like I swear I remember bungle saying it's just a UI change than something mandatory to play to get new gear and progress?
and here's some simple changes that can really fix D2 and improve it:
rework the portal to be a quickplay system to earn new gear and bonus drops
bring back vendors on all destinations and make it where every time you reset ranks you get 1+ tier drops from that specific vendor making all activities like gambit and worlds worth playing again
make all public events always give 1+ tier drops on completion to encourage and make exploration worth playing
and put world's/destinations in the portal to encourage exploration as well, all of these things can be achieved with limited resources and it will only benefit everyone.
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Imo the portal should be vaulted. After all they vaulted so many things, lets add the portal to the list. And give t5 where adepts used to drops. T4 where prestige/pinnacle used to drop And voila we can play like we did for years.