Diablo 3 Discussion Thread

[Maplehamwich]

Yeah, the DH is kind of broken. I've had him as my main, and found moveability+damage doesn't really exist. I'm sure my current build isn't optimal either, but the gear I've built with the skills I chose give me decent survivability at a stand still on MP5. Obviously, not tanking wise, but with group play.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

This DH Gear Guide Helps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=botwksXVWc8

But as I said earlier... DH is still terribly broken. At the top of the video you can skip a lot of his talking and get straight into what he's buying. There's another one from a different guy doing a WD... and I would have to say investing 10M into a WD makes more sense than a DH.

 

[PureBooYah]

I wish they wouldn't have nerfed vault - trail of cinders so much. When it was doing 1500% damage over 3 seconds it was providing great mobility plus damage . While 1500% damage was kind of ridiculous cutting it down to 300% was too much. 600-700% would have been great. It was fun as hell to use, everything would just melt.

 

[stevedave]

I wish they wouldn't have nerfed vault - trail of cinders so much. When it was doing 1500% damage over 3 seconds it was providing great mobility plus damage . While 1500% damage was kind of ridiculous cutting it down to 300% was too much. 600-700% would have been great. It was fun as hell to use, everything would just melt.

Or they could fix damage per second to include things like attack speed, critical hit chance, and damage....Which I don't think they do.

 

[Breath_of_the_Dying]

Or they could fix damage per second to include things like attack speed, critical hit chance, and damage....Which I don't think they do.

Most dots do, they're the easiest to know true damage since you can base it on the paper doll dps. Examples are wizard hydra and beams. The values take into account the trifecta stats.

There are some noticeable exceptions. The barb dot (rend?) does like 700% dps over time but is based on the normal attack damage range. So slower weapons will do more damage than faster weapons once you connect. Since the value is based on one number when the dot is applied, it can crit too.

 

[stevedave]

Most dots do, they're the easiest to know true damage since you can base it on the paper doll dps. Examples are wizard hydra and beams. The values take into account the trifecta stats.

There are some noticeable exceptions. The barb dot (rend?) does like 700% dps over time but is based on the normal attack damage range. So slower weapons will do more damage than faster weapons once you connect. Since the value is based on one number when the dot is applied, it can crit too.

Does Vault?

 

[LeninGHOLA]

Are there 3rd party damage parsers?

 

[chockomonkey]

Are there 3rd party damage parsers?

It would have been really cool if they allowed UI mods like they did for WoW.

 

[Breath_of_the_Dying]

I'm not sure about vault. Plugging in your char I'm D3up is the best way to get accurate damage numbers for any ability.

I wonder what the level spread is gonna be, and if they might do some item squishing.

I'd think it should go something like this...
If you are currently P6+ bro certified, you can jump right into Act 4 hell. Monster level there is 64. If not, you might have to do some Act 3 hell farming, but loot 2.0 will make it much easier to farm though the 60-69 range.

Act 5 hell is lvl 65-69. With gear being between those levels.

All of inferno is simply 70, with mp to scale higher, no more confusion about ilvls of acts 1-2 before applying MP, its all 70

Normal 1-32
Nightmare 33-51
Hell act 1 52-55
Act 2 56-59
Act 3 60-62
Act 4 63-65
Act 5 66-69

 

[stevedave]

After playing that awful DH I had to get the taste of my monk back in my mouth.

I rebuilt him a little bit. Dropped his DPS from 180k (230k) to 150k(200k) by decreasing his attack speed. But his Bells went from doing like 900k to 1400k and I can almost drop them none stop.

Its hard to tell if I like him is better this way. He definitely kill elites faster due to the stone of Jordan and that is the most time consuming part of MP10. But getting used to the 30 dropped attack speed is a bit rough.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/dirkdirden-1579/hero/10075786

 

[UnknownSouljer]

After playing that awful DH I had to get the taste of my monk back in my mouth.

I rebuilt him a little bit. Dropped his DPS from 180k (230k) to 150k(200k) by decreasing his attack speed. But his Bells went from doing like 900k to 1400k and I can almost drop them none stop.

Its hard to tell if I like him is better this way. He definitely kill elites faster due to the stone of Jordan and that is the most time consuming part of MP10. But getting used to the 30 dropped attack speed is a bit rough.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/dirkdirden-1579/hero/10075786

I'm also primarily playing with a bell monk right now, since I maxed Paragon with my Wizard. I'm also playing WD, but WD takes way more time to level and is less efficient than Monk. Anyway, I can see that even though we're both doing bells, our build and style are really different.

Here's mine for reference: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Jeremiah-1810/hero/27094196

Funny, I'm considering getting two one-handers and going for tornados. I like the bells, don't get me wrong, but tornados have no dependency on Spirit. It's interesting that the build is so strong, because it has no resource requirement. I don't run out of Spirit often (I also have an SOJ that I use sometimes with bosses, but I primarily farm/exp gain in MP5), but when I do, it's annoying.

