Not only by mid-level. No matter how good the rework has been for me, a veteran player, I cannot but agree on how bad the road to a full mythic custom build feels right now. It reminds me of the time I had to farm season 2.0 dungeons to get the 8 corrupted relics I needed to to get 2 corrupted pieces to mythic (we didn’t have the ability to buy them or get them from eveline at that time). It was over 2 months farming a single dungeon and oppening hundreds of “useless” chests waiting for those lucky drops that sometimes took weeks. The experience was pretty bad, boring, joyless and tedious. Had I needed to do that for all 12 pieces I might had decided not to even try it. And the time I have spent farming after the update in search of mythic pieces feels exactly the same as that.
Now, we can argue that the new farming may be not so different in terms of time taken compared to upgrading a legendary by spending 4 glyphs and mythic relics. However, the difference is that the latter created a sense of progression where each glyph and mythic relics felt like steps to getting near the goal. That made the process much more enjoyable and even predictable, since in the end it could be just a matter of getting enough gems to buy them. The current system, on the contrary, gives no feeling of progression: you either get the drop or you don’t.
This is a game where the long term goal is not clearing its content (which after the rework I am pretty sure it can be done with just legendary gear) but getting the best gear and builds. So for players to keep playing they need to be able to see purchasing those goals feasible.
-
Veteran players are pretty happy because they have now further goals (max honing, getting higher quality mythics…).
-
Starting players can be pretty happy since they haven’t known the previous system and they will be getting high rarity items much faster than what we did (I started a new account to test it and I am pretty surprised: already level 40 and a great custom build with 2 legendaries, 2 epics and the rest rares, when previously even having all rares wouldn’t have been possible).
-
The main issue is for mid players that already had a custom build prepared and where in the middle of upgrading it… And now not only have they lost that path, but the alternative is nothing but a tedious and joyless grind with no sense of progression and feeling more like spending time for another shot at the lottery. If they believe the results are not worth the effort… I understand how frustrated and on the verge of quitting they are. As a game, we play it mostly to enjoy it. Otherwise, why even play?
So, although I personally like the gear rework and I believe there are plenty of positive aspects, I agree that the current path to a mythic custom build is a big issue that may make players quit from frustration and lack of enjoyment. I believe a solution for this is required in order to make sure that players reaching mid game will feel motivated to keep playing towards the goal of becoming stronger. I see 2 main ways of doing this (there can be others, but those 2 are the ones that come to my mind):
-
Improving drop quality. Right now mythic item drop is too low to keep mid players engaged. 1 “random” mythic a week (you can reduce randomness by farming specific dungeons, but then you are limiting yourself to only play that) is a bad drop rate when that is the only way you have. Personally, I believe better drops would help, but it wouldn’t be enough yet.
-
Having the ability to upgrade/craft mythic gear. Relying only on random drops to get a custom mythic build doesn’t seem practical, since the drop rate needed to make it enjoyable would need to be too high. Therefore, we need to have some other way to make sure we can slowly work towards our goal with certainty. For example, a follower ability to craft a specific mythic item. This way, lucky drops will still be highly appreciated when they appear, but we are no longer dependent on them. Each rare and above item we get and salvage will make us feel we are progressing towards the goal of getting the mythic piece we want once we have gained enough aether. I believe this would make the farming process for mid level players less frustrating and more enjoyable. Even if it takes some time (as it did also take before) you would know that once you reach the aether amount needed you would get your desired mythic piece.
Therefore, I really hope that the devs take the opportunity of the upcoming follower rework and make sure that apart from the lucky drop path we also get a more certain, no random way of getting the mythic items we want (the quality of the craft may still be random, that can be balanced with the crafting cost and with another possible ability for reforging quality of items). Randomness is nice and opening chests becoming more interesting is surely something welcome. But we also need some certainties and much more when currently the new system makes opening chests less “I am excited to see what it is inside” and more “if this is the 100th chest with nothing valuable I will rage” (a feeling enhanced by the historical issue of this game of having too many worthless resources, nothing more frustrating than opening a diamond chest to get a follower crystal you have no use for, your 500 and 5001th rare relic, 300th epic relic, 200th legendary rune and 100th mythic scroll…).
I am putting my hopes on this. It is tough that we will need to wait so much but if at least we can trust that the issues will be solved it may help us being patient enough to see if the new system can be further honed so that all of us can fully enjoy it. The current feelings of the player base are quite clear: progressing towards a high rarity custom build is boring, tedious, joyless and too dependent on randomness. I trust the devs to aknowledge this and work towards addressing our concerns and giving us a better experience for us to keep playing and enjoying.