Been playing this game since its release and stewing on some totally random ideas for seasonal effect since you started them.
Idea #1. Make chest and pants able to equip legendary gems for the season… would open up many possibilities and play styles for pretty much every build in the game and allow some currently non viable builds to become useful again
Idea #2. Make the Ancestors Grace amulet effect emanate. That would make using it much less horrible then it is currently due to it eating legendary gems as it self desctructs, since on a follower you dont equip legendary gems. Also that would make a real choice for amulet slot vs the Flavor of Time since nothing else really competes with it on follower atm.
Just some random ideas ive had… what do you think?
Idea #1
Heroes going from 3 legendary gems to 8 offers nothing other than an incredible amount of power creep. It wouldn’t lead to currently non-viable builds becoming viable, it would just turn the top builds even better.
Idea #2
Heroes have a cheat death passive available. Followers have a cheat death ability available. Some class abilities (e.g. Akarat’s Champion / Prophet) grant a cheat death ability. This amulet grants a cheat death ability. So, that’s 3-4 cheat deaths. How much less hardcore do you want to make hardcore?
Exactly. The builds would still have the same gear with the same rolls, with the same skill choices, playing exactly same as before. That adds absolutely no further build diversity. I have a feeling that these who suggest this (and yes, this has been suggested many times before and was shot down every time) don’t know the definition of build diversity.
Also that suggestion of making Ancestor’s Grace emanate is bad. There are already so many cheat death abilities that HC is not very HC anymore.
Because of random game freezes and disconnects that may still occur HC might deserve an extra cheat death? Using the amulet on a follower would also mean the loss of Flavor of Time (on follower).
Predictions and suggestions about coming season themes are futile. The developers always come up with something unexpected (even when there is no separate theme).
Two cheat deaths isn’t enough, so they need a third one? Essentially having four “lives” before your hero actually dies doesn’t sound very hardcore. The thrill of hardcore is supposed to be the adrenaline pump you get from almost dying but getting away with it.
Besides, if you get a disconnect whilst outside of town and the game initiates the ten second in-combat logout timer it doesn’t matter how many cheat deaths you have because mobs hitting you for ten seconds straight will kill you regardless.
Yeah, that 10 second logout timer is long enough expend all cheat deaths, regardless of how many of them one has.
If the current amount of cheat deaths isn’t enough for some people in HC, maybe those people should rethink their playstyle and play less recklessly. One of the key aspects of HC is that one has to adapt to the possibility of losing a character permanently and play more defensively than usual because of that. Triggering the cheat death should serve as a warning to the player that he/she is playing way too recklessly.
Having too many “safety nets” kills the very purpose of HC mode.
If you play Firebird you can even have an extra cheat death.
Losing a HC hero to freezes and DCs isn’t exactly fair play in my humble opinion (not that I care that much because I don’t play hardcore). They could change the affix on Ancestor’s Grace to immunity to damage for a period up to almost ten seconds to protect from death to DC.