D3 2.0 vs ROS (Loot unt)

[Digimortal]

D3 2.0 vs ROS (Loot hunt?)

I recently came back after the 2.0 patch and increased around 50 paragon levels as well as getting a character to 60. While enjoyed things initially i found my main character got stuck between T1 and T2. Around 8 hours of grinding saw no upgrades and each token legendary was worse than the last and less and less frequent.

This has me worried that ROS will face a similar problem, if it is based on the same drop mechanics, can anyone tell me what ROS truly does to change things, or can I expect to waste days off at a time with little to no reward in T1 70?

 

[Neanderfall]

Quickly after the patch I was able to upgrade my gear quickly. Legendary drops seemed more frequent at first and were a variety of sorts. That is until I got stuck in a leg drop loop where all drops were mostly rings and belts. Recently, on a game reset, I got about 8 belts in a row. I'm still using my rare bracers which are lvl 59 and my legendary shoulders which are lvl 34, still haven't found an upgrade since day one of patch release. I'm happy with the patch and the content to come, but I too have worried about how things are feeling like the not-so-long-ago days of Diablo 3. With that said, I'm not complaining. Just my experience thus far.

 

[Digimortal]

Precisely, I should also point out that crafting played it's part in my item progression and perhaps accelerated my journey to the item wall a little quicker than most.

Is there anything in ROS that increases drop rates? Or is the balance of drops between Mobs, Packs, Bosses and Rewards more balanced than D3 2.0?

 

[HardRock]

Is there anything in ROS that increases drop rates?

Indirectly, yes. RoS will introduce Adventure mode to the game. In this game mode all Acts and waypoints are opened up for you from the start (even for level 1 characters). There are no Story quests, they are replaced with 5 randomly generated Bounties per Act. You'll receive XP and Gold rewards for doing these, just like for quests, the key difference being that from Expert difficulty and up you'll get double rewards, unlike for Story quests and random events.

Bounties may have 4(?) objectives:

- Kill X unique Elite and 50 enemies in a specific area.
- Kill one of the Bosses.
- Clear an area completely.
- Complete a Cursed event.

The increased rewards come from primarily 4 things:

1) In the first type of Bounty you'll be killing unique Elites (purple name). The vast majority of these are rare spawns in Story mode, but in my experience they have the best chance out of all enemy types to drop a Legendary (except maybe for Bosses).

2) Bosses and Cursed events can be lucrative as well, if not in drops, then in XP and/or Gold. Again, in Story mode Cursed events spawn more or less randomly, and while this is true in Adventure mode as well, here they'll be pointed out for you, at least the ones you have a Bounty for.

3) You'll get Horadric Caches as an added reward for doing Bounties. These are essentially huge bags of loot. By opening a few of these together you can really make it rain.

4) Rift Keystones may drop randomly from anything(?) in Adventure mode. 5 of these can be used in town to open a portal to a Nephalem Rift. Rifts are completely randomized areas. They have a randomly generated name, enemy composition (they even have Treasure Goblin groups and other surprises), enemy density, area (any dungeon or surface area), area layout (even previously fixed areas like the Dahlgur Oasis will be randomized), depth (they can be 10 levels deep, each completely random) and color theme.

If you get a good one Rifts can be extremely lucrative. In all cases you have to clear a ton of enemies, which will cause the Rift guardian to spawn near you. The guardians are Boss-like enemies with lots of HP, but they will shower you in loot and they have a good chance of dropping a Forgotten Soul, which is the level 61+ Legendary crafting material. These are required for the Enchanting of Legendaries items.

 

[InteNuIgen]

Thanks Hardrock for a very compact and clear description of Adventure mode....!

 

[HardRock]

Forgot to add that Blood Shards also drop in AM. Shards are another currency, used exclusive for Gambling, which is essentially the same thing it was in D2. You are guaranteed to get Rare items from it, with a potential for Legendaries.

 

[Digimortal]

Thank you, it sounds like the in game drop rates will be much the same but you build towards various perks/opportunities as you play which will increase the average number of drops per measure of time.

The randomisation is definitely going to help, I think if the 61+ items are a little more interesting in that they can change your builds without necessarily taking you to the next difficulty it will make the Grind far more pleasurable. Right now I'm getting legs that increase gold pick-up or health from orbs which is simply a yawn fest.

 

[HardRock]

it sounds like the in game drop rates will be much the same but you build towards various perks/opportunities as you play which will increase the average number of drops per measure of time.

That's exactly right, although you get additional rewards for completing all bounties in an Act, so there's still an incentive to do all kinds of things.

The randomisation is definitely going to help, I think if the 61+ items are a little more interesting in that they can change your builds without necessarily taking you to the next difficulty it will make the Grind far more pleasurable. Right now I'm getting legs that increase gold pick-up or health from orbs which is simply a yawn fest.

That's just the luck of the draw. If you check out the updated Game Guide you'll see that there are already many build changing Legendaries in the game. It's just that the less interesting ones drop more frequently.

 

[yovargas]

Around 8 hours of grinding saw no upgrades and each token legendary was worse than the last and less and less frequent.

Word of warning - due to the new mods, just looking at your DPS number can often be very misleading.

 

[HardRock]

Word of warning - due to the new mods, just looking at your DPS number can often be very misleading.

As we learned recently, even more so than we previously thought.

 

[Digimortal]

Yep, just now I found some "rubbish" bracers, and when combined with a "rubbish" axe I realised I was missing a 40% to fire damage skills while losing 15% overall and gaining plenty if healing. It's quite exciting really and in a way I wish they'd get rid of the guidance stats for damage toughness and healing to encourage more experimentation.

I'm glad I hung onto most of my loot drops to date, lesson learned.