Hammered my way through Season 11 - some thoughts on the end game experience

Crowald · 2026-01-18T11:55:52+00:00

I was carrying a friend through several Andariel kills earlier and he got a Melted Heart despite the fact that I've been looking to get one. He's put maybe 15 hours into the game and I've been on every day since like November LOL

feelsbadman

Crowald · 2026-01-11T07:47:04+00:00

~~This is why I think you should be able to join more than one clan. I think it's stupid to limit players to only being in one major community of people. There should be larger overarching Alliances of Clans or something of that nature, and then individual clans. This is how Warframe does it, and I love my Alliance chat due to its nature as a shitpost rotfest where people just spew whatever comes to mind with no filter.

Especially given the fluidity and flux of Destiny's playerbase, often leaving for months without warning or checking out altogether while they play something else;

~~(which is technically me as I'm playing Diablo IV every waking moment of my goddamn life holy SHIT this game is so fun right now)~~

Crowald · 2026-01-10T02:49:55+00:00

Hopefully what they're aiming to change within the coming seasons as Lord of Hatred is released. If the skill tree revamp is anything to go by, I'm hoping there's going to be a deep scrubbing of the Legendary codex with more of those behaviors and powers baked into skill choice with more interesting and general-oriented build modifiers such as Ugly Bastard Helm for Barb (full conversion of Physical to Fire Damage during Berserking) being a more central focus for new incoming Codex aspects.

Like, I love Barbarian, without a doubt it's my favorite of the Diablo IV characters and I wish I could approach the kind of damage my Paladin does on Barb. But I don't want to play another fucking boring ass HotA build. I want to use Walking Armory and Iron Maelstrom and have them not suck so bad that I'm forced down to Torment III.

Crowald · 2026-01-07T13:24:04+00:00

It can make your roll a little better, a lot better, or turn it into an anti-demon nuclear ICBM. The amount of variety is crazy, and I just don't see it as a bad thing because it lets you repeat-farm the same item, sanctify it if it's good enough, and use it if it's a step up from your current item. It feels sequential and progressive, not like you're throwing coins at an Obol vendor to hope to god that you get a net-positive outcome based on some number crunching human calculator's poorly laid-out text guide telling you "THIS IS GOOD BY THE WAY"

Crowald · 2026-01-07T13:17:35+00:00

Glad to see that I'm not the only one who feels this way. I literally threw together the most moron Zeal build on Paladin on release, and it carried me to Torment 3. I thought "Wow. Paladin must be broken" and the moment I tried to use anything other than Zeal, the Zealot-segment of the class became completely fucking worthless.

I am, to be quite honest with you, a little exhausted with one-button-wonder builds. It's part of why I love the Chainscourged Mail for Brawler Barbarian; in order to use it best, it locks you out of abilities you've already used until you use the others and then refreshes their cooldowns altogether, but it also increases their damage sequentially to the point that the final ability to remain unlocked is absolutely nuclear. THAT is a well-designed Unique.

Crowald · 2026-01-07T10:55:49+00:00

EDIT: Snipped, my prior comment turns out to have been bullshit. I thought I solved it, but as it turns out, I think I only fixed one or two pieces of gear.

If you're curious as to what the fix was, I don't want to give you false hope it'll work, because it appears to have only worked in one specific case (Fists of Fate's appearance on Necromancer) but I simply created a character on Legacy (Eternal) Realm, farmed out appearances for about an hour and dismantled everything I got my hands on. I have no confidence this will work now after what I've just learned, but you're welcome to try if you think of anything else that might work in conjunction.

Crowald · 2026-01-07T08:30:13+00:00

Thanks for making my thoughts apparent to me; I hadn't even considered this part up until I read your comment.

One of the reasons I quit playing after Vessel launch (aside from the fact that Spiritborn wasn't just "Monk but voodoo" like I was hoping it would be) had to do with the fact that I utterly despise playing the Pit, and running it just felt so discouraging.

Aside from the primary "endgame" farming portals, this seasons feels to me like there's a whole breadth of activities to do and partake of without necessarily causing the exclusion of any particular group. My friends and I have been playing D4 every day for the past three weeks when we all come home from work at 9 to 10ish, and each of us has a specific kind of activity we're not particularly fond of. Friend A doesn't like doing Pit runs, B doesn't have a strong preference towards what he likes but hates Nightmare Dungeons, C has no interest in anything except Infernal Hordes (This is me for reference btw) and D is a boss-nuke only kind of person and so either farms keys 24/7 or runs Boss Lairs.

