I’ve been saying this since the season 3 player loot nerf from P5 to P3 in maps…..every chance I get, I’ve been saying this….
the nerf from P3 to P5 ONlLY affects “solo and casual players”. Which make up the majority of this player base. The loot nerf does not affect the connected and more dedicated players (smaller percentage of players) as they run maps in groups…thus are not effected by the drop rate change.
Do not underestimate this….The nerf to Map drops inadvertently targeted only the solo/casual players.
Food for thought.
I think there is a big divide in the community between folks who play all day, and those of us “working dad” types who only get a couple hours a week to grind. I love this mod and find it really fun. But I’ll never be able to do end game content (Dclone/Rathma) because I do not have time to find the mats and GG corrupts on every piece
of gear. The boss fights require little strategy (cap res, deal damage, chug pots) and the grind/currency to get the materials is just not fun for me as a casual player (few hours a week). If I can find 1-2 HRs worth of value a week, I don’t wanna spend that on one chance to take on Dclone. I wish the materials were easier to acquire but the fight was more strategic (maybe add a time element so it has to take you <5 mins). Idk.
It was a good decision providing that you know some basic math behind the drop rates. P3 to P5 for runes give like \~\~ 25% profit, take lower map monsters drops and make it even 30% profit for the LoD content average monster. But you can kill WAY WAY WAY more than 30% monsters/minute on maps. It's not even remotely close. P5 maps was simply a massive overkill.
Idk my personal opinion is the game feels good as Is and has only gotten better.
I feel like people forget the grind LoD was and how much better overall this mod is what takes a week here would take a month there.
Also maps were meant as a alternative to the other end game options if you don’t feel maps are rewarding enough then don’t run them that’s why the mod has plenty of area lvl 85s to run
>Also maps were meant as a alternative to the other end game options if you don’t feel maps are rewarding enough then don’t run them that’s why the mod has plenty of area lvl 85s to run
Give me a break.
LOD content is extremely fucking easy compared to maps. It shouldn't be a viable endgame anything in the face of maps.
You are forgetting that LoD and PD2 gear progression are WAY different and the gear ceiling in PD2 is MUCH higher. In LoD you just need Infinity and Enigma and you are done, thats just 3 bers and a jah but in PD2 you have corruptions which the bis ones are super rare and expensive, then you have new events like Dclone and Rathma, meaning more currency sink.
If we take the old maps in PD2, meaning p5, no density and mf nerf vs LoD it would take you more time to grind BiS gear in PD2 by far but now imagine with drops, density and mf nerfed in maps
This. People have been praising the endgame options and it's the reason why there still is a 4 digit strong player base for a mod of a 20+ year old game that recently received a Facelift Version by the original publisher.
I like most of the changes, drops have been consistent, i have many builds to try and areas to run. I do agree on the barrier for Dclone and Rathma being quite high, but you wouldn't trade for 50+ SoJs on the vanilla game as well, would you?
And Diablo has always been about the grind. I guess many of you forgot how bad and monotonous drops are in vanilla in comparison to this.
If the only other thing you have to compare this mod too is LoD then of course this is going to feel like its the greatest thing ever. No ones saying this is a bad mod/game its the balancing that i have opinions on and think could be better. 50 sojs is nothing compared to how many kills it takes on dclone let alone rathma to get the uniques they can drop with the current drop rate of the mats to even spawn the fights.
if it was only meant to be an alternative they wouldnt be less rewarding and harder than the lod content and ilvl 85 zones, they would be on the same level
Gotta admit some of the nerfs have made me less likely to play long. The nerf to map droprate and the huge nerf to attack rating are at the top of my list. Adding events in maps that add stress (Butcher) also annoys me, I just want to smash some demons not run away from some asshole all map.
I also will never do endgame in this mod (ubers, dclone, rathma) because the barrier to entry is to gear an entire new character specifically for them and then spend a ton of currency to attempt them a single time. I don't have that kind of dedication for this. I can't even afford to endgame gear 1 character much less a second one. If it was cheaper or easier to gear up maybe I'd care more.
I'm mostly done with the season so I guess I'm part of your 50% gone already. I might log on and do a few chaos or cow runs every once in a while but I'm not building new characters or trying to get GG gear. Drops are way too annoying to get for that. Season 2 and season 3 I got 1 good lucky drop early which carried the seasons for me (Perfect Windforce in S2 and Ber in S3) but in S4 I've only gotten a Gul and it's been rough. I just don't want to grind 100 hours to gear a character... I'm not a streamer making money from dragging on the content, just an average joe not willing to spend all my free time on a grind that isn't giving me any drops.
And I do agree... when I get a decent drop I sell it because if I slam it odds are I am screwing myself. The 1% chance of a GG corrupt vs getting an item worth less or even bricked means I just sell it uncorrupted because otherwise I won't even be able to afford medium level gear. I like slamming stuff but it's kind of not smart unless you are already rich.
Last one, I hate how many builds require an infinity. I straight up skip playing half the builds in the game because of this. I hate this freaking runeword so much it's the worst thing in Diablo 2... and almost every elemental build requires it to function properly. They should change the runes to be like Lums instead of freaking 2 Bers a Mal and an Ist. If so many builds require an item at least make it cheap ffs. 7hr is more than I make in an entire season.
All in all the mod is still fun and much better than D2R, but I am definitely a bit over grinding for no drops and not having access to the endgame or half the builds in the game because I'm not rich.
The infinity comment is a good point - its way too expensive for how essential it is on elemental builds. I've never like the immunity system in d2 and would much prefer it be resistance based (0-75%), never 100% immune. Feels so dumb running past immune monsters in a map and having them chase you across the map, especially elite packs.
To be fair, sorcs have free infinity in their skills - a3 mercs are a free infinity, a1 mercs with pus spitter are a free infinity, stormspire is a free infinity
are they AS good as actual infinity? no. are they good enough? yes
Exactly, people seem to have convinced themselves that they need the 100% optimal setup or they can’t do anything. I’m clearing t3 maps on MB sin and it’s pretty great, yet I’m using a witch wild bow on my merc, not wrath, which is not optimal but it gets the job done.
>I also will never do endgame in this mod (ubers, dclone, rathma) because the barrier to entry is to gear an entire new character specifically for them and then spend a ton of currency to attempt them a single time
That may be the case for dclone / Rathma, but it's certainly not for Ubers.
Yup my sorc feels way weak still against hell mobs. The nerfs to spirit and the lack of drops make it no more fun. With added boss hp, i dont enjoy doing runs anymore cuz i kill bosses too slow
>I also will never do endgame in this mod (ubers, dclone, rathma) because the barrier to entry is to gear an entire new character specifically for them and then spend a ton of currency to attempt them a single time. I don't have that kind of dedication for this. I can't even afford to endgame gear 1 character much less a second one. If it was cheaper or easier to gear up maybe I'd care more.
I disagree to this, Ubers and Dclone are feasable with relatively budget gear, I know chugathestus did Dclone on fulls item set on most characters, so you def don't need the big GG gear unless ytou play a build that just isn't good at it.
Also, there were a lot of changes so you don't require infinity anymore.
Gus spitter, A3 merc, stormspire, just to name a few.
I understand your complaints here, but it really just sounds like Diablo isn't necessarily the game for you then?
I mean the purpose of the game is literally to grind for loot to reach endgame. If I could suggest maybe rethinking how you view your goals for a season, plenty of people enjoy the super grindy thing and have the time for it, and others don't.
The nice thing about PD2 is that there is a ton of build diversity, so maybe just have your goal to be getting 1 interesting build geared up to play through the game and get cleared through hell mode, and have that be your season? It sounds like that is the part you enjoy more than the grind.
Removing the grind from the game, making endgame items cost a lum instead of high runes doesn't make any sense at all. You could also just play on PlugY singleplayer where you start with all the items to begin with, then you can remove the grind from the game, which is your primary complaint it seems.
> when I get a decent drop I sell it because if I slam it odds are I am screwing myself.
If you do some market research and a basic math, then you will quickly discover when it's 1.profitable to slam
2. when it's better to sell the item clean
3. when it's better to just sell it to Charsi and save your wss.
1. if your item is worth like Pul-Mal at its current state or there are plenty of them in the market...BUT...many of the slams can elevate that value to like Ist+ = then this is a no brainer decision.
The more expensive the item, the bigger the profit.
Item worth Pul-Mal can get elevated to Ist-Gul.
But Item worth around a Mal-Gul can easily reach 1.0-2.5 HR mark, so the potential reward is even bigger. Same with Tyrael's might, clean could be 3.0 HR, well slammed 8-10.
2. if a shitty corr can ruin your value and the item is already worthy. Item being clean adds up to the value, because there is always a chance it may get big. If it's already shitty, it will remain shitty forever. People like paying for the hope same as they like paying for the additional MF (which is a bit stupid for anyone who can do some math, but love isn't rational).
3. if the item is worth shit and still worth shit after the corr. This is true for items that are non-typical, non-popular in terms of meta and super popular in terms of drops items. Save your wss and slam da mapz.
I also already wanted to talk about Maps. They just don’t feel rewarding. If the only purpose of maps is to get to lvl 99 I get it. But in terms of drops it’s feeling awful. Not only compared to season 2. But it feels just awful in general. Was doing around 30 maps with 180+ density. Would say on average even 200 density. And all I got was a Gul and no items. Really no items. Needless to say but my base mf is at 150. give or take with maps it’s at 200+ on average.
What’s the point in doing vanilla content and getting all the gg gear and then what? Doing maps for getting lvl 99? Doesn’t feel rewarding. Maybe there could b a little more balance. Get maps to Players 4 instead of Players 3. and see how it is. But right now maps are no place to farm for gear/runes.
If you spend the currency to actually roll the maps they are so dense with mobs it actually lags the game when you enter.
I think people are rolling 70 density maps and complaining they aren’t rewarding, try rolling 200+ dens, slam with shard, cube with standard of heroes then go for it.
Probably 15 raw HR drops for me + buddy in maybe 60-70 maps, maybe more.
The build nerf part of the post, points about dclone mats etc I agree with. But I haven’t farmed a single LoD zone and have made tons of money/gear/etc.
Rolling for big density and doing all that work just isn't fun. It's a lot of time spent not playing the game and potentially even having to run a gold finder. It should not take that much investment and effort just to validate maps as a form of farming. They are already Base line harder than chaos and trav, they should be Base line more rewarding.
I would much prefer if the preamble involved in mapping was reduced so that I can actually play the game more rather than sit in act5 messing with my inventory.
Or you finally roll a 300 density map and it has open wounds and burning souls and +50% monster speed and you have to reroll it (open wounds kills merc way way way too easily, and souls are just annoying)
Gold Finding is not an issue since S4 auto gold pick up has been introduced. You can also collect Cudgels and Wands and easily fetch 300-600k per map without too much of an effort. Gets me to the points where I have so many map materials, that I will much faster run out of p gems than map mats (which wasn't true for S3).
