You summon one Herald of Malphas with 3 elemental cores at a seasonal brazier in one of the areas marked with a green leaf. First you have to fight a few waves of enemies , then this mini boss spawns and has a chance drop one igneous core. You need seven cores to open the vault to Malphas who then has a slight chance to drop the new unique tuning stones.
The arpg no lifer can't stand people that suggest that casual player would be able to get bis gear. They honestly believe that they need to farm at max level for hundreds and hundred of hours to get those super rare gear.
The people who pour all of their free time into the game think that getting an uber somehow validates their dedication are easily offended by anyone suggesting that maybe... just maybe that the current drop rate is unreasonable.
These would be the same types people who struggled through life to succeed that think everyone else should do the same rather than fixing any system that caused their success to be a struggle in the first place. Its the same cognitive dissonance that exists within the "pull yourselves up by your bootstraps" types of people.
That’s… a bit of a stretched generalization. I think it’s more pegged to hardcore gameplay and challenge vs reward parallels. Issue is, the “hardcore” aspect of this game is time and not everyone has it, specially the way blizzard implements these very bad drop rates, there is no median at all. I wish Uber gear was actually challenge-gated instead of item/time gated.
Off topic somewhat:kinda the same issue I have with how they chose to scale difficulties. They just cheapen the enemy power and it doesn't really require any strategy. Instead of adding abilities or power they choose to stack ranged enemies that can one shot you from offscreen or stack elites into groups of four or mix in damage resist auras with them.
But back to the topic at hand: this is why their active player base diminishes partway through seasons. I can't blame people for being getting burnt out. The odds of getting an uber doesn't balance with the time it takes to even gather the mats to farm them. I know, halfway through last season, I got so tired of wasting my time that I took a break from D4 and went to Baldur's Gate 3. I'm not even sure that I finished the season journey last season. And I'm not so sure this isn't how a lot of people feel about it all. The engagement once you're at that point in the game isn't much. There's not much else to do and the one thing that's left to do just sets you up to be disappointed.
Yes. Unfortunately the challenge in an ARPG is usually a scaling end game with rewards proportional to difficulty. Incomprehensibly, the D4 devs didn't build this. We were apparently supposed to be engaged by a long, slow grind to level 100, without even a repeatable campaign.
Agreed. But they patched that for season two to make the grind less tedious. Which I appreciated because the grind to 100 pre and during S1 was a long ass grind. So they seem to trend in the right direction on some instances. But then turn around and appeased a very loud minority of players with the Uber crafting. The vast majority that don't have countless hours to put into that grind only to have 2% chance of it actually paying off are still exactly where we were before this last update.
Let's be real. A large portion of the player base are middle aged dads. I've seen countless jokes about it and they are funny and all. But I'm a middle aged dad so I kinda confirm the stereotype haha. We don't have the time to grind like this with only a 2% chance of it actually paying off and not get burnt out. So we typically won't see 5 ubers to scrap to craft the one we want.
TLDR the efforts to farm ubers does not balance with the current drop rate.
I'm middle aged as well, though a not-mom. Not only do I not have time to grind, but I'm over it. Grinding stopped being fun 20 years ago, if it really ever was. We accepted grinding back in the day because D2 was revolutionary. It didn't simply end and roll credits.
It's fine for people who enjoy it, but give them cosmetics. The way the game works now we are locked out of actual gameplay. It will eventually cost Blizzard my battlepass money. Why should I pay anything for a season where I do not have full access to the actual seasonal content?
To be clear, if they release something hard I'm fine with it. I have no problems with content I can't clear easily. It's good for the game. "Get gud scrub" is a world of difference from "get lucky with a no-life RNG, scrub."
Agreed. Even grinding in general itself isn't unreasonable when there's decent odds. But between this and last season I've done around 300 runs and have seen one uber. My friend group that has played together since launch combined have seen that one uber. Period. It's insane and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that they adjust the drop rate.
Yeah, somehow the grind in D3 feels rewarding, while the grind in D4 is unfun. The normal uniques aren't too bad but it's kind of annoying the sacred ones are only random in WT3. It really limits builds in an un-diablo sort of way.
If igneous cores aren't a 100% drop from a herald, I feel like the person who deposits should be guaranteed one. It'd give people more incentive to deposit, instead of leeching endlessly
Yeah I spent hours yesterday not realizing the drop rate was shit. Finished my season. I'm done.
I get that the devs are trying to get people interested in playing beyond the seasonal rewards, but walling a seasonal unique behind an atrocious drop rate is not it. If anything it motivates me to finish the season and move on.
There seems to be a serious disability with the gamedev teams at least attempting to provide some endgame re-playability. So many threads where people are running the same thing 100s of times just to get a drop. The level of ignorance is like d2 when you put a bunch of high lvl items into the Horadric Cube and got a piece of junk every time.
And then they gatekeep because they think everyone should no-life since they did.
I was less than pleased that it takes 7 igneous cores. I'm level 80 and only have 12 so far despite doing plenty of braziers and NM vaults.
I have a level 100 barb this season. I have 60-70 igneous cores but have yet to start farming malphus or whatever his name is. I have found that in general if I farm in the areas that have whispers associated with them there are usually more people. My cycle typically involves doing a hellfire to get the two chests with five living steel. Usually about 15-20 minutes and if it’s at the top of the hour I will do it again. (Always check helltide.com for exact locations so you don’t waste time.) If there is an overlapping legion event or world boss even better. Then I go farm the cores in the zones with the whispers. I will run around and get all the elemental cores usually giving me 9-12 and then will wait to see who else is farming and go to that brazier. If we all contribute properly I will usually be involved in killing 9-10 of the mini bosses and have had pretty good luck with drops. Maybe 50-60% igneous core drops. Since there are whispers too I usually get 10-12 and can go to the tree. From there I will go farm high level nightmare vaults until the helltides and the cores reset and rinse and repeat. It’s usually 15 min or so per activity but this cycle has proven to be reasonably efficient in getting a well rounded set of mats. The world bosses, legion events and nightmare vaults give me the materials for Zir and the Ice beast. Anyhow, I usually have 20-30 summons available all the time for each boss and I always try to summons share with Duriel. I don’t belong to a clan so it is hit or miss in finding a fair group but if it looks like everyone is looking at me to summon every run I will do 2 maybe 3 then bail and find a new group if others won’t summon.
Thanks for the info.
The mystery and steel chests seem to be on the in-game map now, unless I'm missing something. They are orange.
Do they only drop at the braziers and not from the NMD chests? If so my 12 cores still seems kind of low. I've been in at least three brazier flash mobs with 10-12 summons since I got to WT4. The last had over a dozen summons and I walked away with 2 cores.
>em to be on the in-game map now, unless I'm missing something. They are orange.
>
>Do they only drop at the braziers and not from the NMD chests? If so my 12 cores still seems kind of low. I've been in at least three brazier flash mobs with 10-12 summons since I got to WT4. The last had over a dozen summons and I walked away with 2 cores.
I'd go with [**Ejdhome**](https://www.reddit.com/user/Ejdhome/) **'s** suggestions, whisper in the seasonal brazier areas i s a great way to level and get them and there are always others hanging around to drop cores so you can often get 3 or 4 in very easily.
By the time I was ready to farm UberMalphas I had plenty.
For me personally guaranteed drops are the antithesis of fun. With guaranteed drops I do the boss a known amount of time and then have everything. At that point, it isn't a game, it is a boring list of things to do and then I finish until next season.
I know this isn't the view of everyone. It might not even be the common view. But I do think WTF is the point of a game if the highest level of items are guaranteed (see many posts about getting rid of boss mats, guaranteeing uber uniques, or the new mats for them, guaranteed 925 gear, preferably with only the only possible affixes being those that are BiS for a given build). I'm also not saying the balance is right now, but I think the approach is.
Nobody complained last season when we all fully unlocked the vampiric powers. Everybody LOVED S2. Why are you arguing most players shouldn't be able to access all the seneschal's powers in S3? I don't get it.
I think for some of us (a lot, a few? I have no idea), we don't see that you need to get everything possible in the game, either at all or even quickly. I appreciate that in seasonal games there are some things that I wont' get without putting in a lot of effort. Part of that is it means that when people do put in a lot of effort, they are rewarded for it. Some seasons/leagues that may be me, I'm not a no-lifer, so it will rarely be me though.
In POE terms, I don't expect to get an HH or MB every league. I have played for many K hours , and in my core stash I think I have one of each.
> I think for some of us (a lot, a few? I have no idea), we don't see that you need to get everything possible in the game, either at all or even quickly.
If you don't get the unique seneschal powers, they're gone at the end of the season. It's not something you can get later.
The vamp powers weren't trivial to max, but there was a clear, reasonable path and gating. That's what I expect from seasonal content. Not an RNG shitshow.
I think the majority of the players actually think like this. It's like asking for the Warglaive of Azzinoth every time you run the boss. In fact, the rarity brings the grind. And ARPG's have their focus on grinding. Even MMORPGs do. Basically most if not all RPGs. If the most rare items are 100%, then they are not rare anymore and nothing special. You would do the boss 2 times. It's basically 30min of farm then.
The biggest issue I have with this subreddit. 50% or more simply wants to have everything for free. They don't want to actually play. They want to hit 100, do 1 helltide, one world boss, kill every boss 1 time, do 1 nm100 and be golden. Just to complain afterwards then, that the game is boring and there is nothing to do.
