D3 season 28

[Coldkil]

Long story short, i thought it was worth a thread for two main reasons:

- it's the last season before D4, so i'm kinda curiois about what's next for D3 (very likely maintenance mode forever)

- it's actually the first season where there is an effort to make something interesting instead of "double goblins" or "realm of trials rehashed".

More on this: the system they are putting in place (go read the blog for detailed info) is filled up of permanent extremely strong buffs that really point out to a "swan's song" off the game. I mean, literally infinite pool of reflections buff, huge dmg increases and double primal drops. Plus, a way to shard Primals and literally craft one from your own dropped legendary.

I think that after years of ignoring D3 i'm gonna play this season. Mostly for old times' sake with a friend and because they finally made a trap set for DH i really want to try. I don't think i'll do anything else but capping the new system for the Diablo Wings and then either farm for full primals or just quit.

But it's going to be fun getting back to D3. I literally don't know how it's played nowadays. Probably still by botting for paragons.

[Hotmail]

- it's the last season before D4, so i'm kinda curiois about what's next for D3 (very likely maintenance mode forever)

Longer seasons would be my guess. Hell if they're doing the new season/runewords shtick for Diablo 2, I'm sure Diablo 3 has many more seasons ahead of it.

- it's actually the first season where there is an effort to make something interesting instead of "double goblins" or "realm of trials rehashed".

Eh last season wasn't so bad. I thought the season where they revamped Follower gear and implemented (Emanates) was a pretty large step forward, as well.

More on this: the system they are putting in place (go read the blog for detailed info) is filled up of permanent extremely strong buffs that really point out to a "swan's song" off the game. I mean, literally infinite pool of reflections buff, huge dmg increases and double primal drops. Plus, a way to shard Primals and literally craft one from your own dropped legendary.

For context: https://us.diablo3.blizzard.com/en-us/blog/23893119

The Altar of Rites does sound like an insane power creep but Blizzard might increase the max Greater Rift level at some point to compensate.

I think that after years of ignoring D3 i'm gonna play this season. Mostly for old times' sake with a friend and because they finally made a trap set for DH i really want to try. I don't think i'll do anything else but capping the new system for the Diablo Wings and then either farm for full primals or just quit.

A Spike Trap DH is exactly what I had in mind. DH was my first toon, I still have my vanilla main with 1,500 hours spent

But it's going to be fun getting back to D3. I literally don't know how it's played nowadays.

That depends on your goals. I aim to land at the bottom of the solo leaderboards for my class before I quit, this is usually do-able by farming Echoing Nightmares for ez augments on close-to-BIS ancient gear.

[exochaft]

I was thinking their aim for the last D3 season prior to D4 launch is sort of a "last hurrah" since many of the people who play D3 will likely move on to D4 as the new hotness. Now this doesn't mean people won't come back to play new D3 seasons (honestly the experience of D4 may not jive with players who like D3 in many cases), but I don't doubt that their seasons will likely be either longer or smaller in scope after this upcoming seasons. Maybe you'll get a larger season every so often, but I'm not expecting much nor asking Blizz to do such a thing.

Since D4 is coming out, there's no qualms about sunsetting D3 for the most part, especially if they want to celebrate with an over-the-top power creep season. If people ever wanted to max out a season, this is likely the one to do it in. Still feel bad for some class/build combos that likely needed the DH treatment just as badly.

[mrgreenthump]

Wish it'd be a bit slower progression.. As is it's probably over in one weekend again. But hopefully it comes soon and doesn't overlap with Last Epoch 0.9, though who am I kidding.. The season will start on March 10th as the invitational for Last Epoch beta starts on the 9th.

I literally don't know how it's played nowadays. Probably still by botting for paragons.

You level for an hour, gear for 8, and then slam rifts while rolling with bounty mats till you loose interest.

[Coldkil]

Wish it'd be a bit slower progression.. As is it's probably over in one weekend again. But hopefully it comes soon and doesn't overlap with Last Epoch 0.9, though who am I kidding.. The season will start on March 10th as the invitational for Last Epoch beta starts on the 9th.



You level for an hour, gear for 8, and then slam rifts while rolling with bounty mats till you loose interest.

Ah some upgrade materials are some sort of timegates, but nothing fancy imho. Nice to know the gameplay loop is still the same, i don't play the game from like season 10 XD

[Nymrohd]

THey should have just moved this system to the main game imo. No need for it to be seasonal.