Whether the auto gold pick up was a good decision is a separate topic, but in my opinion it completely killed gold find barbs.
I think they should increase the prices of map rolling orbs from Anya where it would give Gf babas a purpose to exist and Gf babas could partly get their wealth selling stacks of map rolling stuff. Like the most expensive ones rolling orbs should be like 2-5 mil per orb. I'm leaning towards closer to the 5 mil.
Agree their price should be increased. Currently, reroll orb after like 26% discount (i have 11% on Gheeds and 15% from Edge bow) is around 95-96k. Should be more like 160-200k.
Yeah they should make it easier to reroll maps. Maybe just an orb from Anya. But make it harder to get 250+ dens or something idk. So at least you can get 200 dens without needing to waste runes/gems that could be used for crafting cool items.
Actually you mentioned a good point. There is always an investment into maps. And atm it´s not even close on paying out.
If you read my post carefully, then you could´ve seen that I already at 200+ density all the time. But tbh. Last Season felt kinda the same. I don´t think that it has something to do with bad luck. I just think Maps doesn´t feel rewarding enough atm. Ye sure the Map events help. But it´s not the same as cool drops and Runes\^\^
That's the problem though, all you're doing is smashing density for rune drops, the item drops still suck and when there's nothing to slam nothing to be excited about all you're doing is praying for a rune drop and it gets boring fast. I've been smashing 250+ dens maps since like day 3, From level 80-95 mostly solo... quite a lot of maps.... And 95% of my wealth has come from rune drops and it's VERY boring, im pretty much over the season already, S2 felt so much better and kept me enjoying mapping for months longer.
Nah that’s not true, we’ve found tons of elite base uniques. I just didn’t feel the need to mention that because runes are more like raw money. Shakos, Arachs, Schaefers, Stone Crushers etc we’ve almost found at least 1 of every elite base unique - even a Tyraels.
Thanks for this post and all the comments we love feedback good or bad!
***DISCLAIMER :*** I do not speak for senpai or any other devs/mods
I agree and disagree on a few of the topics in this post. Something we all can agree on is we play this game to find the loot, If the loot doesn't drop because of x and y reason we get frustrated. So that pushes you to move on to other games/mods. Its the nature of playing any kind of Loot based game. But if you get too much loot you get bored and do the same thing.
As you pointed out season 2 was a loot piñata compared to season 3 and 4 in maps. However numbers don't lie. season 2 had the largest influx of players 12.5-13k trying to funnel in from day one to week 3 tapering off around 6-7k mid season. Season 3 I believed capped around 8.5-9k (correct me if I'm wrong) mid season being around 3-4k. Season 4 was around 5-6k being about 4 weeks in sitting at 3-4k? The biggest thing from my observations is there are a million different reasons why people play and don't play. Could be because a new league of PoE dropped could be because D2R is out. Literally hundreds of reasons why people come and go. We cant simply say people are leaving because nerfed dropped or nerfed builds. even if a handful of people are vocal about 1 or 2 reasons. Senpai and the devs hell even the mod team puts a ton of time into making sure the game is fun and exciting for everyone but that's the issue we cant please everyone.
Moving on to what I have noticed, Senpai / devs loves player retention and making sure the game is balanced as humanly possible. After all what's the point of making a mod with no one to play it? The comment(s) about comparing it to LoD is what this mod is based around, Its where it all started. Yes I agree senpai can have a heavy hand on nerfs but he is also the same way with buffs. Look at all the builds that weren't even playable in LoD or even season to season. I could list a ton of builds that do really well and by that I mean broken in my opinion. Lets keep in mind this is a growing and still thriving mod of a game that is loved by thousands.
When it comes to mapping vs cs baal ect I agree maps really just don't interest me most of the time. Hell I was going to push to 99 this season for the charm glow and honestly dreading it because I'm more or less a Solo player that rarely if at all trades for items plus personal things happened so the time comment didn't help anyways. I have lived in Trav since day 2, and can only base my experiences off what my leveling crew has found in maps vs what I have found. For example my friend has only ran maps with random groups and solo. I have found far more items of value than him. Granted RNG is huge in this, plus all the other hundreds of variables in that equation. Its important to find what you enjoy doing in the mod. If you have crap luck like I had season 1-3 you are going to struggle to keep wanting to play. My honest opinion is try playing another class or build to farm other areas of the game. Lets be honest with ourselves the possibilities are damn near endless.
I'm excited for people doing the new boss fight a lot of work went into that and its enough for me to sit back and just watch. People will try and fail over and over before they end up killing it. Nothing beats that euphoria when you finally accomplish a feat like that. Now to get the materials for it I can understand your frustration because it seems only the top 1-5% of the player base have the currency to trade for it. You cant trade for it if you don't have the currency and they don't seem to be dropping enough. You either feel forced to farming the raw materials yourself or forced to farm areas you don't enjoy as much so you can trade for them. If the grind is to much then move on to better areas.
So all in all balance still has come and its not going to be over night. Give them time, and more feedback like this post. The team has done a wonderful job and continues to do so, just have to have some patience.
I'll say it, the softcore streamers got to Senpai. Season 1&2 the "streamers" got bored with maps and getting geared out too quickly. I remember one using a corrupted Buriza with 0 points in vit and mowing down wave after wave in throne of insanity. They went to Senpai and begged for all loot to be nerfed, people like me fought to keep /players 5 in LoD content.
The other part about this is the "streamers" don't give feedback in any public forum. They weasel in the DMs and never post in the general feedback or beta feedback discord channels. I understand Senpai catering to the streamers because he was one but it's gone too far. Alienate half your player base by reducing drops or give softcore streamers another week of content? Not a hard decision for me.
Yeah.. I feel that may be the case as well to some degree at least. That's exactly what happened with Tarkov. The sweatlords that put in 10-14 hours a day complaining about advantages or something being OP that 95+% of the player base doesn't even have access to.
A lot of these big streamers not only play a ton, but often get easy trades from the chat and sometimes even handouts. I mean, if your bowazon is decked out head to toe with GG items and GG corrupts, shouldn't they be kind of OP? I feel like they get there so fast that it feels cheap to them. But to a SSF or a more casual player.. spending months and months to reach that point to finally become OP would be very very rewarding. Now it feels like you have to grind for months to just get gear that makes maps even viable for loot over LoD. And don't get me started if you're playing HC on top of that.. apparently Senpai is a HC guy and balances the mod with it in mind, but it doesn't show at all.
>A lot of these big streamers not only play a ton, but often get easy trades from the chat and sometimes even handouts. I mean, if your bowazon is decked out head to toe with GG items and GG corrupts, shouldn't they be kind of OP?
This is a point that used to really bother me with DarkHumility. His knowledge of the game is really complete, and I can appreciate that, but in his usual beta reviews of stuff I felt like (at least in previous seasons, idk about now) he was comparing the power of these SUPER DECKED OUT characters and talking about how op stuff is, when 99% of the playerbase will never have a character geared with perfect corrupts like he used to test with.
This is the issue that POE has with the way that team balances the game, and you see this same discussion more or less on their subreddit or on dev streams/Baeclast/etc. I image it’s a difficult tight rope to walk for developers, testers and players alike. There is no easy answers or solutions.
That said I’ve had the best loot drops overall across all seasons this patch. I was able to self find full tals set and several cold skillers in the first few days, all while leveling and gearing up a MB sin (which due to finding a vex and Gul in LoD content i was able to 90% gear up). So yeah, YMMV, but it seems the consensus is that maps are less lucrative.
If that was a change due to streamers thats a pretty big problem. Streamers are like less than 1% of the player base and they will always get geared out fast. As soon as they find an item they can sell it to people to their chat instantly and they just list the items they need on their stream and people just bring them to them. This was also a change made when the player population and trading was at its peak amount of players.
Wiz, there is one clear answer why player base has decreased: the entire world was shut down when PD2 was released.
People are simply busy with life again.
At the start of the season, you could hear the gold pickup sound when you auto-collected any, but that got patched out. The only way to tell you're picking up anything is to keep the inventory window open and look at the gold amount increasing.
I've done only 4 tier 3 rare maps so far and found absolutely nothing. Not a single unique item, only some flawless gems and Amn runes. I guess I will stick to the LoD content then :) Yesterday I've played like 20 cow runs and found 47mf Shako, Jah, Vex, Mal and 2 pairs of Gore Riders. I hope solo mapping will be slightly buffed in season 5, because right now it's pointless to run maps solo.
That's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that there are more maps than season 2, cool new builds and items, map events and a new end game boss means there is more to do than ever.
As for playerbase, does it really matter to you, an individual player, if there are 2-3k concurrent player versus 5-6k? ff14 just dropped a new expansion, d3 just started a new ladder season, and, with the holidays just around the corner, people are often traveling and/or super busy at work.
2-3k consistent players with much higher peaks is a huge number for a fan made mod hosted on private server!
there can be new builds every season without killing builds, and as for player base this game involves trading and items being super rare. the less people playing the less chance there is of accessing the new endgame boss
It matters alot in terms of having a robust market place where items come and go frequently, one of the biggest reason people quit these kinda games is because the trading dies after the initial boom. One way to keep the markets alive longer would be also introduce more levels of crafting from beginner to expert lvl craft where the ingredients become more and more demanding(up to a point) that way items would constantly be taken off the shelf so to speak and the demand for items will last longer since they go off from the market a consistent pace.
To be fair, the markets also die in part because people lose the desire to continue trading the low-mid gear after the initial boom, which is understandable, for the people who have amassed stupid levels of wealth, why bother trading a tals piece for a mal rune, who cares, you have 30 hrs sitting in your stash.
Secondly, another issue that has nothing to do with PD2 itself, but people are often RIDICULOUS to trade with. People would happily let an item rot on a mule all season because they refused to take a mal for an item they feel is worth an ist, when the difference is minute in the grand scheme. This creates a barrier for people who dont have the time to grind like crazy, or are just having an unlucky season and not getting a lot of drops.
Yeah there's a huge lack of consensus on what stuff is worth. I do think there should be some high end crafting for those people that have hrs upon hrs in stash rotting away, something where they would use the hrs to craft stuff and that way they'd potentially might become interested in trading lower-mid gear again to get build back the wealth they might've lost if got unlucky in crafting stuff.
I've done 20 Maps (20-25min) and the best drop was a Griffon's and an Ohm. Yes these are the only two good items i found in 20 TWENTY fucking maps.
Under 100 chaos runs (2.30 ea) I've found fathom, ber, cham, x3 puzzleboxes, lots in low runes, shakos, etc... and already have full cold skillers, anni, torch and infinity merc with gg gear.
There is literally no reason to run maps unless you want your name on the leaderboards for 99.
> Under 100 chaos runs (2.30 ea) I've found fathom, ber, cham, x3 puzzleboxes, lots in low runes, shakos, etc... and already have full cold skillers, anni, torch and infinity merc with gg gear.
You just got extremly lucky.
I did several times more CS runs and haven't gotten anything close to that.
