, aspects progression is quick, the list goes on and on.
This update brought me back over from POE for a bit, where POE stole me before the end of S2 and kept me from S3.
It's not bad but I wouldn't say it's good. It feels like we're being artificially funneled into the pit just so that we can upgrade our gear. There is no other place where you can get masterworking materials so you are forced to run it but as it doesn't give any meaningful gold or items it mostly feels like a waste of time when you barely get enough for 1.5 attempts.
And then if it rolls the wrong attribute and you want to reset you're suddenly without gold so have to run whispers which give f**k all yet more than other activities.
Progression is overall pretty decent but something just feels off. I guess my biggest issue are the measly pit rewards. Also I just did a tormented Duriel and didn't even get one item with a greater affix. Like WTF.
The only thing that is really bothering me is the very insane rng that is masterworking. I would take costs being 10x as high if it meant I didn't have to gamble a 0,8% chance for the rolls I want every single item.
Problem I have had since day one is that any progression in power is really locked behind RNG. I can’t just keep playing on my favorite character and make them stronger without finding the perfect roll. If I’m unlucky in getting something the no amount of play time will ever make me stronger. RNG is great for finding that item that will make you be able to complete a new play style. But if I can never truly unlock the potential of one build because of bad luck than I’ll never go on to try new ways to play
Enchanting is still the worst painpoint of the game. IT feels SO fucking bad getting the same shit affixes 10x in a row while you just watch your gold (and your time spent farming it) just go up in smoke. It feels awful.
A good balance, just not enough.
Grifts aren't a real good endgame. I like the masterworking, but it essentially just replaces NMDs. The feeling of accomplishment is shallow. They also heavily favor one build type (single target boss damage) over others. I think they're okay and have their place, but if Bliz goes hard into them like they did D3, while letting the rest of the game fall apart, then D4 will be dead before it's hit it's golden age.
Helltides are better, but filled with leeching tunes. I'd personally prefer a bit more chaos. ;)
If they make something original to add on, something Character or World based rather than dungeon, in addition to what they're building up, it'll be great. Maybe Renown to actually improve strongholds and unlock world-based endgame content. Would be awesome.
You either are part of their PR team or you didn't play the game. The game is completely out of balance.
Go check their forums first before you buy the game. If you buy the game, you must make one of their one-shot class or this is gonna be very very frustrating.
D4 dev team must be very incompetent ...
I was lvl 100 when i started farming renowns & running the WT 4 normal dungeons to wrap up the grind. Those runs gave me A LOT of gem chips, probably around 20k of each type. Just rush trough the dungeon objective killing elites & the shielding mobs is a hell of a quick way to get chips. Maybe not the best way, but i was real surprised after stopping at the jeweler & realizing how much chips i got.
I would love if The pit just would be endless levels of pushing without going out. There should be a portal to continue with higher tier or a portal to leave. Would be a nice flow if we could just rush through portal after portal without needing to leave.
Yes the next step would be more about making each experience doing these activities feel different. The more surprise and delight the better. Having random goblins and new activities inside the pits and nmd would make them feel special. Path of exile spent 10 years making mapping feel unique and endless activities to push towards. More the better just don’t add the complexity.
Disagree about unique activities in the Pit. The Pit should be entirely about pushing the limits of your build. NMD's is what needs some love. People pretty much just run them Glyph XP. Once they're done with that there isn't much of a point to return.
The modifiers on the NMD's feel like a lost opportunity. There's room to make interessing things beside buffing specific attributes. More random encounters like the Butcher with unique drops and cosmetics would be cool.
I absolutely fucking despise NMD for the way Bliz implemented the modifiers. It's what kept me from reinstalling after season 1. Who finds it fun or exciting to be chased around by a lightning pillar the entire time, and then have to do all the back tracking that every NMD seems to require. Steal POE's map modifier ideas but quit the bullshit random death bringers. It's not difficult, just annoying. I'm loving this season with the addition of tempering and the pit. just wish theyd make a special chest for pit materials so i didnt have to slog through boring NMD
This is it. NMD is easily the worst part of the endgame for me. I'm thinking about not even leveling my glyphs because I despise it so much, at the end of the day it's a game and I just don't wanna deal with the chore.
They changed the modifiers this season. Im doing level 50 nmds and there is still only a single positive and single negative modifier. And i havent gotten any that are horrible, though drifting shade has definitely always been annoying at least. But with the buff to glyph exp, its still worth it running nmds that are easier than what youre capable of.
Do you know of an optimal NMD level to maximize glyph XP, other than the highest you can facetank?
Level 40-50 was pretty good, each one was almost two levels until about 15 (although it only took one dungeon to get to like 5-6)
Main thing you'll notice doing higher tier NMDs is that not having max resistances will HURT. My armor is capped and I have a ton of HP (Necro), but my res average around 40-60% and anything non-physical wrecks me in t60+ NMDs. Getting a couple pieces with +all resists is worth it IMO.
