Diablo 3 Discussion Thread

cageymaru said:
When I team up with my lower level buddies in Hell Act II they get up to level 55+ rares and I get level 40 - 44 rares. They get at least a rare every elite pack. They are honestly disappointed if they don't. I get a blue and maybe a rare here and there. My main teammate is a Monk so it's not likely that I will get an upgrade off him. :)

I got a level 38 rare off the guards leading to Hell Belial. That was the last straw and I quit the game.
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Level 55 rares in Hell Act 2 should not be dropping very regularly. And a rare with every elite pack is definitely not the norm. Either they've got very high magic find gear or they're very lucky. Blues with a rare here and there is the norm.

Since you bring down their drop rate, that leads me to believe it's a magic find issue.
 
Just read those patch notes. First of all, I'm not sure I like devs looking to the community so much for advice. Doesn't sow much leadership. I don't mind it in beta (see Tribes:Ascend), but in a final game? No.

Second, lol @ no mention of AH issues.
 
Read the whole post. They said they're improving the AH in this patch as well. There has been other blue posts detailing what exactly is getting better.

Intel_Hydralisk said:
I don't necessarily like the increased repair either. I think the debuff for less combat efficiency is better. It's a real show stopper and properly stops chain ressing or graveyard zerging (people with money won't care about the repair cost anyway) and a debuff is very common in a lot of games as a death penalty.
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The problem with this is it would penalize Melee classes far more than Ranged. DH/Wiz can keep kiting with reduced damage until it wears off, but Melee would have to wait it out. It would effectively be just a glorified extra rez timer and most elite packs would heal to full even with a timer of 3 seconds.
 
newster said:
As a hardcore player, I can't help but chuckle at the softcore players complaining about the increase in death repair costs.
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As a normal player I can't help but chuckle at the hardcore players. For nothing more than the fact they are hardcore players.
 
If the patch notes aren't too long can someone post them for those of us with limited internet access?
 
Last month we gave you a glimpse into how we were taking in initial feedback on the game, and ideas for some potential system changes we could make. Today we wanted to follow up and provide concrete info on some of the changes we’ve been working on, and give everyone a heads up before the 1.0.3 patch hits later this month.

Bridging the Inferno Item Gap
The ilvl (item level) of an item determines the statistical budget for its power. The way the game is currently set up in Inferno, Act I drops ilvl 61 gear and below, Act II drops ilvl 62 gear and below, and Act III and IV drop ilvl 63 and below.
Unfortunately this has caused two main issues. The first is players who find an Act too difficult feel compelled to use the auction house in order to progress. The second is that certain classes, skills, and play styles are less gear dependent than others, so although great items are making their way into the game economy, people feel pigeonholed into a handful of viable strategies. For a lot of people they would rather do something frustrating or boring in Hell Act IV (such as having Tyrael fight for them or breaking vases) for a chance at a "top-tier" upgrade, rather than fight hordes of monsters in Inferno Act I.
We’re shifting to a philosophy where the best items in the game can drop from many different places, so a wider variety of play styles are viable. If you would rather chain-pull elite packs in Act I rather than 3 minute cat-and-mouse in Act IV, we'd like you to be able to do that and know you can still find the best items in the game.
Nothing would explain it as well as just sharing the intended drop rates coming in the next patch, so here they are. Note that the drop rates vary slightly by item type; the table below represents an approximate aggregated rate of all item types:
New drop rates for 1.0.3



As you can see, players who would rather murder monsters 4x as fast in Inferno Act I can do so knowing they have a chance at amazing items, and players who want a challenge can kill in Acts III and IV in Inferno and be rewarded with a higher drop rate.


You Keep Using That Word
As previously mentioned, we’re going to be reviewing Legendary items in a future patch. Legendaries won’t change in 1.0.3, but it’s still something we’re actively working on. When we’re done, high level Legendaries should be flat out better than blue items, they’ll carry a good amount of power with them, and they should also be distinctive or memorable in the benefits they provide. We’ll be able to share more information on the specific changes we’re making after 1.0.3 launches.


The Nephalem Difference
It’s no secret that our goal for the end-game item hunt is players hunting monsters packs, building to five stacks of Nephalem Valor, and then killing a boss. While we’re seeing a lot of that occurring, what we’re missing is people feeling like it’s worthwhile to continue onward after killing a boss.
To help hit that goal we’re lowering the number of guaranteed Rare items on bosses when you have your full five stacks of Nephalem Valor from two guaranteed Rares to one guaranteed Rare (you still have a very good chance at multiple rares, it's just no longer guaranteed). In exchange, all champion and rare packs will now drop a bonus guaranteed Rare item when you have your full five stacks of Nephalem Valor. The change benefits players with more overall drops, and a reason to push to continue progressing.


