d3 Blues on Addons and Bots, 10,000+ Paragon, Brawl Leveling and Angel Squishiness

[Starym 3,801]

 

It seems there's been a major shift in community management for Diablo 3 as we've noticed over the last couple of weeks, as Associate producer Matthew Cederquist is replying to basically every relevant active thread on the official forums. After a long time of very few responses and poor communication with the community, it seems the Diablo 4 reveal re-prioritized things and we now have some proper blue representation for D3. While a lot of these replies are just "we are aware and working on it", we can't really expect a lot more from the very small dev team still working on D3 so this shift is pretty significant if you take that into consideration. Today we have a look at the topics we've gotten a reply on over the holiday weekend - an upcoming brawl leveling trick, the party XP bug, 10,000+ paragon level Barbarians and Crusaders, addons and bots and, of course, Angel squishiness.

Matthew has been very active over the holiday break and responded to a whole host of popular topics, starting with an interesting one - it seems there's a way to get to 70 in around an hour through brawling! You just set the difficulty to T6 in a 4 player party and brawl away until you ding max level pretty fast. Obviously speed leveling isn't anything new as players can be power leveled by others very quickly anyway, but apparently this method wasn't intended and will be fixed, as you don't need a higher level player to boost you for it to work.

Brawling XP Fix (source)

Hey all,

This definitely isn’t the way we want players to level in the game and will most likely be fixed for the next patch.

Then there's the party joining bug that was supposed to be fixed a few days ago but apparently wasn't:

Party Joining Bug (source)

Thanks everyone for the responses. We’ll continue to look at it and get more things into testing so we can squash this bug.

Sorry for it taking so long with the holiday weekend and all.

There's also been a lot of discussion about balance and Barbarians and Crusaders in particular, with two specific examples being used as a debate/whine point on the forums, as one Barb managed a 142 GR within 12 minutes (and of course was used as proof that Barbs are fine) and one Crusader at 146 GR was pointed out as OP. It turns out both of these are non-seasonal and have over 10,000 paragon levels, but Matthew had two very differing comments for them starting with the Barbarian:

10,000+ Paragon Level Clears (source)

Hey folks,

Just to chime in here. At 10,288 Paragon, this specific Barbarian is +1 GR over the proposed balance of the game. Looks like absolute fantastic design and balance to us.

Thanks for pointing out someone who has immense dedication and awesome gear!

...

Definitely not fantastic design and balance. This one particular Crusader at 10,176 Paragon is about +5 GRs above our expected.

Something to look into for next patch!

Not to put too fine a point on it, but at those paragon levels and THAT high a GR clear, with the amount of factors going into builds etc, classes are never EVER going to be that balanced. Not in D3, not in D4 or any other game ever made by anyone. Seriously. People asking for that level of balance in an ARPG are just begging for a watered-down, +0.3% to damage affixes and talents systems, because those are the only ones that can ever be balanced to such a degree. Just accept the fact some classes will be more powerful than others and let there be actual builds and creative uses of them in the damn game and shut the hell up on this eternal balance quest that's basically ruining RPGs.

Ok, not sure sure where that rant came from but I stand by it!

Then it's on to a discussion on addons/mods, with TurboHud being the focus of discussion, and it seems we'll be getting a larger post on the topic of mods soon as well, with bots being in the cross hairs as well:

TurboHud Addon (source)

Hey Dtune -

TurboHud has some cool features, but on the other hand, has some features that give players more of an advantage. In the past, TurboHud fell by the wayside and didn’t catch the attention of anti-cheat programs.

We’ll have more to say on this in the very near future, but to answer your question, TurboHud is seen as a program that should not be used in the game in its current state.

As for bots, their time is coming.

And finally we have an answer to the age old question: Just how squishy are Angels? It seems some players aren't happy with the 500 killstreak ability proc as their feathered friends die too quickly to the Rift Guardian:

Angel Squishiness (source)

Yes. Angels should die to the RG. If untouched, they can also produce massive damage.

