A HATER plays The PTR

[ADest]

Just to clarify, I don't really consider myself to be a Hater. But if you still play/post/read about D3, then you're in either one of two camps. If you think D3 has ANY reedeming qualities and it's dev team shouldn't be publicly executed for crimes against humanity, then you're a fanboy. If you think D3 doesn't one shot D1 and D2 at the same time with how awesome it is, it isn't the second coming, and you don't think all the naysayers need to be publicly executed for crimes against humanity, then you're a hater.

Now that some basic terminology has been clarified, I took the time to download the PTR patch this weekend. Why Blizzard doesn't recycle previous Test Realms is beyond me. It's somewhat ludicrous to have to download 16 Gigs each time a new patch is on the way. Then again, it's not like a new patch is a monthly thing, right?

The Good: There's a surprising amount of good in the PTR. As in, "holy $h1t, this' still D3 core?" good. Finding a cursed shrine in cathedral was a cool moment the likes of which I thought would never again see the light of day in the routine Paragon Crypt farming routine of D3 Core. The new add ons are cool and all, but what really makes the PTR shine is how more well polished the interface and mechanics are. Someone at Blizzard actually logged in at some point, because they've improved how you get in and out of games. The Multi-Player was especially good, as I didn't end up getting put into 20 empty games. There's really a lot of good here, it's just it all blends in so well with everything else it's difficult to pull any one thing out and highlight it. It's all mostly minor improvements, but it's all stuff that should have been in since release.

The Bad: Well, two things. One, the multi-player is fun but nobody's playing. I guess that's not really a PTR thing, though. Another issue is it seems much more laggy than live. Again, it's probably just PTR. What is bad though, are the builds. Things are probably going to change a lot in terms of raw numbers, but things still don't feel right. Everything still feels overpowered or useless. There are a lot of exceptions, but The Barbarian in particular is just plain terrible now. It's going to be hard to justify ever touching that class again.

The Ugly: ITEMIZATION. I mean COME ON. I remember I made a post on here months ago, and I asked "What would ROS need to improve to get you to buy it?" And Flux made it into a poll. The #1 responce was Improved Itemization. And THEY. JUST. DON'T. DO. IT. Why you kill my Diablo!? WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY!? Diablo!....

Anyway, yeah, Loot 2.0 fails. Hard. And it's especially striking how it fails on the PTR as opposed to Beta, because in the PTR it's a straight up head on bout between Loot 1.2 and Loot 2.0. In Beta you can level up beyond Loot 1.2, so it's not a fair match up. But when the two have the same level ceiling, Loot 1.2 wins hands down. 4/2 is just too big a handicap. It's especially bad on items that need sockets, because sockets apparently eat 1/4. Armor, Weapons, Helms, and Pants are all always worse off than loot 1.2 stuff.

Apparently the developers also think 700-800 DPS is an acceptable number for weapons to have at level 60. No wonder they're only rolling 2k in Beta. I thought they had fixed damage numbers on weapons? In the PTR, they've fixed nothing. Gloves, wristbands, shoulders tend to roll trifecta stats more often than in 1.2, but the values are lower. At the end of the day, the only reason Loot 2.0 wins is because it can outlevel Loot 1.2, and that's both sad and sadly not enough to save this game. Itemization is the biggest issue with D3, and they still haven't fixed it. Maybe the next patch. Actually, it's going to have to be the next patch, because RoS is just a little over a month away from retail at this point...

 

[yovargas]

At the end of the day, the only reason Loot 2.0 wins is because it...

...is way more interesting than the old loot with lots of fun new things to take into consideration and tinker and experiment with.

 

[Noodle]

Stopped reading at "fanboy", but enjoy your hyperbole.

 

[HardRock]

if you still play/post/read about D3, then you're in either one of two camps. If you think D3 has ANY reedeming qualities and it's dev team shouldn't be publicly executed for crimes against humanity, then you're a fanboy.

I almost stopped reading at this point. I mean really? For what it's worth, I'll give this a shot.

Why Blizzard doesn't recycle previous Test Realms is beyond me.

They kinda do, it's called the development version of the project. This is what they are using internally all day everyday and what gets constantly updated. When they do a beta test they do a rough clean up and deploy it on the test servers.