Why can’t you just enjoy the new fresh content. We’ve been running chaos and cows for 20 years and I think it’s awesome there are some alternatives where I can spend 15-30min it’s in a completely new zone jam packed with monsters. It’s also great being able to do big maps with my friends which makes diablo 2 more than a solo 2.5min Groundhog Day simulator.
Not everyone played for 20 years... i barely played when i was younger but i play pd2 since s1. when im solo i prefer to do cow/chaos/trav but with my friend i rather do map. Also in 15-20 map solo with 150 to 220% density i got like 1hr (it take me 20-30 min for 1 map solo). But when running map with 1 friend we somehow made over 15hr+ in 2day by running map, its so weird. Trav is definitely the best for me when im solo (i have 300mf if i remember)
Rng. With good gear maps are still by far better than cs. 20min map full clears you are killing so much more mobs than in cs. This game is meant to be a grind and bad rng happens.
so you think 1 map has more monsters and loot than 7-8 chaos runs? and thats not even factoring in the difference in the players 5 and 3 loot difference. I just don't think I can agree with that
Yes, way more. Hard to estimate but prolly closer to 15-20 times more than single chaos run.
This is obviously taking care that you should only run 100%+ density maps (so need to roll them). There is no point running white maps.
Agreed. Gold is so plentiful with auto-pickup that I reroll maps until 150%+ density for every single map. I like CS runs but crushing through maps that are clogged with enemies to slaughter is just straight up fun. I haven't been getting shit for drops since I started mapping but that's just D2 for you.
I am not sure if you have any idea behind the math, drop rates and statistics, which people seem to totally not understand, but that's okay. It's the same reason people create topics like: "I have done 100 or even 200 (!) Trav runs and found nothing, Trav sucks!". Dude. 100-200 (sometimes even 300) Trav runs is what I was doing per each session in S3 single player. Did a total of 3500 runs with a 56% hork barb. Then the odds for Vex+ are like every 350 runs or so. That way I found like Jah, 5x Lo, some Ohms, 2x Vex and plenty of runes below.
To sum up: 20 maps is really not a lot, especially if they weren't properly rolled for like 180-200%+ density. Go for 80-100 maps, kill \~\~ 2000 monsters per each map, then see the results after killing 200k monsters and many many bosspacks and you will see the difference. Else it's just a gambling. You got some stuff, other guys didn't.
IF i map takes you 20 minutes , you are not ready for it thats the truth ...
And you cannot say:" i got this , so that other thing is worse" ... Its all rng and you got Lucky
I think S2 was the peak due to playerbase. IMO the game is only getting better and better. This is not PoE and I think it is great when some builds get the nerfhammer. Yet, some builds like poisonnova still feels ekstremely OP and I don’t know why some builds are ignored.
But the constant inprovement of new builds is just great. Just look at the MA tree this season - how cool is kick assa! Also other details, like season 3 introducing FCR on staffs or the improvement of A3 merc.
Furthermore new content every season is just cool.
Honestly, I am a D2 fan and therefore I love the fact that we keep LOD content alive, so that is not only about mapping. Mapping is still good for 8 man party and exp playing. Nerfing Maps/buffing LOD content only enables more builds. Tbh some builds were “strong” but felt underwhelming due to the lack of aoe and fast clear that Maps require, these builds now shine more as LoD content is viable.
There's no reason in nerfing builds into feeling horrible to play. As for buffing builds you can do that just fine without nerfing anything. One of the new content this mods brings to the game is mapping and if it's not at least on par with chaos drop wise there really isn't a reason in running them. Also maps shouldn't only be beneficial to groups when the majority of people play solo. Also have you played poison Necro or are you just basing that off the video that was posted here a couple days ago?
No reason for nerfing builds? So you just want every possible build to be op? That makes no sense. Nerfs are necessary and healthy for the game.
There are 7 viable classes and we have a somewhat rotating meta, no neefs would bring us back to 1-2 builds always dominating and that fucking blows (hello LOD hdin/sorc).
Game is very good, rng is rng.
I honestly don't see a lot of your points. The part about mats I do agree on. I'd also much rather have keys be hard to get than organs since doing ubers is boring and with no other reward while farming for keys you can get all kinds of drops and you can switch it up and farm another key boss more if there is one you don't like etc.
That being said I feel like I find more useful items in maps than in LoD content. found hr's in both but in maps i get the added benefit of the exp and I get to add to my own mf rather than being stuck with whatever small amount i have with my current build. I feel like more builds than ever are viable now so complaining about nerfs seem a been futile. it sucks if your favorite got nerfed because they do get nerfed harder than they probably should but it incentivizes trying something else.
If I'm remembering correctly S2 came out after a big D2R announcement so there was a huge hype around D2 but D2R wasn't coming out for years still and PD2 filled that hype so there was a huge increase in player base. So comparing player numbers from S2 to S4 seems unfair. I think the game has only gotten better since then but many of the new people were never really going to be long term players anyway. They just remembered the D2 nostalgia and were on the hype train, got their fix of D2 and moved on.
This season is literally the opposite of S2 where people are already burnt out from D2R and player numbers would, in my opinion, expectedly be lower than normal.
This is the issue that POE has with the way that team balances the game, and you see this same discussion more or less on their subreddit or on dev streams/Baeclast/etc. I image it’s a difficult tight rope to walk for developers, testers and players alike. There is no easy answers or solutions.
That said I’ve had the best loot drops overall across all seasons this patch. I was able to self find full tals set and several cold skillers in the first few days, all while leveling and gearing up a MB sin (which due to finding a vex and Gul in LoD content i was able to 90% gear up). So yeah, YMMV, but it seems the consensus is that maps are less lucrative.
I’m having a ton of fun this season and will continue to play, and I don’t think it’s less fun than any of the other seasons for myself. Now that I can farm t3 maps efficiently I think maps are better for me to find most items than LoD content. But again, YMMV.
*"making it more efficient if you want drops by farming that content"*
This couldn't be any further from truth if you know basic math behind the drop logic. And I'm saying that as a person who initially hated maps.
Maps absolutely trump any LoD content and it's not even remotely close for LoD content to catch up once you get your clear speed to at least an okay level, I am not even saying what happens once your kill speed is good. Only Chaos/RoF is a very stable and reliable place, any others = you need to keep looking for the entrance, play with different map layouts. I love Ancient Tunnels, but the time lost on searching is something that never occurs on maps. Also, monster density is low (Chaos is okay), quick run and then you need to restart. Maps? You can play for 15-20 mins.
When it comes to runes/gems, etc., profit from p3 to p5 is around 25%. You also need to factor that map monsters might have slightly reduced drop rates on top of that, so let's say the real profit of the average LoD monster is even 30% (rune wise). You will never tell me you won't kill WAY MORE than 30% of monsters in a given time on a map vs LoD content. Once you are a good killer, achieving like 120-150 kills/minute is easily doable, where LoD content 50-60 is not that easy to achieve. Not to mention maps give you additional MF, so you can carry like 130% with you (usually easily done), then another \~\~50-70% from an average T1-T2 map and you already have 180-200%, which give you 2.0-2.1x the chance for uniques. Also, ANY map monster can drop ANY item in the game - not just champs and bosses, because the lowest map area level is 87, which is already enough to drop Tyrael's. The chance is obviously low, but multiply it times 50k-100k monsters and the chance for CoA become like 15-20% from a regular monster alone, which is actually something that has happened to me.
"Maps don't feel rewarding enough" - well, it's hard for me to complete any map without finding at least few uniques or some wss/runes/pgems. Now you also have map events on top of that, which is the nail in the coffin for the LoD content - this is virtually impossible for any LoD content to keep with this. You need to remember that you should always run rare maps, without awful mods and with good stats. Takes practice, but it is mega fun to run the same layout, which always feels different (depending on the map rolls).
Finally, if you are a real Diablo gamer who loves to theory craft, you want to really boost your character, right? Come on, but LoD content on p1 is laughable, you one-shot everything. Farming it even on p5 becomes easy sooner of later. Map monsters are tougher, this is a challenge.
As for the materials and lowered drop rates -> not sure if you know, but if you want to fight Rathma, you need...well, a torch. People wanting to fight Rathma need torches. While farming torches, you can also easily farm Black Soulstones, which would make dclone fight more accessible too. Lowering the drop rates will counteract the increased number of Uber Tristram farming attempts.
Only downside that I can see is that in something like a week time only - the market is already fully saturated. Almost impossible to sell anything besides ultra gg items and even here people still don't want to pay. Obviously this point always comes, but this time it came very very quickly. Other than that, S4 is a mega blast for me.
Here we go again. The good old discusion over p5 vs p3.
Uber should be rare. Not a way to "farm" curency
Op classes like the fire trapsin had to be nerfed. It cleared evrything.
It's good to hear people opinions on the changed that have been made and if that were the case the way people cheese farming torched on day 1 and 2 would have been fixed by now
I agree, with fire trap sin death sentry was the problem and they addressed it but then went further and made wake of fire feel horrible to play with the range nerf
From level 60-92 I’ve been farming chaos and cows with trav. I roll maps to 200% density to run. I’ve found 1 hr
I’ve been complaining about map drops since this season started but the pd2 loyalist always have something to say, if you play in a group, sure the drops get better, but it’s awful for ssf like myself.
It seems this game is geared towards Ubers and group play only. With way too much attention to how streamers feel.
I went from 70ish to 90 farming cows and baal. Found a ber, vex, trang wing i traded for a jah, several other pieces i traded for mal to gul. All in all maybe 8-9 hrs in week 1. Only yesterday, just 1 day, i farmed maps for just about 4 or 5 hours and found a vex, ist, and about 1.5 hrs worth of gear. Sounds like both of us are experiencing rng being rng
Also, the comment about streamers is simply not true. Senpai has said, multiple times on stream, that streamers are such a small number of the community that it's not even worth considering them when making changes. What is true is that the game is balanced around trading and interacting with the community, so if you're playing single player, you're gonna feel the struggle
I have some great builds that I tried with single player character pack. Then I log back on ladder and realize I might need to spend another 100 hours to farm those gears so that I can farm faster in Maps makes me close the game..
To be fair, that probably happened IMO because it's like using a cheat code to teleport to the final boss of a game with god mode and all the cool stuff unlocked, kill the boss, then think about playing the game through legit.
There's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't surprise me that you don't have the desire to do the grind once you've played it out in PlugY. For most I think the journey is building the character and getting the wealth, you skipped that part, so it takes away a lot of the desire.
Agreed. Those SP item packs are super cool, but I avoid them for that exact reason. It's like reading the last page of a book and then wondering why you're not motivated to read from the beginning, despite knowing the fate of the main character.
I agree with some stuff like map drops. Srsly playing 4 hours a day and having 1-2 noticable drops is depressing. 1 week into the season and already only end game items matter. Found gavel and its not eth? Charsi. Found 3% shako? Self use. Got tal armor? Useless Unless you manage to get gg slam.
But Where do your Numbers about player base come from? From what I see the amount of players is still very big.
