Diablo 3 Discussion Thread

[Ocellaris]

Any opinions on whether the extra $20 for the Digital Deluxe Edition of RoP is worth it?

Looks like a bunch of crap to me. A WoW pet, Starcraft 2 portraits, and transmogrify items that tons of other people will have.

If they had more Diablo based items in there or some Nephalem Rift keys it might be interesting to me.

 

[MavericK]

I don't really see the point of having tons of characters in D3, other than using them as storage mules or something. Seems like you really only need as many characters as there are classes.

Though the maximum Stash space is a total joke, so I can see using mules to store gear.

 

[fdiaz78]

Looks like a bunch of crap to me. A WoW pet, Starcraft 2 portraits, and transmogrify items that tons of other people will have.

If they had more Diablo based items in there or some Nephalem Rift keys it might be interesting to me.

Its not worth the price just for the pre-order items but only to just be ready to play on day one but from past experience good luck getting to the servers day one.

 

[Suprfire]

Its not worth the price just for the pre-order items but only to just be ready to play on day one but from past experience good luck getting to the servers day one.

Apparently you won't even have to logout to have the Xpac "activate". I'll be playing Monday night and when the clock strikes 12 midnight eastern time ill be able to kill Diablo and transition right into Act 5.

The only things there might be are game-creation queues. Hopefully no errors.

A smooth launch would be nice for a change.
Blizzard could use this "win" in their book.

 

[yimingwuzere]

Are Hellfire Ring crafting runs worth it given 2.0.1 loot stat changes?

I've tried doing Torment 3 key warden runs for a week whenever I'm free. Got one ring so far, and a crap ton of Spines but none of the other crafting gear lol.

 

[CrimsonKnight13]

I had a blast over the weekend after hitting lvl 60 paragon 17 with a good amount of legendaries.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/StarKiller13-1142/hero/43068605

 

[Syntaxx]

yeah im enjoying D3 a lot again, get sucked in. the Hard Forums clan and group is fun.. a lot of cool dudes.

With the bonus XP i was able to get my wiz from 30 paragon to 51 in casual play and i got my barb to level 60. now i got 3 level 60's.

 

[refraxion]

Apparently you won't even have to logout to have the Xpac "activate". I'll be playing Monday night and when the clock strikes 12 midnight eastern time ill be able to kill Diablo and transition right into Act 5.

The only things there might be are game-creation queues. Hopefully no errors.

A smooth launch would be nice for a change.
Blizzard could use this "win" in their book.

I was thinking that massive patch we had earlier were the XPAC files loaded on our end? I hope so, that would be a huge win if everybody already has the files and that their servers are capable of handling it!

 

[Neon01]

I'm having a great time with the HOCP clan folks (Azazel here).

At the risk of turning this into a rant, however, I really thought Blizzard had mended their ways with 2.0, putting the players back in the front seat and giving them the fun they wanted. Apparently this was only temporary - now the latest hotfix xp nerfs take a lot of that fun away again. It bothers me to no end how they tweak the game for the 0.5% that play the game to race to paragon 1000. Now the rest of us suffer. Ugh.

 

[CrimsonKnight13]

At the risk of turning this into a rant, however, I really thought Blizzard had mended their ways with 2.0, putting the players back in the front seat and giving them the fun they wanted. Apparently this was only temporary - now the latest hotfix xp nerfs take a lot of that fun away again. It bothers me to no end how they tweak the game for the 0.5% that play the game to race to paragon 1000. Now the rest of us suffer. Ugh.

Could you quote a change log & link to it? I'm not sure what nerfing you're referencing.

 

[refraxion]

Low health "mobs" had their xp significantly reduced. Good Job blizz, ruining it because the people with no lives play it day in and day out to race to the highest paragon levels possible.

 

[Neon01]

Could you quote a change log & link to it? I'm not sure what nerfing you're referencing.

I'd be happy to once I get home; work blocks all Blizzard sites.

In a nutshell though: they didn't like that certain dull runs (like CoTA) are the most efficient ways to farm xp in the game, and preferred that people play more engaging sections in the xpac and for *those* to be the most efficient, so they nerfed the former. Unfortunately they didn't confine the nerf to the offending sections, they substantially nerfed xp on all "lower than average health" mobs throughout the game. Lower than average mobs include things like white skeletons, little spiders, the scorpion looking things in Arreat, etc. Sadly, this means it takes quite a bit longer just working a normal character through the story of the base game, since those mobs are such a prevalent way to gain xp.

The other boneheaded move was what they did with drops in Torment. Folks were complaining that there was no incentive to farm Torment since drops were effectively the same. Did they buff drops in Torment? Hell no. They nerfed all easier modes below Torment. Now the class-specific set crafting recipes will not drop on anything but Torment or above. What an absolutely abysmal response to legitimate player complaints.

