Diablo III

[zircon]

It's best to treat it as a multiplayer game, cause that's what it is. Having most of the stuff serverside will deter hackers and botters.

I agree with this. Internet access is so prevalent these days that having everything go through an online server simplifies life immensely. In Diablo 2, you had to have two sets of characters; one for offline, one for online. I think I played the offline mode once. You'd never be able to port between the two due to people hacking the offline characters, so what's the point?

[Brandon Strader]

And even then you can reach level 80 in Diablo 2 in about an hour ;/

I mean, online

[zircon]

That's a little bit of an exaggeration Plus they changed things so that rushing is harder, at least as of last time I played. Back in the day, a solid run from level 1 to hell was like 4-5 hours. Then you stayed in the Secret Cow Level and could get to level 70-75 in an afternoon.

On a side note, I do worry that the auction house makes the item finding part of the game a little... easy. You can basically type in any stats you want and get a custom-made blue or rare for generally reasonable prices. I haven't been to Inferno yet (and I hear it is indeed very hard) but at least at the lower levels, using the AH is almost always preferable to using items you find yourself.

I would be interested in seeing Blizzard split up the auction house into randomly-assigned zones. Your account is tied to a specific zone (there would be a large # of them). Thus you would not be seeing the ridiculous variety and low prices that you see now, something that will probably get way way way 'worse' as time goes on. I do love the concept of the auction house though!

Edited May 28, 2012 by zircon

[Brandon Strader]

On a side note, I do worry that the auction house makes the item finding part of the game a little... easy. You can basically type in any stats you want and get a custom-made blue or rare for generally reasonable prices. I haven't been to Inferno yet (and I hear it is indeed very hard) but at least at the lower levels, using the AH is almost always preferable to using items you find yourself.

That's what bothered me, instead of actually finding good items like that, you have to buy them at the AH. I never found a drop as good as the items I got from the AH, and I HAD to buy those items just to progress in the game. And I am still weaker than other people at my level by a LOT! I am super nerfed. So I do think the game is broken. But it is what it is, and I've been having fun with it.

[Diodes]

BattleTag: diotrans#1797

I've been playing at a slow pace, at least compared to pretty much everyone else I've played with. So I'm still in Normal in Act II.

[Sir_NutS]

Yeah the game is built around the use of the AH to progress in Inferno, sadly. Instead of farming for items, you farm for gold. A mistake that Blizzard made with this is delaying the real money AH and not having it ready at launch. We're used to get good inferno items for gold right now (although for sometimes outrageous amounts) but when the RMAH hits, say goodbye to finding any decent inferno items in the gold AH.

With the focus being switched from getting through the game to get better gear to get better gear to get through the game the importance of the AH increases even more. An well, we know they made it this way on purpose, it's all about that RMAH revenue in the end.

[Ramaniscence]

That's a little bit of an exaggeration Plus they changed things so that rushing is harder, at least as of last time I played. Back in the day, a solid run from level 1 to hell was like 4-5 hours. Then you stayed in the Secret Cow Level and could get to level 70-75 in an afternoon.

On a side note, I do worry that the auction house makes the item finding part of the game a little... easy. You can basically type in any stats you want and get a custom-made blue or rare for generally reasonable prices. I haven't been to Inferno yet (and I hear it is indeed very hard) but at least at the lower levels, using the AH is almost always preferable to using items you find yourself.

I would be interested in seeing Blizzard split up the auction house into randomly-assigned zones. Your account is tied to a specific zone (there would be a large # of them). Thus you would not be seeing the ridiculous variety and low prices that you see now, something that will probably get way way way 'worse' as time goes on. I do love the concept of the auction house though!

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5150112701?page=2#33

[Tensei]

That's what bothered me, instead of actually finding good items like that, you have to buy them at the AH. I never found a drop as good as the items I got from the AH, and I HAD to buy those items just to progress in the game. And I am still weaker than other people at my level by a LOT! I am super nerfed. So I do think the game is broken. But it is what it is, and I've been having fun with it.