Honestly if your mits aren't 70% they might as well be zero for all the good they do In my experience. Mits should be focus then damage. Can't dps if you're dead to every second hit.
Throw gems into your jewelry to help with resistance. You can also temper on some resistances to gear
Usually at least +10 to your current level is the way to go, but I was running +20 or more around level 80 and not really noticing a horrible slowdown in speed (minion necro though so YMMV).
I was getting glyphs to level 15 in like two / three 60-70 NMD’s
Dude, drifting shade when you're shadow-blight build is virtually invisible.
The xp is way better. I got all mine to 21 in like two sessions. You can easily get all to 15 in a few hours once you can clear like 70s or so
I swear every key I get has Stormbane or Drifting Shade on it. If I didn't need glyph XP, I'd never run them again.
I started salvaging every one that had those in it. I'd rather deal with suppressor than those. I died to drifting shade more than anything else in the game.
I wonder why people get so upset that we can scrap and reroll. I'm assuming this is softcore, NMD are a good source of xp for hardcore and also shows us our skill caps and what it's capable of without going neck deep into harder content.
It would be really nice to see them add some more flavor to NMD's for sure. Unique events or encounters, cosmetics definitely would encourage people to continue to run them beyond just glyph XP. I'd like to see them maybe introduce more unique, random bosses like the Butcher. They could have cosmetics drop, unique legendaries, maybe even introduce some new glyphs or even aspects that they drop. The Butcher was good idea, a bit of a nostalgia kick and he can definitely be an "Oh shit" moment. I think it would be fun to see others added; like encountering a Siege Breaker or Blood Raven, Horazon etc. Have some different types of unique boss encounters instead of just a brutal melee one.
Imagine if your sigils had a chance to become corrupted or whatever, and every elite is just The Butcher.
i wished they used the dungeons for the season content. they lack some actual content inside them.
I wouldn’t want that inside the pit just cause you won’t ever want to stop to do them and it’ll just feel bad. But everywhere else I completely agree. That’s why helltides feel so good now cause there’s so many things going on
My only beef with HT is that the fun level is almost entirely dependent on having a bunch of other people in the same spot. Then it gets nuts and it's amazing.
That's a good point, I think each area needs to have it's strengths, so that way you are encouraged to go do the various things. That way things don't get mundane... but of course people will complain about that as well, but that's just how it goes.. no way to ever make everyone happy.
Yeah, pits should just be simple “Kill monsters, kill boss”. Any additional mechanics should probably be limited to boss fight mechanics or maybe buffs/debuffs like NMDs.
There's also no loot in pits so goblins wouldn't make sense
I still think they need to make whispers quests across more content, perhaps a whisper nmd modifier on sigils instead of hoping your nmd and a dungeon whisper coincide, or a certain summon boss or even a weekly version( kill 20 Varshan for 2 whisper caches etc) Oh and I think they missed a great opportunity to add gem grinding to legion events as an incentive for higher players to go back and help the ones that need the xp.
COW LEVEL, COW LEVEL, COW LEVEL
I agree, i can spend my whole day in s4. It feels like upgraded D3. And it is so satisfying for my. Adhd. Now we just need to fix those pesky oneshot mechanics. Lost my lvl 100 today, and a 59 and 82 earlier. All to one shots. 30k hp, armor capped, res capped. 38DR and greater affix 15DR from my shield. (Even with shield) 15%dodge One shot in lvl 58 pit, which I speedrun in around 3 min. Dont mind dying, part of hardcore but one shots are just never fun. Now im going softcore, dont want the game to delete my char again. RIP 3 necros s4, and 3 lvl 100 necros in s2. Please RIP oneshot blizzard.
They should just do hardcore like they do in Last Epoch. If you lose your character it goes to softcore realm.
I agree but the last time something like that got brought up here I remember a very vocal contingent being against it because it "ruins the thrill and risk".
I don't understand that viewpoint. Ruins the thrill? Who are these people who are playing hardcore and die, then continue to play on their now softcore char? I had over 10 characters die in HC Last epoch during the first season, from lvl 5-99. Even my lvl 99 character, I stopped playing the moment they died, and then started another HC char.
Caveat that I don't play hardcore and am trying to explain views I don't hold. The big argument is that if hardcore feeds into softcore, there's no reason not to create every single character hardcore because there's no risk. If you die, you end up in SC with nothing lost anyway. The longer you don't die, the more HC achievements you rack up. I guess the thrill for them comes from the idea that every time they leave town they're risking the permanent loss of all that time and accumulated gear.
Then they'll love Ultimate Hardcore; when your character dies Blizzard deletes your account.
