Didn’t even realize the PTR went live yesterday; and it didn’t help that the Mac client has an issue where it thinks a file is corrupted (prevents it from being launched) where it is actually a library version mismatch in a bundle file (there is a workaround which involves editing the file). Was just going to wait for them to issue a new client patch but the blue tracker said while they have the issue narrowed down in an internal build, the fix won’t be included until the next PTR build (who knows when that will be). A couple of people figured out what needed to be changed (the workaround can be found online).
So I just did the edit and got the client to launch. Based on prior PTR’s with a 2000% legendary buff, I didn’t even bother trying to get on via softcore (I already saw T6-T10 queue times in the 9 hour range). The shortest queue (queue times shown aren’t your actual position in the queue; it’s the total approximate length depending on the total number of players queued) for hardcore when I tried was on T4 (1h23m). T6-T8 was already hitting 3 hours (and I already know my character isn’t T9-T10 ready yet). It took around 2 hours to finally create a game instance.
Normally, there is always at least one difficulty that has a queue under 2 hours and I’ve always been able to get in fairly easily. (Note: I later got into a T8 hardcore game which had the shortest queue time of 1h18m queue in only 15 minutes – this is why I always try to find the shortest one). I turn on background audio and just do other things.
The Ruins of Sescheron tile set (completely new textures along with new music, new lore, new monsters, and a new Bandit shrine) is a relatively small zone (with a smaller 2nd level where the cube is) that is overlayed on a Keeps/Cesspool layout. Bounty objectives can occur here (this zone is unfortunately available only in Adventure Mode). The zone has several traps like swinging blades that deal out damage (it dinged a little on T4 so I can imagine how much more damage it does at T10).
The snowy effect along with the already flashy graphics effects from many class skills can make it difficult to see what is going on at times during combat though in this zone. But overall, I thought it was well done and more so do I feel that this really should be wired into the campaign in the future.
The real meat though was the Cube and it’s recipes. The main area of interest for myself was the effect that the extracted legendary powers would have on my character (demon hunter). The key mats for the cube only drop from the Horadric Caches (after completing an acts objectives). The flow of this system is all done to incentivize playing all bounty objectives in all acts. Each act has a specific material for the cube recipes. Note that the artwork for these 5 items were reused from the old legendary crafting materials.
There is now only one bounty bonus act where completing all of its objectives yields the standard cache as well as bonus one (the bonus gives additional mats). The bonus than rotates automatically to another act (this is how it is working in the current build – if they change it where the bonus act only changes hourly, players are just going to flip games again to get the bonus ones). Thus it’s best to start off with the bonus act, completing it, and then doing the next one with the bonus. This will yield the most mats for initial testing since after all act bounties are completed, the only way to reset them is starting a new game (which given the queue times, is going to make really playing around with the cube a slow going process).
Likewise, split bounty farming is also going to be a big thing again since groups will be able to split up to farm specific acts. I already gave my opinion about split farming before (it needs to go). The developers have been trying to deal with this since the RoS beta though but have never been able to properly address it since a lot of this is tied into how the game is coded when it comes to how drops happen. Chests for example have always been world drops (so if someone else pops a chest, your own loot will also be there even if you aren’t in that zone at the time). Drops from some monsters also had this issue (which is what caused the goblin exploit where it was not just a world drop, but also had its scaling affected by an open Greater Rift). It seems they need to code in the requirement that players be within the same zone/screen distance for each of these specific cases.
And that is why I am a firm believer in addressing the root cause; dealing with reducing the effects of split bounties with how much faster progress is achieved via group play is a glaring example of this. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be some advantages. What I am getting at it is how huge the gap is over solo play in almost every aspect of the game. This same thing is going to happen again with farming up the cube materials now that they are directly tied to Horadric Caches (and the bonus one).
Group play should be just that; done together as a group where everyone is in the same zone. It’s just not easy to implement with their objectives based design though since it requires granular tracking for each player. They’ve done it with Rift Guardian kills, removed goblins from being world drops, keywarden keys. But these have all been dealt with one-by-one showing that it’s a core design issue. By comparison, those are easier to deal with. Bounties have 5 objectives per act that would need to be tracked per player. But this is really its own separate topic.
Digressing, in this PTR, bosses were added back in as bounty objectives. The biggest change though is the addition of a Diabolic Hoard chest that appears after taking down the boss (the chest only spawns when that boss is an objective). The boss will still drop its loot but the other chest drops even more loot (image below). The key thing is to be cognizant of the current loot explosion of legendaries and sets from those chests being the result of the 2000% buff. But it seems these will still have a higher chance to drop legendaries compared to Radiant chests.
I really don’t have much regular legendary items with special powers on hardcore though (most of the stuff I found and stashed away during season 2 was the different DH set items plus a couple of backup pieces). Thus I was limited with my choices as nothing really useful dropped either from the buff during the 4 hours I played. So I basically extracted the legendary powers from a Buriza, RoRG, and Pride’s Fall.