Well in Diablo 2 the very best items (ie ones needed for Uber tristram) were Runewords. High Runes had a ridiculously low drop rate so it was very unlikely that you'd ever be able to legitimately find an entire Breath of the Dying, not to mention a good item with 4 sockets.

Also, I have been finding quite a lot of AH comparable gear, at least half the gear on my DH is stuff I found myself.

The thing about Inferno is that you're simply not expected to progress straight from Hell without a hitch. It's supposed to be the endgame content and hold a large portion of the games replay value, with each act providing a significant bump in difficulty. That's why you're inevitably going to have to farm earlier acts/difficulties for gear/gold to get strong enough.

[zircon]

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5150112701?page=2#33

Not sure that really answers my concern, honestly. I'm not disputing that the auction house is nice, but at the rate things are going I can imagine in a month or two that the most powerful items in the game will be available for very, very cheap. That to me would be a shame. With all of Diablo 2's problems, it had a decent enough economy for a LONG time - even with the dupe problems. You had to work pretty hard to get something like a Windforce. Generally, you'd manage to scrounge up a few decent items you could trade for SOJs over the course of all 3 difficulties, then you could trade the SOJs for other items and work your way up from there. It was (and still is, AFAIK) reasonably hard to gear up a character unless you're spending real money. If we had, say, 10 or 20 auction houses, with each account only able to access one at a time, it might mitigate the problem.

This also leads into the data I've seen on set + unique items, which evidently are not nearly as good as rares or even blues. There seems to be a bias toward raw damage on weapons, for example, and blues tend to get the most of that. Other modifiers are just not as valuable. In D2, there were a variety of modifiers that were sometimes more important than damage, something I would like to see in D3.

If it were up to me (and obviously I will need to play the game a lot more to really confirm that this would be a good idea), I would generally buff unique and set items, and make SOME of them untradeable, ie. bind-on-pickup, but only those you can actually equip. This would make finding them a bit more special as opposed to just going to the AH and buying something for a few thousand gold. Likewise it might provide more meaningful choice.

Overall though, I really love this game. It is every bit as addicting as Diablo 2 was, and the stat/skill system is an enormous improvement. Balance in general seems amazing right out of the box. In D2, there were serious and prevalent balance issues for years, with some classes being obviously far better than others unless you had very specific items. For example, WW barb, Bowazon (w/ buriza's/windforce) and orb sorc were all incredibly mindless but very effective compared to, say, martial arts Assassin, melee Paladin, nature Druid, summoning Necro, etc.

Well in Diablo 2 the very best items (ie ones needed for Uber tristram) were Runewords. High Runes had a ridiculously low drop rate so it was very unlikely that you'd ever be able to legitimately find an entire Breath of the Dying, not to mention a good item with 4 sockets.

Though keep in mind that Uber Tristram was added very late into D2's lifespan when the economy was chock full of dupes and easily-accessible high-tier items. They sort of made it with that in mind. Hell difficulty was doable without runewords or anything like that, though you definitely wanted a party, and only certain builds worked.

Edited May 28, 2012 by zircon

[Sir_NutS]

Overall though, I really love this game. It is every bit as addicting as Diablo 2 was, and the stat/skill system is an enormous improvement. Balance in general seems amazing right out of the box. In D2, there were serious and prevalent balance issues for years, with some classes being obviously far better than others unless you had very specific items.

D3 Barbarians vs anything else.

[Kanthos]

BattleTag: diotrans#1797

I've been playing at a slow pace, at least compared to pretty much everyone else I've played with. So I'm still in Normal in Act II.

I'm playing about as fast as you; I'm partway through Act II in Normal as well.

My battletag is Kanthos#1438

[Sixto]

battletag is sixto#1601, but i dont play much. still on act 1 (i think) on normal

[Sir_NutS]

There's some news on the future plans from the devs. you can read it here: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6018173

the 3 more important points from this news are

1-Inferno is getting nerfed

2-Legendaries are getting buffed

3-Blacksmith and Jewelcrafted getting their prices nerfed

I'll give my opinion on the changes:

1-Inferno being nerfed: Is a necessary change. There's a current imbalance that is caused because of how BS the damage is, because of this melee classes have to go full survability in order to progress. This is something I talked about earlier, there's really no choice in inferno, you either grab a shield and start tanking, or you can be stubborn like me and try to farm the best gear possible by dying over and over while everyone else progresses at a steady pace.