However, since a lot of time passes between beta tests and maintaining them is a lot of extra work it's easier and much more foolproof to start from scratch each time. Beta tests aren't frequent at all anyway and I think testers can live with some inconveniences like this once in a while. It's just one of the hurdles of software development people generally don't get to experience.

multi-player is fun but nobody's playing. I guess that's not really a PTR thing, though.

I'd wait until live with my final judgment on multiplayer. I don't know about others, but I really don't like playing with a party when I'm testing stuff, which is most of the time on the PTR. I often spend quite a few minutes in town, looking through items, thinking about skill combos or just talking with others, asking about stuff I didn't see yet. I don't want to hold up other players with my tinkering, so I usually play solo. I'd bet I'm not alone with this.

The way I see it though, now that we can only trade with our party we have a better incentive to play with others than any time in the past.

Another issue is it seems much more laggy than live

First, the PTR servers have less capacity than the live ones. Second, they are located in the US, so if you play from the EU you'll have much higher latency.

when the two have the same level ceiling, Loot 1.2 wins hands down. 4/2 is just too big a handicap.

This is absolutely true if you care only about your character sheet DPS. However, many of the new stats allow you play builds you couldn't otherwise. These usually have less sheet DPS (because specialized stats aren't factored into that), but they aren't necessarily worse in practice.

Also, most of the new Legendaries and Sets are better than any items in Classic. Especially if you combine a few of them, since their bonuses can feed off of each others. I've said this before, but I really think it's true: Legendaries in the expansion are like cards in a CCG (Collectible Card Game): until you've seen them all you don't know their full potential.

Apparently the developers also think 700-800 DPS is an acceptable number for weapons to have at level 60.

Talking about damage only makes sense when we also mention the stuff that receives it. Monster stats were completely rebalanced as well and the new damage numbers are appropriate in this context.

 

[ADest]

Stopped reading at "fanboy", but enjoy your hyperbole.

I almost stopped reading at this point.

Guess ending each line there with mention of public executions wasn't enough emphasis on the humor. The entire post was kind of a larf since I'm done with taking the game so seriously, and the PTR was actually pretty fun.

This is absolutely true if you care only about your character sheet DPS. However, many of the new stats allow you play builds you couldn't otherwise. These usually have less sheet DPS (because specialized stats aren't factored into that), but they aren't necessarily worse in practice.

I found 6 legendaries over the weekend, which is way less than I would have found on Live with one of my P100s. Of the six, 4 had no special mods or anything, at all. Just an abberant stat that shouldn't normally roll in that slot. And it wasn't anything impactful, either. Move speed (and it wasn't even 12%) and I forgot what the others were, since they were pretty underwhelming. I found 3 2-handers, a 1 hander, gloves, and a bracer.

The bracer was a straight up upgrade. More DPS, more Toughness, more Healing. It replaced a Strongarm Bracer which only really had +200 Intelligence going for it, and a 3.0% crit chance. The gloves are one of those 'tinker' items you mentioned. St.Andrews something or other I believe they're called. When you're surrounded by enemies they create a energy shield for your character once every couple of seconds. Big DPS drop from my Tasker and Theos, but a big Toughness increase. I found putting them on let me survive Torment 4, but the DPS drop made killing things too tedious.

Oh yeah, my Barb found the shoulders that let you teleport while being hit, and raise your defense by 50% to boot. That item IS awesome. I felt bad it dropped for my Barbarian though, since it was a smart drop, and I'll probably never touch a barb again until live.

Talking about damage only makes sense when we also mention the stuff that receives it. Monster stats were completely rebalanced as well and the new damage numbers are appropriate in this context.

None of the weapons that dropped on the PTR were viable options at all. They were all -40 to 50% DPS drops. They didn't even have sockets for an Emerald. I guess I could have equipped them and played on Normal, but anything over Expert wouldn't be practical with this stuff.

 

[HardRock]

Guess ending each line there with mention of public executions wasn't enough emphasis on the humor.

Mea culpa. It's hard to gauge the tone of people's posts sometimes. Writing is hardly an ideal form of communication, especially when humor is concerned. The fact that we don't know each other personally only compounds this issue.

Still, I think it's best to refrain from humor like this when you are not among close friends, especially on a public forum.