It's very apparent that they just don't care about building a fun and enjoyable game for the vast bulk of players. They just want to balance the game for the tiniest group of players that play the game 24/7.

 

[MavericK]

Huh...probably why they did the 100% XP boost right around the same time, so most people wouldn't notice the shitty changes they made right before the expansion goes live.

 

[CrimsonKnight13]

Wow, I never realized all of that. I've been going happy with the 100% extra xp run on Hard & Expert. Knowing such, I think I'll be setting my sights on the Torment difficulties until they fix it right.

 

[Ocellaris]

Only took me a couple days after hitting 60 to get gear and do Torment I, I don't think it's a big hurdle.

 

[Neon01]

Only took me a couple days after hitting 60 to get gear and do Torment I, I don't think it's a big hurdle.

If you play 10 hours a day, sure. With 50-100% XP bonus, sure. Try doing the same thing in a week at the pace most people play (couple hours at a time) and see how long it takes.

Over the last week I played about 2-3 hours per day leveling my monk that was previously at lvl 36 to 60. It took me about 3-4 days, and she definitely wasn't T1 playable at that point. I'm not a speed player, but I'm not slow either. And that was with a huge xp bonus, a healthy amount of account paragon levels, and before the xp nerf.

 

[Aix.]

I'd be happy to once I get home; work blocks all Blizzard sites.

In a nutshell though: they didn't like that certain dull runs (like CoTA) are the most efficient ways to farm xp in the game, and preferred that people play more engaging sections in the xpac and for *those* to be the most efficient, so they nerfed the former. Unfortunately they didn't confine the nerf to the offending sections, they substantially nerfed xp on all "lower than average health" mobs throughout the game. Lower than average mobs include things like white skeletons, little spiders, the scorpion looking things in Arreat, etc. Sadly, this means it takes quite a bit longer just working a normal character through the story of the base game, since those mobs are such a prevalent way to gain xp.

The other boneheaded move was what they did with drops in Torment. Folks were complaining that there was no incentive to farm Torment since drops were effectively the same. Did they buff drops in Torment? Hell no. They nerfed all easier modes below Torment. Now the class-specific set crafting recipes will not drop on anything but Torment or above. What an absolutely abysmal response to legitimate player complaints.

It's very apparent that they just don't care about building a fun and enjoyable game for the vast bulk of players. They just want to balance the game for the tiniest group of players that play the game 24/7.

It reminds me of when botters started farming drops from breakables early on after launch: Blizzard's response was to basically remove all drops from breakables, essentially removing the fun for everyone due to a tiny % of people exploiting it. I had assumed that they felt they had an obligation of some sort due to the Auction Houses existing.

For CotA runs and whatnot, they take weeks to identify/analyse an issue that the entire community has known and talked about, and then their response is a hotfix that seems like a knee-jerk half-measure that makes everyone unhappy. Personally, I think it's their own damned fault for designing two single-room dungeons with checkpoints for a single quest, and packing them with monsters; both CotA and Warrior's Rest should have been sprawling multi-tiered dungeons.

 

[DogsofJune]

Been having fun playing with HOCP clan members, that is as long as my connection works. Seems there is construction in the area. Trying to take advantage of building up current characters before the 25th.

The conversations on the Community chat are humorous at times.

 

[cougarsoccer]

I'd be happy to once I get home; work blocks all Blizzard sites.

In a nutshell though: they didn't like that certain dull runs (like CoTA) are the most efficient ways to farm xp in the game, and preferred that people play more engaging sections in the xpac and for *those* to be the most efficient, so they nerfed the former. Unfortunately they didn't confine the nerf to the offending sections, they substantially nerfed xp on all "lower than average health" mobs throughout the game. Lower than average mobs include things like white skeletons, little spiders, the scorpion looking things in Arreat, etc. Sadly, this means it takes quite a bit longer just working a normal character through the story of the base game, since those mobs are such a prevalent way to gain xp.

The other boneheaded move was what they did with drops in Torment. Folks were complaining that there was no incentive to farm Torment since drops were effectively the same. Did they buff drops in Torment? Hell no. They nerfed all easier modes below Torment. Now the class-specific set crafting recipes will not drop on anything but Torment or above. What an absolutely abysmal response to legitimate player complaints.

It's very apparent that they just don't care about building a fun and enjoyable game for the vast bulk of players. They just want to balance the game for the tiniest group of players that play the game 24/7.

Easier mobs should reward you with less xp than mobs with more health. Due to the amount of time it takes to kill them. This just seems like logic to me. There has been significant nerfs to multiple xp farming routes since 2.0 came out. Makes sense to me to be honest. I never farmed those easy Cota runs and such cause playing the same area over and over is stupid IMO.

As far as set items in torment difficulties only, I could not agree with this more. Most of the time they happen to be some of the best gear in the game when you get the set bonus. You shouldn't be able to get some of the best legendaries in the game just by running the easiest difficulties in the game just because they can run that quicker. Want the better gear, play the higher stuff.

