Thoughts on Heralds, Sunders, Statues, & New Ubers - discussion welcome

Let me state first that I do not intend for this to be a rant, though it will start off as one.

I was excited when ROTW was announced, I jumped right online and purchased it. Within days as I was learning about the new features. I was excited about the new Sunder &

Herald content, I thought it made boring Sunders interesting. I was equally happy if not more for the new Ubers. While I thought the classic Tristam one will always be my favorite, it still looked to be fun. Now I should state, this is the game for me. I mostly play NL, and I build up characters to farm for keys, or I do

Key runs then organ runs, then Ubers. Uber Trist has always been the pinnacle of my D2 journey.

A few weeks ago I sat down on a Saturday and wanted to do

Herald hunt for Sunder. Ending up spending hours terrorizing act after act, did multiple T5 Heralds and came away with nothing. Looked back completely demoralized and unmotivated to ever do that again. I realized too that in that time I could have farmed enough keys for Uber Trist and probably would have had fun.

So this week I started to think about statues and new Ubers. Again the game failed me. What I encounter was again a lot of flawed design that should have been tested in a PTR:

• Can only farm a boss that is Terrorized (yet essence drop at any time)

• Terror zones are now 30 minutes, so bosses must be rush farmed

• Drop rates inconsistent. Andy drops the least, Meph and Diablo the most. Done enough of Andy see there is a bug compared to Meph & Diablo or even
  Baal

• Act 2? Durry? Yeah I got one chance to do tomb, just not fun. Mad rush to find the correct tomb, mad rush to farm, mad rush to rinse & repeat

• One could argue we have more "work", more time investment, etc.. with lesser prize at the end compared to classic Ubers

• Trading
  Key X for Y was always a simple task, forget trading for
  Korlic (Act 2)

In the same period I have searched out statues I also have farmed enough for 5 Uber Trist runs. I just do not remember ever seeing complaints on classic Uber design. Most would be farming Countess or Nik anyways. Only real PIA has been Summoner, not too hard to farm. Once you get the keys, the organs are guaranteed. Once you get the organs, a torch is guaranteed. Do enough Uber Trist runs while not guaranteed, odds are you will get a torch you like or want. (my post ROTW release I did a run of 20 torches, got 4x Warlock

I just can not see how this new content could have been designed in the way it was. I know popular conspiracy theory around town is to blame streamers (especially the Sunder hunt). Hard to argue against it, the mechanics of the

Herald hunt is just not good for solo players (whereas traditional

Key hunts is perfectly fine on P1). This really feels like content they should have introduced in a PTR. For all the years I played D2, there was a Pattern or commonality in how people played this game. Most farming is done in solo games. Most players do rinse and repeat runs. I think we all knew that one guy who would do 100 Pindle or Countess runs and then log out. Heralds require you to sit in the same game for hours. Statues require you to farm not at our leisure or schedule, but someone else's. That just does not seem to fit how we play the game.

I do like the Warlock, having a blast with my NL toon. It has now become my primary 'farmer'. The binding of a demon is just amazing. The QOL changes to the stash was enough for me, I would have paid $25 just for that. As crafting is now my only true grail, the ease of collecting pgems & runes, transferring with

Key shortcuts is more than I could have asked for. But the new content mechanics just seem to have been designed for others, not for most players. It seems as if it was designed by someone who just kind of does not play the game (or at least plays it like the average Joe does online). I am glad I already had all the cold/fire/light LOD sunders that I needed, because odds of getting one now are not so good . I think even if some players are now new to the game, they will still not find the design to be well thought out. Classic Ubers has the RNG in finding a

Key, it has the friction to require a time sink to farming them. It requires time dedication to farming the organs. I just feel that they should have built off of what we all know works.

Could be that I'm just bad at the game, but trying to farm heralds / TZ as a cold sorc feels nearly impossible. I've gotten two to spawn ever and they've both been cold immune. Damn-near every unique monster in the tz seems to be cold immune in A1.

I had strong motivation to farm for sunders, but it genuinely feels nearly impossible without already having a cold sunder charm.

I've now diverted my time and efforts into building up enough times to try to buy ANY cold sunder just like everyone else.

I fear I won't be able to even see one drop until after ladder is over. I'll probably be able to build Enigma doing SSF on ladder before finding any grand grand charms drop off a

Herald.

</Rant>

I agree that the grind is absurdly long and difficult. But that has always been the point of diablo hasn't it?
As a casual non-ladder player I don't suffer too much because I have the old sunders. On ladder hell would be hell indeed.
I don't even try to get the new sunders and jewels - eventually they will trickle through to casual players, just like the torches trickled through to us.
The positive side of the expansion for me has been that the ultra rich players are willing to pay insanely high (for me) prices for the new stuff (statues, warlock items, shards). I think i got 10x as many high runes after expansion than in the four months before it

About sunders; I will never see a sunder anymore due to ROTW changes to things.
Barely found 3-4 at best on a ladder with LOD, now its much harder to get them... So now 0 per ladder I play at is found for sure. Great.

