Σ 1.6 Bugs&Feedback

[Goatmilk]

I killed Lillith in Toraja next to a fence, and she didn't drop any items or charm.
I guess she was a little too much "inside" the fence, though she was just fleeing and standing next to it.

[suchbalance]

And he's not even the "final boss" anymore because the devs decided to come up with "MXL exclusive lore" that includes monsters/enemies that have NOTHING to do with Diablo 2 lore (translation: they're making things up as they go).

If you carefully read the new lore you'd realise that it's narratively coherent with the ending of the LoD expansion. Yes it doesn't feature a name you've heard previously in d2 lore but I'd argue it's even more lore appropriate than other content, because it relies on the actual story instead of just name dropping for nostalgia.

Without going too far into Median's existential problem of in-balance whereby no one can just pick any character and build, go from level 0 all the way to Samael and Deimoss without being the "right" build and/or having the "right" stats and/or gear at the "right" times.

Your balance criticism is also way off base, to be honest. First, Samael & Deimoss/high Labs are content made to challenge hardcore players, and be hard for min-maxed characters. That's the entire purpose of that content and the best players around have already proven that this content can be defeated with dozens of different builds. If you're not one of the people targeted in those quests, that's completely fine. But expecting to defeat the content without meeting the requirements is unreasonable.

Second, every single build is exceptionally more balanced in the current version compared to any other Median XL iteration. You can literally pick any class build and be able to finish 95% of the content with sufficient grind and know-how. You are welcome to go back to Ultimative, and see how smooth your boss clear will be with a barb summoner, holy melee paladin, psi assassin, mana sorc or tree warden etc. by comparison. There are literally dozens more examples.
Some of the stuff you have gripes with like level lockouts are some of the best innovations of Sigma and part of the reason why our community, based on a 20 year old game, keeps growing in 2020 while older Median versions eventually tapered off.

It's OK to miss older versions, they were your first introduction to Median after all, or have complaints, but pretending like the sky is falling to give yourself more credence isn't constructive. It might be a good idea to take a break. Maybe play some older median versions or other arpgs to clear your palate?

[Johnny Impak]

Why is the 2% block bonus to Shadow Dancer when using Bloodbath considered to be dependent on character level ? Notes says % is fixed at 2%

Also, Shadow Dancer is a lvl 18 skill in a normally lvl 12 slot. That isn’t a bug in itself, but unlocking it a lvl 18 gives you 3 base points instead of two. Pretty sure it isn’t intended.

[OnlyForFun]

You can literally pick any class build and be able to finish 95% of the content with sufficient grind and know-how.

This is true, but gap between meta and non-meta builds is way too large. As you said you can complete 95% of the content with majority of builds, but amount of time/nerves spent compared to meta builds makes it not worth and very unrewarding/annoying to play.

[Diaco]

You can literally pick any class build and be able to finish 95% of the content with sufficient grind and know-how.

This is true, but gap between meta and non-meta builds is way too large. As you said you can complete 95% of the content with majority of builds, but amount of time/nerves spent compared to meta builds makes it not worth and very unrewarding/annoying to play.

what do you consider "meta builds"? because there are builds that can kill samael but are extremely hard to gear or level, and builds that can be geared and leveled very easily but have a really hard time killing samael. there are also builds that are xcellent for farming and terrible for bossing and vice-versa. different builds have different strengths and weaknesses. I don't think it would make much sense if all builds could do all content with an equal amount of investment, skill, difficulty and time

[OnlyForFun]

We talking about 95% of content, i dont care about samael or laz etc
There builds that very good at both farming and killing bosses, they are "meta" builds, and others feels bad when they can do only 1 thing or farming or bosses, and most of time they do it WORSE then those meta builds no matter what.

Its like in poe, having 2 builds 1 will do 10m dps with 1ex investment, other to be close should invest few mirrors, that the difference i see in sigma

[Diaco]

We talking about 95% of content, i dont care about samael or laz etc
There builds that very good at both farming and killing bosses, they are "meta" builds, and others feels bad when they can do only 1 thing or farming or bosses, and most of time they do it WORSE then those meta builds no matter what.

Its like in poe, having 2 builds 1 will do 10m dps with 1ex investment, other to be close should invest few mirrors, that the difference i see in sigma

what builds are you talking about, specifically? afaik there are no builds that are excellent at everything unless they have crazy gear, but then again, any build can do everything with crazy gear if you master its gameplay. Also, I didn't mean that great farmers can't kill bosses, they just might have a harder time at it or do it slower than builds that are aimed towards bossing and vice-versa

[Marco]

We talking about 95% of content, i dont care about samael or laz etc
There builds that very good at both farming and killing bosses, they are "meta" builds, and others feels bad when they can do only 1 thing or farming or bosses, and most of time they do it WORSE then those meta builds no matter what.

Its like in poe, having 2 builds 1 will do 10m dps with 1ex investment, other to be close should invest few mirrors, that the difference i see in sigma

How about you point out exactly the builds and their flaws, rather than just saying "there are bad builds = the game isnt balanced". It seems like a pretty useless conclusion to make when there's always going to be a best and a worst build, depending on multiple factors, which fluctuate over time. A good way to judge balance is to measure the contrast between "the very best" and "the very worst". And in this regard sigma is quite ahead of ultimative or 2012, it would be probably difficult to make a consensus on what current worst builds are, but if we go back I can definitely remember many unusable builds and even classes (druid + paladin, looking at you) so not sure how exactly older MXL was even slightly more balanced than now.

If you want to compare MXL to other games that's perfectly fine. Let's use the "how many chars can clear all content" technique and see what game we can learn from. Diablo 3 comes to mind. So the fact that the average person can clear 95% content in D3 with any build makes it the pinnacle of arpg balance? Or is the game just extremely easy meant for 3-button console play, and doesnt have any content to begin with?

Last thing, you mentioned how "inefficient" and "unrewarding" it is to build non-meta. When you play meta builds you lose a lot of momentum because there's great demand for the items you need, they're always "already sold" and you need an investment for it. When you play non-meta, you can "nihlathak" yourself some endgame gear (selling acs) in a couple hours, then it's all gain. Paradoxically, the more meta a build becomes, the less meta is becomes because the investment grows therefore reducing efficiency. Ever wondered why the best players play non-meta, even though they could afford 10x trinibeam setups if they wanted?

[OnlyForFun]

Ever wondered why the best players play non-meta, even though they could afford 10x trinibeam setups if they wanted?

Can you say who are those players? for me there not just 1 meta build, there few


in my opinion those current strong meta
Melee nec
Lightning sorc
tribeam pala
vessel pala
bowzons
trapsin?

buy to make build work sounds not very fun

[Diaco]

Ever wondered why the best players play non-meta, even though they could afford 10x trinibeam setups if they wanted?

Can you say who are those players? for me there not just 1 meta build, there few


in my opinion those current strong meta
Melee nec
Lightning sorc
tribeam pala
vessel pala
bowzons
trapsin?

buy to make build work sounds not very fun

oh man, those are some VERY ill informed opinions...