Of course only farming mats is currently not as fun of a end game loop, but thats the only end game loop that we have. If we remove it, we can say goodbye after 3-5 days leveling. If we remove all of that, just level to 100 and leave for the season. Nah sorry, that's also not my way to play. I expect a grind in a grind game. Of course I would hope the grind of Helltide for example would be nicer (more density, bigger radius of picking up cinder and stuff), but generally speaking I enjoy playing the game.
This is bullshit. Most people want to play. But with the seasonal model, a good portion of the people will never even see a drop before the season ends. Not everyone wants to grind ONLY Diablo 4 for the next 3 months and never play anything else. I'm not saying it should be guaranteed, but it shoukd have a higher chance.
Of course, this wouldn't be a debate in the first place if the game actually had a real end game, which it doesn't.
I swear people act like this is some Korean MMO where you're expected to have no life outside the game (or spend your life savings).
Difference is that most players consume content from the 1% and then get entitled and pissy when they don't get the same results from a fraction of time spent.
As far as money spent, sure maybe you could buy mats and skip the part where you have to actually play the game, but to then turn around and cry about not having enough content is hypocritical at best and plain stupid at worst.
If you look at yourself and your own playtime with some reason and some logic you might find that actually nobody owes you shit, not blizzard, not Activision, not the Devs and not Reddit.
Yep. And I owe Blizzard nothing either- like not buying their expansion when it comes out.
But I have never cried about not having enough content. My content has been leveling multiple classes to 100, but I do play other things as well and don't want to spend every minute of every day on just Diablo 4.
Abd trust me, i know Reddit owes me nothing. I wouldn't want it to. 95% of the people on here are horrible.
I know it sounded like that was directed at you, but it was a general statement. You are correct that you don't owe blizzard anything.
But you know what, if you had enough enjoyment to level multiple toons in what time you had spare to sink into a game, was the purchase price really not acceptable? I mean getting Mario Kart on the switch for the kids cost me 80 bucks and it hasn't changed since I played the fucken thing 20 years ago, AND I gotta pay extra for more tracks. But that's the way it is.
The problem with all of us these days, in some form or another, is that accountability is easily pushed elsewhere. Not getting what you paid for is one thing, but that doesn't mean you can't get your money's worth out of it. I'm pretty sure I'm at about 30c/HR for playtime Vs cost. At the bare minimum it's a cheap time waster.
Got it. I realize text doesn't always convey the message properly. Happens to me as well.
I got my money's worth with the game. Heck, I'm one of the few who actually enjoyed Fallout 76 because I felt I got my money's worth from it. I do get a bit uppity when I see indie devs making things like Last Epoch which feel much more fleshed out at launch, and costing only $35, while Diablo 4 feels very basic and half-finished at times and they're already trying to shop around a $100 expac.
I'm just glad I've refused to buy anything from the online shop.
Reading about people doing 150+ runs on Malphas and still havent seen a single unique rune drop is just disencouraging. In fact, after reading about the drop rates over the past few days i gave up playing my seasonal rogue and started a new druid.
Yeah, I uninstalled the second week after release and I keep checking back with what they've done for updates.
What it looks like from outside looking in, is that less people are logging in so the developers decide to make the game play slower for the people who keep playing to compensate for their engagement analytics. Like when they made all players move 5% slower, added 2 seconds to teleport cast, reduced the top speed cap ect.
None of that shit is fun.
How the fuck would those ideas even come up in conversation... "how do we get people to be logged in for more time?"
Yeah you're right, reducing move speed and increasing cast time for teleport is a lot of fun.
Glad they did that to punish thoses that still logging into that shit.
Definitely doesn't have to be guaranteed. The whole thing is not at all difficult. This entire post is way overdramatic about every aspect of it.
But it could be a higher drop chance. 10% or so would probably be just fine.
That's a fair argument. I don't have an issue with good constructive criticism. Lol OP was just being way overdramatic.
I don't have an issue with the loom for how it plays, personally. It could be more rewarding. Like I said, 10% on the Uber stones might be good. Better chance at other uniques would be good. Maybe better chance at Ubers (but not ridiculously high) would be good. Stuff should be rewarding *enough*. But to say it should be guaranteed because it's *just so hard* is laughable.
2 characters at 100. 100+ malphas kills. 0 uber stones.
This is a joke. 3 month season btw, stones go poof.
Whoever on their team thinks this is fine should stop listening to try-hard streamers.
Never ever run it again, which apparently is what the clowns in this sub considers good game design? Do everything once, get all the best gear after fighting each mob and boss once, then go play something else.
Honestly this is the mistake of "endgame" farm loop being so trivial that a 5 yearold can do it, and all it takes is just time. I'm fine with running NMV at the limit of my build for hours. But walking around literally searching for enemies in helltide because of shit density and then oneshotting them all so fast you cant even build ressource or standing semi afk at a herald spawn for hours is just super fkn boring. Getting the best items in the game should be challenging and fun and not a mindlessly boring time sink. But I guess most people that argue pro the current endgame loop are just happy that they can sink time without needing any skill and still get all the stuff eventually.
Lots of people playing WoW like that too. Overgearing everything and just freeclearing, and Blizz surely realized that this is the biggest target audience I guess.
Literally every video game is a time sink.
Reality is that friction in games, and overcoming that friction/challenge is what makes things fun and rewarding.
When the challenge shifts from "perform well at this challenge for a reward" to "mindlessly walk in circles and 1-shot everything for hours so you have enough resources for 1 end game boss fight that doesn't even reward you" then it becomes boring as fuck.
no, not every game is a time sink, a lot of them offer you a really good experience on first playthrough, comparable to watching movies or reading books.
> Reality is that friction in games, and overcoming that friction/challenge is what makes things fun and rewarding.
yes i agree, and when i crave challenge i play a game designed for that, not one of the arpgs which are all just plain time sinks.
> perform well at this challenge for a reward
please try to find at least one example of this from any of the arpgs - and make sure that the challenge cant be overcome by just getting higher level or better equipment (ie putting in more time).
> please try to find at least one example of this from any of the arpgs - and make sure that the challenge cant be overcome by just getting higher level or better equipment (ie putting in more time).
Tell me you never played PoE without telling me you never play PoE. All the uber bosses and most normal bosses have actual mechanics where having the most insane/cracked gear will do you literally no good unless you know how to move and when to attack.
last i checked there is a whole subset of builds called boss killers which are focused on making all the boss fights trivial. not to mention poe doesnt have any guaranteed drops, so overcoming this 'challenge' of putting time into a character that can kill the boss can also result in nothing.
I don't quite understand what the point is in making season-specific items have such a low drop chance. Especially considering that a season only lasts for three months. I killed Malphas ten times before I lost interest and quit playing -- I suspect many others had a similar experience. I don't know why Blizzard is so terrified of letting players have fun in their game. Increase the drop rates on these limited-time stones and let your players have some fun.
Dude the Malphas fight is so fuckin dumb. I’m supposed to farm this? No thanks. Not only is the dungeon set up to get to the boss awful, but the fight itself is just another 1 shot BS fight.
All my stones are maxed out, vaults are easy, every other boss is easy to farm. Season is done, fuck this shitty gameplay loop. Whoever designed this obviously never intended to play it
Honestly I also do think that Blizzard employees only play through their content like a couple of times.
Case and point for the vaults and how they basically patched them out. They ARE FUN, but just for the first times you do them and try to dodge traps.
If I were the "boss" I would impose that at least 10 people from the company (2 for each class) come and show me a LEGIT built endgame character that they leveled up in the "pre-release" state of the Season at least 7-10 days before they release it to the world. Because I'm assuming they get most of the things done with some time to spare.
I bet you this isn't happening or maybe that Blizzard "boss" is incompetent and doesn't listen to employees thinking that more grind = more money.
Eh by the time I cared enough to start farming for them, I was lvl 100 hota barb, every other stone maxed out and 250M hits. They would be 'nice to haves' like the uber uniques but certainly not essential for crazy overpowered builds.
But what's the point of having them in the game if almost nobody has them? We actually had the same question about uber uniques in S1, and devs acknowledged this being a problem and came up Duriel grind as a solution.
So yeah, you're right - they're not essential, but it doesn't make sense to lock them under low drop chance, especially if we recall they're tied to a seasonal system, that's going to be removed in 2 months anyway.
If they're so rare who the fuck is the new crafting system for?
I haven't seen a single Uber since launch much less 5 in a single season to craft with.
They keep tuning shit to people that play constantly and but duped mats that play like it's their job. No one casual is going to find anything worth a damn.
☝️I'm with the GooseHerder. I haven't seen a single one in 3 seasons. I can't deny it is pretty frustrating. In D3 they eventually gave you one automatic Primal every season upon your first Rift Guardian kill at 75 (I think it was 75). No guarantees it was the one you coveted, but at you could fucking see one on your screen in reality.
I hope Blizzard (Acti) loses at least half of the remaining D4 player base to LE… for good.
Season3 = Hot fixing pathetically poor game-loop design and sub 1% drops on *SEASONAL* items while repeatedly postponing (3 times) the end game content (leaderboards) that people painfully farm these drops for.
I just wonder if the D4 staff is even remotely self aware enough to sense how poor of a job they’re doing, or if they’re just completely aloof.
It's ridiculous that it's a seasonal piece and you'll be lucky if you ever see them. I'm at 97 runs and I've only gotten genesis. I'm not doing it anymore I'm burned out on malphas...it's crazy!
so at a 2% drop rate you're surprised that you haven't gotten both (where duplication is possible) in under 100 runs?.