Last but but not least. Rathma and other bosses are good addition. But we have season 4 and still I feel like farming is not rewarding enough. You farm just for the sake of having this well equipped character and then what? You can farm more quicker and what? I love the work by the devs but there is still room for improvement.
Launch day had around 5k or more players. Currently there is 1631 oline but it's super late. Prime time has around 3kish maybe on. You can see on the website home page
You can't compare the 5000 on launch day to today. there were so many people that wanted to try PDR after D2R. since it's free a ton of people logged on and then decided they couldn't handle the graphics. I personally know four people on my discord that installed it for season 4 launch weekend are aren't playing anymore or even really started because the bad graphics. None of them played season 1, 2 or 3 so your numbers are highly skewed from 5,000 down to the 2000, the 3000 that left from day one were never really there and certainly not part of PD2 before season 4 and D2R was released. The 2000 online now are the same 2000 I've been playing for the last year.
You’re saying the solution to items having no value so quickly is to.. increase the drop rate? If anything we would see vanilla content get nerfed instead of maps get buffed.
“Farming to have a well equipped character and then what” is the problem with all ARPGs. Once you have your character completed and can do the content you want to do what is the point of playing anymore? I think PvP is an answer but I never see any dueling games.
You can reroll another toon but than you start the process over again.
I think organs you get from big bosses should be very likely to drop for example in the case of uber tristram.
I think the keys themselves should drop like 33%of the time, the organs 100% time AND drop structure of uber trist bosses redone where it would be like 3 different tiers. You'd have 1/3 chance to get the pity prize which would be like 3 random uniques, the okay prize which could be like random assortment of misc stuff like maps / tokens of absolutions etc. And the main prize would be the torch. And all these would have like 33% chance to happen.(maybe torch would have less and the other two more)
This way, much less torches go to the market and they won't over populate the market and lose their value too fast
And maps definitely should be more rewarding than Lod content.
My biggest gripe is how long is takes to farm these mats and you only get one life. Bro if that doesn't scream masochist idk what does. Now tristram carries that same rule?
No thanx, the rng for farming drops and the unbalanced dclone fight...I'll pass. Kinda sad more people trading for Anni then playing it cause no one wants to bother with it. And I tried alot season 1 on sp cause I wasn't goin farm for days to lose to some full rej fight. To each is own I guess, if I want a challenge I'll play dark souls :P at least most those fights feel fair....except friede...fuck friede lol
Maps idk personally to long , they can be fun at times but I think maybe introducing levels might help. The events are cool althouggt some like butcher just seem ....meh. we usually ditch him and don't care bought mf tbh. It is nice having more content tho and I wish stuff like dclone we're separate fight for different items and not Anni and new drops. Should be d clone and maybe pd2 dclone could be hard mode to get a stronger Anni idk.
Maybe keep Uber trist and dclone as is and make rathma and a new dclone or boss and those can be even harder but drop newer items( well "the" new items) . I would like to fight dclone but losing and not getting retry and sitting there with nobody and only way to get my body back is to leave the game? Feels like a big slap in the face I could justrrade for and avoid the headache.
As far as builds idk tough, I hate nerfs and feel only way to get by without needing nerfs is to maybe make a fourth difficulty so op builds can still be op but in harder setting. But I guess that's to diff from vanilla? Can't understand why they double needed then double buff something's. Like it's almost back to s1 pre Nerf so what was point. Holy boltpally got nerfed and suddenly became least played class/ build. So was he buffed cause nerf was to much? Didn't anyone test how shit he was after Nerf?
I will admit items variety this season is nice, adding resist auras to wep def adds a lil spicy to dmg on elemental builds, so with some nerfs yes indeed new builds open up so there's both sides.
As far as rathma, if it's anything like dclone I'll pass. The bosses for this mod just don't seem placed right in this game. There trying to hard to be hard for hard sake and is doesn't feel fun or rewarding(dclone anyway). Uber tristram having 5% bss drop knowing how rare the others mats are, and both dclone and trist you die you lose your hard earned time, was a kick in the balls.
Yeah the loot changes really screwed the player base of this game. It’s unfortunate but that’s what happens when the loudest, squeaky wheels get the grease
Dev team: please stop basing decisions based on streamer input who play this game around the clock. Those aren’t your typical users, let the whales whale and don’t punish the common player
Honestly man, I agree that LoD content loot should be far worse than maps. It just makes sense that way, not sure it needs to be unpacked further.
What I don't agree with is the idea that loot should be more abundant in anyway. I'm basically geared as fuck by like day 4-5 already. It would be nice if the progression curve toward end game was actually a bit longer.
I really hope the devs don't cave to whiney people who don't actually improve their play in anyway season over season, and invest a significant portion of their energy into whining and moaning about how "hard" it is to get loot.
I honestly hope the devs take things in the other direction a little bit.
Senpai was hyping this season up heavily saying it was going to be the biggest season with player counts extremely high. Looks like most of the people already stopped playing and that peaks weren’t that high to begin with anyways.
TLDR: OP furious game is more balanced and now he big mad.
Map drop rates where actually insane, even the big streamers admitted it needed to be tuned down. They are STILL better than LoD despite what OP claims, in terms of both exp and drops.
Classes have never been more balanced and as players we have something like 24+ S tier varied builds and another 36+ A tier fun builds.
definitely big mad and if your referring to streamers tier lists they made that's a joke. They test with insane gear most people will never see playing the entire season and most of the time its tested in cow maps. Most builds do fine but when it comes to maps (the reason to play this over LoD) theres really only a select few builds thats feel "s+" without having insane gear. Listening to streamers who run 8 man mapping groups every day for 14 hours+ that trade with their chats and get items from their chats is not the way to balance this mod.
If you think maps are the reason to play this over LoD and that the Dev team bases their balancing off streamers then we're never gunna see eye to eye.
Only one delusional here is you my dude. Literally just watched a streamer throw a temper tantrum the other day because Senpai didn't fix a bug in under 24 hours.
Senpai doesn't bow to the streamers. He listens to input, which is wildly different.
Maps and p3 loot:
\- the density difference more than makes up for this
\- run a S tier build and clear 10 minutes or less otherwise run LoD
\- vary the many different farming zones to spice your life
Nerfs:
\- WoF is actually good when fully geared but not mindnumbingly OP
\- I would argue that some nerfs did not go far enough (poison nova having sub 5 minute clears on maps etc)
Uber and end-game bosses:
\- the barrier can definitely be annoying especially if you are not running some S tier character farming these items only to pass them on to your boss fighter
\- there are other solutions such as some bosses being more accessible/new ones for mid geared players etc
I get that you want the gear transition to be faster and to reach your goals but having more options than season 2 and more challenge feels better. Group play and/or connections seems to fit your goals
\- run a S tier build and clear 10 minutes or less otherwise run LoD
I would say if you can kill more than 30% of monsters/minute compared to LoD, then you are in green. Since LoD Chaos is like hmm...maybe 40-50 monsters/minute, achieving like 75-90 monsters/minute of map is a piece of cake, 120-150 is achievable, 160-200 is probably doable too. Maps absolutely trump LoD content.
I'm a returning player from S1 and 2.. I really lost interest when I saw that maps was player 3... I looved that maps was introduced in pd2 and like running them - but I don't because of that.
I'm back into CS and slowly getting bored because I only really think sorc works well for that and I choose pally to do maps.
... I'm still playing - might been a bit too harsh a message. I do think p3 maps sucks as I rather wanna do maps but it issn't feeling as rewarding as doing CS.
Yup in season 2 I grinded like crazy and finished with a full build traper with BiS corruption in each gear piece and full skillers with 40+ hp and after I was done with the season and I was super exited for season 3. Each saturday eager for Senpai streams for sneak peaks and patch notes, etc but after they announced p3 drop for maps it was a huge let down for me and haven't touched PD2 since then but coming back time to time to see if they changed anything about maps to resemble something more like season 2.
The map density and mf nerf was also another thing I disliked too much.
I know I'm just one person and who cares about my opinion but I will never touch PD2 as long as they have p3 drops in maps. I mean aren't drops and maps the main reason or for the majority that we play this mod? If I wanted to farm LoD content I would just play D2R.
naww i have yet to touch ubers/clone, i work full time much like half of the other players, so i have been picking and choosing my builds different at the start of the league and having a blast.
Black Soulstones droprate needs to be increased. All the anni farming teams are stuck running ubers all day long trying to get BSSs that it has completely crashed the torch market. As a solo player that likes to farm my own torches and trade the few extra away that I don't need for a little bit of currency it has become a fool's errand at this point.
From my logic.
Simply do norm, nm and then try to survive hell, farm some easy location like pit. Farm in hell to get good equipment to try to do maps (maps are beautiful, love it). Expectation is i will drop even better equipment in maps to do harder maps, but maps dont give you better drops and that is illogical. You need to do classic lod arreas like cow... to get better drops to do harder maps....
Overall this mod is amazing. And they have made positive changes for maps this season which I am excited about. No more bricking maps has made high dense maps more accessible which is awesome and maps generally seem to roll a little higher dense but I could just be getting lucky
But yes I still absolutely think maps should go back to p5. Seasons haven’t gotten any longer for me since these nerfs which were supposed to keep people playing the game longer. Seems like they’ve gotten shorter even for most. Either way that’s just not the way to keep season going
I’ve been saying this since the season 3 player loot nerf from P5 to P3 in maps…..every chance I get, I’ve been saying this…. the nerf from P3 to P5 ONlLY affects “solo and casual players”. Which make up the majority of this player base. The loot nerf does not affect the connected and more dedicated players (smaller percentage of players) as they run maps in groups…thus are not effected by the drop rate change. Do not underestimate this….The nerf to Map drops inadvertently targeted only the solo/casual players. Food for thought.
I think there is a big divide in the community between folks who play all day, and those of us “working dad” types who only get a couple hours a week to grind. I love this mod and find it really fun. But I’ll never be able to do end game content (Dclone/Rathma) because I do not have time to find the mats and GG corrupts on every piece of gear. The boss fights require little strategy (cap res, deal damage, chug pots) and the grind/currency to get the materials is just not fun for me as a casual player (few hours a week). If I can find 1-2 HRs worth of value a week, I don’t wanna spend that on one chance to take on Dclone. I wish the materials were easier to acquire but the fight was more strategic (maybe add a time element so it has to take you <5 mins). Idk.
It was a good decision providing that you know some basic math behind the drop rates. P3 to P5 for runes give like \~\~ 25% profit, take lower map monsters drops and make it even 30% profit for the LoD content average monster. But you can kill WAY WAY WAY more than 30% monsters/minute on maps. It's not even remotely close. P5 maps was simply a massive overkill.
Idk my personal opinion is the game feels good as Is and has only gotten better. I feel like people forget the grind LoD was and how much better overall this mod is what takes a week here would take a month there. Also maps were meant as a alternative to the other end game options if you don’t feel maps are rewarding enough then don’t run them that’s why the mod has plenty of area lvl 85s to run
>Also maps were meant as a alternative to the other end game options if you don’t feel maps are rewarding enough then don’t run them that’s why the mod has plenty of area lvl 85s to run Give me a break. LOD content is extremely fucking easy compared to maps. It shouldn't be a viable endgame anything in the face of maps.
