In GD you dont need to level up every char through normal/elite/ultimate, you only have to do with the very first char. Your next char can start from Ultimate right away and it is a lot of fun, because game is much harder from the start. Just my 2 cents to be fair about GD systems 
1 Like
That depends. When I get close to the character limit, I usually just delete a bunch of older characters and start them over. But I understand that not every altoholic does the same.
Yes, that depends on the player. Not every altoholic is the same, as can be seen by Llama stating he doesn’t enjoy the campaign.
But in my case, I like watching the build slowly coming online. The challenge part is kinda secondary for me. Which is why when I do a “insert skill build here”, I switch to that skill as soon as it’s available. Even when I’ll still need a bunch of work to actually get it to work. Or when it will need at least 10 points to get that node that will change it to what I want.
Which is why it annoys me when stuff like raptor pack build can’t be done before level 64, because that’s the unique level that makes the build possible. I can’t watch the build grow from the start.
I own D1 on GoG and every few years I go back to it for a few days because it still feels fun.
A few, like the raptor pack I mentioned, certainly. But not the vast majority. You can still play a shield bash build before getting the monument unique. It works fine before that, it’s just not as strong. You can still play elemental nova without the crest of unity.
So, while a few do exclude this (even though I still leveled with raptor, using the node that limits to 1 companion and beefs him up), with almost all uniques you can still watch the build grow. You just get a big bump when you finally can wear that gear.
This is true, I forgot about that because I never use it, I like leveling through Veteran and then swapping over. Even if Veteran isn’t as “efficient” it offers a challenge that Normal doesn’t normally offer while not being lv1 Ultimate hard.
1 Like
IIRC, I worked against the set meta a bit, and it wasn’t completely horrible.
I think two set pieces from this, two or three of that, and a bit of legendary stuff, making the humble primary attack rather strong. That I don’t remember more details shows how forgettable D3 overall was when it came to builds.
1 Like
But that’s the case for PoE & the Diablos as well, though in PoE you can buy additional slots & D3 allowed you yo “rebirth” a character/class & I’m not sure that “counts” for me. Sooner or later, you’re always going to have to delete characters.
Yes, I guess? At least, I see where you’re coming from & don’t disagree.
I enjoy the growth of the character, but after 70-80 times through the campaign I’ve emotionally disengaged from it. To me it’s just a bunch of broadly level-appropriate themed zones to kill through while levelling up & clicking ok from time to time.
I have the same problem with squirrels.
But that just makes Shield Bash (& Shield Rush!) stronger, it doesn’t change them in any way, Crest of Unity does change Ele Nova a bit.
1 Like
If I go for a build with a feature that will only later become unlocked through some unique, I try to play up to that build as close as possible thematically.
Then again, if I don’t know the class/mastery yet, I just experiment all the way and might end up with some abomination that does not resemble my initial plan at all, but is too fun to be changed.
2 Likes
Yeah, likely!
But… to take PoE and LE into view there… 255 versus 25 character slots is a massive difference 
With loadouts there obviously would be a limit too, and some people in PoE have asked for raising the character limit as well since they don’t wanna delete their old characters after all those years and they’ve reached the limit by now with different builds.
The reason why I’m saying that ‘loadouts is a viable option despite the few downsides for character identity it has’ is that it would at least help with the database issues EHG has, alleviating the need for excessive storage size which comes with saving the specific state of each character as quite a few things wouldn’t be needed to be saved hence (quest states, blessing state, waypoints, login position and so on). Would simply save a bit of space since they limited us to 25 chars for a reason after all.
Yeah, about $700 later, you have 255 character slots in PoE. That’s a massive difference in my pocket.
1 Like
This is why I try to never plan a build around a build defining unique until I find said unique. Then I go “hmm, what can I do with this?”
In other cases, like my Explosive Trap builds, where the skill just requires an absurd amount of points to do what I want it to, I just use it as I keep investing points like I would in the full build and watch it become more and more fine tuned into the build I want.
Even if you have the build defining unique waiting in your stash, it might still be restricted to a high character level.
Herald of the Scurry is a lvl 73 item. So until lvl 73, I would probably play a wolfpack build.
I would not play some tempest strike character because this is faster (I don’t know, random pick as an example).
I typically don’t share gear between characters, so I’d be able to use it if it dropped. But I agree with you.
It is, but, how much $ are those character slots costing?
24 character slots are free, additional character slots cost 30 points equalling $3 - something like that. So $693 for 231 char slots.
I got all my stashtabs on their frequent sale, but I think I never saw a char slot sale. I bought a couple of char slots with leftover points, because altoholic and a hoarder who always cries when he needs to delete a char or throw away the 50th duplicate of a unique.
1 Like
I haven’t taken that into consideration for a reason as I don’t think such things should cost anything… but PoE has a specific - ages old by now to be fair - model which does that. Not as interruptive as other things but it was common back then.
But simply for the option it is a better solution in my eyes as people have a choice to get into it at least if they don’t want to delete their characters.
And… to be fair… for those supporting the game regularly with the supporter packs you can buy between 10 (for the 30€ pack) to 20 (60€) and 30 (90€) character slots if you’re not out for extra MTX or stash tabs.
And people tend to buy those packs fairly regularly, they have a decent value after all.
But that’s beside the point.
The point there still stands though that if you’re a long-term player you’ll likely spend some money in the game over the years… and hence - over the years - you’ll be able to afford a good chunk of character slots with that. Which is actually a decent example of a life-service game doing a good job at monetization of their product. Unlike with the starting stash-tab space in PoE which is a menace.
The thing is: the most likely cause why PoE has paid character slots isn’t because it’s their business model (although that is part of it) but because by making it purchasable with real money, only a very small minority of players will actually have a lot of character slots. The vast vast majority will stick to the 25.
Which means that the impact of those extra character slots becomes minimal and diluted by the whole playerbase. If they instead gave 250 slots to everyone for free, it would likely cause a massive performance impact on the game.
1 Like
Likely on their database, yes.
Albeit I don’t think it would make much of a dent nowadays anymore, their system is after all… a decade old with the respective slots available and by now storage space has gotten vastly cheaper, and databases vastly quicker
Storage space isn’t really the issue. And in 10 years databases haven’t become that much quicker. Certainly not 10x quicker. Big load queries still take a long time.
Not to mention that it’s something you’re always accessing. You’re writing on that database all the time, everytime something changes with your character, whether it’s changing gear, picking stuff up or even just getting XPs.
I’m pretty sure that if everyone suddenly had 100+ characters, the game would become bogged down.
1 Like
Slots aren’t the problem. Created characters are. Only a minor percentage of accounts would even create excessive amounts of chars. Many accounts will have one char. People died on the strand and just quit for good - game’s too hard.
2 Likes