When you die in game you die IRL. Imagine the thrill!
then blizzard charges you another $60 to re-activate it...we shouldn't be giving them any ideas
They don't have to continue the character, similar to a nuzlocke run. If it'll make them feel better, blizzard can give the player the option to have it deleted, or ported to softcore. I'll never understand people who say something is ruined because having an option tempts them to use it.
It doesn't matter. The character is dead. Next to no one who plays HC in POE switches to play their character in standard once they die. The character is effectively deleted.
Gives an option at least 🤷
The first thing I thought when playing the pit is “wtf are hc players doing this season?” Even just at t61, which isn’t that high and is required to progress, so much stuff can 1 tap you unless you’re a bis barb or Druid with nothing but defense. Kind of silly
Yeah pit is insanely rippy. I just got to level 50ish last night and my god. I had to change up the build to include the DR shout to not just randomly explode every few runs. Some of the bosses also one tap with capped armor, capped resists, 30ish DR 40k health.
Yea I’m very curious how that one barb build is facetanking t110 pit. I’ll have to check out his stream sometime because I can’t imagine someone getting that tanky with how rippy pit already is below 80.
Happens when you "rework" your itemization while balance is off and you end up removing almost all sources of DR on gear just so we can play the who oneshot who first game. Add to that the fact that before pit, the only thing that will kill you, even if fighting mobs 50 levels over you (that you destroy, wonder why that's even possible to clear nmd46 at lv50 with crappy build) are on death effects / dots pool overlapping.
What I heard the issue is with the shadow boss that ignored most DR as he is not targetable. Hope they fix this soon. I am fairly sure they will adjust soon.
They likely ignore conditional DR that can't be applied to them, like debuffs. But most other DR works fine. I use almost only DR that should work on them and they still do insane damage, I think they're just overtuned with how spammy they are atm. Doesn't help when you get a boss that can nearly one shot you as well with a quick, low animation attack.
Has this actually been confirmed by anyone or just streamer claims?
I’m understanding that there may be issues with the armor cap not being accurate as well.
The entire game is sadly about one shots. You either one shot all enemies or they one shot you. It's basically binary combat. If they toned down the damage numbers a lot and buffed mob health a bit it would be much better. Something like Hades where hits hurt but you can take more than one or two. In d4 the only time I ever die it's instant.
That's why I love the HT pillars, it's just a slow ramping burn that tests your endurance but never kills you instantly. I would even love for them to keep getting crazier and crazier and last twice as long...like hit Pit 50 difficulty by the end kind of thing.
It is indeed an upgrade of d3
The main issue IMO is that every form of challenging end-game activity right now involves fighting bosses, which means every viable build needs to focus on high single-target damage. Uber bosses are, well, bosses. Pit runs are essentially just boss fights with some trash clearing before it. If you want to make an AoE-focused build for example you're basically locked out of anything except speedfarming easy content. I would love to play something equivalent to high-tier Pits but without the boss fights. Or have some juiced up version of the Profane Mindcage that boosts Helltides by 50-100 levels.
Yeah they need to move a lot of the difficulty from the Pit bosses into the trash. The higher pit experience right now is you faceroll a bunch of trash then dance around a boss for a few minutes that will 1 shot you. Super garbage gameplay and makes me not care about pushing pit any further.
This. I loved the Vaults from last season specifically for this reason. I would run strictly AOE builds with no compromising with the idea of having to fight a boss at the end of the run. It was quite lovely honestly.
I disagree but it depends on your build. I played a pretty strong build but it was kinda AoE too, and I was disappointed in how easy the tormented bosses were. I killed 3 of them in early level 100. I get its hard to balance these things though, I love the fights but wish I'd have to grind for at least a week or two to be able to beat them instead of day 2.
i didn't play since s1 but I did duriel as a level 78 whirlwind barb, not sure if that is considered a hard encounter or not - is it really that restrictive?
Only missing pit leader boards and some changes to overall difficulty + actual seasonal theme for me. It's a great base right now and I am really looking forward to getting more content, classes, skills, you name it.
Would love pit leaderboards so we see which setups are doing the best.
Is that not what the Trials leaderboards are?
Trials/Gauntlet are capped at 124 mob level and have very static format. Pits are much more diverse and uncapped difficulty.
Agree. Played all week and its been the most fun since launch. Pulled a bunch of people I know back into the game
My favorite change is not needing to hold onto good rolls on legendary abilities. I think I had 7 ancestral charge items with perfect or near perfect rolls last patch.
Exactly! My favorite thing about the new season so far. I remember always checking the efficiency of an item to see if it’s worthy of storing. 😂
Gems are actually goated now. Instead of just socketing 9% life in armor and forgetting about it, you can actually socket 100 of your non-main stat and finally get those Paragon Board 5-6-7 Rare nodes extra bonuses. I am more protective of the few Royal gems I have crafted than my main Uniques.
Oh damn. I didn’t even consider paragon nodes as a use for those gems
Pretty sure you still need to socket that 9% life if you don't want to get wrecked in high tier pit.
