Game

[Human Snorenado]

Guys, I don't need to hate myself MORE than I already do.  Enjoying something I'm morally opposed to like an mmorpg would probably push me over the deep end and the next thing you know, there I am shooting up a Denny's or some shit.  Let's just play it safe on this one.

[Human Snorenado]

Nice to hear some of what I've been saying repeated here.



BLEAARRRRGGGGHHHH

[pilonv1]

Blizzard: "item chasing is endgame"

youtube guy: "chance of getting a good item is one in eight hundred billion"

players:

[Phoenix Dark]

If you could put him in 2004-2006 WoW then I'd agree. What it is now? No way.

To be fair even the new raids are pretty good; the Deathwing fight is one of my favorite sequences in the entire raid history tbh. PvE/end game has never been a problem in WoW, it's the rest of the game that's the issue.

[Human Snorenado]

Here's something that would be awesome- if you kill a level end boss (Butcher, Belial, Asmodan, Diablo) in Inferno with a 5 stack, you get an account bound, GUARANTEED TO BE AWESOME legendary item.  It only drops the first time (after patch) you beat that boss with a 5 stack.  Fuck, just give us SOMETHING that will incentivize us to keep playing.  Right now I'm having to invent new ways to play the game to enjoy it.

[naff]

To be fair you don't need anywhere near perfect items to beat the game. Me and a wiz buddy are nearly through inferno and while I've kitted myself out fairly well on the AH my bud hasn't. D3 rocks, but the AH focus cripples an otherwise incredible game, but that doesn't become a problem until inferno.

[BobFromPikeCreek]

Man, the way itemization is set up in this game is going to make PvP fucking awful. This game is horrible.

[Human Snorenado]

Man, the way itemization is set up in this game is going to make PvP fucking awful. This game is horrible.

I think "horrible" is overstating it, but there are some definite late game issues that have made me lose interest.  I could give two shits about pvp, never liked it in D2.

[Phoenix Dark]

I have no idea how pvp will work. Personally I've never been a pvp person but I'll give it a shot out of curiosity here

[Human Snorenado]

I have no idea how pvp will work. Personally I've never been a pvp person but I'll give it a shot out of curiosity here

1. Roll a wizard, 60 him/her
2. stack crit chance/dmg
3. at the start of the pvp match (everything is arena only) shit out 5 mirror images, trololoolololol
4. profit

[Phoenix Dark]

Wouldn't stats be lowered in arenas for balance,

[Momo]

I still have zero level 60 chars, been joining pubs to try and level up/progress.

[BobFromPikeCreek]

Man, the way itemization is set up in this game is going to make PvP fucking awful. This game is horrible.

I think "horrible" is overstating it, but there are some definite late game issues that have made me lose interest.  I could give two shits about pvp, never liked it in D2.

I think "late game" is a little generous. I don't think I used a single thing that dropped after normal.

[pilonv1]

Man, the way itemization is set up in this game is going to make PvP fucking awful. This game is horrible.

I think "horrible" is overstating it, but there are some definite late game issues that have made me lose interest.  I could give two shits about pvp, never liked it in D2.

I think "late game" is a little generous. I don't think I used a single thing that dropped after normal.

I think I got a rare Templar relic at some stage of Nightmare. But other than that I'm in the same boat. In fact I think the last dropped item I equipped was probably in Act III Normal.

[etiolate]

Arena PVP shouldn't be the game's saving addition. That seems like a fruitless pursuit. I prefer the Path of Exile idea of having scroll drops that take you to new dungeons that you can repeat X number of times. That seems more fitting for the game. I can't see PVP being anything other than a mess.

[Stoney Mason]

I've sat on the sidelines watching this whole Diablo 3 has no endgame discussion (not necessarily this forum but others and the media narrative also) with a mix of amusement and bewilderment.

I think Reggie was right in many ways when he said gamers are insatiable.

