Nerfbat incoming/difficulty rewards

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/12189178940

Just as I predicted where their only solution (as players find optimal leveling areas), is to nerf the experience that is awarded for those low health pool mobs (thus runs like Crypt of the Ancients and Keep Depths Level 2 are going to see reduced experience rewarded). And there are many areas of the game where there are these types of mobs. Thus what you will have are these areas with what looks like a high density area, but will get little in the way of rewards for dealing with them (rewards meaning both experience and loot).

Thus instead of making the entire game fun/rewarding to play, it’s again going to feel like blah, when playing through the campaign. And again, they are doing this just before the expansion goes live, where most of the players will be playing Adventure mode almost exclusively. And with this nerfing of the campaign, there isn’t going to be any more incentive to play it. I’ve been playing through it several time using the quest reset option, and the guaranteed legendary drop from Diablo, isn’t worth it (all I’ve gotten is legendary items of the formerly lower level junk).

Also, class specific set items are going to drop only in Torment difficulties given that many are seeing playing in Torment difficulty, not rewarding enough. Again, missing the forest for the trees. The fact of the matter is that most legendary items, are just plain crap; far from the epic loot from killing monster mantra that was being espoused earlier. Underwhelming and unrewarding as usual; over promise and under deliver as usual. And I expect whatever future end game challenge modes, to be exactly the same.

As far as legendary/set items are concerned, the drop rate quantity isn’t the biggest problem. The quality level and amount of duplicates are. Like I’ve gotten 5 Denial shields in less than a week (2 of them dropped back to back). Given the much larger pool of legendary items that can now drop, the distribution of what actually drops, shouldn’t result in this many duplicates. I’ve also gotten more than 2 of the Execution 2-H axes, Steady Striker and Slave Bond bracers, Heart of Iron chest pieces for example. These were all previously lower level legendary items. But these type of items now represent over 90% of what is now dropping for me.

Other players are seeing only belts drop for them or the same set items like Blackthornes. Myself, I’ve yet to see any legendary/set boot drop (not even the previous low level stuff like a Crudest Boot for example). The system seems to get tripped up with its random distribution in some cases and ends up dropping the same items (thus some folks see a higher amount of Moonlight Wards for example just like I’ve gotten a large amount of Eternal Union and Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac – and all of them dropped from the exact same map/zone).

This isn’t unique to live either; this happened to me during beta which was on my other account – thus I leveled and geared from scratch to level cap so no previous gold and legacy geared characters to mess with the drop system. The issue there wasn’t the starter level gear at 70; it’s after that where the quality level and specific item type, fell off a cliff. The smart drop system works to a point while leveling, but it eventually starts throwing all kinds of junk at you especially if you fall on the really unlucky side of RNG (done as a means to increase the longevity of the grind to get the stuff you are really after).

When patch 2.0 went live, I decided to start a new character to gear completely with loot 2.0 drops due to what I experienced in beta (compared to doing the same on the PTR using the characters on this account). It’s great in the beginning (while it doesn’t have the best rolled set items, the numbers are good enough of a base for the drop system to begin working again from 61-70 – where at level 70, I should have starter Torment gear). But once I’ve played at level 70 for awhile, I fully expect the well to dry up again (like what’s happening now where I have two characters geared with only loot 2.0 items) where it’s going to be dropping a larger quantity of junk that does nothing in terms of upgrades and/or being useful for my build. And that’s the biggest issue which many will probably end up seeing a month or two into Reaper of Souls; it feels too contrived after awhile.

I now have to actually play my mostly legacy geared character, to get the potentially “better” loot 2.0 items to drop because if I play only the two loot 2.0 geared characters, they get the same stuff (Denial shields and 2-handed axes) over and over again.

I didn’t really provide any feedback on this during beta because it wouldn’t have mattered (just as me typing up all of these walls of text, won’t make any difference). This development team has proven time and time again, that they do not understand how to make the game rewarding. It’s not just a simple matter of drop rate quantities or moving the acquisition of set items into a specific difficulty level.