[mrgreenthump]

Ah some upgrade materials are some sort of timegates, but nothing fancy imho. Nice to know the gameplay loop is still the same, i don't play the game from like season 10 XD

Modern sets are so strong, that the whole tree can be done quite effeciently in a few hours(think you need to do GR 110, which is a joke nowdays even without any additional power from the season theme). Leveling might take a bit longer if you don't use the cache, but the double kill streak duration is going to make leveling a joke for solo.

[Coldkil]

Modern sets are so strong, that the whole tree can be done quite effeciently in a few hours(think you need to do GR 110, which is a joke nowdays even without any additional power from the season theme). Leveling might take a bit longer if you don't use the cache, but the double kill streak duration is going to make leveling a joke for solo.

Lawl 110, i remeber when doing 30 was a feat

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THey should have just moved this system to the main game imo. No need for it to be seasonal.

Yes, but in the end we're talking about a two week max binge to do everything (going slow, people will be done in two days) and then forget about the game again.

[FelPlague]

- it's actually the first season where there is an effort to make something interesting instead of "double goblins" or "realm of trials rehashed".
.

wanna point out this isn't even close to true, there has been MANY seasons with new stuff that is not just "double goblins realm of trials rehashed"

Season 1 of course added TONS of stuff, like far too much to list here, but first season so makes sense.
But since then seasons have introduced ancient items, primal items, the kunai's cube, the entire greyhollow island, ruins of sescheron, set dungeons, new difficulties, new cosmetics, empowered rifts, challenge rifts, fair few new enemy types, tons of new seasonal legendaries, the prime evil gems, tons of new gear, tons of new sets, the armory, crafting material storage, the necormancer, legendary gems, new treasure goblins, the vault, the cow level

And while yes a lot of these things were ALSO added to the base game, many of these things were only available in the season first, before being added to the main game.
(Nevermind the fact people only really play seasonal)

[Mamut]

I'm gonna play it but not sure for how long. Did not played in ages but I lose fast interest in D3 because I don't enjoy Rifts as main endgame activity.

The whole Altar thing looks interesting and maybe with new sets Im gonna stick for awhile while getting more and more hyped for D4.

[Coldkil]

Season 1 of course added TONS of stuff, like far too much to list here, but first season so makes sense.
But since then seasons have introduced ancient items, primal items, the kunai's cube, the entire greyhollow island, ruins of sescheron, set dungeons, new difficulties, new cosmetics, empowered rifts, challenge rifts, fair few new enemy types, tons of new seasonal legendaries, the prime evil gems, tons of new gear, tons of new sets, the armory, crafting material storage, the necormancer, legendary gems, new treasure goblins, the vault, the cow level

You're just confused.

Most of the stuff you listed just came out as a patch and has nothing to do with seasons. Necromancer was a paid DLC and the new zones/enemy types are all scrapped second expansion content that was ready before D3 was aced my management - they put those in game only because otherwise yhey would be wasted, they don't add any mechanic whatsoever.

They literally added one single set per class over the years. The rest was all already in game. No legendaries were added, they just took useless ones and made them worth something for new sets/builds.

Set dungeons are unanimously recognized as a failure, as they're counterintuitive and most people don't even care about doing them (i have basically 100% achievements from 2019 excluded the set di geons because as i said they're shit to play).

The vault was introduced with the expansion. Hell, the cow level was there aswell.

Ancient and Primal items are again something that don't add anything to the game, it's just stats padding.

You just made a lots of varuois stuff that got released over the years and literally nothing excluding a couple is about seasons.

Seasons have been shit and added nothing for years. They started doing something with season themes in season 22 IIRC, and still it was useless stuff. Even this season is just mildly interesting because it's basically "go farm some specific stuff till you're capped".

D3 has an awesome combat, but that's the only thing worth saving. I respect their efforts to try recovering it over the years but they didn't add nothing that was worth returning - the whole game is spamming GR until you're geared or bored, and nothing introduced changed that. But that's mostly due to the fact the core game was flawed fron the very start.

[FelPlague]

You're just confused.
The vault was introduced with the expansion.Hell, the cow level was there aswell.

Mate I could go and refute a lot of this, but if you ain't even gunna do a second of research I ain't gunna waste my time.
https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/The_Vault. -introduced patch 2.1 not expansion launch. Was added with the introduction of seasons.
https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Not_The_Cow_Level. -introduced at 3 year anniversary, again not reaper of souls launch.

[Biomega]

D3 has an awesome combat, but that's the only thing worth saving. I respect their efforts to try recovering it over the years but they didn't add nothing that was worth returning - the whole game is spamming GR until you're geared or bored, and nothing introduced changed that. But that's mostly due to the fact the core game was flawed fron the very start.