You Into the Group Thing?
We’re removing the bonus monster damage per additional player in a coop game. Our design goal is for players who prefer to play solo to be able to play solo, and players who prefer to play in groups to be able to play in a group. We feel the bonus monster damage per additional player is one of the biggest inhibitors to wanting to play with your friends.
In a perfect world, single player and co-op would be absolutely equal, but that’s not attainable when you consider item properties such as “Life on Kill” or skills such as Archon which simply scale better when you are solo. Since the variety and breadth of game mechanics essentially dictate that solo vs. group play will never be 100% equal, our goal is to make them as close as possible but err on the side of coop in cases where we need to make adjustments. The inherent logistical requirements when forming up with other players and attempting to work together effectively warrants some added benefits.


Oh Yeah!

Inferno balance right now has a difficulty gap in which Act I feels about right, but Act II feels like trying to bust through a brick wall. In patch 1.0.3 we’re going to be lowering that wall by adjusting the damage and health of monsters in Inferno Act II, III and IV. We feel like Act I Inferno is in a pretty good place.
Our design goal with Acts II, III and IV is to keep them challenging, but smooth the difficulty ramp out a bit. If a monk or barbarian is geared well enough that they can use a heavily offensive build and murder everything in Act I, they should be able to swap to a more defensive build and do okay in Act II. As they gear up they can begin adjusting back to becoming offensive in Act II, at which point they can jump into Act III with a focus on defense, and so on. Difficulty certainly ties into itemization, encounter and enemy tuning, and class balance, and all of these things together are going to paint a more reasonable difficulty curve as you hit Inferno in 1.0.3.


Paying for Your Mistakes
Current repair costs at level 60 are barely noticeable, and because of that we see a lot of people wonder if “graveyard zerging” tough enemies or “chain rezzing allies on a boss” is intended gameplay – it definitely is not. To help solve the issue we evaluated a number of new death mechanics, such as just allowing the resurrection timer to increase even higher, disallowing resurrection during boss fights, or putting a debuff on you when you resurrect (such as reduced combat effectiveness).
Ultimately we felt that increasing repair costs was the best solution that preserves the fast paced style of the game. Repair costs on level 60 items are going to go up a lot. Our goal is the next time a player is graveyard zerging a boss, it should occur to them that “this is probably not an efficient way to go about things”. We’re currently evaluating repair costs between 4x and 6x their current values.
In the face of increasing costs, we recommend listening to the Hardcore players out there as they probably have some helpful advice on how to minimize repair costs. Following this change zerging a boss will still be possible, but our intent is that it won’t be optimal, and players who are seeking to be as efficient as possible will adjust their item hunting routes accordingly.

Whoa, Whoa, Nice Shootin’ Tex
We’re fixing a number of bugs with Attack Speed, mainly related to the stat not working on some items, but we’ve also decided we need to reduce the effectiveness of Increased Attack Speed overall. Many players have commented that Increased Attack Speed is such a dominant stat they feel it’s required. While we don’t have an issue with there being important stats, Increased Attack Speed in particular has secondary effects on mobility in combat, resource generation and resource consumption. We want there to be options and considerations for how you gear up, and one uber trump-everything stat can really work against choice and options.
There are two different solutions we’re considering to reduce the effectiveness of Increased Attack Speed. The first is to simply reduce the value on all the items to their desired values. In general our desire is to never change items as that makes them feel less concrete, but the upside is you would still be able to look at an item and know exactly what you are getting. The other approach is to change the formula used for attack speed aggregation so that stacking attack speed from multiple slots suffers from diminishing returns. The downside of that approach is that it introduces yet another hidden modifier on an item property (and many people dislike hidden modifiers), and complicates the already difficult decision of item gearing.
We’re currently leaning toward the first solution, to simply reduce the value on items, but we’d be interested to read people’s thoughts on the problem.


Just Three Two Easy Payments
We previously hinted that Blacksmith and Jeweler costs are coming down, and overall it will be far more reasonable to train them up and craft items. The most dramatic reduction is on the combine costs for tier 2-8 gems.




Gem Quality


Previous Cost


New Cost






Flawed


3 Chipped + 500 gold


2 Chipped + 10 gold




Normal


3 Flawed + 750 gold


2 Flawed + 25 gold




Flawless


3 Normal + 1250 gold


2 Normal + 40 gold




Perfect


3 Flawless + 2000 gold + 1 Page


2 Flawless + 55 gold + 1 Page




Radiant


3 Perfect + 3500 gold + 2 Pages


2 Perfect + 70 gold + 2 Pages




Square


3 Radiant + 7500 gold + 1 Tome


2 Radiant + 85 gold + 1 Tome




Flawless Square


3 Square + 20,000 gold + 2 Tomes


2 square + 100 gold + 2 Tomes




The gem combine costs for Perfect Square and above will remain unchanged.