I no longer have to question the competence level of the ones making certain key decisions because the results of many of these “legendary” items speak for themselves (this given the amount of time they spent working on this loot 2.0 crap). And it’s no different than this decision to move class specific set item drops into Torment; it’s the easy way out as opposed to maybe trying to scale the quality of the rewards, with the challenge/difficulty. The fact that I keep getting crappy shields to drop (Ivory Tower today instead of a Denial) while playing at T6 is not my idea of rewarding. And having play tested beta, know that it doesn’t get any better at level 70.

Then they are missing the target completely by nerfing what is literally, the majority of trash mobs in the game at level 60 in the campaign, when the majority of those who are upgrading to the expansion, will be playing Adventure Mode at level 70. Basically, what they are saying based on their data is that the current campaign mode runs, were actually going to be more lucrative compared to bounty/rifts. This is what Nevalistis posted:

Our baseline for comparison for these alternative runs is to see how they stack up versus Adventure Mode and Bounty runs, and these different types of play should be on par (or at least fairly close). After extensive testing, we were finding this wasn’t the case and came to the decision to make these changes.

That is pretty sad that the new systems they were working on, actually weren’t even on par with certain Campaign Mode runs. Couple this with the fact that Rifts generally weren’t rewarding (based on the effort/challenge) during beta, is yet again another example of how this development team fails at this balancing act of rewards/challenges (and again, I posted before that rewards isn’t a simple definition in games like this – it’s the entire experience provided by the entire design – this development team thinks they can design/dictate in the fun and rewards factor, with a poorly thought out and constantly iterated design – it’s like taking burnt toast, and trying to put a lot of stuff on top of it to make it better – there is no way to change the fact that the toast is actually burnt).

http://murasama-1820.blogspot.com/2014/01/repeating-same-mistakes.html
http://murasama-1820.blogspot.com/2014/01/repeating-same-mistakes-part-2.html
http://murasama-1820.blogspot.com/2014/02/not-addressing-and-fixing-root-cause.html
http://murasama-1820.blogspot.com/2014/02/ladders-arent-going-to-fix-diablo-iii.html

The quality of drops in 2.0 are no better than 1.0.x at end game. My two completely loot 2.0 geared characters don’t even have the best items/rolls, and yet, the well has dried up for them. And level 70, nor Adventure Mode, is going to change the fact that this same thing will happen again. It’s artificially induced longevity built into the game to throw RNG junk at you to keep you grinding with the hopes of getting something better. But this development team is clueless on how to make the carrot enticing to chase after. Ladder seasons of any sort, will be a bandaid fix (see relevant post above).

Addicted players who racked up thousands of hours in vanilla, will rack up thousands of hours with the expansion. These players now represent the core demographic because this development team can throw out horse manure, and these players will eat it up. Those of us who stuck with vanilla, but played it less and less as time passed, will end up doing the same with the expansion (but know that it is hopeless with this clueless team in charge of the franchise). Those who quit vanilla out of disappointment are happening to come back to the game again and giving it a second chance with the expansion, will likely end up quitting again with the expansion (that is unless ladder seasons are added in a reasonable timeframe – again, ladder seasons is only a bandaid because the core game design is flawed). Those who quit vanilla out of sheer disgust and never looked back, well, they are lost customers for good. But for the ones that are giving the game another chance, everything hinges on the expansion being everything that vanilla was not, and if it isn’t, this time might be the final cake for many.

Stuff like this shouldn’t even be happening just before the release of an anticipated expansion. Yet this is a hallmark of this Diablo III team where they somehow snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The launch of Reaper of Souls shouldn’t have ANY problems because we already have the content on our computers (it just decrypts/unlocks on March 25th). There should be no authentication issues and no Error 37’s. Yet it would not surprise me that something went completely untested which results in various issues with that content on March 25th.

I previously mentioned that I was planning to see out the entire Diablo III game (Reaper of Souls + the 2nd/final expansion). I’ve actually changed my stance on that because of the unreasonable retail game code redemption time frame (where I see it screwing over many Collector’s Edition purchasers when they do not get their deliveries before the March 31st deadline) as well as the potential for them to screw up end game content/systems they are working to add on after Reaper of Souls has gone live. I’ve basically reached the point where rewarding incompetence, is no longer an option.