Predict 3.0, win a Mirror of Kalandra

Hey,
since I am a big fan of making guess, here I am.

Starting off with some personal assessments about the game.
- ES is meta mostly because life is weak in top red maps. Vaal pact+ES is the real issue, but I don't think they would change it anytime soon. What makes life weak are big hits/aka one-shot mechanics.
- Fps and lag are major issues for many players. Breach was among the best league I've ever played but also caused scary fps drop in many breach (tul and chayula mainly). I am speaking as a hc player.
- Since the add of act4, leveling a new character has become somehow boring, doing each quest 3 times became just a pain. As most people around, I believe, when I reroll I just rush to maps, going as fast as I can through normal/cruel/merciless until early act4 (the +1 passives quest).


So the 3.0 new mechanic/ act balance!
- Act 5 is released. The town won't be at the start of the act like the other are (1 zone then the town). Instead the act5 town will be accessible after defeating a specific boss during the act (around the middle of it). It will be in 'hell' or this kind of unfriendly environment (I thinking about something like act4 in diablo2). After killing Malachai in normal, the other dude in town will open a portal, but not to cruel difficulty, but to a brand new zone -> the start of act 5.

- Cruel is non longer a game difficulty as it is currently.
No cruel means no cruel quest rewards (+passives/bandits/lab). For this, GGG will make some of the quest rewards +2 points instead of +1 currently. As for the bandits cruel bonus, an act5 quest reward will balance it providing the same kind of reward (like +cast speed +attack speed).

- The major balance will be the XP while leveling. I bet the 'normal' level for finishing act5 in normal will be around lvl50. The 'normal' level at the end of merciless will be lvl70 -> maping system. BUT my guess is the act5 content in merciless will be red maps difficulty tier. Meaning we will have the choice between running maps or playing in act4-5 in merciless for pex-ing.
Merciless dried lake will remain the best place to xp a bit before maping or continuing act4-5.
My general idea about the new XP system is something smoother, less XP penalty in low level areas, but also more in the highest areas.

- As for the cruel lab. I feel like running 4 times lab is just as painful as doing all quest 3 times with a new character. I believe they will reduce this number to 3. What about the 8 ascendancy points then ? Simplest way would be to give 3 ascendancy points in merciless & uber lab instead of 2. This might seem awkward giving 1 more point that won't be that useful... but it's just the case with the scion currently. So it's most likely how they are going to balance this 'lab issue'. Basically we will have normal(2), merciless(3) and uber(3) lab. No more cruel.
Last assumption about act5: it will be significantly the longest act to make up with the cruel difficulty loss.



- New support gems for attacks and spells. Unlike the usual %more damage support, the new support gems will focus around 'utility'/secondary effect instead of raw damage. Something like stagger/sleep mechanics might be added to the game through new gems.
A Brand new type of support gem with the 6th link in mind. Not useful enough to give up tons of dps as a 4th or 5th link, but might be worth it for a 6th link. Most builds tend to use a 'kinda weak' 6th link, usually providing 20-25% more dps (yea it's quite a bit, but not game changing).
A support giving, for instance, a "makes foes less aggressive for X seconds"/ "monsters might attack each other for X seconds", "weaker (white mobs) will target strong monsters (rares/uniques) for X seconds", "monsters are disoriented for X seconds".
- Oh, or simply, "Monsters you or your minions kill have Y% chance to explode for Z% of their life as chaos damage".
As you can see possibilities are quite infinite :D



General balance/ nerf /buff I see to come:
- Strength now gives 0.66 hp, instead of 0.5 before. Life nodes might get some love too, but nothing significant. As for the ES nodes I believe they will remain unchanged.

- All non-meta, hardly used skills will get buffed -> stuff like glacial hammers.

- Inquisitor Pious Path now gives real/reliable status aliment immunity (which means immune+dispel active status) to make it 'as good as' raider and pathfinder immunity nodes.

- Champion/Hierophant/Deadeye will get some love with some small buff. Occulist change to make it work with totems (basically 'on kill effect will be 'when you 'or your minions/totems kill...).

- Breach will be added to the core game as a zana mode (unfortunately).


New uniques:
Instead of changing/revamping/removing old useless and pointless uniques, I bet they will keep adding tons of new uniques, some beeing overpowered, then nerf weeks later.