Nerf Them, Buff Me
Class tuning is not a major focus for 1.0.3. There will be a small number of skills changes, but for the most part we want people to continue experimenting and enjoy their skills for a while. Our goal was and continues to be build diversity, and though we see quite a bit of build diversity, we think we can do much better. Class tuning will be an ongoing process, and we’re targeting the 1.1 patch for most class tweaks, with a focus on punching build diversity up a few more notches.


But What About…
While these are a few of the larger systems adjustments we’re making, the 1.0.3 patch will include many fixes, quality of life enhancements, Auction House improvements, and other changes. We hope you look forward to the patch as much as we do getting it out there, and again we appreciate your continued feedback. See you in-game!
 
Damnit viper...

Yeah that is the 1.03 patch, this is not the 1.03 patch. This is a small 1.02b patch... Wrong patch notes......

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5578594951


At least they made it so you can sell damaged items now in AH. That crap was annoying. "Oh damn, I cant see what gear is on my char because its damaged, now I have to join a game to repair and then exit again." :) I have been wanting to view damaged gear in AH for a while, woot.
 
Retsam said:
Anyone having patch issues? Its the same issue as last big patch, its just starts, says theres a patch then crashes, rinse and repeat......

How to fix? <----- :)

Tried editing the agent.db file which is what fixed it last time, but that no worky now as its already edited.
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Last patch, I changed my home region which fixed the crash loop. It was set to EU after the patch. I changed it to NA and bingo, it worked.
 
Maplehamwich said:
Last patch, I changed my home region which fixed the crash loop. It was set to EU after the patch. I changed it to NA and bingo, it worked.
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Nah, that was an old post I made. I figured it out. The servers are actually down and I didnt realize it. They wont be up until 11am PDT.
 
Dallows said:
Taking out the increased damage per added player is HUGE.
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Yup. Inferno gets lonely soloing with my Wizard. If they followed through with this, I'd actually get to play more than just Act 1 with my friends.
 
Dallows said:
Taking out the increased damage per added player is HUGE.
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Well, if they decide slash the extra health/damage in half it should be okay. Right now it seems too uneven. I could face roll Act1 Inferno half-asleep, but with an extra player in suddently becomes Act3 where I get one-shoted when some demon sneezes in my direction.
 
ashmelev75 said:
Well, if they decide slash the extra health/damage in half it should be okay. Right now it seems too uneven. I could face roll Act1 Inferno half-asleep, but with an extra player in suddently becomes Act3 where I get one-shoted when some demon sneezes in my direction.
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Never made sense to me to have it up so much. Especially with the damage. More HP, okay maybe that's fine. But throw on all that extra damage plus the added abilities and near impossible elite combos, and it's just retarded.

This is a good step in the right direction. If they stick with that change more people will surely be included to pair/group up, making it more fun in the process.
 
My group of 4(my barb, 2 monks, and a demon hunter) finished Act 2 on Inferno last night. Act 2 was a real challenge. Belial was a real bitch but after two wipes, we did it. It was actually fun. Loved the challenge. Onward to Act 3.
 
Seeing as that the patch wont come out until the end of the month, can anyone post some good gold farming suggestions for act I?

I can actually survive for 5 stack of NV and need some G's
 
Parja said:
Level 55 rares in Hell Act 2 should not be dropping very regularly. And a rare with every elite pack is definitely not the norm. Either they've got very high magic find gear or they're very lucky. Blues with a rare here and there is the norm.

Since you bring down their drop rate, that leads me to believe it's a magic find issue.
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I up their find rate.
 
WarriorX said:
My group of 4(my barb, 2 monks, and a demon hunter) finished Act 2 on Inferno last night. Act 2 was a real challenge. Belial was a real bitch but after two wipes, we did it. It was actually fun. Loved the challenge. Onward to Act 3.
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Enjoy demon lashers ;)

Also I am so glad they are finally addressing the "penalty" to playing Inferno with a group of people :D:D:D
 
soulesschild said:
Enjoy demon lashers ;)

Also I am so glad they are finally addressing the "penalty" to playing Inferno with a group of people :D:D:D
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+1

For all difficulties.

The game gets noticably more difficult by adding players to the game. I played with people a few times in Hardcore mode. Immediately, I was like screw this. I could destroy it solo, but adding people made it so much more difficult (even in NM and Hell). The addition of other players wasn't even close to outweighing mob HP/Damage.
 
B!nd. said:
Seeing as that the patch wont come out until the end of the month, can anyone post some good gold farming suggestions for act I?

I can actually survive for 5 stack of NV and need some G's
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I was actually running through act 3 hell with nv 5 when my character stopped moving.
Looked at the little message area and it had a countdown till server shutdown.
Was kinda pissed since I was almost to the boss.