As a side note, this Monk is clearly an alt, and I haven't put a lot of cash into her gear. I'm planning on picking up a new chest piece with 200+ VIT, and a new Amulet (preferably a trifecta with Dex/Vit or Dex/Lit Resist, or Dex/AR, or some other combination like that), as my Amulet is trash, this weekend when more people are on and all the prices drop in the AH. I'm also considering going with all AR and ditching One With Everything, but for now it's cost effective.

 

[stevedave]

I'm also primarily playing with a bell monk right now, since I maxed Paragon with my Wizard. I'm also playing WD, but WD takes way more time to level and is less efficient than Monk. Anyway, I can see that even though we're both doing bells, our build and style are really different.

Here's mine for reference: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Jeremiah-1810/hero/27094196

Funny, I'm considering getting two one-handers and going for tornados. I like the bells, don't get me wrong, but tornados have no dependency on Spirit. It's interesting that the build is so strong, because it has no resource requirement. I don't run out of Spirit often (I also have an SOJ that I use sometimes with bosses, but I primarily farm/exp gain in MP5), but when I do, it's annoying.

As a side note, this Monk is clearly an alt, and I haven't put a lot of cash into her gear. I'm planning on picking up a new chest piece with 200+ VIT, and a new Amulet (preferably a trifecta with Dex/Vit or Dex/Lit Resist, or Dex/AR, or some other combination like that), as my Amulet is trash, this weekend when more people are on and all the prices drop in the AH. I'm also considering going with all AR and ditching One With Everything, but for now it's cost effective.

Try out 'The Guardian's Path' instead of 'Chant of Resonance' Its a bit deceptive on just how much spirit that ability gives but its almost always more than Chant of Resonance.

For instance when you Crit with Crippling Tide you gain 12 spirit (7 from the attack and 5 from crit) The Guardian's Path adds 35% on top of that making it like 16 instead of 12. If you use quickening you gain 15 per Crit and 35% on top of that...it seems to work the best.

The bell build can be done many ways. The benefit of HIGH spirit regen is you get to use Foresight as your main attack which gains 18% damage but it works perfectly fine with much less Spirit regen if you use one of the 3 spirit generator attacks.

 

[chockomonkey]

I hate reading you guys talk about monk builds because you have so fewer options as a wizard.

Just curious--have any of you monk players played the monk in WoW? are there similarities?

oh and last night i just wanted some quick demon slaughtering--but didn't have D3 installed anymore. I was disappointed.

I reinstalled it.

--

I'll want to start a new guy. My experience with MP10 has been rubbish. Just too much HP padding. I figure i'll try 6 or something and see how it goes.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

Try out 'The Guardian's Path' instead of 'Chant of Resonance' Its a bit deceptive on just how much spirit that ability gives but its almost always more than Chant of Resonance.

For instance when you Crit with Crippling Tide you gain 12 spirit (7 from the attack and 5 from crit) The Guardian's Path adds 35% on top of that making it like 16 instead of 12. If you use quickening you gain 15 per Crit and 35% on top of that...it seems to work the best.

The bell build can be done many ways. The benefit of HIGH spirit regen is you get to use Foresight as your main attack which gains 18% damage but it works perfectly fine with much less Spirit regen if you use one of the 3 spirit generator attacks.

Thanks for the tips. After I saw your build, I decided to do more testing, with other skills. Most notably, I'm going to test Thunderclap, Clyclone Strike, and try using Tornados AND Overawe. So the key will be finding all the areas of Spirit Regen I can stack. I'm looking for a bit more fluidity, and more streamlined damage.

I tried removing Seize the Initiative, but I still need it for now. That may change if I can get 45k+ Health and not lose other defensive stats.

I hate reading you guys talk about monk builds because you have so fewer options as a wizard.

Just curious--have any of you monk players played the monk in WoW? are there similarities?

oh and last night i just wanted some quick demon slaughtering--but didn't have D3 installed anymore. I was disappointed.

I reinstalled it.

--

I'll want to start a new guy. My experience with MP10 has been rubbish. Just too much HP padding. I figure i'll try 6 or something and see how it goes.

Well, it depends on whether or not you like the Wizard builds you have open to you. My Wizard is P100, and I miss playing her, she's actually my favorite, but it's a waste to continue playing it if I can't level at the same time, especially since I want to gain as many Paragon levels as possible before Reaper of Souls. Anyway, long story short, I was playing CM. I really like CM. But then again I'm also a super control player in M:TG (or was, played for about a decade, but haven't played in some time). It's by far my favorite thing to play, but super gear dependent. I was already above the 2.73 APS break, locking and wrecking was fun for me.

If you don't like that, then there's always Archon... but that got dull for me.