I just don't understand the idea that when you buy a game, especially a game like Diablo, that it means you are supposed to be playing it for thousands of hours. There is no "end game" because it never was meant to have one. It wasn't meant to be wow. So any efforts to make it like Wow unless designed as such from the beginning are fruitless. I just don't quite understand why people can't have their fun and then move on to something else like any other game. Just because the game has an auction house doesn't make it an mmo. That's just a cash in move.

And PVP in Diablo sounds like an absolute snore. Which is fine. I didn't buy it because of that.

[Human Snorenado]

In a vacuum, Diablo 3 is a good- no, probably a really good game.  And understand, by "endgame" people don't mean "shit to do at the end of the game" but rather "a reason to keep playing the game after clearing at the highest difficulty level".

Why is that important?  Because this is the sequel to Diablo 2: LoD.  Which is probably my favorite game ever, and a game that I *did* play for about ~4 years or so.  So, it's got a pretty important lineage to live up to, which I think the consensus is that as of now it's failing to do.

For me, it's maddening because for more than 3/4 of the game, the most important thing (combat) is done just. right.  It's kind of like an anti-mmorpg in that sense (suck it e-toilet).  It's only in Act 2 inferno and beyond that a combination of shitty drops, dumb champion pack affixes (to the point where community managers actually tell people to restart their game if they get something absurd like fast/reflects damage/jailer/desecrator) etc etc means you don't feel incentivized to play the game the way you enjoyed playing it before... if at all.

I still think that when everything is said and done, the game will be a worthy successor to D2:LoD.  Right now though is a pretty boring time if you've made it pretty far along in the game though.

[Himu]

"end game" in Diablo is replaying it over and over on new difficulty modes, getting new and better loot, so you can have an ultimate character. D2 did this well, D3 didn't. That's what people mean by "end game". But to be fair to your comment, you're right; gamers ARE insatiable and impatient. they are comparing D3 - a 2 month game - to Diablo 2, a 12 year old game, and most of the stuff that D2's famous for didn't come into fruition until years after the fact. That said, it's funny how they took a 12 year old game with perfect balance and gave D3 worse balance, particularly in terms of loot.

[pilonv1]

I just don't understand the idea that when you buy a game, especially a game like Diablo, that it means you are supposed to be playing it for thousands of hours. There is no "end game" because it never was meant to have one. It wasn't meant to be wow. So any efforts to make it like Wow unless designed as such from the beginning are fruitless. I just don't quite understand why people can't have their fun and then move on to something else like any other game. Just because the game has an auction house doesn't make it an mmo. That's just a cash in move.

They didn't make it like WoW, it's nothing like WoW at all except that you have to be online and there's an AH. They made it like Diablo but boring.

People played Diablo 2 for 11 years. People aren't having fun because it's not fun, not because they feel they should get 1000 hours out of it.

[Stoney Mason]

I guess....

I enjoy both (Diablo 2 and 3) but played neither at some bizarre fetish level. Beating them a few times with different characters or on different difficulty levels is fine for me. Same goes with any loot game.  I'm not gonna play Torchlight 1 or 2 for thousands of hours. Not gonna play Borderlands 2 for thouands of hours. Didn't play Titan's Quest for thousands of hours. So in that sense I'm not the target audience here I suppose. I never did aim to turn my life into Diablo runs. You put in your hours and then move on. Seems like the best advice possible for any game that doesn't have constant content pumped out for it or a competitive element.

[Himu]

I agree with you.

I stopped playing D3 because I started to get bored and Inferno doesn't seem very fun to me. But I fully plan on re-installing in a few months and rolling another character and doing it all over again.

I'm sure by the first expansion, it'll be even better.

[BobFromPikeCreek]

I don't think asking for a loot system in a LOOT GAME that maintains its appeal at least as long as its 12 year old predecessor's did is being awfully demanding. Insatiable would be asking for more long term appeal than d2 had, and I don't think anyone is doing that. A bar was set and it was missed. Hard.

[Brehvolution]

What turned me off was that it got to a point where I felt that I wasn't working for me. I could no longer rely on my own drops to further my character and would be forced into the AH to progress in the later stages.