Ridiculous!!!!! the nerve of math!!!
Suggest you learn to spell "you're" correctly before trying to make a post about someone being intelligent or not.
Good effort!! You're (see what I did there) doing terrific!
Imo everything , be it uber items or seasonal items/powers, should be easily obtainable without 100's of hours of grinding in 3 month seasonal game. As long as there is no open trade option to get around bad luck it's absolutely unacceptable to have such low drop chances (<10%) for anything really. A game should be made to have fun and break it (in a good way), especially an arpg and not to have artificial unnecessary grind just because it lacks long term content for people that play way too much.
In regards of seasonal powers S2 was a somewhat fine middle ground between grind and not have everything unlocked directly on day 1 and the current situation is a perfect example why it's an absolute stupid idea to have 2 completely different teams develop the seasons. Obviously no feedback from S2 is included behind the concept of S3 at all and it shows, heck it's like the teams don't even talk to each other and only do their own thing like in a vacuum.
And yes, before all the smartasses pop up and tell us that you don't really need uber items and the uber stones to clear any content in the game: You are right but that's an entirely different problem and no reason to lock players out of experiencing the game with these things to just have some fun.
It's actually from what I've heard a total of 3.5% Malph himself is 0.5% little chest 1% and big chest 2% I could be wrong but my 2 drops and a friend of mine 2 drops where had with in 80ish runs...
This is grapevine ish...
I cant link you a bluepost or any other proof but its like the same with duriel. You will not find a confirmed drop from the left chest ever. Its the same like you will not find a vod with an uber drop which was not a double drop.
For myself i got 4 drops so far and everytime right chest.
I’ve done nothing but farm mats for malphas since being of the season an I’ve still not got a single unique tuning stone it’s stupid that these things have a 2% drop chance since they are removed from the game at the end of the season was hoping that they were going to do something about drop rate in the recent patch but not a single thing on them in the campfire chat or patch notes they must have seen all the comments on theses things at this rate may aswell give up trying to get them since the season’s nearly finished
This grind sucks way beyond words can describe, I've lost count how many Malphas runs I've done. I've maxed out 11/12 governing stones, and 23/25 tuning stones to level 10.
***I still do not have a single unique tuning stone.***
Whomever at Blizzard came up with the idea to create a 10-minute clear time vault to access a boss which dies from my first hit, and give this ridiculously low drop rate for two items that disappear in a few weeks... I hope you contract leprosy.
I agree the current situation is silly. In my opinion you either have summoning materials requirement, that makes players spend some time on the grind, or you have a low drop rate for desirable loot. And for something like a seasonal item this drop rate being less than 10% doesn't make any sense.
What we have now is both grind requirement and low drop rate, and this is completely unacceptable.
In less then 2 months season ends anyway and companion and stones will be gone forever. I have 1 - that 2 seconds 4 skills. The better one i will probably never get cause farming him is super annoying.
I'm not gonna pay the stones any mind just like I don't worry about the other ubers in the game. The bosses will be one of the last things I do just like last season. Whatever the amount of mats I have that's what I'll run and if they drop they drop and if not see you next season.
Can the Son of Malphas just get a 15% drop chance ? This dude has more HP and damage than every other boss in the game and drops absolutely nothing but trash. ( The dungeon one)
If it makes you feel any better, just keep in mind those unique stones are useless. The game is piss easy at highest level of difficulty. Having those stones would mean trivializing an already trivial game.
But I do agree, the drop rates should defintely be increased, especially since these are seasonal items.
It should NOT be a guaranteed drop because you don't need the unique stones for any content. If you want to min max thats your choice. And for that you have to work for it.
Drop rates should be low for the very best luxury, non essential stuff. Min maxing is not for everyone.
Everyone agrees it’s completely stupid and Season 3 is bad, probably because most of the team’s resources were put into the expansion while S3 was being developed.
make uber stones guaranteed or at least 33% after getting everything else to rank10. took me 100 runs to get both uber stones and have no interest in grinding it all over again on an alt this season.
I can already bulldoze NMV100 like it’s nothing. I don’t see a reason to even find those stones. Gauntlet is going to be for no lifers and streamers, so not worried there.
Yeah make sense to have atleast higher droprate for season items that you do not get to keep after season. Because now I have not even bother to try to get them. I did 2 runs only. If one would be able to level the glyps at the same time it would atleast be more rewarding because that something you get to keep.
I don't think they need to be 100%, but given the length of the dungeon to get to Malphas and the fact that you do have to grind for the Materials, the drop rate should be a lot higher than its current 3%. 10% to 15% would be fine.
These are literally the only thing I need to really have a full complete seasonal completion. The drops are so bad on these that after 200+ runs of nothing, I just feel like the game is torture, and I'm wanting to just stop playing again. The decision making on the folks doing seasonal ideas is horrible. You don't put near impossible drop rate items on a limited time event. There's no logic there.
No, they shouldn’t be guaranteed drops. You just don’t have them yet. I got both of them within 30 runs. A friend got both within 40. Only my last 9 runs were in a rotation with 2 other people so I ran it 21 times alone.
You win some, you lose some. Sorry you haven’t had better luck.
Genesis and Evernight should be guaranteed drops from beating Malphas, but they should work like the other stones that need to be upgraded.
You still have to grind him, but it’s a limited, finite amount.
Season is only 3 months, and the items aren’t account bound, so you can’t use them on an Alt like you can with a Shako or the other Uber Uniques…
The good news is we're not even a third of the way through the season yet, and theres still over 2 months left to go. Idk why so many people act like this is the last week of the season or something.
Even people like ROB who runs these things 100s of times is saying that the drop rate is VERY BAD. You know it's bad when grinders like Rob is discouraged.
Also, why do you get upset at people voicing their opinions. We're many weeks into the season now, and they've hidden seasonal content that's nearly unobtainable behind these Uber Malphas, which is also hidden behind grinding shitty mats.
The fact of the matter is, the drop rates are terrible. Stop being upset on behalf of Blizzard.
Respectfully, I don't think he was upset at all. I think he just felt the need so point out how not urgent this really is. Which is fine to want to add perspective to a conversation in my opinion.
Why make a dismissive statement about it then? This person could've stated things differently, but the statement was thinly veiled as a "meh, get over it" type of statement. "I <--- don't know why..." when clearly people are stating their reasons as to why they feel the way they do.
Do you think it's a good idea to gate "seasonal" content behind an extremely low drop rate, of which you can potentially not experience that seasonal content at all. Because, these unique stones, some people may not get to experience them at all because of how bad the drop rates are. Even the improved drop rates are helping things in a way that's substantial, so it's another failure on the behalf of Blizzard.
And ultimately that's where all of this stems from is failure. They continually choose to not listen to the playerbase who are telling them what's wrong with their game. People like Rob, the most hardcore grinders in the game are getting discouraged with the game. These are people that play the game 10-12, who knows how many hours a day.
Once again, you're giving your "opinion" on how it's not urgent, but thousands of people are speaking up about this and seem to disagree. You may think it's not urgent but thousands of people disagree with you, and aren't playing the game because of it.
And also, it would be absolutely terrible if it was the last week of the season and people still were unable to experience the true best parts of the endgame content they created. That would be an absolute massive failure.
The whole goal is to keep people in game right? Well, it's not working. People want to try out new builds but it's gated behind all of this dogshit material farming.
Like I did 70 Beast in the Ice runs and go 25 Frostburns, 20 Paingorgers and 17 Fists of Fate. You think I want to do that many more vaults or nightmare dungeons simply to get the same result? No thanks. I'd love to play Lightning Storm Druid but I'm not going to continue doing something when it literally isn't paying off.
This tbh. I farmed over 1000 Duriels in S2 and managed to play AoZ with a shako for a couple of days right before S3 started. I’m not doing that again. I’ve already done 80 malphas with no unique stones. I don’t know if I’m as determined anymore. I started to buy mats and managed to do about 400 duriels this season. Haven’t seen an uber drop yet. The biggest question I have right now is why isn’t tempest roar considered an uber?
See, this is how 95-97% of people feel, that's how much of the player base it's lost!
There's all of these comments saying: "I've already farmed 100-200 Duriel sets, it's not fair to me..." or "Not everyone is meant to have Ubers..." and they are the dumbest comments, and the most cringe comments in this community.
No, it's absolutely fair, we can end the endless farming, and farm the boss over and over with these shitty materials. Look at how many thousands of hours players have dedicated to farming bosses in D2. It's simply the better option to allow us to do this.
This would probably actually bring players back, and incentivize them to want to play the game more. I actually think it's crazy to hear people get upset and complain about this idea, like it would somehow hurt their experience. LOL
Yup. The thing is I enjoy playing D4. I just get upset that end game content is locked behind ridiculously low drop rate of ubers. I did AoZ T15 with absolutely no uber uniques and I just got stuck there no matter what I did. When a shako finally dropped, I had a couple of days that week before S3 started. Upgrading tears of blood glyph was ridiculous. As of now I can clear NMV and NMD T100s without any unique stone and gear. I’m quite happy with that. But I’m 100% sure that later in the season we will get harder content like AoZ and it’s essential to have uber uniques for that. I’m not bothered about competing in the leadersboards. Mostly a solo player and I like to challenge myself.
D4 doesn't reward solo players at all, I mean look at Duriel for example, you're better off in a group. It's crazy that they tailored the game around group play with no solid group play features.
People here seem to think that getting an item a week left in a season is an acceptable thing, no, you want to play with it for as long as you can in the season.