Some of the elites were kicking my ass, pulling me in and 1 hit killing me. I can massacre everything else without trying right now.
 
newster said:
As a hardcore player, I can't help but chuckle at the softcore players complaining about the increase in death repair costs.
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Here's my stupid question.
What defines the difference between soft core and hard core D3 players?

I am a D3 noob.
 
I hope that they don't really ramp up the death penalties, though I suppose it won't be as big of a deal if they make acts 2-4 easier. I'm still in act 2 and believe me, I'm not enjoying dieing over and over again. Increasing the penalty isn't going to give me an incentive to stay alive because I can't stay alive. Hell, more often than not the elites have regained their health by the time I revive and run back to them.
 
HardUp4HardWare said:
Here's my stupid question.
What defines the difference between soft core and hard core D3 players?

I am a D3 noob.
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Actually, you just get moved from hardcore to softcore. In other words, you cant die, as previously stated.

In Diablo2 hardcore, once you died, you died period. Lost all gear and all items unless you allowed party members to loot your corpse(which is why you always teamed with trustworthy friends). :p Still completely lost your character though.

Hardcore has never appealed to me. It forces you to change tactics and play in super grind slow-mo mode. Id rather go balls out and not worthy about dying and having all my time spent go down the tube. It forces you to take much longer to do everything in HC.
 
Retsam said:
Actually, you just get moved from hardcore to softcore. In other words, you cant die, as previously stated.
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o.0 did not know that. thanks for that info

EDIT: nm, this is flase
 
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JapaneseGorilla said:
I hope that they don't really ramp up the death penalties, though I suppose it won't be as big of a deal if they make acts 2-4 easier. I'm still in act 2 and believe me, I'm not enjoying dieing over and over again. Increasing the penalty isn't going to give me an incentive to stay alive because I can't stay alive. Hell, more often than not the elites have regained their health by the time I revive and run back to them.
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I was thinking the exact same thing...I die tons in inferno as well, partly cause I am undergeared atm but still, id still die super fast.

They said they are increasing the repair costs 4X or 5X. I read that and was like, damn, I guess there goes my money in certain areas. So now it costs about 5k to repair all gear. That means its going to cost lets say around 20-25k to repair all gear? I suppose that isnt just ridiculous but, could put you in the hole 50-100k if it took you a long time to pass a certain area or act.

For better or worse, this will probably give people even more incentive to go to AH to regear if they are dying often so that their gold doesnt just get wasted in repair costs.....
 
Retsam said:
Actually, you just get moved from hardcore to softcore. In other words, you cant die, as previously stated.
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You don't get moved to softcore if you die in hardcore. Your character simply dies for good.
 
Zepher said:
I was actually running through act 3 hell with nv 5 when my character stopped moving.
Looked at the little message area and it had a countdown till server shutdown.
Was kinda pissed since I was almost to the boss.

Some of the elites were kicking my ass, pulling me in and 1 hit killing me. I can massacre everything else without trying right now.
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The elites packs are stupid in inferno. Lets see "invul minion fast molten horde" yeah thats a good one...someone had that pic back a few pages with a shopped pic of a mob with like 15 qualities...yeah feel just like that on more than half the elites in inferno.
 
Neb said:
You don't get moved to softcore if you die in hardcore. Your character simply dies for good.
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Are you sure? I read that somewhere. I thought they stated thats how it works? I havnt played hardcore myself so I dont know. I thought that was true?
 
Retsam said:
Actually, you just get moved from hardcore to softcore. In other words, you cant die, as previously stated.
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I don't have a dead HC Char... Mine hasn't died (yet). My friend's dead char is completely unplayable, so I'm almost certain dead HC chars don't move to SC.
 
Upping repair costs isn't going to help anything at all. Just make SC players do corpse runs from last checkpoint. For boss battles, extract them from "boss arena instances" and put them into the larger levels. I hate the boss arenas. Or, kick the corpse to instance entrance if you can't into level design.
 
My bad then. I guess I am wrong. I read that somewhere, weird.

So once you die in HC, it is like D2, you are dead.
 
Yeah, it's the same as in D2.

You can create a hardcore character from the character creation page after reaching level 10 with any Diablo III hero. Hardcore characters begin playing Diablo III at Normal difficulty and advance through subsequent difficulties just like normal characters. They differ from normal characters in one crucial area, though:

IF YOUR HARDCORE CHARACTER DIES, THAT CHARACTER IS PERMANENTLY DEAD. They will never be playable again. There is only one way to successfully play a hardcore character: don&#8217;t die.

Hardcore characters have access to the hardcore-specific gold auction house, but are unable to purchase items from or sell items to non-hardcore characters. They cannot use the real money auction house. Hardcore characters can only share the items in their stash with other hardcore characters on your account.
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Source:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/game/guide/gameplay/fundamentals#hardcore-characters
 
Yeah servers are up and I got a ping of 30 right now cause nobody else is on....

Ahhh yes, this is what my ping should always be. :(
 
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