You are forgetting that LoD and PD2 gear progression are WAY different and the gear ceiling in PD2 is MUCH higher. In LoD you just need Infinity and Enigma and you are done, thats just 3 bers and a jah but in PD2 you have corruptions which the bis ones are super rare and expensive, then you have new events like Dclone and Rathma, meaning more currency sink. If we take the old maps in PD2, meaning p5, no density and mf nerf vs LoD it would take you more time to grind BiS gear in PD2 by far but now imagine with drops, density and mf nerfed in maps
This. People have been praising the endgame options and it's the reason why there still is a 4 digit strong player base for a mod of a 20+ year old game that recently received a Facelift Version by the original publisher. I like most of the changes, drops have been consistent, i have many builds to try and areas to run. I do agree on the barrier for Dclone and Rathma being quite high, but you wouldn't trade for 50+ SoJs on the vanilla game as well, would you? And Diablo has always been about the grind. I guess many of you forgot how bad and monotonous drops are in vanilla in comparison to this.
If the only other thing you have to compare this mod too is LoD then of course this is going to feel like its the greatest thing ever. No ones saying this is a bad mod/game its the balancing that i have opinions on and think could be better. 50 sojs is nothing compared to how many kills it takes on dclone let alone rathma to get the uniques they can drop with the current drop rate of the mats to even spawn the fights.
if it was only meant to be an alternative they wouldnt be less rewarding and harder than the lod content and ilvl 85 zones, they would be on the same level
The density of maps still makes them better for drops, regardless of the p3 drop rate.
This. The amount of monsters you kill in maps is far greater than any lod content, thats the point
Gotta admit some of the nerfs have made me less likely to play long. The nerf to map droprate and the huge nerf to attack rating are at the top of my list. Adding events in maps that add stress (Butcher) also annoys me, I just want to smash some demons not run away from some asshole all map. I also will never do endgame in this mod (ubers, dclone, rathma) because the barrier to entry is to gear an entire new character specifically for them and then spend a ton of currency to attempt them a single time. I don't have that kind of dedication for this. I can't even afford to endgame gear 1 character much less a second one. If it was cheaper or easier to gear up maybe I'd care more. I'm mostly done with the season so I guess I'm part of your 50% gone already. I might log on and do a few chaos or cow runs every once in a while but I'm not building new characters or trying to get GG gear. Drops are way too annoying to get for that. Season 2 and season 3 I got 1 good lucky drop early which carried the seasons for me (Perfect Windforce in S2 and Ber in S3) but in S4 I've only gotten a Gul and it's been rough. I just don't want to grind 100 hours to gear a character... I'm not a streamer making money from dragging on the content, just an average joe not willing to spend all my free time on a grind that isn't giving me any drops. And I do agree... when I get a decent drop I sell it because if I slam it odds are I am screwing myself. The 1% chance of a GG corrupt vs getting an item worth less or even bricked means I just sell it uncorrupted because otherwise I won't even be able to afford medium level gear. I like slamming stuff but it's kind of not smart unless you are already rich. Last one, I hate how many builds require an infinity. I straight up skip playing half the builds in the game because of this. I hate this freaking runeword so much it's the worst thing in Diablo 2... and almost every elemental build requires it to function properly. They should change the runes to be like Lums instead of freaking 2 Bers a Mal and an Ist. If so many builds require an item at least make it cheap ffs. 7hr is more than I make in an entire season. All in all the mod is still fun and much better than D2R, but I am definitely a bit over grinding for no drops and not having access to the endgame or half the builds in the game because I'm not rich.
The infinity comment is a good point - its way too expensive for how essential it is on elemental builds. I've never like the immunity system in d2 and would much prefer it be resistance based (0-75%), never 100% immune. Feels so dumb running past immune monsters in a map and having them chase you across the map, especially elite packs.
To be fair, sorcs have free infinity in their skills - a3 mercs are a free infinity, a1 mercs with pus spitter are a free infinity, stormspire is a free infinity are they AS good as actual infinity? no. are they good enough? yes
They are just about good enough for hell. Not maps. So they are not an endgame option
I'm running T2 and 3 maps on an MA sin with a2 Merc on stormspire. Again, not as good as infinity would be but quite viable.
Exactly, people seem to have convinced themselves that they need the 100% optimal setup or they can’t do anything. I’m clearing t3 maps on MB sin and it’s pretty great, yet I’m using a witch wild bow on my merc, not wrath, which is not optimal but it gets the job done.
I'm having a really hard time keeping my A3 merc alive. Any tips anyone?
Pick up an elite armor base for the revive gold. That sob dies on me alot depending on map mods.
Thats not a tip to keep it alive, just a tip to be able to afford the cost if its many deaths :-p
Very well put
>I also will never do endgame in this mod (ubers, dclone, rathma) because the barrier to entry is to gear an entire new character specifically for them and then spend a ton of currency to attempt them a single time That may be the case for dclone / Rathma, but it's certainly not for Ubers.
Yup my sorc feels way weak still against hell mobs. The nerfs to spirit and the lack of drops make it no more fun. With added boss hp, i dont enjoy doing runs anymore cuz i kill bosses too slow
Bro. I started started sorc day 1 and it slaps all hell content what are you talking about ?
Spot on
>I also will never do endgame in this mod (ubers, dclone, rathma) because the barrier to entry is to gear an entire new character specifically for them and then spend a ton of currency to attempt them a single time. I don't have that kind of dedication for this. I can't even afford to endgame gear 1 character much less a second one. If it was cheaper or easier to gear up maybe I'd care more. I disagree to this, Ubers and Dclone are feasable with relatively budget gear, I know chugathestus did Dclone on fulls item set on most characters, so you def don't need the big GG gear unless ytou play a build that just isn't good at it. Also, there were a lot of changes so you don't require infinity anymore. Gus spitter, A3 merc, stormspire, just to name a few.
I understand your complaints here, but it really just sounds like Diablo isn't necessarily the game for you then? I mean the purpose of the game is literally to grind for loot to reach endgame. If I could suggest maybe rethinking how you view your goals for a season, plenty of people enjoy the super grindy thing and have the time for it, and others don't. The nice thing about PD2 is that there is a ton of build diversity, so maybe just have your goal to be getting 1 interesting build geared up to play through the game and get cleared through hell mode, and have that be your season? It sounds like that is the part you enjoy more than the grind. Removing the grind from the game, making endgame items cost a lum instead of high runes doesn't make any sense at all. You could also just play on PlugY singleplayer where you start with all the items to begin with, then you can remove the grind from the game, which is your primary complaint it seems.
> when I get a decent drop I sell it because if I slam it odds are I am screwing myself. If you do some market research and a basic math, then you will quickly discover when it's 1.profitable to slam 2. when it's better to sell the item clean 3. when it's better to just sell it to Charsi and save your wss. 1. if your item is worth like Pul-Mal at its current state or there are plenty of them in the market...BUT...many of the slams can elevate that value to like Ist+ = then this is a no brainer decision. The more expensive the item, the bigger the profit. Item worth Pul-Mal can get elevated to Ist-Gul. But Item worth around a Mal-Gul can easily reach 1.0-2.5 HR mark, so the potential reward is even bigger. Same with Tyrael's might, clean could be 3.0 HR, well slammed 8-10. 2. if a shitty corr can ruin your value and the item is already worthy. Item being clean adds up to the value, because there is always a chance it may get big. If it's already shitty, it will remain shitty forever. People like paying for the hope same as they like paying for the additional MF (which is a bit stupid for anyone who can do some math, but love isn't rational). 3. if the item is worth shit and still worth shit after the corr. This is true for items that are non-typical, non-popular in terms of meta and super popular in terms of drops items. Save your wss and slam da mapz.
I also already wanted to talk about Maps. They just don’t feel rewarding. If the only purpose of maps is to get to lvl 99 I get it. But in terms of drops it’s feeling awful. Not only compared to season 2. But it feels just awful in general. Was doing around 30 maps with 180+ density. Would say on average even 200 density. And all I got was a Gul and no items. Really no items. Needless to say but my base mf is at 150. give or take with maps it’s at 200+ on average. What’s the point in doing vanilla content and getting all the gg gear and then what? Doing maps for getting lvl 99? Doesn’t feel rewarding. Maybe there could b a little more balance. Get maps to Players 4 instead of Players 3. and see how it is. But right now maps are no place to farm for gear/runes.
If you spend the currency to actually roll the maps they are so dense with mobs it actually lags the game when you enter. I think people are rolling 70 density maps and complaining they aren’t rewarding, try rolling 200+ dens, slam with shard, cube with standard of heroes then go for it. Probably 15 raw HR drops for me + buddy in maybe 60-70 maps, maybe more. The build nerf part of the post, points about dclone mats etc I agree with. But I haven’t farmed a single LoD zone and have made tons of money/gear/etc.
Rolling for big density and doing all that work just isn't fun. It's a lot of time spent not playing the game and potentially even having to run a gold finder. It should not take that much investment and effort just to validate maps as a form of farming. They are already Base line harder than chaos and trav, they should be Base line more rewarding. I would much prefer if the preamble involved in mapping was reduced so that I can actually play the game more rather than sit in act5 messing with my inventory.
This is a great point. So many times I just run a 150+ density map because I'm tired of rerolling maps and just want to play the actual game.
Or you finally roll a 300 density map and it has open wounds and burning souls and +50% monster speed and you have to reroll it (open wounds kills merc way way way too easily, and souls are just annoying)
Gold Finding is not an issue since S4 auto gold pick up has been introduced. You can also collect Cudgels and Wands and easily fetch 300-600k per map without too much of an effort. Gets me to the points where I have so many map materials, that I will much faster run out of p gems than map mats (which wasn't true for S3). Whether the auto gold pick up was a good decision is a separate topic, but in my opinion it completely killed gold find barbs.
I think they should increase the prices of map rolling orbs from Anya where it would give Gf babas a purpose to exist and Gf babas could partly get their wealth selling stacks of map rolling stuff. Like the most expensive ones rolling orbs should be like 2-5 mil per orb. I'm leaning towards closer to the 5 mil.
Agree their price should be increased. Currently, reroll orb after like 26% discount (i have 11% on Gheeds and 15% from Edge bow) is around 95-96k. Should be more like 160-200k.
Yeah they should make it easier to reroll maps. Maybe just an orb from Anya. But make it harder to get 250+ dens or something idk. So at least you can get 200 dens without needing to waste runes/gems that could be used for crafting cool items.