Again, my character was played mostly during season 2 where everything was solo. I peaked out at GR28 since I wasn’t constantly pushing Greater Rifts, and ran out of time before the season came to an end to try to get into the 30’s. My best time was around 11 minutes. With this initial 2.3 PTR, I easily beat that by 4 minutes. And I completed a GR30 (which had mostly Act5 type mobs) in around 11 minutes. So the combination of power creep, lower monster damage, and lower RG health pools above GR25 is very noticeable.
Playing on T8 in a later game with this character is still not easy though. There is this constant tension where certain mobs take out chunks of life and they don’t go down in one or two hits; it currently feels about right though since my legendary gems are still low level (not even rank 25 yet). Thus I’m playing with a slight handicap at the moment but even with those gems at rank 25, moving to T10 will require filling out my non-ancient slots with ancients and getting those gems leveled up at least into the 30’s (my softcore wizard will likely be able to manage T10 in the sense that it will feel like T8 does for this demon hunter). Since this is on hardcore, the management of game play requires paying a lot more attention compared to when I last played this character in S2 at T6.
The resource cost reduction legendary power from Pride’s Fall had the biggest impact with my effective DPS but it is clear I still need more RCR on the rest of my items. I’m using M6 (since that is what dropped for me in S2) along with a Kridershot with Cluster Arrow/Maelstrom being the main damage dealer. Resource management is unsurprisingly an issue due to the 40 Hatred cost. But that is where Pride’s Fall legendary power helps a little (so long as I haven’t taken damage for 5 seconds).
Reflect Damage was probably the biggest monster related change that was easily noticed. They had previously pulled back on RD pre-2.0 but seem to be reverting those changes. The damage from RD was increased with the buff cycling between the monsters in a pack. What this round robin rotating means is that RD is always on for at least one monster in the pack amounting to almost zero cooldown. I nearly took myself out since one of my sentries was firing off at an offscreen minion which had reflect damage on at the time (I was firing off at the closer onscreen ones that followed me when I vaulted backward). I do get they don’t want full glass cannons (which this character clearly isn’t) running around due to the crowd control changes but this is a ridiculous gear check change.
T10 will be trivial for players that are already clearing GR45+ without problems. For folks like myself that have been playing GR’s completely solo though, it makes the base difficulty a bit more challenging (but T10 isn’t that far out of reach). The thing is there are far more players out there who do not have characters that are even T6 capable. Thus they will likely stick with the current T7-T10 scaling regardless of the whinefest that will ensue once more of the well geared players are finally able to get on to the PTR.
The changes made to Greater Rifts (removal of trials) makes the GR pulldown selection feel like a stark experience since the setup that is currently live in 2.2, was designed around the premise of that trial system. Thus Urshi is now relegated to just upgrading legendary gems since there is no longer the decision making required to either upgrade your Greater Rift key level or your gems. When you beat the timer, the amount of GR tiers that are unlocked depends on your time (it seems to use the same setup that currently exists where beating a GR quickly will advance you a lot more levels). And when you successfully complete a GR, you can upgrade your gems (as that is now the only choice to make).
If you do not beat the timer, you can no longer upgrade your gems (currently on live, if you fail to beat the timer, you’re naturally unable to choose to upgrade your GR key and you can only upgrade your gems). This change makes sense though due to the removal of trials. I do understand they wanted that tension created by having to make a choice (upgrade rift key or upgrade gems). This is a common theme with this team (one which I feel dominates too much of their design). With the infinite scaling design of Greater Rifts though, it eventually leads to frustrating game play when you are reaching the limits of the incremental increases from those gem upgrades.
The above impression might seem to be giving some indications that I don’t like the change. What I am actually getting at is the exact opposite. Sometimes, the simplest approach is better. This change is how it should’ve been since it is straightforward. Trials was more the result of overthinking a solution to a problem that did not really exist where it created unneeded complexity for the sake of trying to make players decide (upgrade key or gem).
This setup in the current build is simple. When you do your first regular rift, completing that on whatever base difficulty will define the highest Greater Rift tier that is initially unlocked (including all those below it). And you can start running Greater Rift’s from that point or you can start off at a lower level GR and complete it really quickly to unlock GR’s levels as much as 10 tiers higher (sort of like if you clear a level 1 really fast, and then got a tier 11 key). If you play well below the level of your gems, their upgrade chances go down accordingly.
The only change I see an issue with is that now that there is no chance to upgrade a legendary gem if you don’t beat the timer, some players may no longer see any need to complete a Greater Rift if they already have an inkling they will fail it early on. Sure, there might still be the incentive to get the loot at the end but some players may view it as wasted time as opposed to just exiting and doing another Greater Rift that they could potentially beat (and thus reaping both rewards).