Ever think for a second that the drop rates in torment were ok and that easier difficulties were a little to high?

 

[MavericK]

Except, ironically, you kinda need that higher-end gear in order to solo Torment in the first place. Once I hit 60, without grinding, there was no way in hell I could solo even Torment 1, and even now after some grinding I'm not sure I could do it with my DH. I'm working on getting a Barb up to 60 so we'll see with that one.

 

[Syntaxx]

I'm having a great time with the HOCP clan folks (Azazel here).

At the risk of turning this into a rant, however, I really thought Blizzard had mended their ways with 2.0, putting the players back in the front seat and giving them the fun they wanted. Apparently this was only temporary - now the latest hotfix xp nerfs take a lot of that fun away again. It bothers me to no end how they tweak the game for the 0.5% that play the game to race to paragon 1000. Now the rest of us suffer. Ugh.

Hi Azazel, syntaxx here.

 

[cougarsoccer]

Except, ironically, you kinda need that higher-end gear in order to solo Torment in the first place. Once I hit 60, without grinding, there was no way in hell I could solo even Torment 1, and even now after some grinding I'm not sure I could do it with my DH. I'm working on getting a Barb up to 60 so we'll see with that one.

Torment 1 is cake. We finished some fresh 60s with friends and jumped straight into torment 1 with the gear we had and crafted shoulders and gloves. You don't need that high end set gear to do T1

 

[Deleted member 174368]

Except, ironically, you kinda need that higher-end gear in order to solo Torment in the first place. Once I hit 60, without grinding, there was no way in hell I could solo even Torment 1, and even now after some grinding I'm not sure I could do it with my DH. I'm working on getting a Barb up to 60 so we'll see with that one.

You don't need set items to do Torment. I didn't even have set items until I was already farming Torment 3.

 

[Ocellaris]

If you play 10 hours a day, sure. With 50-100% XP bonus, sure. Try doing the same thing in a week at the pace most people play (couple hours at a time) and see how long it takes.

Over the last week I played about 2-3 hours per day leveling my monk that was previously at lvl 36 to 60. It took me about 3-4 days, and she definitely wasn't T1 playable at that point. I'm not a speed player, but I'm not slow either. And that was with a huge xp bonus, a healthy amount of account paragon levels, and before the xp nerf.

I don't play 10 hours a day and the XP boost has zero affect on drop rates. I just combined some decent yellow gear and a pretty tanky build and jumped into Torment pub games once I could hold my own.

 

[chockomonkey]

Low health "mobs" had their xp significantly reduced. Good Job blizz, ruining it because the people with no lives play it day in and day out to race to the highest paragon levels possible.

Yea it cracks me up. Why does blizz give a damn?

Except, ironically, you kinda need that higher-end gear in order to solo Torment in the first place. Once I hit 60, without grinding, there was no way in hell I could solo even Torment 1, and even now after some grinding I'm not sure I could do it with my DH. I'm working on getting a Barb up to 60 so we'll see with that one.

Well thats probably the issue. You're playing a DH, and I've heard they're still pretty crap-tastic.

 

[ValeTudo]

Really bad to hear about the nerf... I just started playing a couple weeks ago at the start of the sale and enjoyed leveling a Monk and hit 60 this weekend. Started leveling my Wizard, which is a blast, when the xp buff dropped last night.

Not sure if it will be as fun but I'll have a good gauge with the wizard.

Thanks for the info everyone, don't have time to sort through the web and enjoy reading H much more for the diverse convo's and threads.

 

[Neon01]

Easier mobs should reward you with less xp than mobs with more health. Due to the amount of time it takes to kill them. This just seems like logic to me. There has been significant nerfs to multiple xp farming routes since 2.0 came out. Makes sense to me to be honest. I never farmed those easy Cota runs and such cause playing the same area over and over is stupid IMO.

They already did give less xp. They were commensurate to their health and level of challenge before. I don't think you understand - they nerfed them more. Now they are considerably below where they should be (relative to other non-elite mobs). The issue here is not that they nerfed CoTA 9 (though I really don't think they needed to - if a dedicated few are willing to tolerate that boredom for a good farming spot, good for them), but that they completely altered the entire game to change a handful of efficient farming spots.

Ever think for a second that the drop rates in torment were ok and that easier difficulties were a little to high?

Not even remotely. After playing 2.0 for a total of about 40-50 hours since it came out anywhere from Nomal to T4, I can say that I don't believe legendary drops are happening often enough anywhere that they deserve a nerf. I think the drop rate is fine overall, and much improved from pre-2.0, but it sure doesn't need nerfing. The VAST majority of legendary drops are brims anyway, and without AH and legends BoA, you need not fear - the elite status of your Zunissia gear is secure.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they limited it to the plans, and not the actual legendaries (yet), but it's just a backward way to get at the problem. The simple fact is that it makes the game less enjoyable, not more, for the majority of players.