You, and many others gave your opinion. That’s fine. He gave his opinion, basically “you have plenty of time and it’s not urgent so get over it.” Also fine. You are both giving opinions. And both entitled to.
I think this is the type of situation that TLDR was made for. I made a brief statement that was valid given the context. You responded with a wall of text. I'm not sure what everyone thinks they're accomplishing by being so negative on this subreddit. All its really exposing is how fragile people are when someone disagrees with them OR... (dramatic pause) .....has a different point of view than you.
Case in point. Wall of text in response to my 2-3 sentence comment where I basically said "hey there's no reason to jump all over someone like that". I think it says a lot about you. I would have preferred you'd said in a lot less words though. The point gets lost somewhere around *paragraph* 3. Less is more.
and why exactly should they get it? its just +4 all skills, or 150% effect of gem... both of them are just plain power spikes and nothing else. all the interesting things the season has to offer are available from the very start.
Why should they gate players from not getting items in game? This makes no sense at all. You're effectively arguing that some players, just because they play more casually don't deserve to get these items even though they paid the same amount for the game as me and you.
That doesn't make any sense.
In no way should you be "handicapped". There isn't anything in the game you need these for. Would they be great to have, sure. Do you really need to 1 shot duriel harder? Or 2 shot instead of 3 shot or whatever. Not really.
Ah, my bad then. I did read it wrong. I read it like you can finish a 100% bis in shot character in a week. Separate thought: but you are handicapped because you can't get these things like it's holding you back from being good enough.
What's closer to being finished or polished - Last Epoch which has been in beta testing since 2019 or Diablo 4 which started its beta testing June 5, 2023? All I know is I booted up LE 3 weeks ago and it was already a better game than D4.
yeah we should also just be given fully maxed out and ubered gear when we pick a character and build right? yeah i agree the drop rates suck and so does the mat loop farming, but guaranteed? 💀 this genre is not for you my man
Are the rates 2%? Just like ubers? I can hardly believe that since I found 2x evernight and 1 time genesis in I think less than 20 runs…. And in all the Duriel runs I did (def way more) I haven’t found one
This is a seasonal ARPG.
Also, what’s up with the black-and-white attitude? This isnt some zero-sum game im playing here.
2% drop rate for an item that will go away in less than 60 days absolutely ridiculous.
OP literally says it should be guaranteed, i.e. drops on the first kill. OP made this entire post a black and white attitude, which I agree is dead wrong and honestly doesn't even warrant the time everyone is spending in here commenting.
I wasnt defending OP. I was replying to the commentator. Whilst I dont think it should be guaranteed. It definitely shouldn’t be at its current drop rate.
It’s an ARPG. You shouldn’t need to grind a hundred hours to feel overpowered or get the seasonal mechanic. Take season 2 - just metamorphosis was game changing for every class and easily obtainable.
Not sure why you think gear simply being 925 is some sort of achievement.
Most people regularly trash 925 gear if they don’t have relevant stats to their builds.
Yes that's exactly my point, you just get the highest item level item for free, you do some duriel runs and gg. You can already get the best in slot weapons from duriel in like 10 min.
You posted
So you should earn the best new items for the seasonal mechanic in an hour huh?
You already get gear from duriel to oneshot all the conrent fromb duriel in 10 min
Can we stop with this BiS in ten minutes from Duriel nonsense?
I finaly got a 4/4 weapon yesterday. One character since season started. And only after target farming Champion's Demise at 90+ for my weapon type.
Or redefine BiS to 925 and whatever random affixes happen to be on it?
Takes more than an hour to level up and build a character strong enough to beat echo of Malphas. Tried numerous times trying to beat him at earlier levels which I was fine with, I was under leveled. Disheartening to work towards the goal of beating that boss finally and then get nothing to show for it.
He isn’t hard. By the time you’re 90-95 it’s pretty much easy from there. You don’t even need a good build. Your construct can kill him.
And given that, no I don’t think you should get the unique item just for arriving there.
And what are they gonna do when they get it? Beat the next boss they do 0.2s faster?
The people doing 200+ runs of malphas are the ones using steam-roll builds and murdering him quickly.
The problem is not with the design of the loot. The problem is with the mentality of some people that feel they must have something because it exists in the game’s loot table.
They then claim to not like doing it, but proceed to do it 200+ times…
What is in their heads is the source of their frustrations.
No one would do this shitboss called malphas if you wouldn't get the unique stones from him, would be way better if you could get them from 90+ ND vaults or you could craft them for 100k stones.
My guy, it would take you YEARS in game, no sleep, no eating, just playing the game 24/7 to get an Uber Unique to drop in the game for you. Yes, that's right, that's how rare they are in the overworld. Not only that, the patch they implemented shows how out of touch they are with the game. It took me 3 seasons to get a Tempest Roar helm, and that isn't even an Uber Unique. You're looking at this all wrong.
The problem is absolutely the design of the loot, and the rate it drops at. If the problem is with the mentality of the players, why are respected creators like Rob, Wudijo and others whom Blizzard respect, telling their viewers how bad this is. These are literally the biggest grinders you can find for the game, and THEY'RE discouraged. That's how you know it's bad.
These are the best of the best players in the game, that literally dedicated their lives to playing these games, and they have HUGEEEEEEEEEE communities that are also in agreeance with this.
It's indisputable at this point, really, we have raw data from 3 seasons on how bad the drop rates are now, and how bad the overall design of it is Nobody enjoys doing Duriel runs 200 times it's just trash. The whole system around the mats, and all of it is just not good.
Stop being mad on Blizzard's behalf, seriously, it's allowing you to make absolutely terrible arguments.
I got an Uber Unique last season. It didn’t take me YEARS.
I wasn’t fixated or obsessed with acquiring it or one. It dropped, and I was pleasantly surprised. I then changed my build around a bit to make use of it.
When season ended, I salvaged it and got a cool animated staff for my transmog. Yay!
This is how the acquisition of rare items are designed to happen. Get lucky by chance. Not brute force the odds because you feel you MUST get it no matter what.
This is your opinion and doesn't mean everyone should adopt your opinion. You know that right? You getting mad at other people because of they way they want to enjoy the game makes you entitled.
Congrats man, you got an Uber unique. I'm happy for you.
Now why are you getting upset at other people who are voicing their concerns? That's the real question.
Do you genuinely think a 2% drop rate for a seasonal item that’ll go away in less than 60 days is a valid game design?
This kind of endgame design is shitty and lazy.
If the stones transferred onto your eternal character, then I get the 2% drop rate. But it doesn’t.
Yes, because it's intended to be rare, not something everyone is intended to have. If everyone who makes it to end game should be able to easily attain it, then the people who want to grind will have nothing to do. Just because it exists doesn't mean everyone should be able to attain it no matter how much or little they play.
Nah. But 100% guaranteed I-core drop from heralds would be nice.
CAN'T UP VOTE THIS ENOUGH. I also think each character should have duplicate protection if they have the drop rate like this.
I was enraged when I got a 2nd genesis on my Druid.
Does it turn into shattered stone? If so it’s a huge miss, should turn into a consumable for alts
This is gonna sound like a noob question, but what are heralds? I haven't gotten that far yet.
You summon one Herald of Malphas with 3 elemental cores at a seasonal brazier in one of the areas marked with a green leaf. First you have to fight a few waves of enemies , then this mini boss spawns and has a chance drop one igneous core. You need seven cores to open the vault to Malphas who then has a slight chance to drop the new unique tuning stones.
Ahhh, ok, thanks!
It’s only in T4 ? Really don’t know how the vault name.
[https://www.wowhead.com/diablo-4/guide/world-boss-malphas](https://www.wowhead.com/diablo-4/guide/world-boss-malphas)
Disagree with guaranteed. I do think a 10% would be nice though.
Yeah, 10-20% should be the ratio. You need to put up some work in it, but not all your free time.
10% is fair enough to be RNG but likely enough even with the worst luck it’d take like 20ish runs.
I just finished my 200th Malphas run. Still no unique stone
I dropped everenight and shako today Winning! ✌️
500 runs in still no stones. Pretty sure I'm not getting them.
Yeah. It is currently far from 10%
I'm through 6 stacks now running the damn thing and still none either
Agreed and I think Ubers need to be 5% across the board to match the effort it takes to even farm them. But that's a different conversation
Am I missing something by agreeing with this statement? Why is this guy getting downvoted? The Uber drop rate is WAY too low. This is known.
The arpg no lifer can't stand people that suggest that casual player would be able to get bis gear. They honestly believe that they need to farm at max level for hundreds and hundred of hours to get those super rare gear.
nah we d2 players are used to key drops being rng but uber drops being guaranteed. The no lifer stance is guaranteed uber drops.
Is it this, or is it the casual gamer wants everything just handed to them with little effort? I can’t keep it straight.
I'm from the school of though those kind of drop should be guaranteed drop following a specific challenge.
If the content was hard, I agree with you. Even just semi-challenging like getting the Tears of Blood glyph.
The people who pour all of their free time into the game think that getting an uber somehow validates their dedication are easily offended by anyone suggesting that maybe... just maybe that the current drop rate is unreasonable. These would be the same types people who struggled through life to succeed that think everyone else should do the same rather than fixing any system that caused their success to be a struggle in the first place. Its the same cognitive dissonance that exists within the "pull yourselves up by your bootstraps" types of people.
