… at level 65 is becoming mind numbing boring (I am giving this whole thing my best shot by actually taking myself out of casual potato mode, and putting in some actual old school grinding even though it is not something I really enjoy now). Yes, I did say that D4’s existing end game is in a better state than D3’s during its launch, but that wasn’t a high bar when considering how end game (Inferno difficulty) was barely developed in vanilla D3.
I’m also running into bad RNG with gear drops (I haven’t gotten a decent weapon upgrade since entering T3). Nonetheless, I attempted the second Capstone dungeon where I was able to clear out everything before heading into the boss chamber (though I was squishy with the animus holder elites when they charged). As for the boss fight, I was able to get Elias down to near the halfway point when the add spawns insta-killed me. Like the first Capstone, I’m content with narrowing the gear check gap to where the soul burners, fireballs, or ground effects aren’t one shot deals (so I will revisit the dungeon at level 70). I’m trying to stick to the solo route when it comes to completing these Capstones.
As for the daily end game activities go, I stopped doing Tree of Whispers once I hit level 60 (there’s a point where it’s mostly salvage material) and have been running mostly Nightmare dungeons and Helltides (only the 175 mystery chests). Most sigils dropped/crafted, have been the same 5-6 dungeons. And some dungeons like Witchwater, are just pure cancer (for sorc) with mob types that perma-CC you (spiders are some of the worst though). A key design trait seems to be annoying game play; I remember this being a huge criticism (by many) in D3 with stuff like vortex or nightmare (where you lose control of your character). But I don’t recall crowd control stuns being as bad as this in D3. Even with 2 main sources of unstoppable with my Flame Shield and an aspect for Ice Armor, I still find the chain CC’ing by some of these mobs really ridiculous (and you cannot even pot during those times). I could sacrifice my Firewall to use Teleport (so I have a 3rd unstoppable), and I could sacrifice an aspect to apply the “unstoppable when injured” one (but that would reduce the effectiveness of my build)
And while I’ve gotten a few “Unique” drops (less than 10 in total), they’ve been oxymoronically not very unique because I got three of the same staff (Staff of Endless Rage) during Helltides (and one from when I killed the Butcher in a Nightmare dungeon) where it seems almost like a troll drop since their property rolls were nearly identical. The worst part was how badly rolled the damage was (considering this was compared to my level 53 focus and level 55 wand). The fact that I got several of these between level 62-65, had nearly identical rolls, and weren’t even close to being a huge upgrade to the lower level stuff I’ve been using, devalues the fact that Uniques are supposed to be rarer drops that feel special.
Speaking of which, one of my best drops to date (from a pure damage PoV) was a Sacred Rare focus (a level 53 item that had a 714 item level) when I first entered T3 since it gave me an immediate 600 damage boost; I’m still using it (with an imprinted aspect that turned it into the following) even though the other rolls are meh because nothing else that has dropped (and even at higher levels) has been able to surpass it (I’m keeping to a weapon and offhand setup mainly for the CDR on the focus). The point is that I’ve been at the mercy of RNG where most of my T3 drops, have been salvage (so I at least have a decent supply of mats). And this will repeat itself for Ancestral gear in T4 (then rinse and repeat for whenever they introduce T5).
Another thing that has become an annoyance is this QoL issue I didn’t mention in this prior post; the lack of a transparent map overlay. I do understand this was an actual conscience decision not to have one since the designers felt the regular map and the mini-map, more than sufficed. IMHO, it’s just another terrible decision (and not even allowing for an option), and reminds me why I was not onboard this train to begin with (and have to note again, the only reason I am playing to give it an objective go, is this was gifted to me).
Basically, just playing and progressing through the starting point of D4’s end game, is revealing the flaws with it. Nightmare dungeons aren’t rewarding (and some of the dungeon modifiers from sigils just turns them into an unfun activity). Thus many players are running normal dungeons (many of which have had their elite densities nerfed recently). The fact that these issues exist live (when there was a fairly extensive NDA closed beta for end game), reveals the flaws of that NDA closed beta (where it is obviously not data revealing these anomalies). And that basically leaves Helltides which aren’t always active (on one hour, then off the next hour), and have a hidden chest mechanic that makes all of the other visible chests, very unrewarding.
The above observations (with end game) is what I was hoping would not be the case (since I didn’t want to find myself delving into the criticism aspects which led to the sort of devolvement that this blog turned into when I was first writing about D3). So I’m setting this near term objective of at least getting to level 70 (just 3.5 more levels as of this writing), and seeing where my gear progression is at with upgrades before I level another class (but considering not even pursuing end game on them). To put it more bluntly, I’m close to putting the game aside (since there is no use continuing if there is no real fun/enjoyment remaining) until changes are made.