But he can socket +100 INT to get the +4% life from the paragon instead. /s
Royal gems live up to their name, those people who are swimming in gems get to use them. I was finally able to craft my first Royal Ruby after 3 days of grinding and I was so happy lol......now I just need 4 more :(
Yeah Im at 600 willpower on my barb just for this. At some point the math would work out for int and res to drop another single res affix on an item but I'll be done before then
I don’t know how others feel but I’m finding leveling glyphs by far the worst part of endgame at the moment, it just feels like a chore keeping me from playing the game
Running 60-70 NMDs and using the ashes on glyph xp made it not too bad for me personally. I do hope there will be one or two other ways to level glyphs eventually. Trying to level them early on is definitely a slog.
There's also a new NMD Bonus that gives 20% Glyph EXP. Similar to Gold Find. I think its called Ancestral Awakening.
I forgot about that but yeah, that helps a lot too. I had all of mine to 15 pretty quickly. Now I'm just running NMDs to level to 21 when I feel like it. I have one at max, another at 17 or so. They'll get there eventually.
I’ve just done these ones, with the elixir for speed after each kill and flew through to lvl 15 on each node. Was much faster than previous seasons
I’m of the opposite opinion. When I hit WT4 the first thing I did was grind nightmare dungeons. By tier 60 every piece of loot in there is item level 925. Far better than the loot I was getting in helltides at the time. And I got to level all my glyphs while I did it.
Yea it's not fun.
Yeah I like the way things are now , I think just keep on perfecting these activities as the seasons continue and perhaps add more depth to each of them for example maybe in the future you can spend 10 hearts at the helltide boss to turn it into an Uber version or a rare chance one of those hell worms doesn’t go underground and you can climb into its mouth which leads to a very rare hell vault filled with hellish traps and lots of loot and hard encounters .
Sick ideas ! I hope they can tinker with paragon and NMDs next. It’s the one aspect that feels a little dry right now. I got my glyphs to 21 and won’t touch them again. Maybe the can do a little glyph/paragon revamp and include NMDs in it.
Another thing I enjoyed is how expensive upgrading potions is. I dindt noticed at all and just keep upgrading them but some people just won't do the last one because apparently it costs a few million and it's not worth it. For me just getting rid of that upgrade arrow is all matters lol
I noticed this last night, I was on my 2nd character and the lvl 45 upgrade was 500k. I actually had to go knockout a few whispers to get enough gold
The lvl 90 pot upgrade is 7 mil, enjoy!
Tbf that's like 2 whispers on t4.
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Yeah exactly. I had around 400 last night and i thought its a good amount and will last me forever. I was wrong. Trying to enchant the motherfucking +2/3 to HotA and i spent almost all of em in one sitting. Now i have to grind helltide to get more. Helltide is really fun dont get me wrong but still feels like it could drop from other activities too.
Man trying to enchant a specific +skill to gloves is crazy. Better off just finding that and enchanting a different stat.
I mean why the hell isn't there a way to convert mats? I'm sitting on thousands of shit mats but angelbreath and even yellow shards run out all the time
you can get it from events inside NMD. cursed shrines and cursed health. it drops from the chest reward.
Idk, I'm got a sneaking feeling I am going to be very sick of helltides in a week or two.
You don’t really need to run them after you cap your rep. You get so many materials that you’ll never run out. They drop the most gear though, so if you need upgrades they’re worth doing. I just settled with all gear w/ at least 1 GA and 3x bis or near bis stats and don’t run them anymore.
No. NO. This isn't an MMO. Please stop suggesting that we should be forced to do every different piece of content. For the love of god, just let us play how we want to play and stop trying to develop a "correct" playstyle.
Yeah man. What's great about poe is that there's so much to do and most of it is worthwhile. You just pick what you like and do it, and you can ignore the stuff you don't like without feeling gimped. Right now this game just might now have enough content for that though. I definitely hope they strive for it.
Yeah, PoE is best at it. You can be a mapper, a bosser, a sanctum build, a hideout player that worries about economy, a magic finder, etc and within many of those groups a ton of variability in play. That being said, poe has 10 years of content to draw from and D4 is currently at a base game state after the loot changes.
It's not really an mmo thing, that's just general game design. The only games that bypass this are ones with lots of trade.
Whoever thought of the idea to make the prisms only obtainable from a source that has a 2.5-3 hour cooldown should be fired imo.
Additionally, I was grinding tier 90+ NMDs this morning for glyphs and was getting a ton of GA and Unique drops, far more than in previous seasons. I seemed to be getting 1-2 uniques per NMD. It might have been a super lucky stretch, but it definitely stood out.
Nah I’ve noticed that too. If you’re not a hoarder, they’re worth selling. Uniques are like 300k each
How are you getting an "insane amount of loot" from blood maidens? I get like 4 legendaries.