 

[chockomonkey]

Well, it depends on whether or not you like the Wizard builds you have open to you. My Wizard is P100, and I miss playing her, she's actually my favorite, but it's a waste to continue playing it if I can't level at the same time, especially since I want to gain as many Paragon levels as possible before Reaper of Souls. Anyway, long story short, I was playing CM. I really like CM. But then again I'm also a super control player in M:TG (or was, played for about a decade, but haven't played in some time). It's by far my favorite thing to play, but super gear dependent. I was already above the 2.73 APS break, locking and wrecking was fun for me.

If you don't like that, then there's always Archon... but that got dull for me.

I liked CM and Archon, but those seemed like my only two options >_>

Tried going Fire/Ice/Lightening but they sucked. Arcane was the only one which was decent, but once i found CM/Meteor it was no contest. Being able to drop a meteor anywhere is so far superior to Arcane Orb.

I just wish there were more synergies and mechanics to play with on the wizard.

 

[TwistedAegis]

Wizard/sorc/whatever are usually my favorite characters, but I absolutely hate CM builds. Archon is fun but really didn't have the gear to keep it up constantly/kill fast enough.

 

[stevedave]

Having a Paragon 60 wizard and a paragon 90 monk I can say without a doubt the monk has way more viable options available to them. There are about 40 skills I use on a monk and about 35 I use on a wizard. I can make about 6 or 7 different builds on a monk and 3 or 4 for a wizard.

and the monk just does so much more stable damage and has a far better multiplier presence ( except CM wizard who lock shit down )

For the monk there is no 1 or even 2 skills that I just NEED or the class wont work.

drop Critical Mass and over half the wizards are rendered useless.
drop Into The Fray and over half the Barbs are rendered useless.
drop Shadow Power and over half the DH are more useless (as they are all useless).

WD are pretty good and dynamic they can drop Zombie bears or Fire bats and Darts or Bombs and if they lost Grave injustice, Gruesome Feast or Spirit Vessel they'd still be fine. But they still don't have the build range of a monk.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

Having a Paragon 60 wizard and a paragon 90 monk I can say without a doubt the monk has way more viable options available to them. There are about 40 skills I use on a monk and about 35 I use on a wizard. I can make about 6 or 7 different builds on a monk and 3 or 4 for a wizard.

and the monk just does so much more stable damage and has a far better multiplier presence ( except CM wizard who lock shit down )

For the monk there is no 1 or even 2 skills that I just NEED or the class wont work.

drop Critical Mass and over half the wizards are rendered useless.
drop Into The Fray and over half the Barbs are rendered useless.
drop Shadow Power and over half the DH are more useless (as they are all useless).

WD are pretty good and dynamic they can drop Zombie bears or Fire bats and Darts or Bombs and if they lost Grave injustice, Gruesome Feast or Spirit Vessel they'd still be fine. But they still don't have the build range of a monk.

I 100% agree with you. However, it doesn't matter about how versatile a class is in terms of availability of skills. What matters (at least to me) is whether or not the build(s) that are viable are fun or not. It wouldn't matter to me if CM was the only viable Wizard build, since that's what I want to play. Viability mixed with fun factor is what does it for me. Because there could be tons of high dps specs that are Tier 1, that make me miserable to play.

 

[TwistedAegis]

I 100% agree with you. However, it doesn't matter about how versatile a class is in terms of availability of skills. What matters (at least to me) is whether or not the build(s) that are viable are fun or not. It wouldn't matter to me if CM was the only viable Wizard build, since that's what I want to play. Viability mixed with fun factor is what does it for me. Because there could be tons of high dps specs that are Tier 1, that make me miserable to play.

Right, but just because you enjoy that single viable build doesn't mean everyone else does. The greater number of viable builds, the more happy customers.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

Right, but just because you enjoy that single viable build doesn't mean everyone else does. The greater number of viable builds, the more happy customers.

Sure, of course. This discussion has been done to death however. It's technically not feasible to make every skill as useful as good as every other skill without having a major issue with becoming over powered and having trouble with balancing. Even in those cases, eventually it will be found that certain skills and/or certain sets of skill will be better than others. I'm fairly certain all this has been talked about even in this thread... you know... like a year ago (I'm not trying to be facetious or sarcastic... just that it is, sorry if it comes off some other way).

That said, I think it's fairly reasonable to say that each class has at least 3 specs they can mess with, some with more skills they can swap in and out of than others. It's pretty reasonable. Always nice to have more, but not much you can do.

 

[chockomonkey]

Sure, of course. This discussion has been done to death however. It's technically not feasible to make every skill as useful as good as every other skill without having a major issue with becoming over powered and having trouble with balancing. Even in those cases, eventually it will be found that certain skills and/or certain sets of skill will be better than others. I'm fairly certain all this has been talked about even in this thread... you know... like a year ago (I'm not trying to be facetious or sarcastic... just that it is, sorry if it comes off some other way).

