Let me start by saying: I love this game. I’ve put more hours into RoS than I did any week of Vanilla, let alone any game in a good while. After 40+ great hours, I have a lot of built up constructive criticism I’d like to share:
First off, DAT RELEASE! My hat goes off to Blizzard, Josh, Wyatt, whoever oversaw the way release was handled. Went right into A5 at midnight, no lag. No d/c’s from anyone in my party. Absolutely flawless, blew away my expectations (which after Vanilla, were hopeful but ‘prepared for the worst’)
Content: Act 5 is fantastic. They did a great job capturing the feel of all the locations and delivering it to the players, I really enjoy it. Adventure mode brings what all core Diablo players were in desperate need of. Freedom to cruise act to act and kill whatever you want, or just what you need to. Bounties seem about right where they need to be, but Rifts to me seem lacking. Variety especially. Kill X amount of monsters to get a boss to spawn gets stale, though random monsters and environments certainly help. Adding other random types like (spitballing here, please suggest ideas!) Defend the Fort/NPC/Caravan/whatever, Capture the Base (capture waypoints/strongpoints to unlock a massive NPC aided Boss battle with insane buffs or something, idk spitballing like I said), or using Timed Run Rewards like WoW to add challenge and increase rewards… which leads me to my next point. Rifts just don’t seem rewarding enough. Maybe its just me? Reward, style variety aside, Rifts fast paced combat is spot on and very fun.
Loot 2.0/RoS: Loot is significantly improved. Legendaries are dropping fairly frequently, upgrades came quick at first and slowed (as they theoretically should). I only have 2 issues with loot at the moment, and they are extremely frustrating to say the least. While gearing my char, I came across several legendary weapons that I would have liked to use, but, they didn’t roll a socket. No big deal right? Ill just reforge one… 15+ reforges and still no socket later I was ready to throw my computer across the room. To me the real problem here is the disparity between socketed and unsocketed weapons. Look at any geared player clearing Torment, especially 2+, and you see the same thing: Two 1h weapons, both socketed with emeralds. And why the hell wouldn’t you? Crit/Crit damage still is the best scaling damage in the game (with %ele damage right with them). As far as I am concerned, unsocketed weapons are worthless, and likely a waste of reforging in order to make them any good. With reforging as expensive as it is, along with the scarcity of Forgotten Souls aside from salvaging, it’s a major source of frustration. Sure, if you get that truly epic wep to drop it may be worth 15+ attempts to get it. But the problem still exists, sockets MAKE OR BREAK weapons. Same thing can apply to 2 Handers. Sure the damage can roll well, but with the lack of a second socket (or one at all), they are garbage and need reworking. I don’t have math on how it could be fixed, other than scaling critdmg from gems down, guaranteeing sockets on weapons (outright removing them seems like a poor choice), giving 2 handers guaranteed 1/max 2 sockets, or just outright buffing the hell out of 2hander damage to make it comparable. Still, you are going to socket with an Emerald, that’s a no brainer :/
All in all though, this game is a completely new game from Vanilla, severely improved, and continuing to improve. Thank you devs and readers for continuing to push such a fun game in a great direction! Keep it constructive team
Great write-up and yeah, I agree that there are some frustrating elements such as weapons without a socket. We had this topic earlier - I don't think sockets themselves are the issue, I believe the real issue is that 130% CHD are just blown out of proportion compared to all the other gem effects.
Not to mention that some legs need expensive crafted gems just to get to reroll again, especially when you're going for that tough to roll socket or stat.
So if a weapon doesnt roll a socket, dont bother wasting enchanting mats on it?
Depends on how strong the weapon is/ if spending resources will be worth it. I am working on reforging a very nice Odynson with 20 lite damage. For me its worth it to keep trying. All about deciding if its worth it or not to invest long-term
Hats off to Blizzard, they released a update without destroying their game servers. Everything at least worked on launch...
From the looks of the other posts, I guess I'm the only one that felt VERY ripped off?
-Playing through Act V felt great until I beat it...No movie cinematic at the end!? That is garbage Blizzard? All you get is a shitty 'Congratulations' screen...
-The only thing they really implemented was a new game mode, and a lot of fixes (drop rates, gear stat updates/life steal removal etc etc)
-They removed the Auction House (a shitty idea to begin with that they were pushing as a huge advantage in the new patch). I'm sorry, but removing a feature that you thought (incorrectly) would be a huge innovation to the game is not 'expansion feature' worthy.
This expansion simply feels incomplete. We'll see what happens in the coming months when they release the additional features.
So if a weapon doesnt roll a socket, dont bother wasting enchanting mats on it?
I would keep trying until i got the socket.
I have a 2350dps chantodos sitting there waiting for a socket, my current 1 hander is 1950. hells ya im gonna keep trying.
My chantodo isn't that high on damage, but I got lucky and got the socket on my second enchant attempt. It's definitely true how much the socket matters.