The game itself is top notch. Blizzard skewed it so it could crowd source a revenue stream through cartoon clothing.

[Phoenix Dark]

I don't think people familiar with the genre are demanding the game have a WoW endgame. It's more an issue of inferno not giving people an incentive to continue playing. Right now it's designed to make people turn to the AH due to stupid drop rates. I've complained a lot about the game's difficulty being gear based instead of mechanics or skill based, and that comes right back to the AH as the be all end all

I have no problem with grinding for hours, but if there is no reward what's the point

[Great Rumbler]

I have no problem with grinding for hours, but if there is no reward what's the point

This exactly.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I just don't understand the idea that when you buy a game, especially a game like Diablo, that it means you are supposed to be playing it for thousands of hours. There is no "end game" because it never was meant to have one. It wasn't meant to be wow. So any efforts to make it like Wow unless designed as such from the beginning are fruitless. I just don't quite understand why people can't have their fun and then move on to something else like any other game. Just because the game has an auction house doesn't make it an mmo. That's just a cash in move.

They didn't make it like WoW, it's nothing like WoW at all except that you have to be online and there's an AH. They made it like Diablo but boring.

People played Diablo 2 for 11 years. People aren't having fun because it's not fun, not because they feel they should get 1000 hours out of it.

D3 is much more fun then D2 so far and im 55 hours in. The pure gameplay thats there is gold.

Maybe they didnt nail the loot yet, game is only 2 months old, Im sure theyll fix it.

[Human Snorenado]

I just don't understand the idea that when you buy a game, especially a game like Diablo, that it means you are supposed to be playing it for thousands of hours. There is no "end game" because it never was meant to have one. It wasn't meant to be wow. So any efforts to make it like Wow unless designed as such from the beginning are fruitless. I just don't quite understand why people can't have their fun and then move on to something else like any other game. Just because the game has an auction house doesn't make it an mmo. That's just a cash in move.

They didn't make it like WoW, it's nothing like WoW at all except that you have to be online and there's an AH. They made it like Diablo but boring.

People played Diablo 2 for 11 years. People aren't having fun because it's not fun, not because they feel they should get 1000 hours out of it.

D3 is much more fun then D2 so far and im 55 hours in. The pure gameplay thats there is gold.

Maybe they didnt nail the loot yet, game is only 2 months old, Im sure theyll fix it.

There's no way to say this without sounding douchey, so I'll just say it:  you really don't know what you're talking about regarding this until you're actually in inferno.  The gameplay becomes much more frustrating, less satisfying, and there's no feasible way to upgrade your gear without spending a couple billion gold or some coin in the RMAH.  The more you play, the more you realize D2 shits all over D3 with regards to these problems.  Yes, granted the game is only 2 months old but I would have liked to see more of a "build upon past success" philosophy in relations to design as opposed to "let's reinvent the wheel".

[Phoenix Dark]

I barely touched D2 so I'm not expert, but I would just agree with others that comparing a decade+ old game to one that's been out for a couple months isn't fair. As a StarCraft fan I see this mentality a lot in relation to Brood War v SC2. Brood War had MANY problems when it came out, but today people pretend like it was always a perfectly balanced, non-buggy masterpiece. Whereas SC2 has been out for two years and people are more than willing to shit all over its development. Give it time.

D3 has been out for a few months, and Blizzard's patch process is far faster and more efficient than it once was; I'm more than willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I probably won't touch D3 again until the drop rates are fixed though

I think I'll just buy D2 lol

[Human Snorenado]

PD- the drop rates themselves are fine, the problem is that the items that drop aren't useful or fun.  And the problem is that I think any solutions are probably NOT imminent from what I take away from this:

We recognize that the item hunt is just not enough for a long-term sustainable end-game. There are still tons of people playing every day and week, and playing a lot, but eventually they're going to run out of stuff to do (if they haven't already). Killing enemies and finding items is a lot of fun, and we think we have a lot of the systems surrounding that right, or at least on the right path with a few corrections and tweaks. But honestly Diablo III is not World of Warcraft. We aren't going to be able to pump out tons of new systems and content every couple months. There needs to be something else that keeps people engaged, and we know it's not there right now.