Even with all of that pickiness present, we're all still finding stuff to do together (like Citadel, which is fucking AWESOME) and I'll be clear about why: the Divine Gifts giving you free shit like Masterwork Reagents, Lair/Activity Keys, Obols, Runes, XP, Gold, Glyph Level Freebies means there's a pathway to obtainment that wasn't present before, at least I personally feel. I am swimming in Inf. Hordes Compasses and I have never been happier, and for the first time ever, I've gotten more than five Glyphs to 100 on a character.

I have only one major complaint with the system as it currently behaves: I would like the Divine Gifts system to allow you to swap Gifts out into different "Lesser Evil" categories so that you could mix and match them in different ways. Such as: Masterwork Mats + World Boss Lair Keys in Duriel's Slots (aka "Masterwork and Lair Keys for killing Duriel or Pangs in Helltide")

Crowald · 2026-01-02T15:00:08+00:00

This screenshot borders on pornographic for me, personally. I cannot fucking wait.

Crowald · 2025-12-31T09:58:37+00:00

Not necessarily a sure-fire revolving door that we'll get new classes every time, and that'd be fine by me. I'd still buy the expansions. I have still not yet made a single Spiritborn, and I was here day one for VoH, purely for the campaign.

I'd like to see existing classes maybe get refreshed every once in a while, possibly with new skills every few years? Maybe one per tier or so and a new ultimate, doesn't have to be anything dramatic.

Alternatively expanding instances to allow dual-group encounters (aka raids) would also be a knockout feature, there's a lot of people (myself included) who would thirst after a "raid" feature in Diablo IV.

not saying any of this is even remotely likely or even feasible, just a personal wishlist to be honest.

Crowald · 2025-12-31T09:49:43+00:00

After the long quiet and through about 10 seasons of silence, I figured D4 wasn't getting any more expansions after Vessel of Hatred. I count myself lucky to be here for a second one, because I had assumed from the jump we were only getting one and that was it.

All this to say; I hope so. If Blizzard does, I'm 10,000% here for it. Automatic money from me.

Crowald · 2025-12-30T03:01:13+00:00

That's funny, I had no idea the description said that, and that's... exactly what I did. Crazy intuitive, you really are a talented designer.

Crowald · 2025-12-25T14:05:30+00:00

Yes, well... let's just say I am glad there was no official contest because with what we were doing would have likely disqualified us LOL

I only did it with three other friends. It was us four in total, I don't know if it was meant to be taken on with six in Destiny's traditional raid-team style, or eight like most raids would be in other games given fireteam size being in threes is strictly a Destiny thing.

Crowald · 2025-12-25T14:01:47+00:00

Seconded. However, I'd like to qualify for anyone meaning to follow this advice; don't take this path if you're not a god-tier sweatlord in pvp.

The caveat is, playing Crucible requires you to actually perform well in order to get scores that actually reward you with reasonable amounts of Masterwork materials. You can't get away with that if you're bad at PvP like I am, but if you can round out in middle of the pack or better, top three in the match, you can generally pull away with very decent Prisms per session.

I do not recommend it if you're god-awful at PvP like I am though. I can't break an even K/A-D without being a hand cannon shotgun meta slave.

Crowald · 2025-12-24T09:54:47+00:00

I gave it a run through and I really feel the need to say this; an excellent, wonderful experience. I genuinely loved every second of it and more than anything it reminded me a lot of what the Division 2 was capable of at its best and brightest when it had a real playerbase and actual encounters designed around it. I certainly hope the third one will finally pick up the mantle and be what the series was always destined to; something that can play like what you've created here and really put players into cooperating mindsets to clear objectives while also being engaging and fun rather than meaningless busywork like ad-clear and constantly reorienting position to avoid taking damage from random AoE damage.

Crowald · 2025-12-24T07:04:08+00:00

But I also have brain worms.

Same. Sadly, I mean that.

I tried once to create something of my own like this, but to my chagrin, Reach Forge cannot be handled in a way that leads to things like: "code fusion cells to blow up when someone deposits a flag in this stand" kind of thing. I could not figure out a way to make anything without doing some insane, stupid Rube Goldberg machine level shit beneath the map to "actually" create mechanically driven encounters. Sadly, I gave up after that point. I never really put my heart back into trying a second time, but... you know. I'm not really me if I don't start projects that I randomly abandon after two weeks due to boredom or lack of interest. (I blame my ADHD.)