Hats off to Blizzard, they released a update without destroying their game servers. Everything at least worked on launch...
From the looks of the other posts, I guess I'm the only one that felt VERY ripped off?
"Ripped off" how? Monetarily or just in principle?
-The only thing they really implemented was a new game mode, and a lot of fixes (drop rates, gear stat updates/life steal removal etc etc)
-They removed the Auction House (a shitty idea to begin with that they were pushing as a huge advantage in the new patch). I'm sorry, but removing a feature that you thought (incorrectly) would be a huge innovation to the game is not 'expansion feature' worthy.
.....but that's not true. You sound like Kripp, who gave a very cynical and one sided review of RoS. Saying "The only innovation that D3 brought was the AH's, and now they're gone".
Which simply isn't true. Diablo 3 Vanilla failed to sow up complete on many fronts, but it's most glaring success was it's INNOVATIVE combat system. When I think back about playing D3 v1.04 (etc) it gives me the creeps. I wonder to myself how I even played as much as I did. What kept me coming back was the addictive, INNOVATIVE combat.
With RoS, that innovative combat just got much better.
Character building is now emerging in Diablo 3. Truly deep options and so much to think about when rolling a char.
So far, I've spent $105 dollars on Diablo 3. In return, I've gotten a few thousand hours of entertainment over the last 2 years AND I enjoy RoS so much, I know I'll be playing for years to come. I don't feel "ripped off". I'm excited to see what they do next.
The big problem right now isn't sockets or rolling for them its gems. It should be possible for an item to roll the way you want it or close enough that you shouldn't have to re-roll stats on it. But with gems giving you 130% CHD and the way critical hit works at this point you are guarenteed that 130%+ dmg on a critical hit. With a critical chance near 50% which is pretty common of course CHD is as highly desired as it is and with most weapons rolling under 50% CHD, everyone wants that socket.
The solution here is changing the gems that supply CHD to bring down the overall stat on your character to a reasonable level. Make the CHD rolls better for all weapons, making the low roll 50% on weps and 100% for the best rolls, or rework damage and health pools bringing them all down. The latter would be inline with the lowering CHD on gems.
I think CHD is way too powerful. CHD should give you a possibility of having a (arguments sake) 500% critical hit but it should range 100-500. It should not be a gaurenteed 500%. With this simple change it will make CHD less attractive overall, it will make a character that stacks CHD peaky. High damage would become unreliable, so dumbly stacking CHD which is common now wouldn't work as well. Also it would make the choice between CHD and higher dmg more interesting.
CHD is fine, it's the amount of CHD on emeralds that's the problem. It occurs to me, though, that all Blizzard needs to do is make them have half the effect unless they're in a 2h weapon being used without an offhand (to cover DH and Crusader issues). Sockets as a mats-free mystic re-roll is a good idea, but until the the gems match the corresponding affix range, they're going to cause problems.
I also agree that rifts need to be made more rewarding... I'd really like to see the bosses have a chance to drop piles of crafting mats, a randomly chosen legendary mat (because I'm already sick of farming specific drops), etc. Maybe also bump up the amount of shards they drop. Maybe even give them a difficulty-based change to drop uber-boss keys, which let you summon an uber rift-boss even 20 rifts or so.
I say this mainly because bounties have, IMO, had a real chilling effect on all other types of farming... keys, uniques, even plain old XP grinding... all come a distant second to chasing bounties. I'd like to see some kind of reward structure added so that just bouncing around the map doing whatever you like doesn't feel so horribly sub-optimal. e.g. even if it's just adding reasonably good chance for elites in a non-bounty zone to drop shards and rift keys.
First off, DAT RELEASE! My hat goes off to Blizzard, Josh, Wyatt, whoever oversaw the way release was handled. Went right into A5 at midnight, no lag. No d/c’s from anyone in my party. Absolutely flawless, blew away my expectations (which after Vanilla, were hopeful but ‘prepared for the worst’)
Content: Act 5 is fantastic. They did a great job capturing the feel of all the locations and delivering it to the players, I really enjoy it. Adventure mode brings what all core Diablo players were in desperate need of. Freedom to cruise act to act and kill whatever you want, or just what you need to. Bounties seem about right where they need to be, but Rifts to me seem lacking. Variety especially. Kill X amount of monsters to get a boss to spawn gets stale, though random monsters and environments certainly help. Adding other random types like (spitballing here, please suggest ideas!) Defend the Fort/NPC/Caravan/whatever, Capture the Base (capture waypoints/strongpoints to unlock a massive NPC aided Boss battle with insane buffs or something, idk spitballing like I said), or using Timed Run Rewards like WoW to add challenge and increase rewards… which leads me to my next point. Rifts just don’t seem rewarding enough. Maybe its just me? Reward, style variety aside, Rifts fast paced combat is spot on and very fun.