We're working toward 1.0.4, which we're really trying to pack with as many fixes and changes we can to help you guys out (and we'll have a bunch of articles posted with all the details as we get closer), and we're of course working on 1.1 with PvP arenas. I think both those patches will do a lot to give people things to do, and get them excited about playing, but they're not going to be a real end-game solution, at least not what we would expect out of a proper end-game. We have some ideas for progression systems, but honestly it's a huge feature if we want to try to do it right, and not something we could envision being possible until well after 1.1 which it itself still a ways out.

So fixing what they admit are serious issues will take place after pvp, which is... what, six months away maybe?

Like I said, I think in the end the game will end up being awesome all the way through, but right now if you want to play it long term it's kind of a mess.

[archie4208]

PD if you get D2 then be sure to install the MedianXL mod.  It is like a brand new game.  Blizzard should have looked very hard at this mod and implemented several of its features into D3.

[Human Snorenado]

PD if you get D2 then be sure to install the MedianXL mod.  It is like a brand new game.  Blizzard should have looked very hard at this mod and implemented several of its features into D3.

Seconded.  D2 and LoD can be bought for $20 at any Best Buy or Walmart.  Shit, it even comes with the strategy guide which you won't need but whatever.  If you want, I'd be down for some multi-player D2 action.

[Phoenix Dark]

Will check it out after work. I'll probably get it before August/Guild Wars 2, alongside Tribes Ascend which looks intriguing to me

[Himu]

you getting tribes ascend, pd? let's play TF2 tonight

[Phoenix Dark]

Yea the videos look tempting, and I like the guns. Whereas I don't like the guns in TF2; it's a fun game but i can't get into it heavily

[Cerveza mas fina]

I know what the issues with Inferno are, Ive read about them enough. For me personally the game has been full of win and exactly what I wanted. Ive spend 50/60 hours and had a blast. And in a few months/year Ill roll another char and have fun again.

Maybe theyll fix the levels of of the items in the future, its really to early to tell. In the mean time there's a million other games, this isnt the one game to play for years as your main game, not even diablo freaks did that!

[Himu]

let's play tribes tonight then

[Phoenix Dark]

I plan on getting it next week, have a lot of stuff to do this week sadly

[Himu]

okay!

[Howard Alan Treesong]

104 is going to smooth over a lot of the itemization issues
110 will add PVP and a few other long-tail improvements

What Bashiok (a Blizzard community rep, not a developer) is talking about is longer term changes to the endgame. As of right now, D3 is an item-farming game. Blizzard can improve the quality of the items and the experience of item farming. But they're not going to add 5-man dungeons or anything. The "endgame" is not going to be substantially changed into something completely different than it is now (i.e. D3 is now a game about boss runs, D3 is now a game about devouring endless piles of single-player content, etc.)

[Great Rumbler]

I know what the issues with Inferno are, Ive read about them enough. For me personally the game has been full of win and exactly what I wanted. Ive spend 50/60 hours and had a blast. And in a few months/year Ill roll another char and have fun again.

Being honest here, just about everybody in this thread has played D3 and absolutely loved it. But there is a wall once you get to Act II Inferno. The 50+ hours to get that far are great, though.

PD if you get D2 then be sure to install the MedianXL mod.  It is like a brand new game.  Blizzard should have looked very hard at this mod and implemented several of its features into D3.

This is what I will do.

[pilonv1]

I know what the issues with Inferno are, Ive read about them enough.

Played some co-op for 10mins last night. Came up against Fast Knockback Waller Arcane Desecrating Bees in Act II. Luckily it was only 30mins till the server went down anyway and I didn't need the 30k I used for repair costs anyway.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

I know what the issues with Inferno are, Ive read about them enough.