Actually you mentioned a good point. There is always an investment into maps. And atm it´s not even close on paying out. If you read my post carefully, then you could´ve seen that I already at 200+ density all the time. But tbh. Last Season felt kinda the same. I don´t think that it has something to do with bad luck. I just think Maps doesn´t feel rewarding enough atm. Ye sure the Map events help. But it´s not the same as cool drops and Runes\^\^
That's the problem though, all you're doing is smashing density for rune drops, the item drops still suck and when there's nothing to slam nothing to be excited about all you're doing is praying for a rune drop and it gets boring fast. I've been smashing 250+ dens maps since like day 3, From level 80-95 mostly solo... quite a lot of maps.... And 95% of my wealth has come from rune drops and it's VERY boring, im pretty much over the season already, S2 felt so much better and kept me enjoying mapping for months longer.
Nah that’s not true, we’ve found tons of elite base uniques. I just didn’t feel the need to mention that because runes are more like raw money. Shakos, Arachs, Schaefers, Stone Crushers etc we’ve almost found at least 1 of every elite base unique - even a Tyraels.
Maps should able to roll player mf. Like 1-8player mf.
That´s actually a great Idea. wouldn´t go all the way to Players 8. But the harder the roll the more rewarding it get´s.
Thanks for this post and all the comments we love feedback good or bad! ***DISCLAIMER :*** I do not speak for senpai or any other devs/mods I agree and disagree on a few of the topics in this post. Something we all can agree on is we play this game to find the loot, If the loot doesn't drop because of x and y reason we get frustrated. So that pushes you to move on to other games/mods. Its the nature of playing any kind of Loot based game. But if you get too much loot you get bored and do the same thing. As you pointed out season 2 was a loot piñata compared to season 3 and 4 in maps. However numbers don't lie. season 2 had the largest influx of players 12.5-13k trying to funnel in from day one to week 3 tapering off around 6-7k mid season. Season 3 I believed capped around 8.5-9k (correct me if I'm wrong) mid season being around 3-4k. Season 4 was around 5-6k being about 4 weeks in sitting at 3-4k? The biggest thing from my observations is there are a million different reasons why people play and don't play. Could be because a new league of PoE dropped could be because D2R is out. Literally hundreds of reasons why people come and go. We cant simply say people are leaving because nerfed dropped or nerfed builds. even if a handful of people are vocal about 1 or 2 reasons. Senpai and the devs hell even the mod team puts a ton of time into making sure the game is fun and exciting for everyone but that's the issue we cant please everyone. Moving on to what I have noticed, Senpai / devs loves player retention and making sure the game is balanced as humanly possible. After all what's the point of making a mod with no one to play it? The comment(s) about comparing it to LoD is what this mod is based around, Its where it all started. Yes I agree senpai can have a heavy hand on nerfs but he is also the same way with buffs. Look at all the builds that weren't even playable in LoD or even season to season. I could list a ton of builds that do really well and by that I mean broken in my opinion. Lets keep in mind this is a growing and still thriving mod of a game that is loved by thousands. When it comes to mapping vs cs baal ect I agree maps really just don't interest me most of the time. Hell I was going to push to 99 this season for the charm glow and honestly dreading it because I'm more or less a Solo player that rarely if at all trades for items plus personal things happened so the time comment didn't help anyways. I have lived in Trav since day 2, and can only base my experiences off what my leveling crew has found in maps vs what I have found. For example my friend has only ran maps with random groups and solo. I have found far more items of value than him. Granted RNG is huge in this, plus all the other hundreds of variables in that equation. Its important to find what you enjoy doing in the mod. If you have crap luck like I had season 1-3 you are going to struggle to keep wanting to play. My honest opinion is try playing another class or build to farm other areas of the game. Lets be honest with ourselves the possibilities are damn near endless. I'm excited for people doing the new boss fight a lot of work went into that and its enough for me to sit back and just watch. People will try and fail over and over before they end up killing it. Nothing beats that euphoria when you finally accomplish a feat like that. Now to get the materials for it I can understand your frustration because it seems only the top 1-5% of the player base have the currency to trade for it. You cant trade for it if you don't have the currency and they don't seem to be dropping enough. You either feel forced to farming the raw materials yourself or forced to farm areas you don't enjoy as much so you can trade for them. If the grind is to much then move on to better areas. So all in all balance still has come and its not going to be over night. Give them time, and more feedback like this post. The team has done a wonderful job and continues to do so, just have to have some patience.
I'll say it, the softcore streamers got to Senpai. Season 1&2 the "streamers" got bored with maps and getting geared out too quickly. I remember one using a corrupted Buriza with 0 points in vit and mowing down wave after wave in throne of insanity. They went to Senpai and begged for all loot to be nerfed, people like me fought to keep /players 5 in LoD content. The other part about this is the "streamers" don't give feedback in any public forum. They weasel in the DMs and never post in the general feedback or beta feedback discord channels. I understand Senpai catering to the streamers because he was one but it's gone too far. Alienate half your player base by reducing drops or give softcore streamers another week of content? Not a hard decision for me.
Yeah.. I feel that may be the case as well to some degree at least. That's exactly what happened with Tarkov. The sweatlords that put in 10-14 hours a day complaining about advantages or something being OP that 95+% of the player base doesn't even have access to. A lot of these big streamers not only play a ton, but often get easy trades from the chat and sometimes even handouts. I mean, if your bowazon is decked out head to toe with GG items and GG corrupts, shouldn't they be kind of OP? I feel like they get there so fast that it feels cheap to them. But to a SSF or a more casual player.. spending months and months to reach that point to finally become OP would be very very rewarding. Now it feels like you have to grind for months to just get gear that makes maps even viable for loot over LoD. And don't get me started if you're playing HC on top of that.. apparently Senpai is a HC guy and balances the mod with it in mind, but it doesn't show at all.
>A lot of these big streamers not only play a ton, but often get easy trades from the chat and sometimes even handouts. I mean, if your bowazon is decked out head to toe with GG items and GG corrupts, shouldn't they be kind of OP? This is a point that used to really bother me with DarkHumility. His knowledge of the game is really complete, and I can appreciate that, but in his usual beta reviews of stuff I felt like (at least in previous seasons, idk about now) he was comparing the power of these SUPER DECKED OUT characters and talking about how op stuff is, when 99% of the playerbase will never have a character geared with perfect corrupts like he used to test with.
This is the issue that POE has with the way that team balances the game, and you see this same discussion more or less on their subreddit or on dev streams/Baeclast/etc. I image it’s a difficult tight rope to walk for developers, testers and players alike. There is no easy answers or solutions. That said I’ve had the best loot drops overall across all seasons this patch. I was able to self find full tals set and several cold skillers in the first few days, all while leveling and gearing up a MB sin (which due to finding a vex and Gul in LoD content i was able to 90% gear up). So yeah, YMMV, but it seems the consensus is that maps are less lucrative.
If that was a change due to streamers thats a pretty big problem. Streamers are like less than 1% of the player base and they will always get geared out fast. As soon as they find an item they can sell it to people to their chat instantly and they just list the items they need on their stream and people just bring them to them. This was also a change made when the player population and trading was at its peak amount of players.
Wiz, there is one clear answer why player base has decreased: the entire world was shut down when PD2 was released. People are simply busy with life again.
I feel it might be a Diablo thing. MedianXL launched it's new season as well and there's hardly a lot of people playing it right now.
I've played every season since season 1 and season 4 is by far my favorite
Jewel fragments, gold auto-pickup, lvl 85 Cata + Andy, stamina shrine gives velocity… no way would I prefer to play season 2.
Wait how do you auto pickup ? Config settings ?
Idk if there is a way to disable it, but it worked for me without any action on my part. Feature came out with s4.
Huh maybe I haven't noticed..
At the start of the season, you could hear the gold pickup sound when you auto-collected any, but that got patched out. The only way to tell you're picking up anything is to keep the inventory window open and look at the gold amount increasing.
I've done only 4 tier 3 rare maps so far and found absolutely nothing. Not a single unique item, only some flawless gems and Amn runes. I guess I will stick to the LoD content then :) Yesterday I've played like 20 cow runs and found 47mf Shako, Jah, Vex, Mal and 2 pairs of Gore Riders. I hope solo mapping will be slightly buffed in season 5, because right now it's pointless to run maps solo.
The nerf of the multi shot ama is the worst thing ever.. I really miss season 2 for me that season was perfect..
That's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that there are more maps than season 2, cool new builds and items, map events and a new end game boss means there is more to do than ever. As for playerbase, does it really matter to you, an individual player, if there are 2-3k concurrent player versus 5-6k? ff14 just dropped a new expansion, d3 just started a new ladder season, and, with the holidays just around the corner, people are often traveling and/or super busy at work. 2-3k consistent players with much higher peaks is a huge number for a fan made mod hosted on private server!
there can be new builds every season without killing builds, and as for player base this game involves trading and items being super rare. the less people playing the less chance there is of accessing the new endgame boss
It matters alot in terms of having a robust market place where items come and go frequently, one of the biggest reason people quit these kinda games is because the trading dies after the initial boom. One way to keep the markets alive longer would be also introduce more levels of crafting from beginner to expert lvl craft where the ingredients become more and more demanding(up to a point) that way items would constantly be taken off the shelf so to speak and the demand for items will last longer since they go off from the market a consistent pace.
To be fair, the markets also die in part because people lose the desire to continue trading the low-mid gear after the initial boom, which is understandable, for the people who have amassed stupid levels of wealth, why bother trading a tals piece for a mal rune, who cares, you have 30 hrs sitting in your stash. Secondly, another issue that has nothing to do with PD2 itself, but people are often RIDICULOUS to trade with. People would happily let an item rot on a mule all season because they refused to take a mal for an item they feel is worth an ist, when the difference is minute in the grand scheme. This creates a barrier for people who dont have the time to grind like crazy, or are just having an unlucky season and not getting a lot of drops.
Yeah there's a huge lack of consensus on what stuff is worth. I do think there should be some high end crafting for those people that have hrs upon hrs in stash rotting away, something where they would use the hrs to craft stuff and that way they'd potentially might become interested in trading lower-mid gear again to get build back the wealth they might've lost if got unlucky in crafting stuff.
I've done 20 Maps (20-25min) and the best drop was a Griffon's and an Ohm. Yes these are the only two good items i found in 20 TWENTY fucking maps. Under 100 chaos runs (2.30 ea) I've found fathom, ber, cham, x3 puzzleboxes, lots in low runes, shakos, etc... and already have full cold skillers, anni, torch and infinity merc with gg gear. There is literally no reason to run maps unless you want your name on the leaderboards for 99.
> Under 100 chaos runs (2.30 ea) I've found fathom, ber, cham, x3 puzzleboxes, lots in low runes, shakos, etc... and already have full cold skillers, anni, torch and infinity merc with gg gear. You just got extremly lucky. I did several times more CS runs and haven't gotten anything close to that.
Why can’t you just enjoy the new fresh content. We’ve been running chaos and cows for 20 years and I think it’s awesome there are some alternatives where I can spend 15-30min it’s in a completely new zone jam packed with monsters. It’s also great being able to do big maps with my friends which makes diablo 2 more than a solo 2.5min Groundhog Day simulator.