I mean, you're not wrong, but at this point I'm kinda okay with it. Sure it'd have been nice to have awesome ongoing development, but I get that without a recurring revenue stream that just isn't economically feasible. We begged and begged for them to at least port over the cosmetic/QoL shop they had ready and made and were using in China, but I guess they didn't want to engage with their product further and have people demand content. Cool.

So now D3 is something I play for a week every couple of months. It's a fun week, but it's also over quickly. And I'm fine with that. Just coming back to blast some shit every now and then is entirely sufficient for me for a 10-year old game that has already given me 1,000s of hours anyway. Sure it'd be nice to have more but I understand why we won't get it, and I'm not too mad with what's left.

No excuses for D4, though - that one HAS an ongoing revenue model. Which is great... IF it also delivers on ongoing content of substance. We have no idea if it will, but it makes sense it would because that's what'll earn them money. But hey, I'm absolutely advocating for believe-it-when-you-see-it. No free passes, Blizzard.

[Coldkil]

Mate I could go and refute a lot of this, but if you ain't even gunna do a second of research I ain't gunna waste my time.
https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/The_Vault. -introduced patch 2.1 not expansion launch. Was added with the introduction of seasons.
https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Not_The_Cow_Level. -introduced at 3 year anniversary, again not reaper of souls launch.

We're saying the same thing - maybe i wasn't clear enough.

I'm not saying nothing has been added to the game over time. I'm sepcifically saying that seasons didn't add anything to th the game until season 22 or so when game was in maintenance mode and still it was very little stuff until late on. Season mechanics have not been a thing for D3 at all.

My whole point is that the game suffered from a rotten core. RoS had to go all the way to fix a lot of stuff instead of iterating onto new things, and when we reached a stable point (just after RoS released) the development of the game was just cut. The rest is history.

If you check any data about necro and the zones added after, they're all labeled as X2, alkin all RoS and Crusader stuff was labeled X1.

[Djuntas]

I dont get the hype at all. Seems like no content that really matters and only 1 change to wizards.

[Coldkil]

-snip-

Completely agree. I am mad basically for that - the insane amount of wasted potential that nearly killed a franchise just because it wasn't marketed correctly (giving it for free with WoW imho was an error, too many people jumping in that realized it wasn't their kind of game) and because management expected it to be basically another wow. Remeber, it was when WoD came out and all D3 team was moved to Legion. That literally spawned world quests and m+.

D4 has to nail it. And it has nothing to do woth stupid stuff like "it's not grim enough". It has to have complelling endgame that makes you want to play. If it's good, even it had stupidly predatory monetization, people would play it anyway.

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I dont get the hype at all. Seems like no content that really matters and only 1 change to wizards.

I'm not hyped, it was just because it 's the last season before d4 and they're going with stupidly op buffs.

Also trap DH. I think i'll rebirth my old first main.

[Nymrohd]

Completely agree. I am mad basically for that - the insane amount of wasted potential that nearly killed a franchise just because it wasn't marketed correctly (giving it for free with WoW imho was an error, too many people jumping in that realized it wasn't their kind of game) and because management expected it to be basically another wow. Remeber, it was when WoD came out and all D3 team was moved to Legion. That literally spawned world quests and m+.

Heck from interviews I read, it seems the devs had to fight with the suits for us to even get the X2 content as we did.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Heck from interviews I read, it seems the devs had to fight with the suits for us to even get the X2 content as we did.

What interviews?

[Nymrohd]

What interviews?

I'll have to look for it, it's been years.

[Coldkil]

Heck from interviews I read, it seems the devs had to fight with the suits for us to even get the X2 content as we did.

Yeah. I remember when Josh Madureira went away from Blizzard, i was like "WTF" as in "why, he basically saved D3 and was in a very good spot". Then reports/leaks came out, datamining aswell and everything fell into place.

IIRC at a Blizzcon panel he said that there was a meeting for discussing about D3 and how to fix it, and when it came to the AH he just said "it needs to bw removed" and the meeting was over just like that.

There's educated guesswork involved, but it's pretty clear how management expected D3 to be another WoW on the long-term profits. When it turned out it wasn't and RMAH was a flop they just let the devs go with RoS cause it was very far into development and then close everything up after it was shipped to at least get sales money.

It's a fact that a B2P model isn't enough to sustain a live service game, but to kill a staple IP installment that way was a shitty move that made a lot of people mad. Then came Immortal and we know all the story.

There was a lot of this stuff goingwhen D3 released and the first two/three years.