None of the weapons that dropped on the PTR were viable options at all. They were all -40 to 50% DPS drops. They didn't even have sockets for an Emerald. I guess I could have equipped them and played on Normal, but anything over Expert wouldn't be practical with this stuff.

My main point was that they fit the new item progression, at least in my opinion. You're right, Rare weapons don't tend to be viable past Expert, but that was kinda the goal, to make Legendaries straight up upgrades. For players like yourself, who have amazing gear this means that pretty much only Legendaries will be upgrades and as you've seen not even all of them.

However, the reason why I don't think this is an issue at all is because I don't think the overall power progression of items is all that different in 2.0. At level 60 in Classic, a large part of the power spectrum consisted of Rares. Legendaries were all over the place, but were mostly found toward the bottom, a few select Legendaries being the exception. In the expansion the range of the spectrum didn't change too much, but Legendaries are more consistently towards the top and occupy a larger part of the spectrum, pushing Rares lower. Essentially what I'm saying is that in my view Rares weren't really nerfed, rather their upper range went through a color change.

By the way, this is why you found quite a few "stat stick" Legendaries. These could be considered the upper class Rares of Classic. Legendaries without unique affixes are much more common, but even the ones that come with them have varying rarity now, like Uniques and Sets did in D2. Honestly, I think saying that you've found more Legendaries in Classic is kinda a moot point. How many of those were useful to you, compared to the ones you've found on the PTR? I'd bet the ones you've found in Classic ended up as Brimstones without a second thought and rightly so.

I hope this will make some sense to you. It's past 2:30 AM here as I'm writing this, so I had trouble gathering my thoughts into something coherent.

 

[Raesene]

Wait wait wait

You have multiple? P100s and you still dislike D3? Good lord.

Yeah, I don't understand how someone who complains about D3 so much apparently plays it 1000x more than I do. Kinda sounds like you got your money's worth.

 

[Steven Hazani]

Let's be fair here. Crypt runs get you a level 100 in a few days. The main difficulty is that group games are this mythological thing.

 

[TheDestructor]

PTR is weird, because if you have nice gear, most of the stuff is garbage. Doesn't really have much to do with the mechanics of Loot 2.0, (2.0 adds a lot of fun things to play around with), rather it has to do with the gear curve being completely different from Classic D3. They could have made it so in the first ten minutes a 1m DPS player finds an upgrade, (which covers everyone else, of course) but in re-balancing the entire game/skills/monster HP, I guess that sort of consideration falls by the wayside.

And they probably just hate you if you're not buying RoS.

 

[feena]

Eh, you know how much I play (and vice versa) and you know that my highest character is like paragon 30. Anyway, it's not really time spent; it's more like, "This game sucks so much I will only grind it nonstop doing mindless tasks for two more weeks! Arghh my life!"

The OP probably has a love/hate relationship with D3.


I was doing mindless Demonic Essence runs last week for dozens of hours (HATE).

In return, I was able to craft 500+ Dex amulets (LOVE).

500 crafts and no trifecta (HATE). Hope this week's 500 will be better.

 

[Wolfpaq777]

while there are several things i dislike about d3 RoS loot, I have to say it's way better than what we have now. I just hope they can keep iterating and adding items that make builds work in interesting ways.

I think my biggest complaint about loot 2.0 is that legendaries are basically rares + an affix. While it's really really cool that said "affix" can be amazing and build changing, it is ridiculous that we have to roll our legendaries just like rares.

 

[RazeBarb]

dev team should be publicly executed for crimes against humanity

Stopped taking you seriously right there.

 

[Steven Hazani]

I'm loling hard at the number of people that miss such blatant hyperbole. Let me guess, you actually thought Belail was convincing?

 

[ADest]

The OP probably has a love/hate relationship with D3.

Yeah, I loved playing through it the first time, and hated it since then. lol.

I'm loling hard at the number of people that miss such blatant hyperbole.

You'd think the word HATER in caps in the thread title set the tone, but...
Anyway, I've had some more time to play on the PTR since the initial post and it's really the only good argument for RoS. I've decided to give the expansion a shot. A lot of gameplay issues are apparently getting addressed. I seriously doubt the new itemization is going to be some major improvement over the current, but I've been playing the game with broken items for what, going on three years now? Also, it looks like I'll still be too poor to craft things like gems.