I really wonder why they punish casual players and only make changes according to what the 20+ hours a day players say... Its very unfortunate.
I mean im sure the people who play this game as a job basically are finding sunders etc. all the good stuff just fine. But the players not playing this game as a job are left with nothing. This isnt the right way to do things but when has the Activision Blizzard ever done things right?

I play a lot, and I mean A LOT but the

Herald system is a bit to tough.
I play offline, P8 Solo Self Found with this fire warlock (I have all the goodies for him but I choose to not give him anything).

Given the only 2% of a Champ or alike monster to draw the ire is quite small so is slow to achieve a T5

Herald.
I had 41 Heralds in total (14 T1, 9 T2, 6 T3, 5 T4 and 7 T5). The best drop from them was a

The Reaper's Toll.
Not wanting to lose the T5 streak I left the PC running over night with game on pause. This morning I encountered a straight T5 at first ire (still no Sunder).
I'm going back to slain some monsters now.

This thread reminded me to finally pursue for a Latent Sunder myself with my SC Ladder character. I terrorized Acts 1-4 (I never picked up a

Northern Worldstone Shard somehow). It took me around 4.5 hours to clear up every area (except for

Great Marsh, Swampy Pit and Kurast Sewers, because

Herald versions of gloams and stygian dolls don't just sound difficult but unfun) and I managed to call down 13-ish Heralds. Of course, no Sunder out of it.

I did find

Tancred's Crowbill seven times though.

Having done this, my thought is that this is just not fun. Sunders being a rare drop is not even part of my psychological calculations here - the act of deliberately going for Sunders is not what I would consider entertainment. I was slogging through Acts 3 and 4 out of spite. Tier 5 Heralds are tough fights, yeah, but the thrill of fighting them comes too infrequently and provides insufficient joy.

I would not do this again. I decided that I don't want a Sunder this Ladder season.

IMO, they screwed up locking the sunders behind heralds. They created a catch-22 where a lot of builds need sunders in order to effectively hunt heralds but you can't find a sunder without killing countless heralds. I've spent days of gameplay hunting heralds and have killed a ton of tier 5's but have yet to find a sunder. I was lucky enough to trade for one which looks to be the only practical way of getting one.

pyropy wrote: 11 hours ago

They created a catch-22 where a lot of builds need sunders in order to effectively hunt heralds but you can't find a sunder without killing countless heralds.

Oddly enough, I heard this exact criticism for the very early days of Diablo 3. I didn't play the game back then so I haven't experienced it myself, but people were saying they needed

Inferno Act 3 gear to get through

Inferno Act 2. Combined with the weird trading scene the game had back then, people quickly got sick of the gameplay. Hm.

The statues I feel are in a pretty good spot overall. They're not too hard to find if you want to run some ancients but they're also not just all over the place, meaning you need to do at least some target farming.
Mind you, I am saying that as someone who happens to be flexible enough time-wise to be able to catch act boss TZs when they happen (most of the time anyways). I could see how for the average person, with a 9-5 job or the like, you end up a bit screwed because act boss TZs simply rarely to never happen when you would be able to actually run them.

The ancients themselves are a bit of a letdown as they are just far too easy. I didn't know what to expect going in but I certainly wasn't expecting "way easier than existing ubers".

Heralds...I actually kinda hate heralds.

Let's leave out the sunder drop chance for a second. Yes, it is way too low, but that could at least be argued to be "in line with rare items being rare". I.e. "sunders are the new

Zod" or whatever.

But the heralds themselves and more specifically the system behind spawning them is beyond annoying:
(1) It makes "current TZ" usage actively worse and less satisfying than it was before RotW because you can't chain it long enough to get higher

Herald tiers (which you now want) before starting over -> negative player experience
(2) It makes many TZs in general just terrible because by the time you get an ire, there are no mobs left to spawn it with (looking at you, CS!) -> constantly going "yay, Ire!...oh wait...no mobs...f this" -> negative player experience
(3) Even if you go ahead and blow shards to find heralds, their actual combined spawn chance remains far too low. I sharded A1 + A2 the other day and after clearing through the entirety of them, alongside half of A4 and some A3 and 5 via random TZ rotation, I got 2(!) heralds. 2! Couldn't even get to T4, let alone 5. Nothing in D2 has ever felt like that much of a waste of time to me. Couldn't bring myself to shard the rest as "not even 1 per act" is just daft and highly demotivating. Getting heralds but then no sunder, fine, gating items is one thing but gating content behind utter randomness even after using the had-to-farm-this-first trigger items...that just sucks. -> exceptionally negative player experience

These just need to be far more common imo and come an ire they should just spawn in some random place on the map, rather than being tied to "unspawned mobs", so that you still have to search but ires won't inherently go wasted all the time.
Or better yet..do what the message says! Have them hunt you! Once popped, they spawn in say 5 screens away and then make their way to you, whether you like the timing or not. Throw in that extra challenge. It'd also make split-farming across multiple acts more feasible as he who pops the ire also gets the

Herald coming after them, rather than "guy in A1 pops an ire, guy in A3 starts chain-teleporting to steal the

Herald".
And ideally, imo, just also give normal mobs a chance to trigger ire. Finally give us a reason to actually clear zones, rather than jump from elites to elites forever.