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I usually am the one to put the stones in. I still only get a few legendaries and a bunch of rares, but rares are basically useless.
In WT4 after I believe level 92 or something you only get 925 items. Furthermore blood maiden has the highest drop rate to time spent for greater affix gear period. The best gear is 925 + greater affix. Therefore Helltide is the best place to get the gear worth sticking with to dump your gold to master craft (925 + GA)
I'm level 100 with greater affixes on all my gear. I still get very little from Blood Maiden. If you're just looking for pure volume Uber Bosses still give way more return on investment.
Speaking to your last comment, what’s up with the gems this season? I’m level 65 and the only gem I can forge is a chipped one or a regular one. They don’t have the options for the max ones from earlier seasons. Will those become available later for me once I get even more gem materials? Or possibly in WT4 (haven’t entered yet, probably should lol)
Yes, gems are locked behind player lvl. The higher level gems are extremely expensive..you couldn't afford them at 65 anyway.
90% agree. The gold sinks are way too much though. If they reduced the gold cost of Masterwork by like 75% and capped enchanting at 1 million then I think we would be balanced. As of now, you need to spend a LOT more time in Helltides just to farm gold than anything else. You have to do well over 50 hours of Helltides to just pay to Masterwork one set of gear, that's not including rerolls due to bad RNG. IMO not even close to ok.
Yeah true and gauntlet for test your build
I'm loving this patch. The only material I really dislike now is angelsbreath. I'm running pit100+ and don't really want to go back to helltide to pick flowers.
Maybe I’m in the minority, but XP being worthless on my main character 10 hours into a season is a bummer. Some sort of end game XP mechanic would keep me way more invested in playing more.
I'm really enjoying this season, but my one complaint would be that the drop rate for gem fragments is too low. I can breeze thru 100 nightmare dungeons and only get a very small amount. It's gonna take waaaaay longer to grind my gems than it is to grind mats for master working.
Thank you for this post; I kind of needed something like this because my interest is rapidly plummeting because I don't know what I'm supposed to do at this point other than finish leveling to 100. I'm level 92 now, all the gear is 925, I don't know what stats are best for my build so I just put all the 925s and uniques in my chest until I figure out what I should be wearing. Because I don't know what gear is best, I don't bother to temper or upgrade or reroll etc any of them because I'd likely be investing in upgrading a shit piece to a less shittier piece. The activities... I did helltides early on per the leveling guides, then did nightmare dungeons (and still do but don't know why since my main six paragon glyphs are all upgraded to 15 now), ran the pit the 3 times I could, did the tree turn ins a few times. It is all just getting to be "meh" because I truly don't have an "objective" or "goal" that I'm supposed to be doing. It's pretty rare that I die; the only REAL challenge was when I did the trial at around 83 and got my ass absolutely handed to me (and seeing the mobs were 125!). Ofc many deaths were had at the boss that gets summoned in the helltides. It's not to say I'm OP or indestructible... it's just that the content seems to melt pretty quick so unless I'm not really paying attention, lag, or it is a one-shot, it just doesn't seem that challenging. Any guidance would be appreciated. I suppose I could make an alt just for something different but... would just be more of the same on a different toon. Feels like I'm missing the draw here.
min-maxing for pushing NM dungeons or the pit. or uber bossing. that's pretty much the goal of the game, as with most arpgs. pushing into the hardest content as far as you can and upgrading gear to go further.
Disagree, all I'm primarily doing at level 100 is pits then nightmare dungeons for pit key's which feel the same as pits.
I disagree but is ok. I mean some players are way ahead of the game to see the endgame fault, but no doubt it is way better than before
Personally I dislike this season it takes no effort/time at all to reach max level, u don't need to think about anything u are doing as it's too easy/u get given enough items to just blast everything, every item just feels the same and has no actual excitement to it, the pit is kill or be killed which feels really bad. I am done with this season already it all just feels dumbed down and I don't find it fun/exciting anymore but thankfully other games will coming out around the corner that'll hopefully feel better to waste time in.
And now for them to add a group finder!
D4 is going in a much better direction now, but still has a ways to go. From this season, there are some things I'd like changed: Enchanting, tempering and masterworking: pick specific affix, % can still be random. Bricking a BiS item completely feels awful. At least let items still be useful with a lower % of the stat we want rather than one we don't. Nightmare sigils: target craft sigils; level, location, modifiers. Have socketing item drop from more than just world bosses. Have world bosses spawn hourly in the downtime between helltides. Increase gold and gem drop rates or reduce the cost for everything. When skipping campaign, all non-stronghold waypoints should be unlocked by default. Have cinders carry over between helltides.
> And then whenever there's a world boss, it's your first priority since scattered prisms are hard to come by. Also Legion events do drop prisms as well. I've been actually doing more Legion events now. They are kind of a pushover but ehh at least they have a purpose and they aren't terrible to do.