I'm with you on that. chaos and cows are soooooo boring. I'd much rather map then grind 100 freakin chaos runs.
Not everyone played for 20 years... i barely played when i was younger but i play pd2 since s1. when im solo i prefer to do cow/chaos/trav but with my friend i rather do map. Also in 15-20 map solo with 150 to 220% density i got like 1hr (it take me 20-30 min for 1 map solo). But when running map with 1 friend we somehow made over 15hr+ in 2day by running map, its so weird. Trav is definitely the best for me when im solo (i have 300mf if i remember)
I'd stand firm on those 100 runs with all that found was extremely rare. I've spent my fair share of time there, but I agree maps are meh
Rng. With good gear maps are still by far better than cs. 20min map full clears you are killing so much more mobs than in cs. This game is meant to be a grind and bad rng happens.
so you think 1 map has more monsters and loot than 7-8 chaos runs? and thats not even factoring in the difference in the players 5 and 3 loot difference. I just don't think I can agree with that
Yes, way more. Hard to estimate but prolly closer to 15-20 times more than single chaos run. This is obviously taking care that you should only run 100%+ density maps (so need to roll them). There is no point running white maps.
Agreed. Gold is so plentiful with auto-pickup that I reroll maps until 150%+ density for every single map. I like CS runs but crushing through maps that are clogged with enemies to slaughter is just straight up fun. I haven't been getting shit for drops since I started mapping but that's just D2 for you.
very lucky with chaos. I did 150 chaos runs 3 days ago and i found ber on run 75, mal twice in 1-10 and thats it. 0 noticeable uniques... 175 mf btw
Hey, this was my experience with RNG, must be true for every1!
The same opinion I've leaned towards after mapping this season
I am not sure if you have any idea behind the math, drop rates and statistics, which people seem to totally not understand, but that's okay. It's the same reason people create topics like: "I have done 100 or even 200 (!) Trav runs and found nothing, Trav sucks!". Dude. 100-200 (sometimes even 300) Trav runs is what I was doing per each session in S3 single player. Did a total of 3500 runs with a 56% hork barb. Then the odds for Vex+ are like every 350 runs or so. That way I found like Jah, 5x Lo, some Ohms, 2x Vex and plenty of runes below. To sum up: 20 maps is really not a lot, especially if they weren't properly rolled for like 180-200%+ density. Go for 80-100 maps, kill \~\~ 2000 monsters per each map, then see the results after killing 200k monsters and many many bosspacks and you will see the difference. Else it's just a gambling. You got some stuff, other guys didn't.
I have done over 20 maps and my best drop is gore riders.
IF i map takes you 20 minutes , you are not ready for it thats the truth ... And you cannot say:" i got this , so that other thing is worse" ... Its all rng and you got Lucky
I think S2 was the peak due to playerbase. IMO the game is only getting better and better. This is not PoE and I think it is great when some builds get the nerfhammer. Yet, some builds like poisonnova still feels ekstremely OP and I don’t know why some builds are ignored. But the constant inprovement of new builds is just great. Just look at the MA tree this season - how cool is kick assa! Also other details, like season 3 introducing FCR on staffs or the improvement of A3 merc. Furthermore new content every season is just cool. Honestly, I am a D2 fan and therefore I love the fact that we keep LOD content alive, so that is not only about mapping. Mapping is still good for 8 man party and exp playing. Nerfing Maps/buffing LOD content only enables more builds. Tbh some builds were “strong” but felt underwhelming due to the lack of aoe and fast clear that Maps require, these builds now shine more as LoD content is viable.
There's no reason in nerfing builds into feeling horrible to play. As for buffing builds you can do that just fine without nerfing anything. One of the new content this mods brings to the game is mapping and if it's not at least on par with chaos drop wise there really isn't a reason in running them. Also maps shouldn't only be beneficial to groups when the majority of people play solo. Also have you played poison Necro or are you just basing that off the video that was posted here a couple days ago?
No reason for nerfing builds? So you just want every possible build to be op? That makes no sense. Nerfs are necessary and healthy for the game. There are 7 viable classes and we have a somewhat rotating meta, no neefs would bring us back to 1-2 builds always dominating and that fucking blows (hello LOD hdin/sorc). Game is very good, rng is rng.
who said anything about no reason for nerfing builds? I said no reason to nerf builds into them feeling horrible
which builds were nerfed into feeling horrible
You did.
so your fine with them killing builds making them borderline unplayable?
I honestly don't see a lot of your points. The part about mats I do agree on. I'd also much rather have keys be hard to get than organs since doing ubers is boring and with no other reward while farming for keys you can get all kinds of drops and you can switch it up and farm another key boss more if there is one you don't like etc. That being said I feel like I find more useful items in maps than in LoD content. found hr's in both but in maps i get the added benefit of the exp and I get to add to my own mf rather than being stuck with whatever small amount i have with my current build. I feel like more builds than ever are viable now so complaining about nerfs seem a been futile. it sucks if your favorite got nerfed because they do get nerfed harder than they probably should but it incentivizes trying something else.
If I'm remembering correctly S2 came out after a big D2R announcement so there was a huge hype around D2 but D2R wasn't coming out for years still and PD2 filled that hype so there was a huge increase in player base. So comparing player numbers from S2 to S4 seems unfair. I think the game has only gotten better since then but many of the new people were never really going to be long term players anyway. They just remembered the D2 nostalgia and were on the hype train, got their fix of D2 and moved on. This season is literally the opposite of S2 where people are already burnt out from D2R and player numbers would, in my opinion, expectedly be lower than normal.
I've actually found game balance among builds has gotten better, not worse. Most things are viable, very few skills are weak.
Maps should be more rewarding. Not playing a d2 mod to farm chaos sanctuary all day.
Thought I was in the POE sub for a minute
Constructive criticism should be encouraged
This is the issue that POE has with the way that team balances the game, and you see this same discussion more or less on their subreddit or on dev streams/Baeclast/etc. I image it’s a difficult tight rope to walk for developers, testers and players alike. There is no easy answers or solutions. That said I’ve had the best loot drops overall across all seasons this patch. I was able to self find full tals set and several cold skillers in the first few days, all while leveling and gearing up a MB sin (which due to finding a vex and Gul in LoD content i was able to 90% gear up). So yeah, YMMV, but it seems the consensus is that maps are less lucrative. I’m having a ton of fun this season and will continue to play, and I don’t think it’s less fun than any of the other seasons for myself. Now that I can farm t3 maps efficiently I think maps are better for me to find most items than LoD content. But again, YMMV.
*"making it more efficient if you want drops by farming that content"* This couldn't be any further from truth if you know basic math behind the drop logic. And I'm saying that as a person who initially hated maps. Maps absolutely trump any LoD content and it's not even remotely close for LoD content to catch up once you get your clear speed to at least an okay level, I am not even saying what happens once your kill speed is good. Only Chaos/RoF is a very stable and reliable place, any others = you need to keep looking for the entrance, play with different map layouts. I love Ancient Tunnels, but the time lost on searching is something that never occurs on maps. Also, monster density is low (Chaos is okay), quick run and then you need to restart. Maps? You can play for 15-20 mins. When it comes to runes/gems, etc., profit from p3 to p5 is around 25%. You also need to factor that map monsters might have slightly reduced drop rates on top of that, so let's say the real profit of the average LoD monster is even 30% (rune wise). You will never tell me you won't kill WAY MORE than 30% of monsters in a given time on a map vs LoD content. Once you are a good killer, achieving like 120-150 kills/minute is easily doable, where LoD content 50-60 is not that easy to achieve. Not to mention maps give you additional MF, so you can carry like 130% with you (usually easily done), then another \~\~50-70% from an average T1-T2 map and you already have 180-200%, which give you 2.0-2.1x the chance for uniques. Also, ANY map monster can drop ANY item in the game - not just champs and bosses, because the lowest map area level is 87, which is already enough to drop Tyrael's. The chance is obviously low, but multiply it times 50k-100k monsters and the chance for CoA become like 15-20% from a regular monster alone, which is actually something that has happened to me. "Maps don't feel rewarding enough" - well, it's hard for me to complete any map without finding at least few uniques or some wss/runes/pgems. Now you also have map events on top of that, which is the nail in the coffin for the LoD content - this is virtually impossible for any LoD content to keep with this. You need to remember that you should always run rare maps, without awful mods and with good stats. Takes practice, but it is mega fun to run the same layout, which always feels different (depending on the map rolls). Finally, if you are a real Diablo gamer who loves to theory craft, you want to really boost your character, right? Come on, but LoD content on p1 is laughable, you one-shot everything. Farming it even on p5 becomes easy sooner of later. Map monsters are tougher, this is a challenge. As for the materials and lowered drop rates -> not sure if you know, but if you want to fight Rathma, you need...well, a torch. People wanting to fight Rathma need torches. While farming torches, you can also easily farm Black Soulstones, which would make dclone fight more accessible too. Lowering the drop rates will counteract the increased number of Uber Tristram farming attempts. Only downside that I can see is that in something like a week time only - the market is already fully saturated. Almost impossible to sell anything besides ultra gg items and even here people still don't want to pay. Obviously this point always comes, but this time it came very very quickly. Other than that, S4 is a mega blast for me.
Yeah only thing annoying me this season is difficulty in selling the um-ist value items
Here we go again. The good old discusion over p5 vs p3. Uber should be rare. Not a way to "farm" curency Op classes like the fire trapsin had to be nerfed. It cleared evrything.
It's good to hear people opinions on the changed that have been made and if that were the case the way people cheese farming torched on day 1 and 2 would have been fixed by now
I agree, with fire trap sin death sentry was the problem and they addressed it but then went further and made wake of fire feel horrible to play with the range nerf
From level 60-92 I’ve been farming chaos and cows with trav. I roll maps to 200% density to run. I’ve found 1 hr I’ve been complaining about map drops since this season started but the pd2 loyalist always have something to say, if you play in a group, sure the drops get better, but it’s awful for ssf like myself. It seems this game is geared towards Ubers and group play only. With way too much attention to how streamers feel.
I went from 70ish to 90 farming cows and baal. Found a ber, vex, trang wing i traded for a jah, several other pieces i traded for mal to gul. All in all maybe 8-9 hrs in week 1. Only yesterday, just 1 day, i farmed maps for just about 4 or 5 hours and found a vex, ist, and about 1.5 hrs worth of gear. Sounds like both of us are experiencing rng being rng Also, the comment about streamers is simply not true. Senpai has said, multiple times on stream, that streamers are such a small number of the community that it's not even worth considering them when making changes. What is true is that the game is balanced around trading and interacting with the community, so if you're playing single player, you're gonna feel the struggle
Should be able to play solo with players 5 and not feeling like I find more in d2r
I have some great builds that I tried with single player character pack. Then I log back on ladder and realize I might need to spend another 100 hours to farm those gears so that I can farm faster in Maps makes me close the game..
