Wildwood Specailizations are neat and I hope you get rid of them.

The premise of the title may have been addressed in a dev interview and I just haven't paid attention to those. I'm returning after a while and started a couple days into the league when a friend reminded me that the game existed and I felt like it was time to get back into it.

There's not a lot in the Wildwood Specializations that couldn't/shouldn't be translated to the base game, but I think the specializations themselves are not ideal. It's neat to have a second ascendancy as something of a league event, but it's pretty clear that unless you're going down one of a handful of specific archetypes, you're just getting more jewel sockets out of it and not anything super compelling in the long-term.

That said, there's a ton of stuff I hope gets added to the base game. As an example, Barkskin should just be a skill gem. It'd probably be a bit overpowered as it is if made available to everyone, but if you cut back maybe on the armor scaling (150% free armor scaling is kind of wild, even if it does get removed by getting hit) and have the rest of the numbers reach current levels at gem level 23ish instead of 20, I think it'd be very solid and fill a nice niche for armor/evasion characters.

I also like all the new Warlock spells as skill gems and Tinctures as a new item type usable with a keystone (probably somewhere in Ranger/Shadow area?). Tone down the affixes and they can probably be easily craftable, too. I also think the Spectre QOL we got from The Oathbreaker is really neat and I hope to see more "corpse trader" NPC's in the future.

That leaves Charms... I think I kinda get what Charms are supposed to be doing, but I'm not sold on them. Good charms will be very RNG-dependent, but they're maybe too strong to be less RNG? Maybe there can be some kind of crafting system implemented to add some of the more popular Charm affixes as Implicit modifiers onto standard jewels.

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XCodesLIVE wrote:

The premise of the title may have been addressed in a dev interview and I just haven't paid attention to those. I'm returning after a while and started a couple days into the league when a friend reminded me that the game existed and I felt like it was time to get back into it.

There's not a lot in the Wildwood Specializations that couldn't/shouldn't be translated to the base game, but I think the specializations themselves are not ideal. It's neat to have a second ascendancy as something of a league event, but it's pretty clear that unless you're going down one of a handful of specific archetypes, you're just getting more jewel sockets out of it and not anything super compelling in the long-term.

That said, there's a ton of stuff I hope gets added to the base game. As an example, Barkskin should just be a skill gem. It'd probably be a bit overpowered as it is if made available to everyone, but if you cut back maybe on the armor scaling (150% free armor scaling is kind of wild, even if it does get removed by getting hit) and have the rest of the numbers reach current levels at gem level 23ish instead of 20, I think it'd be very solid and fill a nice niche for armor/evasion characters.

I also like all the new Warlock spells as skill gems and Tinctures as a new item type usable with a keystone (probably somewhere in Ranger/Shadow area?). Tone down the affixes and they can probably be easily craftable, too. I also think the Spectre QOL we got from The Oathbreaker is really neat and I hope to see more "corpse trader" NPC's in the future.

That leaves Charms... I think I kinda get what Charms are supposed to be doing, but I'm not sold on them. Good charms will be very RNG-dependent, but they're maybe too strong to be less RNG? Maybe there can be some kind of crafting system implemented to add some of the more popular Charm affixes as Implicit modifiers onto standard jewels.

considering over 85% of builds go primalist i would say the balance between willwood ascendancies is terrible. warlock of the mist for instance had a lot of potential but the keystones are either gated behind bad conditions or are mechanically broken like Cannibalised Faith that works like archmage for blood magic builds but without a way to scale life cost the keystone becomes pointless.

i doubt many will consider barkskin overpowered as a standard skill, 25% reservation for 15% increased armor per second up to 150% if you havent been hit is not exactly godtier.

There are aspects of the wildwood that I enjoy, but I also think they should be removed and are just more power creep.

The alternate minions made me realize I want more special minions.

all in all their are like 6 nodes that really should be on the passive tree

the maji if you have no sockets you get bonuses,
Blood magic should get the 50% life reservation bonus for having no mana,
rare enemies get minimap icons, they can't block or suppress damage
Warcrys shake bodies for loot, opens doors/chests
Ravenous is neat enough to be a keystone
barkskin is good enough to be a thing on the tree

also they could just:

Add a minion vendor to your hideout for specter players. Make it like Tane or something.

add tinctures to the game

Make the new curses into gems

And the rucksack should be a quest reward, maybe from doing gruist or lily in act 6/7

Power creep that is making the game feel better to play (bigger inventory, seeing where enemies are, that kind of thing) is perfectly acceptable.