That said, I think it's fairly reasonable to say that each class has at least 3 specs they can mess with, some with more skills they can swap in and out of than others. It's pretty reasonable. Always nice to have more, but not much you can do.

Yea it's just such a far cry from the billions of combinations they touted at first. We all knew it would end up with just a handful of possible builds, but i wish they'd try harder at making more interesting synergies for other classes like the monk seems to have.

 

[Aix.]

Sure, of course. This discussion has been done to death however. It's technically not feasible to make every skill as useful as good as every other skill without having a major issue with becoming over powered and having trouble with balancing. Even in those cases, eventually it will be found that certain skills and/or certain sets of skill will be better than others. I'm fairly certain all this has been talked about even in this thread... you know... like a year ago (I'm not trying to be facetious or sarcastic... just that it is, sorry if it comes off some other way).

That said, I think it's fairly reasonable to say that each class has at least 3 specs they can mess with, some with more skills they can swap in and out of than others. It's pretty reasonable. Always nice to have more, but not much you can do.

See, all he said was that he would like more builds and your response was about making every skill equal in power.

There could be MANY more viable builds for the Wizard if the damage types hadn't been chosen at random by a monkey. Out of 42 primary skill runes, ONE is a fire skill and none of them are cold skills. For some reason Wave of Force and Explosive blast are purely physical skills, 18 of 24 secondary skill runes are arcane skills while the other is one of only two major cold skills for the class (and it sucks). Excluding Hydra, the only main fire skill is Meteor and if you want to reduce the cost of the skill you have to change the damage type to arcane...WTF.

And that's just talking about the types of damage for skills. That's not even mentioning that 3 of 4 secondary skills are stand-in-place channeling skills which make little sense for a class that needs to be mobile. The cooldowns on Teleport, Slow Time, and Wave of Force make no sense and could easily be balanced with nothing but an AP cost.

It's not a case of needing to make every skill as powerful as Wave of Light, it's just a case of needing to design skills like you've played a Diablo game before. It took an epic lack of design vision and imagination to arrive at the above mix of skill and damage types.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

The balancing act is hard. Understanding Blizzard's mentality helps a bit, although for many folks, their long view doesn't satiate desire for change.
Blizzard is slow and deliberate with improvements spending a lot of time testing and measuring. I agree that there was to a certain degree of a lack of imagination with the Wizard skills, but finding the best solutions for those problems without running into some other hiccup is tricky. It's easy to stand up on high and dictate that "this, this, this, this, and this" should be done, but they have a host of considerations that must be considered before doing so. This isn't to excuse anything that Blizzard has done or is doing. With any hope and new designer direction, RoS will fix a lot of problems, and that overtime the skills will be rebuilt. I don't think it will happen soon, but WD as an example was a class altered significantly. I have hope for a lot of the other 'dead' skills filling up space. Until then, I'll enjoy other classes and other builds. Not much else one can do.

 

[Aix.]

The balancing act is hard. Understanding Blizzard's mentality helps a bit, although for many folks, their long view doesn't satiate desire for change.
Blizzard is slow and deliberate with improvements spending a lot of time testing and measuring. I agree that there was to a certain degree of a lack of imagination with the Wizard skills, but finding the best solutions for those problems without running into some other hiccup is tricky. It's easy to stand up on high and dictate that "this, this, this, this, and this" should be done, but they have a host of considerations that must be considered before doing so. This isn't to excuse anything that Blizzard has done or is doing. With any hope and new designer direction, RoS will fix a lot of problems, and that overtime the skills will be rebuilt. I don't think it will happen soon, but WD as an example was a class altered significantly. I have hope for a lot of the other 'dead' skills filling up space. Until then, I'll enjoy other classes and other builds. Not much else one can do.

Removing cooldowns is something they'd have to do extensive testing with since they designed the game around them, but changing some of the damage types would not require much effort, and it would allow more skills to work with more gear and passive skills.

The point of my post was that there are simple things that could be done as well as more complex things. But you're right, it is easy to stand up and say "this, this, this, this, and this" should be done, because many of us have played these kinds of games for years and know what kind of mechanics are good for creativity and build variety. Blizzard has already demonstrated that their D3 dev team did not have a clue.

Then again, Blizzard may not feel the same way about current balance that I do. Maybe they like the fact that there are more physical skills than cold or fire skills, and that arcane is the most prominent damage type. To me, the Wizard's skills are about as cleverly designed as the set bonuses for the Tal Rasha's set. It's a fun class but it could easily be so much more, which is the frustrating part.

 

[lilbabycat]

The balancing act is hard. Understanding Blizzard's mentality helps a bit, although for many folks, their long view doesn't satiate desire for change.
Blizzard is slow and deliberate with improvements spending a lot of time testing and measuring.