- Unique basalt flask, most likely something OP and hundred exalts worth, so the 0.1% will enjoy its OPiness.

- New viable ES end game unique as it is the meta for some leagues now.

- Probably some new niche build enabling uniques.

What would be awesome is more fated version of vendor tier uniques. This might happen in the future but I don't think it's a priority.


Well, all this is just my guess. Wait and see.

Something genre changing....i'll go along the lines of that in my prediction...

I am assuming some sort of workaround with potions/healing, but more along the lines of leech mechanics.
For some reason arpg's in general treat all of our characters as vampires of some sort, in a way i have never really understood leeching. I understand it's a mechanic needed to deal with the ever growing power creep problem. Every arpg I have played (iv'e played alot) has life leech as the one sort of mechanic that ensures survival at end game that I can remember.

My thoughts are some changes, albeit minor changes to leech mechanics that make it less a necessary survival mechanic. For it to work though many other changes need to be implemented. Don't really know what I am getting at but yeah :D, my guess is leeching :).

Cheers on the giveaway

Too bad it is said before since I have almost the same guess. Problem in all that games is the life regeneration mechanic. Doesnt matter if D3 or POE, everyone works on the leech/regen problem for years and couldnt get a satisfying solution. Maybe they got one...

"

Reinhart84 wrote:

1.TRADE IMPROVEMENTS (maybe a new trading system)
2.FISHING (!!!)
3.ONE LESS DIFFICULTY TO RUN THROUGH
4.SMALL BUFFS TO LIFE-BASED BUILDS AND MELEE
5.SMALL NERFS TO ES-BASED BUILDS (maybe they nerf Vaal-Pact with es)
6.NEW END-GAME CONTENT(BOSSES MONSTERS ETC), NEW UNIQUES, (maybe a new type of currency) (fishes ftw!!)
7.SEVERAL VISUAL AUDIO AND STABILITY IMPROVEMENTS (MORE LAG ON SERVERS...:p)
8.NEW MAPS (THEMED FROM ACT 5 AREAS)

1. apparently they have been testing stuff but are not quite ready to impliment anything
2. already a thing
3. already knows for quite a while now (confirmed by chris in the manifesto post)
4+5. that isn't exactly a new mechanic but just a given seeing how it's been for the last good while now
6.Duh, act 5
7.do you even keep up to date? they been doing this for the last year ish and have confiremd they will continue to add stuff and since it's going to the xbox you can bet that there will be a lot

I think it's going to be a total rework of the leveling system.

Some sort of dynamic playthrough rather than repeating the acts in the respective difficulty settings.

"It is supposed to be something brand new that adresses a common problem of ARPGs in a unique fashion"



Do I win the mirror is if it's NOT sth brand new? :P GGG (not only them ofc) copy stuff like crazy, (ascendancies, fated uniques, etc )




My money would be on a better trade system as well.



EDIT: Chris said on Reddit that: "Yes, and to be specific, it relates to the Cruel stuff."

"

livejamie wrote:

I think it's going to be a total rework of the leveling system.

Some sort of dynamic playthrough rather than repeating the acts in the respective difficulty settings.

That is not brand new, though :P D3 has that, Grim Dawn has a similar thing, too.


Plus, alternate leveling has been requested / described in detailed by tons of people (including me) for ages..!

GGG gonna build a wall seperating it from other aRPGs, and blizzard gonna pay for it!

There going to port PoE to gameboy.

Peace,

-Boem-

I believe that the big thing that nobody ever got right will be..

..content that scales to your abilities.

Let's face it: the one thing that no game has ever done right is some way to keep ALL content relevant. We whizz through the leveling game and get into low-level mapping, and it's all easy and pretty much faceroll. Sooner rather than later we end up running the same few maps & endgame bosses over, and over, and over again. All other games pretty much have the same problem - you eventually end up grinding the same thing ad nauseaum because it's either the most efficient or the most rewarding content to run. It makes the game much smaller than it needs to be.

I think a system wherein difficulty and rewards go hand in hand, and is able to scale effortlessly up and down is what they're looking at.

I'm not saying this is necessarily a good idea, but I think it's the way they're moving ahead. Either way, I'm excited to see what it is. :)