This change will help with build diversity end game, as they say.

2-Legendaries getting buffed Yeah, I really don't know what they were thinking when they decided to release the game with the legendaries as they are now.

3-Blacksmith and JC Prices nerfed Now this one I disagree with. Contrary to what everyone thinks, I believe the BS and JC are fine as they are. The problem isn't that they are too expensive to level and craft, the problem is that the gold Auction House is just giving really easy access to items with great stats.

This is, as I said in an earlier post, all caused by the delay of the RMAH. If the RMAH was live, you wont be able to get those items with the perfect stats you need for gold. If you wanted good items for gold, you would have to gamble with the BS, just like we Gambled back in D2 with the merchant.

I think blizzard shoot themselves in the foot with the AH. It makes the Blacksmith obsolete right now, and they can't just tell the people the truth, that they have to wait for the RMAH to hit for the economy to balance out. So all they can do is nerf it. Once the RMAH hits, the BS will become the easiest way to get good gear by investing gold, and we'll be again farming for gold instead of items, just like now.

My 0.02c

[Piracy]

Damage scaling is huge problem for melee. If I could glass cannon I would. As it stands I have 2 attack abilities, and four defensive abilities, and all of my passives are defensive.

So what you say is maybe true for ranged, but Act 2 is just brutal on my Monk. I've ventured into Act 2, but unless I get a really easy set of affixes on champ packs I just don't have the gear for it.

I sacrificed about 14k health, and 4k dps just to get 60% resist all, 70% dmg reduction from armor, and about 40% dodge. (I'm not really trying for dodge)

I am now finally in a place where I can farm 99% of what Act 1 Inferno throws at me. However in all my runs I have only seen 1 drop that has been an actual upgrade that helps me gear up for Act 2. What I need to start dropping is armor with dex, vit, and strong resists. Unfortunately what I need for my weapon, rings, and amulet involve atk speed which either comes in it's magic form with one other stat, or goes on the AH for 500,000 - 1,000,000 gold.

Almost everything I have has been bought through the AH. I have a legendary helm that was given to me that is pretty good, but the resistances on it are too low for me to keep it. I feel like every piece I have needs to have resist all or poison resist, but how low can I let my dps fall before it's all moot.

The reason the invisible hydras in Act 2 and the phase beasts in Act 3 are such a problem for ranged is that they can't kite them. With melee that doesn't really matter because you don't really have the option to kite in the first place. Sure there are some positioning tricks, but those don't matter when you are getting two shot.

So for now I am stuck farming act 1 until I get some decent rare drops with enough vit, dex, and resistance to upgrade my chromatic magic items.

To be honest I am sick of farming Act 1 already (doesn't help I've farmed the Skeleton King for months in the Beta). I am just about to call it quits until the first balance patch rolls through.

You won't farm gear in A1 that lets you progress through A2 and beyond. It's a completely unrealistic goal, and that's part of the problem. What may be vaguely possible is to farm money for weeks and weeks to buy the gear, but the gear that allows you to go further costs several millions per piece.

My barbarian is in that realm now: 10500 armor, 48000 life, 800ish in all resists, full defensive build, and I get killed in seconds even in the very beginning of A2. It's untankable for me. Yet the only things that are really upgrades for me are things like high-block Stormshield, 20% String of Ears, and perfect rares. They all cost up to or more than 10m per piece. It could take me many months of just running the fucking Butcher to get there, and that's simply not an acceptable expectation to impose on any player. As far as I can tell from my thorough stream-watching and research, the only barbarians who get to play in the later acts are people who have been absurdly lucky and found several multi-million gold items that let them gear up, or people like Kripparrian who have a dedicated team of 16h/day pro-gamers carrying him through content and spoonfeeding him everything he needs.