 

Related Diablo 3 articles:

• Party Joining Bug Fixed

• Rank 1 Greater Rift 150 Clear on Day 4 of Season 19

• Matchmaking Issues, Seasonal Reward Structure, Bugged Cursed Chests and Crusader Power Talk Blues

• Armory Profiles Have Been Fixed and Are Back Online

• All Class Guides for Diablo 3 Season 19, Patch 2.6.7a

• 300 Killstreak Friendly Fire Bug Fixed, Crusader Overperforming

• Patch 2.6.7a Known Issues: November 21st

• 2.6.7a Balance Patch Now Live + Final Patch Notes

• 2.6.7A Balance Patch and Season 19 Notes: Lamentation Returns, Crusader Nerf and More

• Lilith's Embrace Wings in Diablo III for Virtual Ticket Holders

[Cntrl 4]

So just because he’s a lower paragon but got to push 5 levels higher it’s OP there is a lot of variables in this , like what’s the gear ? You already stated 

how many times did these players die

what and how many shrines were grabbed during these runs 

I’m 700 paragon on seasonal and pushed 103 and wouldn’t have been able to if I didn’t grab 1) power pylon and 2) conduit , the conduit by its self does a lot more damage at higher paragons my whirlwind might do .9% of a elites health off first hit but the conduit does 5% just an example .

[SidonisAntares 290]

1 hour ago, Cntrl said:

So just because he’s a lower paragon but got to push 5 levels higher it’s OP there is a lot of variables in this , like what’s the gear ? You already stated 

how many times did these players die

what and how many shrines were grabbed during these runs 

I’m 700 paragon on seasonal and pushed 103 and wouldn’t have been able to if I didn’t grab 1) power pylon and 2) conduit , the conduit by its self does a lot more damage at higher paragons my whirlwind might do .9% of a elites health off first hit but the conduit does 5% just an example .

Exactly. Gear, map (the usefulness of class mobility abilities vary by map), pylon/shrine placement, paragon allocation of prime stat vs hp soak (a lot of people favor a 10:1 ratio), mob types and elite/champion affixes, all make it extremely difficult to have consistency of runs at max rift.

[Valhalen 1,484]

Blizzard really needs to get rid of leaderboards in D4. It just fuels the toxicity of the community towards primarly PvE-oriented game. "Boo hoo this class is too OP, nerf plis".

Edited December 2, 2019 by Valhalen

[Yridaa 490]

On 12/1/2019 at 7:27 PM, Starym said:

Ok, not sure sure where that rant came from but I stand by it!

 

The thing is, There's a difference between "This build deals 30% more damage than any other build" and "This build deals 80x the damage of the best build of another class". There's a difference between whining about balance and mathematically flawed.

[Starym 3,801]

6 hours ago, Yridaa said:

The thing is, There's a difference between "This build deals 30% more damage than any other build" and "This build deals 80x the damage of the best build of another class". There's a difference between whining about balance and mathematically flawed.

But people here are whining about a 4 GR difference at the 140 level. Soooo....

[Koxsos 38]

8 hours ago, Starym said:

But people here are whining about a 4 GR difference at the 140 level. Soooo....

isn't 4 GR difference a huge difference at that level? ?

[Starym 3,801]

6 hours ago, Koxsos said:

isn't 4 GR difference a huge difference at that level? ?

I mean I guess it depends on how you look at it. It's certainly not the 8x more powerful thing Yridaa was talking about. My point was that that's some extreme late-game stuff that the vast majority of players won't ever get to notice, but all these amazingly pro people that do the max paragon 10,000 clears get the community riled up. Or wait, not, it's not actually the 10k paragon guys, they're just playing the game, it's the random theorycrafters that probably didn't even clear GR 120 that point to these crazy high clears and start whining about balance.  It's just sad, really, because these people form the communities opinion on what is and isn't "OP" and then everyone thinks that, despite never having experienced it themselves.

There's no way you can get that level of balance with this many factors, and whining about stuff like this is begging to have a dumbed down game (which is exactly what's happening in gaming overall, with a few exceptions).

[Koxsos 38]

It does make me wonder, how much time would it take to get to max paragon nowadays?
I mean if people saw 5k paragon a year ago, it was automatically with high probability a botter.

Are we making design choices based off botter (or botter-level dedicated) player with a pylon chain rift?

From my perspective, as someone who does not even have 1k paragon off season in spite of getting to 900ish paragon in seasonals I still find it daunting and near impossible to achieve through average player means.

[Oreoxd 165]

I'm just in awe that people have gotten to that point in D3. 10k paragon is insane.