Now does that removed trial system have a place in the game? Yes it does… as a different sort of survival challenge mode. They already have the arena maps that were originally designed for PvP. They should reuse that for a survival challenge mode but with modified wave mechanics depending on mob makeup and the arena map layout. Again, it’s meant to provide options outside of just bounties and rifts and not letting that design go to complete waste.
So based on my limited game play, what is my verdict on this patch? Again, I’m reserving that judgement until the patch actually goes live since they could make a number of changes which could radically change my opinion. Based on the current build (and if you consciously ignore the effects of the 2000% legendary buff, double goblins, and bonus XP), these are my own key observations though.
The combination of the cube and general game changes (with crafting, guaranteed legendary in caches, how Forgotten Souls drop and are utilized now, the general changes made to bounties, rifts, and Greater Rifts) if they all go live this way, are tempering some of the many criticisms that I have had with the bounty/rift game play. I still wish Adventure Mode had more options where I can just play outside of that meta and still be able to acquire things like rift keys, mats, and blood shards. But I know that isn’t going to happen so this is better than nothing.
Generally, they are making loot (legendaries) and most materials even more easier to obtain. The biggest difference is how those will be sinked. The Horadric Cube was the game system in D2 that should have been carried over to D3 from the start. While I know they are calling this Kanai’s Cube, for all intent purposes, this is just the Horadric Cube 2. It brings nothing revolutionarily new. What it does is fill in the big hole that existed at launch (especially after they removed the mystic). And while they added this artisan back in Reaper of Souls, her abilities were functionally different from what they originally planned. The cube now fills a hole that still needed to be plugged even with the mystic and Kadala (as well as the restricted trading after the removal of the auction houses).
When it comes to items, the cube’s current abilities requires that I make certain decisions on what I want to do. This is a time where that desire to create choice is a good one. For example, the simplest pursuit is the collecting of legendary powers. That in itself is a fun endeavor for folks who enjoy collecting things. I’m a collector in real life (silver and gold coinage for example) so that part of the cube gives me an objective since it shows all the powers I can collect (and use). Getting the mats for those isn’t mindnumbing since extracting a power just requires one of each act specific mat. And I have to make a simple choice of salvaging that item for a Forgotten Soul, or extracting it’s power (albeit, this is a one time only thing especially for common ones).
Where the entire choice making aspect comes more into play is determining whether I should extract a legendary power, or attemping to reforge that item (basically trying to turn that item from a regular one, into an ancient, and/or getting betters rolls). This decision making is especially true when it comes to those rarer items when it isn’t an ancient version. Some folks have never found a Furnace, a Kridershot, Calamity, SMK, Wand of Woh, etc.
In my case, do I have the cube consume that non-ancient Serpent’s Sparker (for its power) or do I farm up sufficient amount of cube materials to try reforging it to ancient? Reforging is still going to be an RNG laden event (look at the rerolling with the mystic as a good example) which will require a lot of materials. And I will also need a lot of Forgotten Souls (which the game will drop more often including from Odious Collectors (not sure where else) like the one that opened up the vault portal.
What it gives me is an option where “I” need to decide what to do. If I choose to reforge, I know the grind that will be required to farm up the large amount of cube materials. Maybe an ancient version will drop during that time. Or maybe it won’t and it will be another frustrating ordeal. The biggest difference though is that there are multiple possibilities such as the likelihood of another non-ancient version dropping which is a good thing since I can smash one of them to get its power (and still have the other for reforging purposes). Yes, most will only be reforging weapons but that is an outcome of a design where your damage scales off of that.
Is 50 Forgotten Souls per transmute too high a cost for reforging (along with 5 of each act specific cube mats)? Looking at it as an end game system, no it isn’t. They’ve removed the Forgotten Soul requirement in legendary crafting (changing it instead to these new cube mats). Those who played a lot will have thousands of them anyway. It’s a needed sink since some of the best geared players are at the point where they no longer even pickup the crappier legendaries. The reforging and upgrading aspects of the cube will work in conjunction with the mystic to make those souls more meaningful especially as these players burn through them.
Sure, at the start of Season 4, players will be initially starved for these materials (as is the case with Death Breaths, gems, crystals) since there will be these competing systems at play. But there is a point once you’ve played enough where these things start to pile up. And end game min/max’ers are going to reforge and reroll for a chance at those near perfect items.
So why am I reserving judgement when it sounds like I am taking a fairly non-critical stance with this particular build? Again, we’ve been through this many times in the past where these systems would get their most fun and meaningful aspects iterated out of them (where they’d find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory). Let me put it this way; if this build (with the most egregious bugs knocked out) went live, it would help neutralize a lot of the negative criticisms I have with the current limited adventure mode meta (bounties and rifts). But since all of this is subject to change before then, I’d rather wait and see what happens especially once they roll out Season 4 on the PTR.