Played some co-op for 10mins last night. Came up against Fast Knockback Waller Arcane Desecrating Bees in Act II. Luckily it was only 30mins till the server went down anyway and I didn't need the 30k I used for repair costs anyway.

good job good effort

[pilonv1]

Those bees suck enough if you're a Barb, but making them fast let alone everything else is nigh on impossible.

[Great Rumbler]

That D2 mod is tough. Though mostly because hardly any gold drops. Is it supposed to be that way?

[naff]

Decided to change my build completely. Just broke 28k dps and with a little more grindan and some better gems will easily break around 35. So expensive to change your build in this game but still way faster than rebuilding your entire character from scratch in d2.

[Human Snorenado]

I have changed my build also.  I'm now running the "200+ MF, farm Act I and sell un id'd ilv 63's for gold" build.

[naff]

I started buying up mf/gf gear to roll act 1 but ended up deciding I'd rather just put all dat money into making my char better to roll act 3. My goal is to reach 60k dps in a week or two at which point my monk should melt through elites making it farmable. I might be a little optimistic about how long it will take me to get the gear but according to damage calculators and the ah last night should only cost me another 10-15 mil of gear.

So you just sell you un id's via forums?

[pilonv1]

You can get cheap +find gear on the AH though. If you're after gold just faceroll through some sections of Hell/Nightmare. Stats don't even matter.

[naff]

Act 1 inferno is cake. I'll prob do some mf/gf runs with my barb follower later. I wouldn't do runs where I don't have a chance at ilvl 63 goods. Had some pretty big wins with lvl 63 loot

[pilonv1]

Agreed, but the chances of getting a good iLvl63 are so slim I'd rather just trawl through something simple. You get similar levels of gold and lower repair costs

[Human Snorenado]

For the time invested, Act I is best for farming in my opinion.  Because it's so easy (my MF gear literally cost me less than 700k, I'm at 24k dmg, 4.5k armor and 300ish resists, which means I die maybe once or twice a run) you can kill packs quickly, as opposed to running like a bitch in Act 3 and taking longer.  Sure the percentage of time 63's drop is higher in act 3, but if you can faceroll 30 mobs in the time it takes you to do 12 in Act 3 I'd say just go ahead and do Act 1.

[pilonv1]

Game limits are back!

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/6079782166

good jon blizzard

[Human Snorenado]

Buys MF gear to farm Act 1 for iLV 63 stuff to sell as un id'd to gamblers with gold...

...literally the next day someone posts an exploit to tell what properties un id'd items actually have.

Now I can't kill quill fiends in the Dank Cellar of Act 1 any more with my GF gear, which was a reliable and easy way to get 225-250k an hour, and soothing in an odd way to boot.

FML.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I deinstalled at level 55.

Had my fun.

[CajoleJuice]

I never bother to uninstall stuff, but that's about where I stopped playing, too.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

Buys MF gear to farm Act 1 for iLV 63 stuff to sell as un id'd to gamblers with gold...

...literally the next day someone posts an exploit to tell what properties un id'd items actually have.

Now I can't kill quill fiends in the Dank Cellar of Act 1 any more with my GF gear, which was a reliable and easy way to get 225-250k an hour, and soothing in an odd way to boot.

FML.

explote pls

[Momo]

You guys should all roll on the friendly EU servers

[Human Snorenado]

Buys MF gear to farm Act 1 for iLV 63 stuff to sell as un id'd to gamblers with gold...

...literally the next day someone posts an exploit to tell what properties un id'd items actually have.

Now I can't kill quill fiends in the Dank Cellar of Act 1 any more with my GF gear, which was a reliable and easy way to get 225-250k an hour, and soothing in an odd way to boot.

FML.

explote pls

Apparently this actually works, there were multiple threads on the D3 forums that got deleted.

http://www.forceprojectx.com/services/diablo3-item-affix-parser

[Human Snorenado]

http://www.ownedcore.com/forums/diablo-3/diablo-3-exploits/365630-get-rare-quality-unidd-item-before-idd.html

[Howard Alan Treesong]

crepey tnx