This game lets you *build* decks, Magic 2014 doesn't. The latter game is extremely crippled so it is little more than an introduction to buying actual Magic cards or moving to Magic Online.
Youtube Magic Online and you'll understand why there is a void in the market for Hearthstone to fill.
I hope we can have any semblance of balance with those crazy legendaries, or at least that they deal with the extremely broken stuff on a more regular basis (when we find out about what's OP)...
We've had enough of mirror characters in D3 vanilla imo.
Wonder if they plan on "balancing" by rarity... i.e. super rare super broken items, that you also have a hard time trading for without the AH. It seems like they tried to run D2 LoD like this for a while.
Random guess: everything above normal difficulty is removed. "Torment" difficulty is a post-normal mode that scales content to match the party's level. HIgher difficulty "levels" will be a re-branding of MP (with other possible bells and whistles).
2. Coefficient change/removal. With how life on hit currently functions, removing life steal may make several fast hitting, high coefficient skills mandatory as healing abilities. I'd like to see coefficients removed, there's no reason that, for example, rain of toads should return 80% of my life on hit and zombie bears return 20. The game is starting to bias away from hard hittin slow skills towards faster skills.
So you want every skill that hits 5 times a second to now give 5x the life of every skill that hits 1x per second?
Coefficients are *the* way to balance this, and they already do so better than the above sentence would suggest. They could be more transparent and balanced better, but I don't follow how removal is going to magically fix anything.
I'm also glad to see the AH go because I felt like it fragments the gameplay experience, which makes it hard for me to relate to other players. "Oh, you play Softcore No-RMAH 1.5B Budget MP8? That's cool, I play Hardcore Self-found MP2." It's like we're not even playing the same game.
A valid point, but just wait till ladder rears its ugly head.
I'm also extremely relieved that they did pull the plug, because this whole experiment really sets a precedence. Hopefully this spectacular, triple-A failure will deter other devs from trying the same shit for many years to come.
AH have been around MMO for millennia, the difference is these games actually design around the feature. If they want compelling random loot, they make sure that stuff is bound; yet quite often their rewards are more resource-grind based so that works well with trading, not to mention there being actual stat caps on items.
RMAH might be dead but really, it should be. Letting players sell cash shop currency for gold is a vastly simpler system that does near the same thing, there's no good reason to create two item economies when one will suffice.
I think this is probably the biggest obstacle that Blizzard had to remove. Without the Auction House, Blizzard is free to think about skills and gear without worrying about what people bought, without having to be fair about what you traded for it. They can make changes that they feel will balance out the game as well as open up some creativity with how some of these skills work. They won't have to worry about "what happens if someone stacks this type of gear" because it will be rare. Certainly there will still be trading and 3rd party sites will pop up, but that's not Blizzard's problem anymore. If someone trades or buys on a 3rd party site, Blizzard isn't responsible for that transaction and doesn't have to change their skills to reflect that anymore.
+1 for originality, but this is pretty minor in the grand scheme. Blizzard does not want D3 to be a "hard" game anymore, and it still has no real PvP. They aren't going to take balance all that seriously, beyond "let's make everything equally overpowered" as has been the mantra of late.
And yet, if they remove it, people will spend even more time playing trade channels rather than the game.
Unless the Loot 2.0 drops will be so great there will be no reason at all to use AH/trade. Which is quite bland for a lot of people.
A relative *handful* will do this. They know how often trade window was opened on D2 battle.net. When they say that a small portion of D2 players took trading seriously, they have the data to back it up.
In Jay's word the AH was a feature aimed at this relatively small demographic, because D2 is a sucky way to do trading. The problem from Blizzard's perspective is the vast majority of players ended up getting into the AH thanks to its relative convenience, and then losing the fun of finding random stuff. (not to mention, it's just plain easier for good stuff to get on the market with so many sellers.) It's a numbers game. Yes, those who take trading seriously are going to be screwed with more time wasted running around trading games. But many more people won't even touch that crappy environment and de facto reap the benefits of self-found. I don't think this is the best of possible solutions, but it is one that will be enjoyed by the majority, at the minority's expense.
