Originally
posted by
blid:
But grinding for gear, is it competitive? What's the point really? Earth is a contest. Even with landtrading, which is kind of unrelated, you still only have one winner, one person better at trading + running a country than the others. And plus there's all kinds of factors and inputs and outputs in this game. I can understand the psychology for enjoying this game. Maybe I can understand the psychology for clicking monsters for hours to get a few shiny pixels that make up a legendary gold ring but it's depressing to think about.
It's the act of finding gear that is fun. A game doesn't have to be competitive to be fun. Lots of people play EE, but don't strive for the top 50. Many people find it enjoyable to try out whacky builds using spell/skills that are non-cookie cutter. For example, finding gear to play a "melee wizard" (spectral blades/freeze build).
Or a Critical mass with teleport calamity rune based build with the Occulus offhand (the build is based around doing damage on teleport arrival, with Occulus adding additional teleports), and the gear revolving around cooldown reduction.
Or a Archon based build, also revolving around Cooldown reduction.
There are tons of ways to play a character/class, Diablo isn't a competition. For some it is about having fun, discovering 50 myriad of ways to kill monsters that are viable in Torment 6. For another, it might be to find that perfect gear set to do that one build. To another, it might be to be the highest level in Paragon levels, or the highest Elemental Elite DPS character on DiabloProgress.com. There are different ways to skin a cat.
Note that next major patch will introduce timed tiered rifts and ladders, for the people that want actual competition.
I'm losing interest in EE because there is little else to explore, unlike in Diablo 3 which is still fresh. Also, I only play hardcore mode (perma death), so the thrill of almost dying is always around the corner.