Loot 2.0/RoS: Loot is significantly improved. Legendaries are dropping fairly frequently, upgrades came quick at first and slowed (as they theoretically should). I only have 2 issues with loot at the moment, and they are extremely frustrating to say the least. While gearing my char, I came across several legendary weapons that I would have liked to use, but, they didn’t roll a socket. No big deal right? Ill just reforge one… 15+ reforges and still no socket later I was ready to throw my computer across the room. To me the real problem here is the disparity between socketed and unsocketed weapons. Look at any geared player clearing Torment, especially 2+, and you see the same thing: Two 1h weapons, both socketed with emeralds. And why the hell wouldn’t you? Crit/Crit damage still is the best scaling damage in the game (with %ele damage right with them). As far as I am concerned, unsocketed weapons are worthless, and likely a waste of reforging in order to make them any good. With reforging as expensive as it is, along with the scarcity of Forgotten Souls aside from salvaging, it’s a major source of frustration. Sure, if you get that truly epic wep to drop it may be worth 15+ attempts to get it. But the problem still exists, sockets MAKE OR BREAK weapons. Same thing can apply to 2 Handers. Sure the damage can roll well, but with the lack of a second socket (or one at all), they are garbage and need reworking. I don’t have math on how it could be fixed, other than scaling critdmg from gems down, guaranteeing sockets on weapons (outright removing them seems like a poor choice), giving 2 handers guaranteed 1/max 2 sockets, or just outright buffing the hell out of 2hander damage to make it comparable. Still, you are going to socket with an Emerald, that’s a no brainer :/
All in all though, this game is a completely new game from Vanilla, severely improved, and continuing to improve. Thank you devs and readers for continuing to push such a fun game in a great direction! Keep it constructive team
Not to mention that some legs need expensive crafted gems just to get to reroll again, especially when you're going for that tough to roll socket or stat.
I would keep trying until i got the socket.
I have a 2350dps chantodos sitting there waiting for a socket, my current 1 hander is 1950. hells ya im gonna keep trying.
Hats off to Blizzard, they released a update without destroying their game servers. Everything at least worked on launch...
From the looks of the other posts, I guess I'm the only one that felt VERY ripped off?
-Playing through Act V felt great until I beat it...No movie cinematic at the end!? That is garbage Blizzard? All you get is a shitty 'Congratulations' screen...
-The only thing they really implemented was a new game mode, and a lot of fixes (drop rates, gear stat updates/life steal removal etc etc)
-They removed the Auction House (a shitty idea to begin with that they were pushing as a huge advantage in the new patch). I'm sorry, but removing a feature that you thought (incorrectly) would be a huge innovation to the game is not 'expansion feature' worthy.
This expansion simply feels incomplete. We'll see what happens in the coming months when they release the additional features.
.....but that's not true. You sound like Kripp, who gave a very cynical and one sided review of RoS. Saying "The only innovation that D3 brought was the AH's, and now they're gone".
Which simply isn't true. Diablo 3 Vanilla failed to sow up complete on many fronts, but it's most glaring success was it's INNOVATIVE combat system. When I think back about playing D3 v1.04 (etc) it gives me the creeps. I wonder to myself how I even played as much as I did. What kept me coming back was the addictive, INNOVATIVE combat.
With RoS, that innovative combat just got much better.
Character building is now emerging in Diablo 3. Truly deep options and so much to think about when rolling a char.
So far, I've spent $105 dollars on Diablo 3. In return, I've gotten a few thousand hours of entertainment over the last 2 years AND I enjoy RoS so much, I know I'll be playing for years to come. I don't feel "ripped off". I'm excited to see what they do next.
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
The solution here is changing the gems that supply CHD to bring down the overall stat on your character to a reasonable level. Make the CHD rolls better for all weapons, making the low roll 50% on weps and 100% for the best rolls, or rework damage and health pools bringing them all down. The latter would be inline with the lowering CHD on gems.
I think CHD is way too powerful. CHD should give you a possibility of having a (arguments sake) 500% critical hit but it should range 100-500. It should not be a gaurenteed 500%. With this simple change it will make CHD less attractive overall, it will make a character that stacks CHD peaky. High damage would become unreliable, so dumbly stacking CHD which is common now wouldn't work as well. Also it would make the choice between CHD and higher dmg more interesting.
I also agree that rifts need to be made more rewarding... I'd really like to see the bosses have a chance to drop piles of crafting mats, a randomly chosen legendary mat (because I'm already sick of farming specific drops), etc. Maybe also bump up the amount of shards they drop. Maybe even give them a difficulty-based change to drop uber-boss keys, which let you summon an uber rift-boss even 20 rifts or so.
I say this mainly because bounties have, IMO, had a real chilling effect on all other types of farming... keys, uniques, even plain old XP grinding... all come a distant second to chasing bounties. I'd like to see some kind of reward structure added so that just bouncing around the map doing whatever you like doesn't feel so horribly sub-optimal. e.g. even if it's just adding reasonably good chance for elites in a non-bounty zone to drop shards and rift keys.
That is all.