 

[Aix.]

Ever think for a second that the drop rates in torment were ok and that easier difficulties were a little to high?

My experience has been that Torment provides tougher enemies, yet no increase in drops over just speed running through normal difficulty. Do I find that normal mode is *too* rewarding? No. The loot is now mostly BoA and still subject to RNG, so who cares?

Torment has been great for experience but lousy for drops, especially when compared with the effort required in normal, so how does making certain set items Torment-only make it more rewarding? All they did was remove a few items from the normal difficulty pool (which I have no problem with), but claiming that Torment is now more rewarding is ridiculous; I can still have my drops 'wasted' by all the garbage legendaries I could before and the droprates haven't increased.

 

[Deleted member 174368]

I think half the problem is we're looking at it from a level 60 perspective.

Tomorrow, at level 70, the best legendaries will only drop in Torment 1 and above. If anything that's a decent incentive to do Torment over Normal.

 

[cougarsoccer]

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they limited it to the plans, and not the actual legendaries (yet), but it's just a backward way to get at the problem. The simple fact is that it makes the game less enjoyable, not more, for the majority of players.

I do recall some where that I read that all set items would drop only in torment. I can't find it right now because I'm on my phone. This is also the case for other legendaries as well. The ROS beta had quite a few that would only drop in torment difficulties. Also some that would only drop from bounty bags.

My point is that people are constantly complaining about the drop rate. The way I look at it is that they have to possibility to be some of the best items. I wouldn't want to get them immediately after hitting level cap. Makes a game based around gear progression way too easy and short.

 

[MavericK]

The whole way they went about the nerf was stupid...they should have just boosted drop rates in higher difficulties like they do with XP and gold, not punish people who play below Torment level.

 

[chockomonkey]

My experience has been that Torment provides tougher enemies, yet no increase in drops over just speed running through normal difficulty. Do I find that normal mode is *too* rewarding? No. The loot is now mostly BoA and still subject to RNG, so who cares?

Just more of blizzard's silly nerfing.

Why not buff the XP that high health mobs give instead?

 

[That_Sound_Guy]

The torment changes and XP don't bother me so much as Ive played since the beginning and have plenty of Torment 2-4 characters. I understand how the new folks restarting with 2.0 would have issues.

I wish they would do something about the crafting drops. Picking up common debris one at a time and having to bring back white items for breakdown is a hassle. Especially when crafting certain items takes 10-40 common debris at a time. The rare tear drops all the damn time in the game and usually only requires 1-5 of them to craft something. Common debris drops at a lesser rate and you're required to have a LOT more of it.

 

[Nytegard]

When you say torment is easy to farm from ground up, are you considering hardcore? I've been playing 10+ hours a day since 2.0 and was finally able to enter torment (with semi decent efficiency) yesterday, and that's only because several party members gave me drops due to them rolling dex whereas they were mages.

 

[Intel_Hydralisk]

All of this discussion about difficulty levels changes with ROS as blood shards don't drop in vanilla. Normal might still be better for pure drops due to absolute speed, but exp is for sure faster on the higher difficulties.

 

[Shantarr.Dalrae]

Perhaps they were forced to make this change with the rumor of ladders coming in to the game, some time after RoS release... I wonder.

If there was already a known exp grind spot, that takes a lot of the fun out of the game if you -must- do it, rather than just playing the game. I can't imagine the creation, exiting and re-creation of all those games was healthy for their servers, as well.

In any case, RoS in a few hours, see you guys there!

 

[MavericK]

If there was already a known exp grind spot, that takes a lot of the fun out of the game if you -must- do it, rather than just playing the game. I can't imagine the creation, exiting and re-creation of all those games was healthy for their servers, as well.

It's stupid, though, because you didn't ever have to grind a specific spot, but now you are essentially forced to grind just to level normally because a large portion of common mobs have less XP.

 

[Deleted member 174368]

But... the whole point of the game is grinding. And they didn't nerf all mob XP, only the "swarming" mobs, which are only found in specific locations.

I still don't understand how the game is suddenly less fun because you earn 100M XP a day instead of 120M.

 

[chockomonkey]

But... the whole point of the game is grinding. And they didn't nerf all mob XP, only the "swarming" mobs, which are only found in specific locations.

I still don't understand how the game is suddenly less fun because you earn 100M XP a day instead of 120M.

It's really not a big deal, as you've said. It's not like a paragon level is that big of a deal. If it were a talent point, I could see getting more upset.

It's just silly because Blizz coulda buffed the mobs which weren't giving enough and everyone would have been happy. Instead they nerf because they like to nerf i guess.

 

[Flopper]

I just play for fun
go grind guys.