Plus balance wise heralds really aren't in a good spot. The mob type and aura selection has way too high of an impact to where you regularly get T5 heralds that are still just an absolute joke and hardly any more of a challenge than some random

Fallen. Or you get one that can randomly 1-shot you through 5k+ life. I have seen very little "in between" as it seemingly just fluctuates from one extreme to the other. That could really use some adjustments to remove the "just stupid easy" ones while tuning the upper extreme down a bit so it doesn't become a hard no for so many builds.
And yeah, Izodn has a fair point: needing sunders to farm a sunder is...questionable. Make heralds not immune to anything but highly resistant instead.

Schnorki wrote: 11 hours ago

The statues I feel are in a pretty good spot overall. They're not too hard to find...

We will have to agree to disagree. Was just doing

Tal's Tomb, third run and I found Durry in the last tomb I looked. The entire time I am teleporting around getting whacked, no time to stop. The pressure to go faster and faster is just stress. I take down Durry and saw a bunch of Scrolls of Town Portal drop, I said *$&@# this game and exited.

First new content in the game since 1.11, and I can no longer participate in either. I know a common popular complaint many have given towards D4 is "Do they even play this game", and it seems to somewhat apply here. At least with D4 there is some communication from the D4 team. There has been Silence from D2 team.

Schnorki wrote: 11 hours ago

[..]
Plus balance wise heralds really aren't in a good spot. The mob type and aura selection has way too high of an impact to where you regularly get T5 heralds that are still just an absolute joke and hardly any more of a challenge than some random

Fallen. Or you get one that can randomly 1-shot you through 5k+ life. I have seen very little "in between" as it seemingly just fluctuates from one extreme to the other.
[..]

Just to drive that point home...did another shard run (ugh..):

Turns out if you want to really utterly annihilate them and just faceroll past T5 heralds..shard act 2 and spawn them inside maggot lair. If a T5

Herald picks up on the insect

Swarm mob type...I don't know if they're bugging out with them or something but they literally die in 1 hit. The minions take longer to kill and seem about right but the

Herald itself just falls over dead the instant you touch it. Confirmed that 3 times over with my barb..3 hits, 3 dead T5 heralds.
And just to confirm the "one extreme to the other" shortly therafter, this effin fana-cursed-

Thorns-nigh-immune-to-everything tombs

Mummy thing: Literally took almost 7 minutes of non-stop swinging to bring down..health bar just wouldn't move against the same decked out barb that 1-shot the maggot lair ones.

On the plus side..at least I actually got some heralds this time! (Albeit obviously still no sunders)

Schnorki wrote: 2 hours ago

Literally took almost 7 minutes of non-stop swinging to bring down..health bar just wouldn't move against the same decked out barb that 1-shot the maggot lair ones.

Sorry but just need to share this 110% unrelated story - Last ladder I had made a FOH Pally for first time, was in Chaos just opening first seal and Diablo appears. I actually paused and thought someone came into my private game and had clicked on the other seals. I did not see the Dclone message that he had invaded. Suffice to say I was screwed. It took me over a half hour to take him down. When I did, the feeling of joy and accomplishment lives with me still, first Anni in D2R, first Anni that season. Went on to get probably over 40 last season (i use to jump from NA to EU to Asia waiting for Dclone every day).

Anyways, my hope (and why I am now just going to save my shards) is that sometime down the road someone one the D2R dev team hears the cries of thousands of frustrated players and changes the mechanics & design to fit actual play style. I thought about it that D4 has somewhat similar feature in Helltides. I can't remember exactly but there is a meter that tracks I think how much you kill, and eventually you get some boss to spawn (D4 player would explain better). I think Heralds need to spawn more, I think Heralds need to show some sort of tracking, some sort of progress.

Important factor, if we Terrorize an act. That should stay with the character/account for some time. Maybe it could be just an hour, maybe two. But who exactly wants to clear

Rocky Waste? Who wants to go back to

Cold Plains, and worse you have to basically clear the entire area? For the life of me, players target bosses (Meph, Countess) or specific areas (Trav, Halls, Worlstone).

Something I do remember well, maybe one of the few things I liked about D3 was the game mode I think it was called Bounties. A team of 4 would split up to do different Acts or areas to complete the quests, so the team would all take part in the grand bounty quest. Problem with D2, we have shared loot. That means 4-6 or even 8 are not all going to want to help you clear multiple acts just for you to get the Sunder. However if you had 2 people doing Act 1, another one or two doing Act 2, while another did Chaos, that would have cleared quicker, you would not be spending hours. Worst is to spend hours and come up with nothing, that just gives no motivation to try again. Trist Ubers, I just need to find keys, thats it. Gather enough keys to do a run, you almost always end up happy. I know I was after ladder end and ROTW was announced, I ended up getting 4 Warlock torches a few days later.