As it stands, it is effectively impossible to play through inferno as a melee class, it takes a completely unreasonable amount of time farming or the kind of luck with drops that one in a hundred thousand players have. With average farming luck and nobody to babysit you through the game, it looks like it'll take many months of farming just to get the gear that lets you start the journey. It would be retarded of me to stick with my barbarian for any other reason than an illogical desire to play a barbarian, because I could roll a ranged class and get way, way richer because I could be farming the later acts and doing it with 100k dps instead of 10k. You've probably seen the videos; Athene's DH kills inferno Diablo in 2 minutes, Krip's barbarian does it in 20. That's a serious problem and one that makes it literally and tangibly not worthwhile to play a melee class. There's a huge opportunity cost because the ranged classes make you so much richer.

3-Blacksmith and JC Prices nerfed Now this one I disagree with. Contrary to what everyone thinks, I believe the BS and JC are fine as they are. The problem isn't that they are too expensive to level and craft, the problem is that the gold Auction House is just giving really easy access to items with great stats.

The problem is not so much the direct price (though they are still a bit high) but the ludicrous amount of ingredients required to craft a high level item. I've got recipes that require more than 20 essence! Are they fucking mad? 20, plus another 50k on top along with rare mats, to roll the dice on something that will 80% be garbage, especially when I can buy a much better fit on the AH?

I don't think they'll find people crafting those high level items for anymore than 20-40k total cost, including all materials (which in inferno are currently selling for 2000 each).

[zircon]

They already give melee classes sizable built-in reductions AFAIK, so it will be interesting to see how they plan on rebalancing things. Sounds like the problem is ranged being too strong, not melee being too weak. 20 mins for a barb to kill Diablo in the very hardest difficulty of the game sounds reasonable for an epic fight. 2 mins does not.

[Brandon Strader]

Hit level 60 and hopped into Inferno to see if it was really as hard as people say. Got up to the point where I recruit Leah to go search for Cain.

I only got hit once, it took my health pretty low but I didn't die.

Killed 2 champion mobs in basements. Made about 50k gold. Gold is a lot more plentiful here.

The difficulty seemed easier than the start of Hell was for me, but I was pretty much blowing through everything at the end of Hell (in solo mode) so I dunno. Without getting hit it wasn't hard, but I know how much I'd get hit later on, so that may be where the difficulty comes in.

Also noticed I sold about 42k worth of items on the AH. So, I'm starting to get into some real cash now.

[jnWake]

Watching this thread makes me want to download this, but I started playing SC2 again so combining these 2 games would destroy my free time...

I should be on vacation (forever).

[zircon]

How do you guys sell stuff on the AH? For me, it seems like blind luck whether items sell or not... what's the best way to get comparables? Keeping in mind I'm only 54 or so.

[Global-Trance]

Typically I search for similar items on the AH and ballpark it from there, usually undercutting a little bit to make it more appealing. Sometimes you get the short end of the stick and it doesn't get noticed. At that point, I just put it up for half that price if I'm tired of it by then.

[Brandon Strader]

How do you guys sell stuff on the AH? For me, it seems like blind luck whether items sell or not... what's the best way to get comparables? Keeping in mind I'm only 54 or so.

I just guess based on how useful the item would be for the class. Or how useful it was for me. I think I sold stuff for a price similar to what I bought it for, so that helps too. If nothing else, use that handy-dandy notepad that comes in your D3 box -- obviously included so you can write down auction house figures and market projections.

[eternal Zero]

My personal trick: Don't put a buyout price and lower what you think your item is worth by about 25%. You'll get one person that will notice and bid and if you're lucky you'll get a few people fighting over it. Takes longer, yes, but successful sales are actually substantial.

