L H wrote:HechtHeftig wrote:There is always a disparity between core gamers and casual gamers. The MXL team need to make up their mind on which group they want to satisfy.
Dunno if you meant that as you wrote it or if you just worded it badly.
They definitely don't need to make a decision for which half of the player base they want to support. The idea is to make it balanced across the entire audience. Deciding to support the core gamers is what drives a lot of casuals to single player, when the goal is to create a more interactive, multiplayer game and increase the reach and popularity.
Probably the 2nd one
Yeah what I meant is that especially in case of droprates, casual players like me don't find it really fun playing an assassin who can't even farm TA with 500 sigs farmed at Nilathak at a decent speed. It's like nothing is dropping for me at all. It's like there's a barrier that says: "Nope. Not for you."
And now the suggestion to reduce drops was made. I can't think of this idea as any good. Of course, my necro just blarghs through everything and easily farms, but other chars aren't even close as "balanced".
The drop rates are exactly fine as they are. The main problem is the imbalance between characters. Of course, if you play Holy melee pala, you'll easily plow through everything. Same goes for Treewarden and nearly any barb. But there are some builds that aren't even close as supported as those (I know, Holy melee needed a rework. I don't deny that.) like Stormzon (which has basically no early game items like very other build. There aren't even many endgame items), Clawsin (I tried a couple of them, but without dying at least 20 times you won't get a single charm with TU gear alone)
So what this all comes down to is a complete imbalance between character classes. However there are steadily new things introduced that break the balance. I personally think that there should be every uber available for every character/build. No, I don't mean that every build should be able to farm all ubers. I just mean, that every build should
have access to every uber. However, the new Baal completely goes against that. Any summoner build is simply fucked and needs to find a way to get rid of him, just for the sake of getting a charm that's not even useful for that build. So what's the only option? Not killing him and not caring about that charm. The same goes for Torajan Jungles. If my throwsin needs 40 minutes and 3 deaths just to get to Akarat, that's not fun, if you know that a Treewarden or a Totemancer just run/teleport through the level without any effort and get to Akarat within 3 minutes.
Anyway, back to topic. The good thing about SP was that there was a place for casual gamers like me, with increased drops. I agree, the drops were ridiculous in the last few patches, but before MXL 2017, those drop rates were fine. All it needed for SP was halving those drops and done. But now they're the same like in MP and I wonder why. As someone who plays 1-2 hours a day at max, I simply can't afford spending 10 hours in TA just to find 1 item that helps me further. Reducing drop rates is no way to go for me.
And another point is that there are too many useless SU's and sets. I'm glad that the mxl team is working on that. I really am. But reducing the droprates, without having an equal amount of moments like "Oh, that item is nice and can actually help my build. It's not best, but it's better than my TU gear/rw." implemented, this is a bad suggestion for casual players.
TL/DR & to sum up my wall of text:
-the imbalance between characters and builds makes the game too easy for those OP builds. But those builds are mainly played, which results in a fast ending ladder.
-reducing droprates won't help making the ladder longer. It will only repel the casual players like me, as the core gamers get their illusion of a longer ladder just because they had to spend 15 minutes longer to get their perfect gear. Especially with the difference in droprates between SP and MP gone, casual players like me don't seem to have any place here anymore. What good is farming for hours without any visible improvement?
Just to point one thing out: I started playing SP because I had no internet connection for half a year. But I liked that I didn't have to farm for hours without any improvement, that's why I stayed in SP. However, even before I started playing SP, there were tons of new people in MP who simply didn't log in anymore, just because the farming didn't help their builds at all and they got tired of playing. I was online at the start of the last 2 ladders. And when the current the ladder started, my friendlist was basically dead except for LH, who threw me out of his flist and RandomOnions, who I just added because of the Swarm, but since nobody else from that clan was on, I went back to SP. However, all those other players, that were in my flist before, were gone. Those were casual players like me. Simply because they got tired of farming and being stuck due to that invisible wall. I remember back then before I started playing SP, that one guy, who played a bowazon. I basically made all charms for him, because he couldn't do it. And in Duncraig, he was only there to hold my TP open, so I could kill assur. Is that fun? Ofc not.
Yes, new players will eventually come, but they will leave just as quickly if no measures are taken agains the imbalance. Yes, Summoner nec and Totemnec are OP atm as well.
Another point: the whole game right now is not balanced around party play. "Oh you want to farm Tristram? You better do it on your own, because only 1 box drops instead of 1 box for every player in the party & area." "Oh, you want to farm arcane crystals at Mephisto in hatred to improve yourself? You better do it on your own, because others will just take away your loot." "Oh you want to do LC1? You better do it either on your own, or run the level multiple times with friends, because there's only 1 elemental prism and 1 possible upgrade each time." You basically can't play the game from 1-120 with 2 new players, because they need to divide all the time in order to farm stuff or to get their challenges done.
Okay my rant is over now.
EDIT: I know some points I made contradict each other. No need to point that out. I just want a balanced game, where every character/build has the same chances without big differences in difficulty and a game that's making party play worth it.
Edit2: wow this is the first time I got a downvote for a post that I made when I wasn‘t drunk
anyway as long as the one who downvoted me doesn‘t give a counter argument, my opinion remains so your downvote is useless