I'm sorry but are you delusional? In the 4 years I played wow, the vast majority of patches were considered "knee-jerk", either over-nerf or over-buff. Along with this, patches that would hit the PTR would be tested for bugginess, not balance; even when the overwhelming majority of players pointed out that a patch was going to completely break balance, they still pushed it through to final. Looking at raid bosses, many were (and still are) not tested at all internally, and the team simply allowed the Top 10 guilds to wipe to them and then slowly nerf / bugfix until it was possible. (See: C'thun,most of the bosses in BC, half the bosses in LK) They've later "fixed" this issue by simply allowing the top guilds to clear all content on PTR, including final raid bosses, thus getting "free" beta testing.

Continuing to D3, are you telling me that their "lot of time testing and measuring" wasn't able to discover that IAS would break itemization in less than 3 months after release? (and this is just picking one of many issues that have been discussed to death in this thread).

The truth is that Blizzard has a well documented history of NOT testing their content/update/patches.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

Removing cooldowns is something they'd have to do extensive testing with since they designed the game around them, but changing some of the damage types would not require much effort, and it would allow more skills to work with more gear and passive skills.

The point of my post was that there are simple things that could be done as well as more complex things. But you're right, it is easy to stand up and say "this, this, this, this, and this" should be done, because many of us have played these kinds of games for years and know what kind of mechanics are good for creativity and build variety. Blizzard has already demonstrated that their D3 dev team did not have a clue.

Then again, Blizzard may not feel the same way about current balance that I do. Maybe they like the fact that there are more physical skills than cold or fire skills, and that arcane is the most prominent damage type. To me, the Wizard's skills are about as cleverly designed as the set bonuses for the Tal Rasha's set. It's a fun class but it could easily be so much more, which is the frustrating part.

To reiterate what I said before. I completely agree with you. I thought about writing a 2000 word document about the problems with DH and how to fix it. I came to all those points and conclusions after playing the DH for over 400 hours (it was my first class) and finally getting so frustrated that I moved to another class... ultimately CM Wizard (and now Monk, since my Wizard is maxed). I wanted DH to be like my Amazon, fun, versatile, strong, etc. But it wasn't to be. I didn't bother to write it up, because I realized it wouldn't make a difference. Things in DH/Wizard will get fixed over time. With RoS they'll gain a new rune for every skill, plus new skills, plus passives. Lots of chances for things to get better. I'm hopeful.

I think everyone sort of knows that Barb/Monk are insane powerhouses, CM has abusive lock control, but everything outside of that including other builds specs with Wizard are Tier 2 or 3 (including WD Bears and Bats, Archon unless you have billions to spend on obscene gear, and every DH spec).

I'm sorry but are you delusional? In the 4 years I played wow, the vast majority of patches were considered "knee-jerk", either over-nerf or over-buff. Along with this, patches that would hit the PTR would be tested for bugginess, not balance; even when the overwhelming majority of players pointed out that a patch was going to completely break balance, they still pushed it through to final. Looking at raid bosses, many were (and still are) not tested at all internally, and the team simply allowed the Top 10 guilds to wipe to them and then slowly nerf / bugfix until it was possible. (See: C'thun,most of the bosses in BC, half the bosses in LK) They've later "fixed" this issue by simply allowing the top guilds to clear all content on PTR, including final raid bosses, thus getting "free" beta testing.

Continuing to D3, are you telling me that their "lot of time testing and measuring" wasn't able to discover that IAS would break itemization in less than 3 months after release? (and this is just picking one of many issues that have been discussed to death in this thread).

The truth is that Blizzard has a well documented history of NOT testing their content/update/patches.

If we're going to talk about other games and other development teams I could just as easily point out StarCraft and StarCraft 2 as well as WarCraft 3 being the most balanced games that have been produced. Especially considering that each individual Race/Team/Whatever is unique with separate sets of skills. Refinement has to be so close, even maps have to have a great degree of consideration.

But this is all missing the point and my point. If you want something to get mismanaged and go wrong, the easiest way to have that happen is to have people run it. That is to say, if you're looking for perfection in people or teams, you'll never find it. WoW is pumping out so much content and there are so many gears moving, I'm really surprised it runs nearly as well as it does. It's successful for a reason. Does it have problems? Absolutely. You're not going to find an argument from me on that one. But it's still impressive even for what it is. I didn't play WoW for a super long time, just over a year during WotLK, but if I had to play a competitive MMO, it would be on the shortlist (although FF14 is looking pretty good after the overhaul). I'm certain a lot of people still feel the same way.