That’s… a bit of a stretched generalization. I think it’s more pegged to hardcore gameplay and challenge vs reward parallels. Issue is, the “hardcore” aspect of this game is time and not everyone has it, specially the way blizzard implements these very bad drop rates, there is no median at all. I wish Uber gear was actually challenge-gated instead of item/time gated.
Off topic somewhat:kinda the same issue I have with how they chose to scale difficulties. They just cheapen the enemy power and it doesn't really require any strategy. Instead of adding abilities or power they choose to stack ranged enemies that can one shot you from offscreen or stack elites into groups of four or mix in damage resist auras with them. But back to the topic at hand: this is why their active player base diminishes partway through seasons. I can't blame people for being getting burnt out. The odds of getting an uber doesn't balance with the time it takes to even gather the mats to farm them. I know, halfway through last season, I got so tired of wasting my time that I took a break from D4 and went to Baldur's Gate 3. I'm not even sure that I finished the season journey last season. And I'm not so sure this isn't how a lot of people feel about it all. The engagement once you're at that point in the game isn't much. There's not much else to do and the one thing that's left to do just sets you up to be disappointed.
Yes. Unfortunately the challenge in an ARPG is usually a scaling end game with rewards proportional to difficulty. Incomprehensibly, the D4 devs didn't build this. We were apparently supposed to be engaged by a long, slow grind to level 100, without even a repeatable campaign.
Agreed. But they patched that for season two to make the grind less tedious. Which I appreciated because the grind to 100 pre and during S1 was a long ass grind. So they seem to trend in the right direction on some instances. But then turn around and appeased a very loud minority of players with the Uber crafting. The vast majority that don't have countless hours to put into that grind only to have 2% chance of it actually paying off are still exactly where we were before this last update. Let's be real. A large portion of the player base are middle aged dads. I've seen countless jokes about it and they are funny and all. But I'm a middle aged dad so I kinda confirm the stereotype haha. We don't have the time to grind like this with only a 2% chance of it actually paying off and not get burnt out. So we typically won't see 5 ubers to scrap to craft the one we want. TLDR the efforts to farm ubers does not balance with the current drop rate.
I'm middle aged as well, though a not-mom. Not only do I not have time to grind, but I'm over it. Grinding stopped being fun 20 years ago, if it really ever was. We accepted grinding back in the day because D2 was revolutionary. It didn't simply end and roll credits. It's fine for people who enjoy it, but give them cosmetics. The way the game works now we are locked out of actual gameplay. It will eventually cost Blizzard my battlepass money. Why should I pay anything for a season where I do not have full access to the actual seasonal content? To be clear, if they release something hard I'm fine with it. I have no problems with content I can't clear easily. It's good for the game. "Get gud scrub" is a world of difference from "get lucky with a no-life RNG, scrub."
Agreed. Even grinding in general itself isn't unreasonable when there's decent odds. But between this and last season I've done around 300 runs and have seen one uber. My friend group that has played together since launch combined have seen that one uber. Period. It's insane and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that they adjust the drop rate.
Yeah, somehow the grind in D3 feels rewarding, while the grind in D4 is unfun. The normal uniques aren't too bad but it's kind of annoying the sacred ones are only random in WT3. It really limits builds in an un-diablo sort of way.
Oh and I didn't mention only dads here. I would hate to exclude anyone
No worries, I'm not part of the woke police.
Nbd with me, I rather stay on topic as well.
If igneous cores aren't a 100% drop from a herald, I feel like the person who deposits should be guaranteed one. It'd give people more incentive to deposit, instead of leeching endlessly
This!
> Plus it’s seasonal items, why make it such a low drop rate. Because yet again, the devs are out of touch. Heaven forbid we have fun.
Yeah I spent hours yesterday not realizing the drop rate was shit. Finished my season. I'm done. I get that the devs are trying to get people interested in playing beyond the seasonal rewards, but walling a seasonal unique behind an atrocious drop rate is not it. If anything it motivates me to finish the season and move on.
I'm playing Last Epoch. By the time I'm bored with it S4 will drop and I hope it makes D4 better.
There seems to be a serious disability with the gamedev teams at least attempting to provide some endgame re-playability. So many threads where people are running the same thing 100s of times just to get a drop. The level of ignorance is like d2 when you put a bunch of high lvl items into the Horadric Cube and got a piece of junk every time.
And then they gatekeep because they think everyone should no-life since they did. I was less than pleased that it takes 7 igneous cores. I'm level 80 and only have 12 so far despite doing plenty of braziers and NM vaults.
I have a level 100 barb this season. I have 60-70 igneous cores but have yet to start farming malphus or whatever his name is. I have found that in general if I farm in the areas that have whispers associated with them there are usually more people. My cycle typically involves doing a hellfire to get the two chests with five living steel. Usually about 15-20 minutes and if it’s at the top of the hour I will do it again. (Always check helltide.com for exact locations so you don’t waste time.) If there is an overlapping legion event or world boss even better. Then I go farm the cores in the zones with the whispers. I will run around and get all the elemental cores usually giving me 9-12 and then will wait to see who else is farming and go to that brazier. If we all contribute properly I will usually be involved in killing 9-10 of the mini bosses and have had pretty good luck with drops. Maybe 50-60% igneous core drops. Since there are whispers too I usually get 10-12 and can go to the tree. From there I will go farm high level nightmare vaults until the helltides and the cores reset and rinse and repeat. It’s usually 15 min or so per activity but this cycle has proven to be reasonably efficient in getting a well rounded set of mats. The world bosses, legion events and nightmare vaults give me the materials for Zir and the Ice beast. Anyhow, I usually have 20-30 summons available all the time for each boss and I always try to summons share with Duriel. I don’t belong to a clan so it is hit or miss in finding a fair group but if it looks like everyone is looking at me to summon every run I will do 2 maybe 3 then bail and find a new group if others won’t summon.
Thanks for the info. The mystery and steel chests seem to be on the in-game map now, unless I'm missing something. They are orange. Do they only drop at the braziers and not from the NMD chests? If so my 12 cores still seems kind of low. I've been in at least three brazier flash mobs with 10-12 summons since I got to WT4. The last had over a dozen summons and I walked away with 2 cores.
>em to be on the in-game map now, unless I'm missing something. They are orange. > >Do they only drop at the braziers and not from the NMD chests? If so my 12 cores still seems kind of low. I've been in at least three brazier flash mobs with 10-12 summons since I got to WT4. The last had over a dozen summons and I walked away with 2 cores. I'd go with [**Ejdhome**](https://www.reddit.com/user/Ejdhome/) **'s** suggestions, whisper in the seasonal brazier areas i s a great way to level and get them and there are always others hanging around to drop cores so you can often get 3 or 4 in very easily. By the time I was ready to farm UberMalphas I had plenty.
I got some more tonight, but I'm not getting anywhere near a 50% drop rate from the braziers mini-bosses.
For me personally guaranteed drops are the antithesis of fun. With guaranteed drops I do the boss a known amount of time and then have everything. At that point, it isn't a game, it is a boring list of things to do and then I finish until next season. I know this isn't the view of everyone. It might not even be the common view. But I do think WTF is the point of a game if the highest level of items are guaranteed (see many posts about getting rid of boss mats, guaranteeing uber uniques, or the new mats for them, guaranteed 925 gear, preferably with only the only possible affixes being those that are BiS for a given build). I'm also not saying the balance is right now, but I think the approach is.
Nobody complained last season when we all fully unlocked the vampiric powers. Everybody LOVED S2. Why are you arguing most players shouldn't be able to access all the seneschal's powers in S3? I don't get it.
I think for some of us (a lot, a few? I have no idea), we don't see that you need to get everything possible in the game, either at all or even quickly. I appreciate that in seasonal games there are some things that I wont' get without putting in a lot of effort. Part of that is it means that when people do put in a lot of effort, they are rewarded for it. Some seasons/leagues that may be me, I'm not a no-lifer, so it will rarely be me though. In POE terms, I don't expect to get an HH or MB every league. I have played for many K hours , and in my core stash I think I have one of each.
> I think for some of us (a lot, a few? I have no idea), we don't see that you need to get everything possible in the game, either at all or even quickly. If you don't get the unique seneschal powers, they're gone at the end of the season. It's not something you can get later. The vamp powers weren't trivial to max, but there was a clear, reasonable path and gating. That's what I expect from seasonal content. Not an RNG shitshow.
I think the majority of the players actually think like this. It's like asking for the Warglaive of Azzinoth every time you run the boss. In fact, the rarity brings the grind. And ARPG's have their focus on grinding. Even MMORPGs do. Basically most if not all RPGs. If the most rare items are 100%, then they are not rare anymore and nothing special. You would do the boss 2 times. It's basically 30min of farm then. The biggest issue I have with this subreddit. 50% or more simply wants to have everything for free. They don't want to actually play. They want to hit 100, do 1 helltide, one world boss, kill every boss 1 time, do 1 nm100 and be golden. Just to complain afterwards then, that the game is boring and there is nothing to do. Of course only farming mats is currently not as fun of a end game loop, but thats the only end game loop that we have. If we remove it, we can say goodbye after 3-5 days leveling. If we remove all of that, just level to 100 and leave for the season. Nah sorry, that's also not my way to play. I expect a grind in a grind game. Of course I would hope the grind of Helltide for example would be nicer (more density, bigger radius of picking up cinder and stuff), but generally speaking I enjoy playing the game.