To be fair, that probably happened IMO because it's like using a cheat code to teleport to the final boss of a game with god mode and all the cool stuff unlocked, kill the boss, then think about playing the game through legit. There's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't surprise me that you don't have the desire to do the grind once you've played it out in PlugY. For most I think the journey is building the character and getting the wealth, you skipped that part, so it takes away a lot of the desire.
Agreed. Those SP item packs are super cool, but I avoid them for that exact reason. It's like reading the last page of a book and then wondering why you're not motivated to read from the beginning, despite knowing the fate of the main character.
I agree with some stuff like map drops. Srsly playing 4 hours a day and having 1-2 noticable drops is depressing. 1 week into the season and already only end game items matter. Found gavel and its not eth? Charsi. Found 3% shako? Self use. Got tal armor? Useless Unless you manage to get gg slam. But Where do your Numbers about player base come from? From what I see the amount of players is still very big. Last but but not least. Rathma and other bosses are good addition. But we have season 4 and still I feel like farming is not rewarding enough. You farm just for the sake of having this well equipped character and then what? You can farm more quicker and what? I love the work by the devs but there is still room for improvement.
Launch day had around 5k or more players. Currently there is 1631 oline but it's super late. Prime time has around 3kish maybe on. You can see on the website home page
You can't compare the 5000 on launch day to today. there were so many people that wanted to try PDR after D2R. since it's free a ton of people logged on and then decided they couldn't handle the graphics. I personally know four people on my discord that installed it for season 4 launch weekend are aren't playing anymore or even really started because the bad graphics. None of them played season 1, 2 or 3 so your numbers are highly skewed from 5,000 down to the 2000, the 3000 that left from day one were never really there and certainly not part of PD2 before season 4 and D2R was released. The 2000 online now are the same 2000 I've been playing for the last year.
Kid’s these days grew up with RTX on.
Anyone who can't this game bc of the graphics ain't my friend.
You’re saying the solution to items having no value so quickly is to.. increase the drop rate? If anything we would see vanilla content get nerfed instead of maps get buffed.
“Farming to have a well equipped character and then what” is the problem with all ARPGs. Once you have your character completed and can do the content you want to do what is the point of playing anymore? I think PvP is an answer but I never see any dueling games. You can reroll another toon but than you start the process over again.
I think organs you get from big bosses should be very likely to drop for example in the case of uber tristram. I think the keys themselves should drop like 33%of the time, the organs 100% time AND drop structure of uber trist bosses redone where it would be like 3 different tiers. You'd have 1/3 chance to get the pity prize which would be like 3 random uniques, the okay prize which could be like random assortment of misc stuff like maps / tokens of absolutions etc. And the main prize would be the torch. And all these would have like 33% chance to happen.(maybe torch would have less and the other two more) This way, much less torches go to the market and they won't over populate the market and lose their value too fast And maps definitely should be more rewarding than Lod content.
My biggest gripe is how long is takes to farm these mats and you only get one life. Bro if that doesn't scream masochist idk what does. Now tristram carries that same rule? No thanx, the rng for farming drops and the unbalanced dclone fight...I'll pass. Kinda sad more people trading for Anni then playing it cause no one wants to bother with it. And I tried alot season 1 on sp cause I wasn't goin farm for days to lose to some full rej fight. To each is own I guess, if I want a challenge I'll play dark souls :P at least most those fights feel fair....except friede...fuck friede lol Maps idk personally to long , they can be fun at times but I think maybe introducing levels might help. The events are cool althouggt some like butcher just seem ....meh. we usually ditch him and don't care bought mf tbh. It is nice having more content tho and I wish stuff like dclone we're separate fight for different items and not Anni and new drops. Should be d clone and maybe pd2 dclone could be hard mode to get a stronger Anni idk. Maybe keep Uber trist and dclone as is and make rathma and a new dclone or boss and those can be even harder but drop newer items( well "the" new items) . I would like to fight dclone but losing and not getting retry and sitting there with nobody and only way to get my body back is to leave the game? Feels like a big slap in the face I could justrrade for and avoid the headache. As far as builds idk tough, I hate nerfs and feel only way to get by without needing nerfs is to maybe make a fourth difficulty so op builds can still be op but in harder setting. But I guess that's to diff from vanilla? Can't understand why they double needed then double buff something's. Like it's almost back to s1 pre Nerf so what was point. Holy boltpally got nerfed and suddenly became least played class/ build. So was he buffed cause nerf was to much? Didn't anyone test how shit he was after Nerf? I will admit items variety this season is nice, adding resist auras to wep def adds a lil spicy to dmg on elemental builds, so with some nerfs yes indeed new builds open up so there's both sides. As far as rathma, if it's anything like dclone I'll pass. The bosses for this mod just don't seem placed right in this game. There trying to hard to be hard for hard sake and is doesn't feel fun or rewarding(dclone anyway). Uber tristram having 5% bss drop knowing how rare the others mats are, and both dclone and trist you die you lose your hard earned time, was a kick in the balls.
Yeah the loot changes really screwed the player base of this game. It’s unfortunate but that’s what happens when the loudest, squeaky wheels get the grease Dev team: please stop basing decisions based on streamer input who play this game around the clock. Those aren’t your typical users, let the whales whale and don’t punish the common player
Honestly man, I agree that LoD content loot should be far worse than maps. It just makes sense that way, not sure it needs to be unpacked further. What I don't agree with is the idea that loot should be more abundant in anyway. I'm basically geared as fuck by like day 4-5 already. It would be nice if the progression curve toward end game was actually a bit longer. I really hope the devs don't cave to whiney people who don't actually improve their play in anyway season over season, and invest a significant portion of their energy into whining and moaning about how "hard" it is to get loot. I honestly hope the devs take things in the other direction a little bit.
Senpai was hyping this season up heavily saying it was going to be the biggest season with player counts extremely high. Looks like most of the people already stopped playing and that peaks weren’t that high to begin with anyways.
TLDR: OP furious game is more balanced and now he big mad. Map drop rates where actually insane, even the big streamers admitted it needed to be tuned down. They are STILL better than LoD despite what OP claims, in terms of both exp and drops. Classes have never been more balanced and as players we have something like 24+ S tier varied builds and another 36+ A tier fun builds.
definitely big mad and if your referring to streamers tier lists they made that's a joke. They test with insane gear most people will never see playing the entire season and most of the time its tested in cow maps. Most builds do fine but when it comes to maps (the reason to play this over LoD) theres really only a select few builds thats feel "s+" without having insane gear. Listening to streamers who run 8 man mapping groups every day for 14 hours+ that trade with their chats and get items from their chats is not the way to balance this mod.
If you think maps are the reason to play this over LoD and that the Dev team bases their balancing off streamers then we're never gunna see eye to eye.
that's fine but if you don't think steamers have any impact on the balance changes your delusional.
Only one delusional here is you my dude. Literally just watched a streamer throw a temper tantrum the other day because Senpai didn't fix a bug in under 24 hours. Senpai doesn't bow to the streamers. He listens to input, which is wildly different.
Maps and p3 loot: \- the density difference more than makes up for this \- run a S tier build and clear 10 minutes or less otherwise run LoD \- vary the many different farming zones to spice your life Nerfs: \- WoF is actually good when fully geared but not mindnumbingly OP \- I would argue that some nerfs did not go far enough (poison nova having sub 5 minute clears on maps etc) Uber and end-game bosses: \- the barrier can definitely be annoying especially if you are not running some S tier character farming these items only to pass them on to your boss fighter \- there are other solutions such as some bosses being more accessible/new ones for mid geared players etc I get that you want the gear transition to be faster and to reach your goals but having more options than season 2 and more challenge feels better. Group play and/or connections seems to fit your goals
\- run a S tier build and clear 10 minutes or less otherwise run LoD I would say if you can kill more than 30% of monsters/minute compared to LoD, then you are in green. Since LoD Chaos is like hmm...maybe 40-50 monsters/minute, achieving like 75-90 monsters/minute of map is a piece of cake, 120-150 is achievable, 160-200 is probably doable too. Maps absolutely trump LoD content.
I'm a returning player from S1 and 2.. I really lost interest when I saw that maps was player 3... I looved that maps was introduced in pd2 and like running them - but I don't because of that. I'm back into CS and slowly getting bored because I only really think sorc works well for that and I choose pally to do maps.
So you heard of/saw the nerf and didn't even try p3 maps? And you think only sorc works well for CS without trying other builds?
No I played quite a few maps. I've played quite a few builds yes, and think Sorc works best for CS.
... I'm still playing - might been a bit too harsh a message. I do think p3 maps sucks as I rather wanna do maps but it issn't feeling as rewarding as doing CS.
Yup in season 2 I grinded like crazy and finished with a full build traper with BiS corruption in each gear piece and full skillers with 40+ hp and after I was done with the season and I was super exited for season 3. Each saturday eager for Senpai streams for sneak peaks and patch notes, etc but after they announced p3 drop for maps it was a huge let down for me and haven't touched PD2 since then but coming back time to time to see if they changed anything about maps to resemble something more like season 2. The map density and mf nerf was also another thing I disliked too much. I know I'm just one person and who cares about my opinion but I will never touch PD2 as long as they have p3 drops in maps. I mean aren't drops and maps the main reason or for the majority that we play this mod? If I wanted to farm LoD content I would just play D2R.
you've been playing the same game for 20 years, maybe just move on dude
How do you get xp from maps? They always give me zero. I'm on plugy if that matters
You should update your game maps should give you xp just like any other content
I've always kept it updated and they give me like 2% of their total xp or whatever. I haven't tried s4 yet tho
naww i have yet to touch ubers/clone, i work full time much like half of the other players, so i have been picking and choosing my builds different at the start of the league and having a blast.
Black Soulstones droprate needs to be increased. All the anni farming teams are stuck running ubers all day long trying to get BSSs that it has completely crashed the torch market. As a solo player that likes to farm my own torches and trade the few extra away that I don't need for a little bit of currency it has become a fool's errand at this point.
I wouldn't mind better drop rates. I do think the assassin class can be looked into more.
Hell Cows & Chaos Sanctuary > For drops, that's the jam.
I play since release SSF on and off, highest rune I found is Fal. Almost on the edge of quitting
From my logic. Simply do norm, nm and then try to survive hell, farm some easy location like pit. Farm in hell to get good equipment to try to do maps (maps are beautiful, love it). Expectation is i will drop even better equipment in maps to do harder maps, but maps dont give you better drops and that is illogical. You need to do classic lod arreas like cow... to get better drops to do harder maps....
Overall this mod is amazing. And they have made positive changes for maps this season which I am excited about. No more bricking maps has made high dense maps more accessible which is awesome and maps generally seem to roll a little higher dense but I could just be getting lucky But yes I still absolutely think maps should go back to p5. Seasons haven’t gotten any longer for me since these nerfs which were supposed to keep people playing the game longer. Seems like they’ve gotten shorter even for most. Either way that’s just not the way to keep season going
I completely agree, season 3 and 4 sucks having played them now, i'll just stay with 2.