In terms of changes to D3, a lot has happened in the 1 year its been out.
New builds have emerged and become viable. WD and its Mana system has been overhauled (Spirit Vessel builds of the past and that brokenness got fixed), and now Blizzard and the D3 dev team are recognizing that certain classes and skills need to be pumped up and revamped. Will it get fixed over night? Of course not, but at least they're aware, and they're working at it. There isn't another franchise in which there is no monthly fee that has the kind of continue ongoing development as Diablo does. Do you remember the skill tree overhaul in D2? That completely turned the game on its head and was provided free years after LOD. It was/is awesome and extended the game and made it interesting and fresh again. D3 has the same sorts of potential.

I think the only difference between you and me on this subject is that you're cynical and I'm being a bit more optimistic. I'm a bit more forgiving with the errors and mistakes and you're more quick to point them out. But at the end of all this, I think we want the same stuff. We want the game to be fun. We want the game to be balanced. We want the game to have open opportunities and builds with different classes. Blizzard knows this. To me, it's just a matter of time.

 

[lilbabycat]

In terms of changes to D3, a lot has happened in the 1 year its been out.

But a lot hasn't happened. Your optimism is giving them more credit than is due.
(deleted a bunch of stuff)
Forget it.

 

[chockomonkey]

lots of words

A man can dream I suppose.

Indeed we all want the same thing--I just don't think Blizz can pull it off. They don't need an expansion to make the game better (they just want more money). They don't need more runes or skills (there are TONS!)--they just need to make the ones they do have viable and interesting.

Their patch notes have left a lot to be desired. The overbuff to monk's Bell for instance is exactly what lilbabycat is talking about when he says they do knee-jerk changes while ignoring 90% of the real problems.

But yea--a man can dream.

But a lot hasn't happened. Your optimism is giving them more credit than is due. In one year they have added a tiny bit of "content" (paragons, crafting, and organ collecting); and tweaked some numbers/coefficients. Is that all we should expect from a billion dollar company working on a once-beloved franchise?

I fully expect Reaper to be a better game overall, to add many things players wanted; but by buying/playing it you are absolutely sending the message to that you are ok with buying a beta, testing it for them, and then paying again for what you expected them to release in the first place.

Being optimist for the expansion is a great short term viewpoint of the "problem" at hand, but it doesn't address the cause. Encouraging a business plan as described above is encouraging the same problems to continue happening. The laundry list of "duh" issues that existed with D3 before it was even released should have never seen the light of day; and they stem from a mentality of "maybe the consumer will ignore it, if they call us out on it we'll just play dumb and fix it in the expansion".

I see this whole process, and wonder if people behave this way in every day life, and I realize that "yep" they do. The Blizz dev promising you the world and delivering you a fraction of it is no different than the politician promising to fix the problems of the world and instead doing nothing (if not the opposite). But thats a bit off topic. Its just sad that people don't think there are parallels.

Agreed. What's the answer? I don't think there is one.
----

On another note, I was playing my HC wizard last night and actually having some fun when the power went out.

There went my fun.

Considering they are giving consoles offline mode, this shit pisses me off even more.

 

[TwistedAegis]

On another note, I was playing my HC wizard last night and actually having some fun when the power went out.

There went my fun.

Considering they are giving consoles offline mode, this shit pisses me off even more.

Wait, what would offline mode help with if your power is out?

 

[stevedave]

A man can dream I suppose.

Indeed we all want the same thing--I just don't think Blizz can pull it off. They don't need an expansion to make the game better (they just want more money). They don't need more runes or skills (there are TONS!)--they just need to make the ones they do have viable and interesting.

Their patch notes have left a lot to be desired. The overbuff to monk's Bell for instance is exactly what lilbabycat is talking about when he says they do knee-jerk changes while ignoring 90% of the real problems.

But yea--a man can dream.



Agreed. What's the answer? I don't think there is one.
----

On another note, I was playing my HC wizard last night and actually having some fun when the power went out.

There went my fun.

Considering they are giving consoles offline mode, this shit pisses me off even more.

HC is like a bitch that bites you while blowing you. If feels great but every now and again that bitch bites down and makes you never want a BJ again....Until a few days later when the teeth marks heal. biggest difference between the two is you can punch a bitch in the face to make you feel better.

I have lost 4 60+ HC characters and only 1 of them was from a legitimate ass kicking. Still have a blast in HC though. I'm likely not going to play HC until the patch comes out as the paragon levels are permanent even after death and I have a Paragon Level 26 that I don't want to die before I can permanently retain those paragon points.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

But a lot hasn't happened. Your optimism is giving them more credit than is due.
(deleted a bunch of stuff)
Forget it.

Well, we can debate it forever. My last strong words about it are this:
Even with all of it's faults a problems, frustrations, imbalances, I still played Diablo 3 using a DH for over 400 hours. How many games that outside of the purchase cost (as in no monthly fee) can you play for that many hours? There is no doubt that I've gotten my monies worth. There is no other game in the genre that can do that. Certainly not TL2. The only way you could get close is if you start including FPSs in multiplayer like Counter-Strike. Blizzards biggest problem was their success. Diablo 2 was so well refined that it was virtually impossible to follow it up.
I'm now over 1200 hours in. I have no other games that I've played that many hours in. FPS or otherwise.