I like this direction more than adding another level of elevated influences or a new uber uber uber pinnacle boss that 99% of the entire player-base will never ever see. and if they even bother to do it, they will pay 3 divines for a carry.

All in all I think they should just have wild-wood go core as is. Make it easier to get your ascendancy points, or make the actual path in the dark readable.

don't worry its patently obvious that these were never going core from the jump and are their latest and bravest borrowed power design.

Personally I hate this new direction and it will 100% ruin the game (at least the new league excitement part of the game I guess I could play standard more than i currently do if they keep it up) for me personally if they decide that its successful and keep going down the path of blatantly obvious borrowed power design.

I really need designs to be intended to improve and expand the base game "in good faith". Even if they decide the design didn't do that and it doesn't go core, or it needs to be massaged before it goes core as is sometimes the case I need that or I can't care about it. I can't consider bad faith designs or borrowed power in a way that gives the items or mechanics importance "weight" significance or value.

I can look at a mirror tier item and think "that's so badass" but the moment I know it is intended to be deleted (a void league or a Sanctum relic for example) it becomes ZERO weight, and no value what so ever to me subjectively.

Chris has said many times that their items and mechanical systems needs to have "weight" (perception of importance, or value) the most they can possibly accomplish. Making them bold faced disposable items and mechanics (design mechanics like 2nd ascendancy) for me at least strips all or nearly all the perceived value or impact they might have.

Turning the significance of their item and mechanical designs into a Dixie cup to be crumpled up at the end of the league is immensely unsatisfying and IMO a cheap "cop out".

"new possibilities" for three months are far less satisfying and have far less gravity than "new possibilities potentially for the rest of the games history".

If I know something is going away in 3 months and wont be a part of build crafting or loot in the future I automatically lose interest, and don't want to theorycraft builds using it. Else I come up with something I really love that becomes no longer possible to do, or breaks completely.

Leagues are inherently temporary and most people don't play Standard beyond testing builds/mechanics/interactions. I think that's fine. It's also fine that league experience is different from league to league.

I think the Wildwood is mostly a neat, new type of side area that is rewarding and unique. Until we talk about Wildwood Ascendancies. Those are kind of RNG hell and I think it would not only make sense, but be preferable to remove access to them and roll the more popular mechanics into the game in a more standard way including keystones, notables, vendors, and skill gems. The builds will be less powerful without the ascendancy because we're getting 8 extra talent points, but the good and/or interesting stuff should still be readily doable.

-1 will ruin the game, this patch fixed a lot of what they broke in the last 2-3 leagues.

they took power from our ascendancy's and added it back in, people are calling that power creep but its stolen-power.

Just remove primalist, it's kinda stupid and op. The warden is very cool and build enabling, warlock is also interesting but not much explored yet.

Primalist is just a brain-dead choice for 95% of builds and that's not a good thing. It's like pre-nerfed ascendant back in the day when it would be the best ascendancy for most builds.

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stalkingjackal wrote:

Just remove primalist, it's kinda stupid and op. The warden is very cool and build enabling, warlock is also interesting but not much explored yet.

Primalist is just a brain-dead choice for 95% of builds and that's not a good thing. It's like pre-nerfed ascendant back in the day when it would be the best ascendancy for most builds.

Primalist is filled with everyones stolen ascendancy options, removing it is just taking away what they already took away before.

whats the upside?

And if the other two are so bad, why make the primalist bad? Make the other two worth using.

The entire necromancy/corpse themed wing of this patch has little appeal to me as someone who plays basically nothing but necromancer for years and that's not good.

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SilentSymphony wrote:

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stalkingjackal wrote:

Just remove primalist, it's kinda stupid and op. The warden is very cool and build enabling, warlock is also interesting but not much explored yet.

Primalist is just a brain-dead choice for 95% of builds and that's not a good thing. It's like pre-nerfed ascendant back in the day when it would be the best ascendancy for most builds.

Primalist is filled with everyones stolen ascendancy options, removing it is just taking away what they already took away before.

whats the upside?

And if the other two are so bad, why make the primalist bad? Make the other two worth using.

The entire necromancy/corpse themed wing of this patch has little appeal to me as someone who plays basically nothing but necromancer for years and that's not good.

They are worth using, but only on specific builds. Which is what it should be, we do not need more global power creep.

'That which was taken' already provides a global power creep. It's an insane jewel comparable to watcher's eye.

Keep the jewel and get rid of charms - problem solved. Or even making charms roll with max 1 affix instead of two would work. The fact that you can get half of your resists/suppression/spell block from 3 charm slots is ridiculous.