[Sir_NutS]

Diracy;863149']

My barbarian is in that realm now: 10500 armor' date=' 48000 life, 800ish in all resists, full defensive build, and I get killed in seconds even in the very beginning of A2. It's untankable for me. Yet the only things that are really upgrades for me are things like high-block Stormshield, 20% String of Ears, and perfect rares. They all cost up to or more than 10m per piece. It could take me many months of just running the fucking Butcher to get there, and that's simply not an acceptable expectation to impose on any player. As far as I can tell from my thorough stream-watching and research, the only barbarians who get to play in the later acts are people who have been absurdly lucky and found several multi-million gold items that let them gear up, or people like Kripparrian who have a dedicated team of 16h/day pro-gamers carrying him through content and spoonfeeding him everything he needs.

As it stands, it is effectively impossible to play through inferno as a melee class, it takes a completely unreasonable amount of time farming or the kind of luck with drops that one in a hundred thousand players have. With average farming luck and nobody to babysit you through the game, it looks like it'll take many months of farming just to get the gear that lets you start the journey. It would be retarded of me to stick with my barbarian for any other reason than an illogical desire to play a barbarian, because I could roll a ranged class and get way, way richer because I could be farming the later acts and doing it with 100k dps instead of 10k. You've probably seen the videos; Athene's DH kills inferno Diablo in 2 minutes, Krip's barbarian does it in 20. That's a serious problem and one that makes it literally and tangibly not worthwhile to play a melee class. There's a huge opportunity cost because the ranged classes make you so much richer.

[/quote']

My barb is sitting right now at 43k HP, 50% resist all and 70% reduced dmg from armor. I can farm up to the skeleton king, but now I got to halls of agony and Champions are 2 and 3-shotting me even with wrath ON. Even with revenge you can't heal up enough to survive being killed by 3 hits in less than 3 seconds.

All the good gear I have is because I've bought it from the AH because Act 1 items don't help you progress, I am using a 490 and a 510 dps weapon (which is not enough, I need at least a 700 dps weapons) and I get 200-300 dps weapon drops on act 1.

I'll keep farming because I'm stubborn like that, but the state of melee right now is just very unfair.

[Sir_NutS]

They already give melee classes sizable built-in reductions AFAIK, so it will be interesting to see how they plan on rebalancing things. Sounds like the problem is ranged being too strong, not melee being too weak. 20 mins for a barb to kill Diablo in the very hardest difficulty of the game sounds reasonable for an epic fight. 2 mins does not.

Mind you, Kripparian (the guy doing inferno diablo as a barb) has probably the absolute best gear possible atm, which he didn't get by normal means like the rest of us have to. The problem here is not ranged being op, it's the inferno mobs being complete BS, and the itemization on drops rewarding more gold farming than item hunt.

If every single mob can 2-3 shot you, it's obvious that the classes that can kite them will have an advantage over those who have to get close to hit them. Barbarians have to sacrifice all their damage so they can survive while ranged classes really don't have to. It's so ridiculous at the moment that when I see a piece of gear with strength I don't think about how much damage that piece will give me, I think about how much armor I can gain from the strength on it.

So what can you do, make ranged not be ranged? That's not the problem.

[zircon]

I guess I'll see when I get there At the moment, I'm doing pretty well in Act 2 Hell running a fairly defensive setup.

I heard Inferno is like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IiU-PxTl5u8

[Tensei]

Do you mean that you actually have 50% reduction through resistances, or just 50 points in every resistance? Resistances are pretty much the most lucrative stat to boost, which is something I found out on my Monk where I dropped like 10k of Health (down to below 30k) in favor of boosting my resistances to like 400, suddenly Inferno got a lot easier as a melee.

Ultimately, melees will have a better time soloing Inferno because with enough gear, they can actually tank a lot of it while still dealing respectable damage, while ranged will always be quite squishy. My Act 2 DH experience consists of standing two screens away from anything and blindfiring Hungering Arrows to pick off mobs, then running across half the map while liberally dropping caltrops and smoke screens if I ever run into an elite. I can imagine that once you're actually geared up on a Barb or Monk, the playstyle is not nearly as cheesy.

As for AH worthy stuff to sell, probably the most important things you want to keep a lookout for are +All Resist, +Vitality and +Dex/Str/Int. Level 60 weapons tend to be sellable from at least 700 DPS (or lower if they have great stats).