Sure, it shouldn't require RoS or any expansion to get the things tweaked to where they should be. You'll find that most of the points you're making I agree with. But it's still pretty good for what it is.

A man can dream I suppose.

Indeed we all want the same thing--I just don't think Blizz can pull it off. They don't need an expansion to make the game better (they just want more money). They don't need more runes or skills (there are TONS!)--they just need to make the ones they do have viable and interesting.

Their patch notes have left a lot to be desired. The overbuff to monk's Bell for instance is exactly what lilbabycat is talking about when he says they do knee-jerk changes while ignoring 90% of the real problems.

But yea--a man can dream.

I'm with you. But what sort of choice do we have? We can play it or not play it. I do wish that Loot 2.0 would come out before RoS drops, but I'm pretty sure it will be concurrent, which is unfortunate. I also think there will probably be a lot of changes to the current runes and things with RoS does come out, and it seems like they're sort of withholding them for now so that RoS will have a bigger impact. Of course this is all just conjecture, but it makes sense.

 

[chockomonkey]

Wait, what would offline mode help with if your power is out?

In D2 single player couldn't you save and quit at any point? and if your computer turned off it considered it a save and quit?

maybe i'm not remembering correctly, it was a long time ago.

I'm with you. But what sort of choice do we have? We can play it or not play it. I do wish that Loot 2.0 would come out before RoS drops, but I'm pretty sure it will be concurrent, which is unfortunate. I also think there will probably be a lot of changes to the current runes and things with RoS does come out, and it seems like they're sort of withholding them for now so that RoS will have a bigger impact. Of course this is all just conjecture, but it makes sense.

I really hope you're right, sir!

 

[lilbabycat]

Agreed. What's the answer? I don't think there is one.

Well, community backlash is one thing we have. Do you think the backlash from SimCity's server issues would have been as big without the initial backlash from D3's server issues? I think D3 made it visible, and SimCity became the chance for the community (that is, non-press) to be as vocal as possible about it. And unfortunately the 1/10 metacritic reviews NEED to exist as long as there are "paid" reviews as the norm in our press. Until we get real, honest journalism; we will be doomed to constantly be in a struggle of polarized opinions.

So there is your real solution. Fix journalism. Look at the movie industry. It went from a "golden age" to a massive slump in quality. People became fed up with generic-blockbuster-that-runs-1hr10min and forced change. The quality went up. The generic action flicks still exist, but when you read a review today, you get an honest opinion. Show me in the PC Gamer review of D3 where they stated "The story and dialogue was absolutely terrible, near insulting; but the gameplay is very solid". You get that from movie reviews, you don't in video game reviews.

 

[jh24]

After thinking about if for a few days I decided to sell all my current gear on my Monk. After seeing some of the changes they're planning for Loot 2.0/Reaper of Souls I don't feel motivated anymore to keep farming for rares/legendaries. I already have a one and a half page in my stash with rares and a few legs I found over the last few months which aren't that great but not bad enough to vendor. I probably equip my Monk with them when Reaper of Souls eventually comes out or I could choose the Crusader first as a fresh start.

Having said that, I'm thinking of trying a "self-found" Demon Hunter. With RoS months away I don't have to be in a hurry leveling up anyway.

===

I'm also finding myself more and more immersed in Diablo 2: LoD with the Median XL mod. Very tough, hitting a brick wall at "Hatred" (Normal difficulty) in Act 5, (I think I finally need to start crafting/farming) but very satisfying and fun to play. Looks pretty nice with colored lighting.

 

[Breath_of_the_Dying]

Well, we can debate it forever. My last strong words about it are this:
Even with all of it's faults a problems, frustrations, imbalances, I still played Diablo 3 using a DH for over 400 hours. How many games that outside of the purchase cost (as in no monthly fee) can you play for that many hours? There is no doubt that I've gotten my monies worth. There is no other game in the genre that can do that. Certainly not TL2. The only way you could get close is if you start including FPSs in multiplayer like Counter-Strike. Blizzards biggest problem was their success. Diablo 2 was so well refined that it was virtually impossible to follow it up.
I'm now over 1200 hours in. I have no other games that I've played that many hours in. FPS or otherwise.

Sure, it shouldn't require RoS or any expansion to get the things tweaked to where they should be. You'll find that most of the points you're making I agree with. But it's still pretty good for what it is.




I'm with you. But what sort of choice do we have? We can play it or not play it. I do wish that Loot 2.0 would come out before RoS drops, but I'm pretty sure it will be concurrent, which is unfortunate. I also think there will probably be a lot of changes to the current runes and things with RoS does come out, and it seems like they're sort of withholding them for now so that RoS will have a bigger impact. Of course this is all just conjecture, but it makes sense.