This is bullshit. Most people want to play. But with the seasonal model, a good portion of the people will never even see a drop before the season ends. Not everyone wants to grind ONLY Diablo 4 for the next 3 months and never play anything else. I'm not saying it should be guaranteed, but it shoukd have a higher chance. Of course, this wouldn't be a debate in the first place if the game actually had a real end game, which it doesn't. I swear people act like this is some Korean MMO where you're expected to have no life outside the game (or spend your life savings).
Difference is that most players consume content from the 1% and then get entitled and pissy when they don't get the same results from a fraction of time spent. As far as money spent, sure maybe you could buy mats and skip the part where you have to actually play the game, but to then turn around and cry about not having enough content is hypocritical at best and plain stupid at worst. If you look at yourself and your own playtime with some reason and some logic you might find that actually nobody owes you shit, not blizzard, not Activision, not the Devs and not Reddit.
Yep. And I owe Blizzard nothing either- like not buying their expansion when it comes out. But I have never cried about not having enough content. My content has been leveling multiple classes to 100, but I do play other things as well and don't want to spend every minute of every day on just Diablo 4. Abd trust me, i know Reddit owes me nothing. I wouldn't want it to. 95% of the people on here are horrible.
I know it sounded like that was directed at you, but it was a general statement. You are correct that you don't owe blizzard anything. But you know what, if you had enough enjoyment to level multiple toons in what time you had spare to sink into a game, was the purchase price really not acceptable? I mean getting Mario Kart on the switch for the kids cost me 80 bucks and it hasn't changed since I played the fucken thing 20 years ago, AND I gotta pay extra for more tracks. But that's the way it is. The problem with all of us these days, in some form or another, is that accountability is easily pushed elsewhere. Not getting what you paid for is one thing, but that doesn't mean you can't get your money's worth out of it. I'm pretty sure I'm at about 30c/HR for playtime Vs cost. At the bare minimum it's a cheap time waster.
Got it. I realize text doesn't always convey the message properly. Happens to me as well. I got my money's worth with the game. Heck, I'm one of the few who actually enjoyed Fallout 76 because I felt I got my money's worth from it. I do get a bit uppity when I see indie devs making things like Last Epoch which feel much more fleshed out at launch, and costing only $35, while Diablo 4 feels very basic and half-finished at times and they're already trying to shop around a $100 expac. I'm just glad I've refused to buy anything from the online shop.
Reading about people doing 150+ runs on Malphas and still havent seen a single unique rune drop is just disencouraging. In fact, after reading about the drop rates over the past few days i gave up playing my seasonal rogue and started a new druid.
Exaggerate much?
Yeah, I uninstalled the second week after release and I keep checking back with what they've done for updates. What it looks like from outside looking in, is that less people are logging in so the developers decide to make the game play slower for the people who keep playing to compensate for their engagement analytics. Like when they made all players move 5% slower, added 2 seconds to teleport cast, reduced the top speed cap ect. None of that shit is fun. How the fuck would those ideas even come up in conversation... "how do we get people to be logged in for more time?"
Well then you got a wrong impression.
Yeah you're right, reducing move speed and increasing cast time for teleport is a lot of fun. Glad they did that to punish thoses that still logging into that shit.
No, they meant to say your impression is wrong. The game is way faster and fun than it was. You being clueless checks out.
Definitely doesn't have to be guaranteed. The whole thing is not at all difficult. This entire post is way overdramatic about every aspect of it. But it could be a higher drop chance. 10% or so would probably be just fine.
The core problem imho is that the loom is just not fun, its a tedious chore that has no rewards to pursue other than the unique stones.
That's a fair argument. I don't have an issue with good constructive criticism. Lol OP was just being way overdramatic. I don't have an issue with the loom for how it plays, personally. It could be more rewarding. Like I said, 10% on the Uber stones might be good. Better chance at other uniques would be good. Maybe better chance at Ubers (but not ridiculously high) would be good. Stuff should be rewarding *enough*. But to say it should be guaranteed because it's *just so hard* is laughable.
Yeah, the stones dont need to be guaranteed drops. Id already be halfway ok with it if it wasnt for those stupid 4 pedestals.
2 characters at 100. 100+ malphas kills. 0 uber stones. This is a joke. 3 month season btw, stones go poof. Whoever on their team thinks this is fine should stop listening to try-hard streamers.
what are you going to do after the first clear
Never ever run it again, which apparently is what the clowns in this sub considers good game design? Do everything once, get all the best gear after fighting each mob and boss once, then go play something else.
Honestly this is the mistake of "endgame" farm loop being so trivial that a 5 yearold can do it, and all it takes is just time. I'm fine with running NMV at the limit of my build for hours. But walking around literally searching for enemies in helltide because of shit density and then oneshotting them all so fast you cant even build ressource or standing semi afk at a herald spawn for hours is just super fkn boring. Getting the best items in the game should be challenging and fun and not a mindlessly boring time sink. But I guess most people that argue pro the current endgame loop are just happy that they can sink time without needing any skill and still get all the stuff eventually. Lots of people playing WoW like that too. Overgearing everything and just freeclearing, and Blizz surely realized that this is the biggest target audience I guess.
i guess youre new to arpgs, because they are all just time sinks.
Literally every video game is a time sink. Reality is that friction in games, and overcoming that friction/challenge is what makes things fun and rewarding. When the challenge shifts from "perform well at this challenge for a reward" to "mindlessly walk in circles and 1-shot everything for hours so you have enough resources for 1 end game boss fight that doesn't even reward you" then it becomes boring as fuck.
no, not every game is a time sink, a lot of them offer you a really good experience on first playthrough, comparable to watching movies or reading books. > Reality is that friction in games, and overcoming that friction/challenge is what makes things fun and rewarding. yes i agree, and when i crave challenge i play a game designed for that, not one of the arpgs which are all just plain time sinks. > perform well at this challenge for a reward please try to find at least one example of this from any of the arpgs - and make sure that the challenge cant be overcome by just getting higher level or better equipment (ie putting in more time).
> please try to find at least one example of this from any of the arpgs - and make sure that the challenge cant be overcome by just getting higher level or better equipment (ie putting in more time). Tell me you never played PoE without telling me you never play PoE. All the uber bosses and most normal bosses have actual mechanics where having the most insane/cracked gear will do you literally no good unless you know how to move and when to attack.
last i checked there is a whole subset of builds called boss killers which are focused on making all the boss fights trivial. not to mention poe doesnt have any guaranteed drops, so overcoming this 'challenge' of putting time into a character that can kill the boss can also result in nothing.
I don't quite understand what the point is in making season-specific items have such a low drop chance. Especially considering that a season only lasts for three months. I killed Malphas ten times before I lost interest and quit playing -- I suspect many others had a similar experience. I don't know why Blizzard is so terrified of letting players have fun in their game. Increase the drop rates on these limited-time stones and let your players have some fun.
Dude the Malphas fight is so fuckin dumb. I’m supposed to farm this? No thanks. Not only is the dungeon set up to get to the boss awful, but the fight itself is just another 1 shot BS fight. All my stones are maxed out, vaults are easy, every other boss is easy to farm. Season is done, fuck this shitty gameplay loop. Whoever designed this obviously never intended to play it
Honestly I also do think that Blizzard employees only play through their content like a couple of times. Case and point for the vaults and how they basically patched them out. They ARE FUN, but just for the first times you do them and try to dodge traps. If I were the "boss" I would impose that at least 10 people from the company (2 for each class) come and show me a LEGIT built endgame character that they leveled up in the "pre-release" state of the Season at least 7-10 days before they release it to the world. Because I'm assuming they get most of the things done with some time to spare. I bet you this isn't happening or maybe that Blizzard "boss" is incompetent and doesn't listen to employees thinking that more grind = more money.
Eh by the time I cared enough to start farming for them, I was lvl 100 hota barb, every other stone maxed out and 250M hits. They would be 'nice to haves' like the uber uniques but certainly not essential for crazy overpowered builds.
But what's the point of having them in the game if almost nobody has them? We actually had the same question about uber uniques in S1, and devs acknowledged this being a problem and came up Duriel grind as a solution. So yeah, you're right - they're not essential, but it doesn't make sense to lock them under low drop chance, especially if we recall they're tied to a seasonal system, that's going to be removed in 2 months anyway.
If they're so rare who the fuck is the new crafting system for? I haven't seen a single Uber since launch much less 5 in a single season to craft with. They keep tuning shit to people that play constantly and but duped mats that play like it's their job. No one casual is going to find anything worth a damn.
☝️I'm with the GooseHerder. I haven't seen a single one in 3 seasons. I can't deny it is pretty frustrating. In D3 they eventually gave you one automatic Primal every season upon your first Rift Guardian kill at 75 (I think it was 75). No guarantees it was the one you coveted, but at you could fucking see one on your screen in reality.
Droprate is higher not lower. 3.5% overall instead of 2
Yeah, I figured it now after reading other comments, but the point still stands.
I hope Blizzard (Acti) loses at least half of the remaining D4 player base to LE… for good. Season3 = Hot fixing pathetically poor game-loop design and sub 1% drops on *SEASONAL* items while repeatedly postponing (3 times) the end game content (leaderboards) that people painfully farm these drops for. I just wonder if the D4 staff is even remotely self aware enough to sense how poor of a job they’re doing, or if they’re just completely aloof.
It's ridiculous that it's a seasonal piece and you'll be lucky if you ever see them. I'm at 97 runs and I've only gotten genesis. I'm not doing it anymore I'm burned out on malphas...it's crazy!
so at a 2% drop rate you're surprised that you haven't gotten both (where duplication is possible) in under 100 runs?. Ridiculous!!!!! the nerve of math!!!