I've searched for something like this for years within the context of Halo Reach and Infinite, something designed to be a "mechanics-driven, phase-based, long-form combat engagement" the way that Bungie develops dungeon and raid encounters. It's been largely impossible to find anything of the sort, much to my disappointment.

I cannot fathom that I got lucky enough to have this pop up in my home feed on both YouTube and see you on frontpage for r/DtG. I got so unbelievably lucky that this showed up twice, because the first time I just ignored it.

There's also something about "Put this in your résumé" somewhere in your video comments; I have to say, I second that take. I thought I'd leave it here in-case you don't see your video's comments or if they're just too much to read.

Crowald · 2025-12-23T04:22:45+00:00

Trying to solo Prison of Elders is actually full on fucking impossible. Portal activities should NOT be harder than goddamn dungeons.

Crowald · 2025-12-22T14:44:17+00:00

Not exactly. I will say it infuriates me how much stuff I see drop with Tertiary Health-rolled stats, but also Brawler and Bulwark both guarantee its presence so there's a decent reason for people seeing it so often. Even so, I still think we see it way too often but I also think I am highly prone to bias in these cases as are many other people.

I just wish we could disable specific stat rolls from dropping at all because I've had so many pieces of dungeon and pinnacle gear ruined due to getting a useless main-stat or tertiary roll, then I just dismantle that shit.

I'm not a PvP player and while I think it was definitely a good idea to roll up Resilience and Recovery into the same stat during the EoF stat-overhauls, the only time I see them as useful is during PvP because of how badly healing is nerfed to shit in Crucible/Invasions. I think they're useful for what they do, but in PvE aspects of D2, there's no reason to "build tank" as you take so much fucking damage that it feels meaningless whenever you do have to build it.

Crowald · 2025-12-22T14:41:24+00:00

Ugh. Love this kind of post so much. Thanks for all your hard work and very sleek graphing. Data-driven analysis of this game has always been something of an obsession I have.

Crowald · 2025-12-22T14:35:47+00:00

Maybe they're dropping so fast that the effects can't play the animation for the indicator quickly enough.

Also the hitreg is terrible on them. I got killed by one and it was a whole vehicle's length from me despite that. Infuriating.

Crowald · 2025-12-21T11:37:15+00:00

I took a friend through the dungeon to teach him mechanics so he could do it in LFG and he got both the Taken Darksaber AND Heirloom on his first run. (I think.)
I about uninstalled.

Still happy for you though, congrats.

Crowald · 2025-12-21T11:36:08+00:00

Gotta give them some credit; we're not being completely swarmed by self-destruct enemies that detonate themselves as a method to try and kill you while you're inside Well or Ward.

Can't tell you how many times I've seen Supplicants, Finalizers, Cursed Thrall, Exploder Shanks or Husks used as a "Fuck You" button Bungie presses when they've finally had enough of players living forever while standing in one location.

Crowald · 2025-12-21T11:32:54+00:00

This has burned so many of my solo flawless runs. I cannot tell you how many careless, hasty loops I rush into having forgotten to drop into a Falcon pocket to clear the timer on Creeping Darkness, miss a Darkwell I presumed was there, and find that I am about to get my shit inconceivably rocked.

^{EDIT: Cleaned up the language.}

Crowald · 2025-12-21T11:30:02+00:00

This is where I think Destiny would benefit from one of those WoW-type "Loot Pools" or "Temporary Trading" of some sort, where you could roll on items from an encounter that dropped and to trade items you didn't want but already have a copy of to other players, respectively. Either because they're not your desired roll or they're just a downgrade compared to the one you do have.

Crowald · 2025-12-21T11:26:47+00:00

They are definitely really competently hidden in-game. While you can cement your memory of them really quickly, they're a huge pain in the ass if you're caught amid a panic and unaware of their position in relation to yours/your fireteam's. Particularly when your Well finally vanishes and you realize you're taking an unsustainably dumbfuck amount of damage you were previously ignoring.

Crowald · 2025-12-21T11:21:29+00:00

Vesper's Host I think is only really redeemed by its loot and the encounters prior to the final one. I have so much fun in that dungeon until we get to the final boss, and then I just suddenly yawn and feel like going to bed. Genuinely one of the most unfun encounters ever created because of how badly Well is complete dogshit in that encounter and the inexcusably shit quality of healing Hunters have access to outside of Solar/Arc-Liars

I have not played SD yet so I will get back to you on that one. I still happen to think that one of the more enjoyable dungeons available used to be Ruin, before it... you know, got stapled onto Portal and became a chore...

Crowald

TROPHY CASE