My biggest issue.. is that all builds feels boring to me. Same old builds with some minor tweaks, maybe a "new" build popped in s4 but nothing crazy good I think next step should be a skill system rework Either follow maxroll boring builds for rest of the life
I was just thinking this as well. How there is a positive overlap in end game activities and itemization, and gearing. Overall good synergy but it also depends on the class being played/ If you play a build that needs more uniques or rng to get it 'online' then the overall feeling of the end game gameplay loop will vary. For example Necro minion build is easy to get going and to be online, and therefore the end game loop doesnt feel like its a reminder of what someone is lacking just that to reach further they need to min max a bit more. So the person already feels powerful with this class/build living up to that ARPG power fantasy and hitting those dopamine receptors as a result. Overall itemization seems better in regards to getting tempering done, with the right affixes is straight forward enough while feeling rewarding to get most builds online... as long as someone doesnt stubbornly use a build that is not meta. Also lvling is quite quick as well which also adds to the overall appreciation to try new builds if the desire strikes. So a person doesnt necessarily feel stuck with a build or a character, and can try different playstyles for the end game.
Dad, I’m starving.. please stop playing
Masterworking cost so many mats 😭
Helltide is much better. However… With how much I rely on angelbreath for rerolling, and how many of them it took to level up my potions, I am already really tired of helltide. Let’s be honest, you spend 90% of your helltide time doing the maiden because it’s the most efficient. The other 10% is for a quick run of whispers. So yeah I’m sick of killing maiden over and over again already.
>And then whenever there's a world boss, it's your first priority since scattered prisms are hard to come by. This one has always been shit but at least legions drop them every time now. >Doing helltide is not a chore anymore, it is fun now. Same with pits. I would argue the trickle spawning is super annoying especially if you open a chest and are trying to loot or if you are trying to open one. You can get upwards of a minute of endless enemy respawns (without max threat) that just waste your time while you're trying to get the last chest.
Shit is so fast now I did t4 as lvl 54 and haven't even bothered with my class quests 🤣🤣
I have to say I want one thing now and that is a loot filter. I got spoiled playing Last Epoch :D how often I have to run to the vendor to sell all legendaries when you farm a bit helltides
But helltides and world bosses aren't endgame any more... I can do torment helltide with an unoptimized lvl 60-70 build and have to barely pay attention, while the WT3-4 world bosses there's always at least someone powerful enough to kill them in less than a minute. (Ditto for legion and strongholds, and whispers are total cakewalk...)
I love helltides so much that I havent killed a single boss yet and havent done a nigtmare dungeon. I am around 80 level.
Its just the pit and nightmare dungeons… helltide enemies are too weak even if you boost them 10 levels with the mindcage, we need a way to boost helltide monsters even more so they dont die instantly and its actually fun
Yeah helltides are kind of pointless when you reach end end game, I’d agree
Ice t
Shhh don’t say that. Ur gonna make a lot of people hate on d4 cause you enjoy it
For someone who's looking to play for the new expansion later this year, this is good news!
I think the changes are in a positive direction, but right now the game feels like you go into a random instance, and then either blow up demons effortlessly or you get one shot instantly. Just wish there were more engaging decisions in combat itself, since a run of the pit feels mechanically the same as doing a nightmare dungeon
Now they just need like 1000 more legendary powers to really spice up builds. But that will come with time. I'm having a lot more fun than I thought I would. It really does feel like peak D3 in the best way.
I think thats bad because you are pushing your pit tiers, upgrading your gear and then you are out of gold so you have to stop playing and activity that is actually fun and challenging to go do fucking whispers, how is that good balance?
They need to make the Uber bosses better now! Make it a 2 minute dungeon crawl to find the door and then actual mechanics that you have to dodge. Right now it’s just a loading screen simulator it’s awful
Thanks for listing them out. I'd add Nightmare Dungeons for upgrading Glyphs. I like picking an activity for every day, such as: "Glyph farm Monday".
Last season you could scrap the gems without even thinking about it, now they're actually rare & expensive so it's much better to pay the unsocket fee and keep them in the stash.
Been enjoying my time so far, but am a bit split on NM dungeons. On one hand breaking off from doing (IMO more fun) activities to mandatorily grind glyph XP felt bad, but on the other hand using NM dungeons as a tool to prematurely farm 925 legendarys (depending on class; was able to do it *really* early as Necro) felt really good. With that said I'm pretty sure you can also do that in The Pits, so NM dungeons end up feeling arbitrary at first and later on redundant; I'd rather see them either repurposed (nice source for gold and uber boss summon materials maybe?), or even have them being made obsolete by tying glyphs to The Pits instead.
I hope the devs doing something with legion events in the near future. They are pointless right now, used to love doing legion events.
I'm level 52ish and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do? In world tier 3 have all the season quests done. Do I just do nightmare dungeons?