They plan on loot coming out before the expansions. A lot of the changes not content related (crusader and act 5) is slated pre expansion and the expansion is not required at all

The current plan is that loot 2.0 and other major system changes will come in a patch sometime before the expansion (exactly when has yet to be determined), but the new level cap will require the expansion.

 

[PureBooYah]

After thinking about if for a few days I decided to sell all my current gear on my Monk. After seeing some of the changes they're planning for Loot 2.0/Reaper of Souls I don't feel motivated anymore to keep farming for rares/legendaries. I already have a one and a half page in my stash with rares and a few legs I found over the last few months which aren't that great but not bad enough to vendor. I probably equip my Monk with them when Reaper of Souls eventually comes out or I could choose the Crusader first as a fresh start.

Having said that, I'm thinking of trying a "self-found" Demon Hunter. With RoS months away I don't have to be in a hurry leveling up anyway.

===

I'm also finding myself more and more immersed in Diablo 2: LoD with the Median XL mod. Very tough, hitting a brick wall at "Hatred" (Normal difficulty) in Act 5, (I think I finally need to start crafting/farming) but very satisfying and fun to play. Looks pretty nice with colored lighting.

That's what I did in softcore, sold everything that I was saving and will just sit on the gold until Loot 2.0 or the expansion. In hardcore I'm keeping extra stuff around though, never know when you're finally going to die.

 

[jh24]

That's what I did in softcore, sold everything that I was saving and will just sit on the gold until Loot 2.0 or the expansion. In hardcore I'm keeping extra stuff around though, never know when you're finally going to die.

Yeah, it starts to feel like a bit of a waste having all that gear, yet knowing it will likely only lower in price over time. The flaws in the current system with loot are becoming a lot more apparent since all the new info we got about Loot 2.0/RoS. I don't mind legendaries which aren't usable for my class, but I hate legendaries which are just useless period, which 9 out of 10 are. (If I think of all the times I got for example a Frostburn Gauntlet)

If in Loot 2.0 all legendaries can drop at any level with matching affixes, then that would enrich the game so much. And make legendaries more rare as well as the game can select any of them in the data files instead of just the ones designated to a certain level range. I have some Monk Fist Weapons at level 20-40 which are useless at Inferno, but make the Monk look very cool.


I'm sold part of my gold on the RMAH. I need to read the rules again if you can withdraw money from your battlenet account. I would like to move it to my Paypal/bank account eventually. I really want to try making a "clean" start without AH when the patch or RoS comes out.


Yeah. that's a good thing to do for Hardcore, especially because you loose gear permanently. I would like to play Hardcore, but my computer locks up every two/three days when gaming. (Something with Realtek onboard sound, happens in Diablo 2, 3 and with Youtube) It would be too risky.

 

[chockomonkey]

I really wish they would let you reset your own account.

It's annoying that all my characters start where the previous one left off.

I want to start with 0 gold; nothing unlocked. I guess i could just delete everything, but i'd still have lots of things unlocked.

Is there any player to player trading in games? I don't remember. Can you trade gold?

 

[UnknownSouljer]

They plan on loot coming out before the expansions. A lot of the changes not content related (crusader and act 5) is slated pre expansion and the expansion is not required at all

I'm actually glad to hear this. Hopefully it will happen sooner than later. Is there word on whether or not the loot dungeons will happen before the expansion, or will that be expansion only?

I really wish they would let you reset your own account.

It's annoying that all my characters start where the previous one left off.

I want to start with 0 gold; nothing unlocked. I guess i could just delete everything, but i'd still have lots of things unlocked.

Is there any player to player trading in games? I don't remember. Can you trade gold?

Yeah, you can trade gold. You can trade anything to anyone in game so long as it is not account bound.

 

[Breath_of_the_Dying]

I'm actually glad to hear this. Hopefully it will happen sooner than later. Is there word on whether or not the loot dungeons will happen before the expansion, or will that be expansion only?

Pre-Expansion Patch
Blizzard have announced which features will be unlocked with the expansion and which will come as a pre-expansion patch. Here's what you'll get if you don't buy the expansion:
Paragon 2.0
Loot 2.0
Loot Runs
Nephalem trials


Originally Posted by Blizzard
We want to implement a lot of the new systems and features in a pre-expansion patch for free. That should include Paragon 2.0, Loot 2.0, Loot Runs, and Nephalem Trials. For now, you'll need to purchase the expansion to play as the Crusader, explore Act V, unlock the Mystic, and level up to 70. These details may change as development moves along, but we want some of the core gameplay improvements to be available for everyone.

As much details as we know so far
http://www.diablofans.com/news/1984-the-massive-expansion-recap-everything-we-know-so-far/