Legendary drop rate hotfixed for Torment I-VI

I read the first few pages after the hotfix went live, and I need to be honest.  There needs to be a distinction made between drop rate quantity, and drop rate quality.  True, they buffed the quantity of the drop rate for T1-T6 which might have already been a low chance to drop (I’m saying this based on how much stuff I take down quickly on Normal and Hard).  That says nothing about the quality level which is going to be subject to RNG and luck.

Also, many folks were farming legendaries on Normal difficulty.  There’s a huge difference in overall killing speed when going to farming on that, to Torment (I’m not sure of the exact breakpoint when it comes to eDPS and eHP at level 70 where Torment I begins to be like Normal).  And it’s going to impact the above drop rate quantity (and the quality of what drops will likely not be on the upgrade side).

The expansion isn’t a week out yet and some folks were extremely lucky within the first few days of getting some end game items.  For those already in the unbuffed 1+ million sheet damage range, their overall chances of seeing actual upgrades, is going to be much lower.  This is just a few days into the expansion.  Then there is the mid-tier below that where they already have decent enough gear to be farming Torment I, but nowhere near the same speed as just wiping out hordes of mobs as what was happening when doing it on Normal.

This isn’t anything new.  The base game and expansion, don’t have inherent longevity.  Drop rate quantity and more so quality, are constraints programmed into the system.  Just like in vanilla where some folks fell on the lucky side of RNG, they had GG quality items early on, and taken together with the auction houses, short circuited the entire longevity of the game.

During the pre-expansion, my loot 2.0 character hit that wall (approximately 30 hours of actual game play at level cap) where it would take significant grinding to find better rolled items.  Basically, the game play isn’t going to feel rewarding since very little will be an upgrade.  This same thing is going to happen at level 70, and many are already getting drops that are putting their overall numbers, into running low level Torment; these folks have already significantly cut short their longevity and/or need to curb their expectations of the quality level of drops.  And if their overall killing speed has gone down, it’s going to affect the quantity.

The fact is that most drops are going to be much needed salvage material anyway.  For myself, I’d prefer there be a balance between crap and upgrades.  And one way I’m “controlling” this, is by not pouring all my playtime on just one or two max level characters from the get go.  Sure, once I hit level cap, I’m no longer progressing as fast compared to everyone else at level 70.  But my question is what’s the rush?  There is currently nothing to do once one has gotten decent gear besides continually trying to farm faster for potentially betters items.  With Seasons at least half an year away, many players are literally rushing to get to nowhere.  The expansion hasn’t even been out one week, and there are already complaints about the quantity and quality (crap) that is dropping.

And I already posted about the drop system, where once you do have a decent items in most all slots, will begin dropping more junk, and/or items meant for other classes.  It’s one of the other reasons I have 3 softcore wizards now.   Since my main is wizard, I’m doing it only for this class.    One of them is my actual main (but gearing out from legacy items).  The other is my new loot 2.0 character, which is gearing out from the stuff found during the pre-expansion.  The third is my original mule, which wore the items that my main used to have (it is gearing out from the excess loot 2.0 items that weren’t upgrades for my new loot 2.0 wizard).  Once I hit level 70 with this third one, I won’t be playing it for acquiring loot (it will serve as a mule for what will eventually become my starter level 70 gear).  Playing the first two at level 70, there is enough of a difference in what drops, that I’ve effectively increased the amount of time, I’ll be sinking into the game.

The other issue related to this is soul binding and limited trading.  I’ve always been ambivalent about this.  The one big thing I never really opined about was how even this limited trading, can short circuit the entire reward loop and longevity of the game.  One thing I (and many others) do not care for is being carried.  Once your character is behind the power curve relative to other players, the quality level is relative (what is not an upgrade for one character, is an upgrade for another – see the above where I have 3 softcore wizards).  It’s an issue I tackled with when it came to philanthropic gear giveaways.  I personally never did full gears ones, and did it for individual slots instead since I did not want to short circuit the other players game (this was on hardcore).  And even then, they weren’t on the high end.

In a co-op game, the potential for a lower power character to get geared by drops from other high power players, increases.  While it isn’t as easy as the auction house was, it still is a potential issue with short circuiting the longevity of the game (which as I mentioned, isn’t very long without actual end game systems implemented; and that won’t be for awhile).  Thus I’m currently choosing to play solo just as I did for the first few months of vanilla until my gear level is at that the point where I know I can hold my own.

Regardless of this change, I’m still going to be farming legendaries on the difficulty where I’m one shotting most EVERYTHING because the whole system is still tied into monster killing rate, and the faster you kill stuff, the higher chance to get loot – whether it is garbage or not is irrelevant at this setting because if it’s junk, it’s material needed for stuff you want to be doing at end game – like re-rolling slots and crafting gems.