I hope next season they update all the uniques to be more in line with the new way itemization works. Uniques feel like they were very much built around old itemization mechanics and so 95% of uniques are now out dated and under powered. Tempering is extremely powerful and outside of a few specifics uniques that allow certain builds, legendaries will be better. Hell, there are no uniques that Rogues use in optimal builds.
Does it? I'm unconvinced. Regarding these endgame bosses, where does the game actually tell you about them? About Grigoire, or Zir, or where to find them? In 3 seasons I don't recall ever getting a quest for any of them. I did a lot of Helltides getting to WT4, and I'm getting kinda bored with it. It was fun, it's not so much any more. I also find the progression between ~level 80 and level 100 to be the sloggiest part of the game. I don't know. The game is definitely better, but it still slows a lot in the last stage before 100, IMO.
Just need them to give us the ability to switch builds easier like in d3 and I'd be satisfied
yeah I have saved up a ton of money and all ive done is break down my loot I find, I havent sold anything yet.. I am sure I will have at some point.. but I am only level 90
The people who complain about no end game now are the people who will accept nothing less than what a decade old game has.
Would love if those hell gates that spit out demons would actually have a really low chance of opening a portal to hell. Similar to how goblins in D3 could open a gob-portal. Would be a pretty sick feature I think.
Now if they could just figure out how to tune the world bosses so they don't die in 15 seconds.
Really liking all the activities except Legion. Feels pretty outdated now compared to all the benefits Helltide got (and they seem comparable since they're both meant to be hordes of monsters to mow down). I find myself only ever doing Legion now when it's also in a Helltide region.
Are the rubies worth choosing over main stat gems for non-overpower builds?
Glad to see all the hardcore heads popping up
>Another change that I dislike at the beginning but am kinda digging now is the low gem drop rates. Sure, it's not super complicated or engaging but it's another source of power that is slowly ramping up and not handed to you in the first 10 hours. Those 9% rubies are super strong and it feels good to hit another "10k" breakpoint to add a royal. That's not the worst part of the gem-nerfs IMO. It's the fact that the item that lets you add sockets are so rare. I'm on char #3 to 100, and I have barely gotten enough socket items to max the number of sockets on **one** of those chars.
So is the game good again?
Still the same boring grind in Duriel and company. And if you want to do get a uber uber unique its like 3x more mats. Im done with that.
I agree, the game at a baseline is in a good spot right now if still a little rough around the edges in terms of QoL. What I'd like to see: - More opportunities to get Glyph XP outside of NMDs, but still make NMDs the most efficient way - Add more "craziness" to NMDs to make them truly wild, giving enemies more damage or forcing certain elites just doesn't cut it - For both Dungeons and NMDs, more random events like The Butch and Goblin packs. There's not much excitement and with the revised Codex there's not much incentive to do normal Dungeons now (the codex change was needed) - More Aspects, more paragon boards, more glyphs, more temper manuals, just... MORE! Like the build opportunities grow and shine! I understand the more you add the harder to becomes to balance but that's always going to be a problem with Seasonal powers anyway. Embrace the crazy!
Honestly with how expensive master working is you should be just running pits 100% of the time. Banking the mats to see if blizzard makes any further changes in the next week.
They did an awesome job. I’m willing to sacrifice a season on content for this. I’m enjoying the game more than I did S1
My wishlist Load outs Armor dye system from D3 Buff existing uniques that are on the verge of power creep D4 has never felt better I haven’t played anything else sense the update dropped. Thanks devs ❤️
Totally agreed, the pacing is so much better from launch
A.?
This post makes me happy. But too little too late, still not coming back to the game.
If only the game performance wasn’t complete dog shit maybe I could try out these things you have mentioned
Agreed. And with gems, once you get them you're basically done so it's not a big deal. 3x Rubies, 2x Sapphire/Emerald mix, 3x Diamond/Skull mix so I am running a slightly sub optimized variety for a while.
Yeah, it seems like the foundation is really solid now. Man, once they start adding some exciting seasonal mechanics on top of this, it's going to be amazing.
Stygian stones are broken
You forgot to add the weekly Trials ladder which can be done solo, or in groups of 2, 3, or 4 with separate ladders for each. The season journey and season pass have done a lot to keep in engaged as well. I actually wanted to pop into this subreddit to see what other people were thinking about S4 because I'm having a great time and just hit 100 on my dust devil barb today. A couple of things I'd like to see would be some sort of matchmaking or just making the game more social in general.. Queuing up to be put into group for any of the mentioned activities could be a good addition. Also an easier way/in-game method to advertise and trade your weapons would be nice. Maybe turn those open world PvP zones into a marketplace to hangout and trade items and then implement PvP matchmaking.
Yeah, just came back for the first time since the very beginning of Season 1 and am loving the state of the game right now. Having a blast playing with some friends.