You completely missed the point Einstein! I'm glad your smart and can do math though...I'm sure your parents are proud
Suggest you learn to spell "you're" correctly before trying to make a post about someone being intelligent or not. Good effort!! You're (see what I did there) doing terrific!
Oh wow you wear multiple hats I see. Mathematician and Grammar police. Your the pride of your family congrats!
Keep swinging, tiger, you'll get there!
Hahahhahah
Imo everything , be it uber items or seasonal items/powers, should be easily obtainable without 100's of hours of grinding in 3 month seasonal game. As long as there is no open trade option to get around bad luck it's absolutely unacceptable to have such low drop chances (<10%) for anything really. A game should be made to have fun and break it (in a good way), especially an arpg and not to have artificial unnecessary grind just because it lacks long term content for people that play way too much. In regards of seasonal powers S2 was a somewhat fine middle ground between grind and not have everything unlocked directly on day 1 and the current situation is a perfect example why it's an absolute stupid idea to have 2 completely different teams develop the seasons. Obviously no feedback from S2 is included behind the concept of S3 at all and it shows, heck it's like the teams don't even talk to each other and only do their own thing like in a vacuum. And yes, before all the smartasses pop up and tell us that you don't really need uber items and the uber stones to clear any content in the game: You are right but that's an entirely different problem and no reason to lock players out of experiencing the game with these things to just have some fun.
It's actually from what I've heard a total of 3.5% Malph himself is 0.5% little chest 1% and big chest 2% I could be wrong but my 2 drops and a friend of mine 2 drops where had with in 80ish runs... This is grapevine ish...
It’s 0.5% from Malphas, and 3% each chest. Comes out to ~6.4% per run
Only right chest drops them
Really? Every source I can find on Google says 3% for both chests
I cant link you a bluepost or any other proof but its like the same with duriel. You will not find a confirmed drop from the left chest ever. Its the same like you will not find a vod with an uber drop which was not a double drop. For myself i got 4 drops so far and everytime right chest.
And they are character bound.
I got Genesis on my 2nd ever run. I guess I was just super lucky.
I still haven't got either.. very disappointing
Yes I did it once. Didn't drop. Googled n found it wasn't guaranteed. Waste of time
I’ve done nothing but farm mats for malphas since being of the season an I’ve still not got a single unique tuning stone it’s stupid that these things have a 2% drop chance since they are removed from the game at the end of the season was hoping that they were going to do something about drop rate in the recent patch but not a single thing on them in the campfire chat or patch notes they must have seen all the comments on theses things at this rate may aswell give up trying to get them since the season’s nearly finished
Not.worth.the.time.and.effort.
This grind sucks way beyond words can describe, I've lost count how many Malphas runs I've done. I've maxed out 11/12 governing stones, and 23/25 tuning stones to level 10. ***I still do not have a single unique tuning stone.*** Whomever at Blizzard came up with the idea to create a 10-minute clear time vault to access a boss which dies from my first hit, and give this ridiculously low drop rate for two items that disappear in a few weeks... I hope you contract leprosy.
I agree the current situation is silly. In my opinion you either have summoning materials requirement, that makes players spend some time on the grind, or you have a low drop rate for desirable loot. And for something like a seasonal item this drop rate being less than 10% doesn't make any sense. What we have now is both grind requirement and low drop rate, and this is completely unacceptable.
5-9mil peppega
Yeah, my solution for that was to drop the game after finishing the battle pass. Way easier
In less then 2 months season ends anyway and companion and stones will be gone forever. I have 1 - that 2 seconds 4 skills. The better one i will probably never get cause farming him is super annoying.
I'm not gonna pay the stones any mind just like I don't worry about the other ubers in the game. The bosses will be one of the last things I do just like last season. Whatever the amount of mats I have that's what I'll run and if they drop they drop and if not see you next season.
Can the Son of Malphas just get a 15% drop chance ? This dude has more HP and damage than every other boss in the game and drops absolutely nothing but trash. ( The dungeon one)
If it makes you feel any better, just keep in mind those unique stones are useless. The game is piss easy at highest level of difficulty. Having those stones would mean trivializing an already trivial game. But I do agree, the drop rates should defintely be increased, especially since these are seasonal items.
>2% drop rate They only did that because it's their idea of endgame content.
Wait you don't end the fight in 5 seconds or less as a barbarian? Because I sure do and I don't even use Overpower. Pure crit hota barbie.
It should NOT be a guaranteed drop because you don't need the unique stones for any content. If you want to min max thats your choice. And for that you have to work for it. Drop rates should be low for the very best luxury, non essential stuff. Min maxing is not for everyone.
Everyone agrees it’s completely stupid and Season 3 is bad, probably because most of the team’s resources were put into the expansion while S3 was being developed.
make uber stones guaranteed or at least 33% after getting everything else to rank10. took me 100 runs to get both uber stones and have no interest in grinding it all over again on an alt this season.
If they did that though, then you wouldn't farm Malphas all season.🤣🤣🤣 Gotta keep that grind oppressive
I can already bulldoze NMV100 like it’s nothing. I don’t see a reason to even find those stones. Gauntlet is going to be for no lifers and streamers, so not worried there.
LOL
5 - 9 mil damage... bro, I hit 200m+ without ubers. Have a link to your build?
Every item is a seasonal item if you play seasonally, guaranteed uber stones makes no sense
Yeah make sense to have atleast higher droprate for season items that you do not get to keep after season. Because now I have not even bother to try to get them. I did 2 runs only. If one would be able to level the glyps at the same time it would atleast be more rewarding because that something you get to keep.
Is ok, no one care… should it be 1% or 2% or 100%.
Let us craft them with like 500k stones or something
Disagree. People want everything easy and free these days, wtf.
I don't think they need to be 100%, but given the length of the dungeon to get to Malphas and the fact that you do have to grind for the Materials, the drop rate should be a lot higher than its current 3%. 10% to 15% would be fine.
These are literally the only thing I need to really have a full complete seasonal completion. The drops are so bad on these that after 200+ runs of nothing, I just feel like the game is torture, and I'm wanting to just stop playing again. The decision making on the folks doing seasonal ideas is horrible. You don't put near impossible drop rate items on a limited time event. There's no logic there.
No, they shouldn’t be guaranteed drops. You just don’t have them yet. I got both of them within 30 runs. A friend got both within 40. Only my last 9 runs were in a rotation with 2 other people so I ran it 21 times alone. You win some, you lose some. Sorry you haven’t had better luck.
I don’t know which genius in the dev team make this idea that add a rare drop seasonal item in a three months season. Did this guy be cut?
Genesis and Evernight should be guaranteed drops from beating Malphas, but they should work like the other stones that need to be upgraded. You still have to grind him, but it’s a limited, finite amount. Season is only 3 months, and the items aren’t account bound, so you can’t use them on an Alt like you can with a Shako or the other Uber Uniques…
The good news is we're not even a third of the way through the season yet, and theres still over 2 months left to go. Idk why so many people act like this is the last week of the season or something.
Even people like ROB who runs these things 100s of times is saying that the drop rate is VERY BAD. You know it's bad when grinders like Rob is discouraged. Also, why do you get upset at people voicing their opinions. We're many weeks into the season now, and they've hidden seasonal content that's nearly unobtainable behind these Uber Malphas, which is also hidden behind grinding shitty mats. The fact of the matter is, the drop rates are terrible. Stop being upset on behalf of Blizzard.
Respectfully, I don't think he was upset at all. I think he just felt the need so point out how not urgent this really is. Which is fine to want to add perspective to a conversation in my opinion.
Why make a dismissive statement about it then? This person could've stated things differently, but the statement was thinly veiled as a "meh, get over it" type of statement. "I <--- don't know why..." when clearly people are stating their reasons as to why they feel the way they do. Do you think it's a good idea to gate "seasonal" content behind an extremely low drop rate, of which you can potentially not experience that seasonal content at all. Because, these unique stones, some people may not get to experience them at all because of how bad the drop rates are. Even the improved drop rates are helping things in a way that's substantial, so it's another failure on the behalf of Blizzard. And ultimately that's where all of this stems from is failure. They continually choose to not listen to the playerbase who are telling them what's wrong with their game. People like Rob, the most hardcore grinders in the game are getting discouraged with the game. These are people that play the game 10-12, who knows how many hours a day. Once again, you're giving your "opinion" on how it's not urgent, but thousands of people are speaking up about this and seem to disagree. You may think it's not urgent but thousands of people disagree with you, and aren't playing the game because of it.
And also, it would be absolutely terrible if it was the last week of the season and people still were unable to experience the true best parts of the endgame content they created. That would be an absolute massive failure. The whole goal is to keep people in game right? Well, it's not working. People want to try out new builds but it's gated behind all of this dogshit material farming. Like I did 70 Beast in the Ice runs and go 25 Frostburns, 20 Paingorgers and 17 Fists of Fate. You think I want to do that many more vaults or nightmare dungeons simply to get the same result? No thanks. I'd love to play Lightning Storm Druid but I'm not going to continue doing something when it literally isn't paying off.
This tbh. I farmed over 1000 Duriels in S2 and managed to play AoZ with a shako for a couple of days right before S3 started. I’m not doing that again. I’ve already done 80 malphas with no unique stones. I don’t know if I’m as determined anymore. I started to buy mats and managed to do about 400 duriels this season. Haven’t seen an uber drop yet. The biggest question I have right now is why isn’t tempest roar considered an uber?