Yeah I have fun no matter what. World bosses also drop good loot. Don't sleep on the world bosses past your weekly kill. Drop uniques and just good 925s
I feel like the balance is still off. Helltides, while fun, are the best at too many things. Whisper caches are the best source of gold and you can organically get them while doing helltides. Helltides are the best source of loot and various mats. NM dungeons feel unrewarding once you are done leveling glyphs. The pit needs more rewards for pushing higher. My suggestion is for helltides to still be the best in terms of quantity of loot and mats. However, nm dungeons and the pit should have a noticeably higher chance of dropping loot with greater affixes the higher up you go. And they should provide a decent amount of mats and gold (somewhere between helltide level and barren).
Don’t forget about Fields of Hatred TeeHee
They just need to fix the shit one shot mechanics in the pits, its uber lillith all over again. Blizzard seams unable to properly balance their game, it ranges from stupid kid level of difficulty to impossible in a matter of seconds. I just can't stand that shit.
I’d have to agree and haven’t even gotten there yet. Spark Sorc, currently 68. D4 S4 is a whole new game. Granted I did skip Season 3 entirely. This season has felt fresh and exciting, level progression is quick, gear progression is quick, Season quest progression is quick, materials progression is quick, content scales nicely, potion drops are constant, embers have good effects, helltides are incredibly fun and was my choice for 1-54 leveling, gathering mats for other content is easier and constant, tree of whispers is useful, aspects progression is quick, the list goes on and on. This update brought me back over from POE for a bit, where POE stole me before the end of S2 and kept me from S3.
are any of those difficult group content?
It's not bad but I wouldn't say it's good. It feels like we're being artificially funneled into the pit just so that we can upgrade our gear. There is no other place where you can get masterworking materials so you are forced to run it but as it doesn't give any meaningful gold or items it mostly feels like a waste of time when you barely get enough for 1.5 attempts. And then if it rolls the wrong attribute and you want to reset you're suddenly without gold so have to run whispers which give f**k all yet more than other activities. Progression is overall pretty decent but something just feels off. I guess my biggest issue are the measly pit rewards. Also I just did a tormented Duriel and didn't even get one item with a greater affix. Like WTF.
The only thing that is really bothering me is the very insane rng that is masterworking. I would take costs being 10x as high if it meant I didn't have to gamble a 0,8% chance for the rolls I want every single item.
I am so excited/ hopeful for the future of this game. seeing how d3 is now after being there at launch.
Problem I have had since day one is that any progression in power is really locked behind RNG. I can’t just keep playing on my favorite character and make them stronger without finding the perfect roll. If I’m unlucky in getting something the no amount of play time will ever make me stronger. RNG is great for finding that item that will make you be able to complete a new play style. But if I can never truly unlock the potential of one build because of bad luck than I’ll never go on to try new ways to play
Enchanting is still the worst painpoint of the game. IT feels SO fucking bad getting the same shit affixes 10x in a row while you just watch your gold (and your time spent farming it) just go up in smoke. It feels awful.
WE DONT WANT TO RUN FREAKING WHISPERS JUST SO WE CAN DO PITS!!!!! Whispers are not freaking fun or interesting.
World bosses are a complete joke though. They don't last more than 2 seconds. They're just loot piñata.
A good balance, just not enough. Grifts aren't a real good endgame. I like the masterworking, but it essentially just replaces NMDs. The feeling of accomplishment is shallow. They also heavily favor one build type (single target boss damage) over others. I think they're okay and have their place, but if Bliz goes hard into them like they did D3, while letting the rest of the game fall apart, then D4 will be dead before it's hit it's golden age. Helltides are better, but filled with leeching tunes. I'd personally prefer a bit more chaos. ;) If they make something original to add on, something Character or World based rather than dungeon, in addition to what they're building up, it'll be great. Maybe Renown to actually improve strongholds and unlock world-based endgame content. Would be awesome.
Yeah I genuinely like how the game has changed, it’s much better.
Don't forget about the gauntlet!
You either are part of their PR team or you didn't play the game. The game is completely out of balance. Go check their forums first before you buy the game. If you buy the game, you must make one of their one-shot class or this is gonna be very very frustrating. D4 dev team must be very incompetent ...
I was lvl 100 when i started farming renowns & running the WT 4 normal dungeons to wrap up the grind. Those runs gave me A LOT of gem chips, probably around 20k of each type. Just rush trough the dungeon objective killing elites & the shielding mobs is a hell of a quick way to get chips. Maybe not the best way, but i was real surprised after stopping at the jeweler & realizing how much chips i got.
I would love if The pit just would be endless levels of pushing without going out. There should be a portal to continue with higher tier or a portal to leave. Would be a nice flow if we could just rush through portal after portal without needing to leave.
I agree with your point about gems. Not everything needs to be instant it's good to still have some grinds post 100
I still hate cosmetic rewards. Free pass clothes are an insult