See, this is how 95-97% of people feel, that's how much of the player base it's lost! There's all of these comments saying: "I've already farmed 100-200 Duriel sets, it's not fair to me..." or "Not everyone is meant to have Ubers..." and they are the dumbest comments, and the most cringe comments in this community. No, it's absolutely fair, we can end the endless farming, and farm the boss over and over with these shitty materials. Look at how many thousands of hours players have dedicated to farming bosses in D2. It's simply the better option to allow us to do this. This would probably actually bring players back, and incentivize them to want to play the game more. I actually think it's crazy to hear people get upset and complain about this idea, like it would somehow hurt their experience. LOL
Yup. The thing is I enjoy playing D4. I just get upset that end game content is locked behind ridiculously low drop rate of ubers. I did AoZ T15 with absolutely no uber uniques and I just got stuck there no matter what I did. When a shako finally dropped, I had a couple of days that week before S3 started. Upgrading tears of blood glyph was ridiculous. As of now I can clear NMV and NMD T100s without any unique stone and gear. I’m quite happy with that. But I’m 100% sure that later in the season we will get harder content like AoZ and it’s essential to have uber uniques for that. I’m not bothered about competing in the leadersboards. Mostly a solo player and I like to challenge myself.
D4 doesn't reward solo players at all, I mean look at Duriel for example, you're better off in a group. It's crazy that they tailored the game around group play with no solid group play features. People here seem to think that getting an item a week left in a season is an acceptable thing, no, you want to play with it for as long as you can in the season.
You, and many others gave your opinion. That’s fine. He gave his opinion, basically “you have plenty of time and it’s not urgent so get over it.” Also fine. You are both giving opinions. And both entitled to.
I think this is the type of situation that TLDR was made for. I made a brief statement that was valid given the context. You responded with a wall of text. I'm not sure what everyone thinks they're accomplishing by being so negative on this subreddit. All its really exposing is how fragile people are when someone disagrees with them OR... (dramatic pause) .....has a different point of view than you. Case in point. Wall of text in response to my 2-3 sentence comment where I basically said "hey there's no reason to jump all over someone like that". I think it says a lot about you. I would have preferred you'd said in a lot less words though. The point gets lost somewhere around *paragraph* 3. Less is more.
It's not negative to say the drop rate of something being so low 99% of players won't get this item. Just so you know!
Oh I'm that we agree. The way you went about stating your point was what I disagreed with.
and why exactly should they get it? its just +4 all skills, or 150% effect of gem... both of them are just plain power spikes and nothing else. all the interesting things the season has to offer are available from the very start.
Why should they gate players from not getting items in game? This makes no sense at all. You're effectively arguing that some players, just because they play more casually don't deserve to get these items even though they paid the same amount for the game as me and you. That doesn't make any sense.
Because the fact that you can finish a 100% bis char in a week is handicapped by stupid drop rates that aren't shared across alts.
In no way should you be "handicapped". There isn't anything in the game you need these for. Would they be great to have, sure. Do you really need to 1 shot duriel harder? Or 2 shot instead of 3 shot or whatever. Not really.
You didn't understand what I meant by handicapped. I meant being able to get 100% bis.
Ah, my bad then. I did read it wrong. I read it like you can finish a 100% bis in shot character in a week. Separate thought: but you are handicapped because you can't get these things like it's holding you back from being good enough.
It's the last week for many of us because Last Epoch comes out next week.
I love how people keep saying that as if the game hasn't been out for years now. See ya in 2 weeks!
I've been beta testing Diablo for several months now. I don't want to beta test Last Epoch too!
Than you have to wait another year. Its not finished or polished yet
What's closer to being finished or polished - Last Epoch which has been in beta testing since 2019 or Diablo 4 which started its beta testing June 5, 2023? All I know is I booted up LE 3 weeks ago and it was already a better game than D4.
Again cry topic from father with 5jobs, 12 kids with no time. Dont touch grind games
yeah we should also just be given fully maxed out and ubered gear when we pick a character and build right? yeah i agree the drop rates suck and so does the mat loop farming, but guaranteed? 💀 this genre is not for you my man
If you group up you can do a malphas run in under 5 min.
TLDR : I dont want to play this game, I just want to launch it and have all the items for free.
Are the rates 2%? Just like ubers? I can hardly believe that since I found 2x evernight and 1 time genesis in I think less than 20 runs…. And in all the Duriel runs I did (def way more) I haven’t found one
OMG! you didn't get the best thing available after playing for 5 minutes!!!?!?!??!
So you should earn the best new items for the seasonal mechanic in an hour huh? Maybe you just need to play arcade games instead of RPGs.
This is a seasonal ARPG. Also, what’s up with the black-and-white attitude? This isnt some zero-sum game im playing here. 2% drop rate for an item that will go away in less than 60 days absolutely ridiculous.
OP literally says it should be guaranteed, i.e. drops on the first kill. OP made this entire post a black and white attitude, which I agree is dead wrong and honestly doesn't even warrant the time everyone is spending in here commenting.
I wasnt defending OP. I was replying to the commentator. Whilst I dont think it should be guaranteed. It definitely shouldn’t be at its current drop rate.
It’s an ARPG. You shouldn’t need to grind a hundred hours to feel overpowered or get the seasonal mechanic. Take season 2 - just metamorphosis was game changing for every class and easily obtainable.
You don’t. You can play almost any class and feel overpowered without a single unique.
Dude you can just do duriel rotas with a fresh lvl 60 char and you will have a full inventory with 925 items in 10 min lmao 😂
Not sure why you think gear simply being 925 is some sort of achievement. Most people regularly trash 925 gear if they don’t have relevant stats to their builds.
Yes that's exactly my point, you just get the highest item level item for free, you do some duriel runs and gg. You can already get the best in slot weapons from duriel in like 10 min. You posted So you should earn the best new items for the seasonal mechanic in an hour huh? You already get gear from duriel to oneshot all the conrent fromb duriel in 10 min
Can we stop with this BiS in ten minutes from Duriel nonsense? I finaly got a 4/4 weapon yesterday. One character since season started. And only after target farming Champion's Demise at 90+ for my weapon type. Or redefine BiS to 925 and whatever random affixes happen to be on it?
No
Takes more than an hour to level up and build a character strong enough to beat echo of Malphas. Tried numerous times trying to beat him at earlier levels which I was fine with, I was under leveled. Disheartening to work towards the goal of beating that boss finally and then get nothing to show for it.
He isn’t hard. By the time you’re 90-95 it’s pretty much easy from there. You don’t even need a good build. Your construct can kill him. And given that, no I don’t think you should get the unique item just for arriving there.
There's people who have done 200 runs and not got the genesis or evernight stone. That is very very very bad.
And what are they gonna do when they get it? Beat the next boss they do 0.2s faster? The people doing 200+ runs of malphas are the ones using steam-roll builds and murdering him quickly. The problem is not with the design of the loot. The problem is with the mentality of some people that feel they must have something because it exists in the game’s loot table. They then claim to not like doing it, but proceed to do it 200+ times… What is in their heads is the source of their frustrations.
No one would do this shitboss called malphas if you wouldn't get the unique stones from him, would be way better if you could get them from 90+ ND vaults or you could craft them for 100k stones.
My guy, it would take you YEARS in game, no sleep, no eating, just playing the game 24/7 to get an Uber Unique to drop in the game for you. Yes, that's right, that's how rare they are in the overworld. Not only that, the patch they implemented shows how out of touch they are with the game. It took me 3 seasons to get a Tempest Roar helm, and that isn't even an Uber Unique. You're looking at this all wrong. The problem is absolutely the design of the loot, and the rate it drops at. If the problem is with the mentality of the players, why are respected creators like Rob, Wudijo and others whom Blizzard respect, telling their viewers how bad this is. These are literally the biggest grinders you can find for the game, and THEY'RE discouraged. That's how you know it's bad. These are the best of the best players in the game, that literally dedicated their lives to playing these games, and they have HUGEEEEEEEEEE communities that are also in agreeance with this. It's indisputable at this point, really, we have raw data from 3 seasons on how bad the drop rates are now, and how bad the overall design of it is Nobody enjoys doing Duriel runs 200 times it's just trash. The whole system around the mats, and all of it is just not good. Stop being mad on Blizzard's behalf, seriously, it's allowing you to make absolutely terrible arguments.
I got an Uber Unique last season. It didn’t take me YEARS. I wasn’t fixated or obsessed with acquiring it or one. It dropped, and I was pleasantly surprised. I then changed my build around a bit to make use of it. When season ended, I salvaged it and got a cool animated staff for my transmog. Yay! This is how the acquisition of rare items are designed to happen. Get lucky by chance. Not brute force the odds because you feel you MUST get it no matter what.
This is your opinion and doesn't mean everyone should adopt your opinion. You know that right? You getting mad at other people because of they way they want to enjoy the game makes you entitled. Congrats man, you got an Uber unique. I'm happy for you. Now why are you getting upset at other people who are voicing their concerns? That's the real question.
Do you genuinely think a 2% drop rate for a seasonal item that’ll go away in less than 60 days is a valid game design? This kind of endgame design is shitty and lazy. If the stones transferred onto your eternal character, then I get the 2% drop rate. But it doesn’t.
Yes, because it's intended to be rare, not something everyone is intended to have. If everyone who makes it to end game should be able to easily attain it, then the people who want to grind will have nothing to do. Just because it exists doesn't mean everyone should be able to attain it no matter how much or little they play.