Also it needs to be pointed out that I was speculating on Blizzard's motivations. Even if you think it's a bad idea, evidence suggests it is Blizzard's idea, and we should therefore not expect a great new trading alternative from them, unless maybe enough people raise a stink about it.
The fact is, people want to trade. A lot. The AH proved that beyond all expected measures. That desire won't just evaporate when the AH goes dark, and it sure as hell makes good business sense (for numerous reasons) for Blizzard to try and satisfy that desire in the best way they can, or they're going to have a huge increase in compromised account issues.
These victims just aren't as angry as everyone on the internet, ever, that has given D3 such a terrible name thanks to the AH. Blizzard's willing to put up with this if it gets them another 10 mil + copies.
Regardless of whether you think OP is right, I think this describes the current Blizzard's stance on why they are doing this.
If you watched the video, they specifically mentioned that the sheer "convenience" of the AH is what led people to play that rather than the game.
While they may do something, they don't have a new "awesome" trading experience up their sleeve. The whole problem with the AH according to them is that it's too convenient. The "fix" is to make trading a huge pain in the ass like it was in the D2 days, so that only a small handful of players who love bargaining so much to put up with that godawful system, will whittle their time away doing that instead of farming. (And even then, they will still acquire upgrades far slower than on a real AH, which extends the time it takes to hit the upgrade ceiling, etc.)
So far really their "replacement" are systems that were actually anethema to the "total randomness" of D2; class-tailored drops, rerolling specific mods. I expect more customization systems that don't rely on other players if anything.
Am I missing something, or aren't the people with the best lvl 60 gear going to be in the best position to farm/sell level 70 stuff like mad while the demand is especially high?
I think that "fate lies shattered forever" refers to the black soul stone being shattered and thus putting an end to the possibility of trapping the demons soul anymore.
Every other part of the prophecy refers to an angel, and there is a known angel of fate. We even met him. He (or something he is closely tied to, like the book of fate) is what will be "shattered" (possibly figurative.)
We already saw hope "swallowed" by despair. Everything else that we know in that prophecy appears chronologically in the exact order: Maltheal was lost long ago, then Tyreal falls, sometime after Rakanoth captures Auriel. Maltheal's reappearance as Death is the next step. There's one more step after for Fate, which coincidentally lines up with the 2nd planned expansion. So this means Valor --> Wrath already had to happen. How you want to interpret that happening is up to you; but there's no indication that pride for accepting help is what motivated Imperius, and mere hatred for half-demons trapsing around the heavens (Wrath) could well have motivated his actions. Humans aren't merely a "lesser" race from many angels perspective, they are a tainted one.
Fate is unable to read the actions of the Nephalim, not the *fate* of the Nephalim in particular. According to the book of Fate, heaven was already doomed once Hope (Auriel) was lost. But the unpredictable actions of the Nephalim could change that fate according to Ithereal, and they seemed to with Diablo being cast out. Thus the Nephalim's role in the future of Heaven cannot be known by the book of Fate; and with the destruction of the worldstone, more powerful Nephalim are running around now, some which may be antagonists. Adria is still unaccounted for, while Zoltun Kulle being "unkillable" is possibly still alive as well. And after main game -> Demons and first expansion -> Angel antagonists, some Nephalim harvesting their powers could make a good capstone and contrast for the 2nd (likely final) expansion.
Not that Ithereal necessarily *revealed* everything he knew from the book anyway, he may well have some foresight about the coming calamity that he just hasn't shown off yet.
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Youtube Magic Online and you'll understand why there is a void in the market for Hearthstone to fill.
Wonder if they plan on "balancing" by rarity... i.e. super rare super broken items, that you also have a hard time trading for without the AH. It seems like they tried to run D2 LoD like this for a while.
So you want every skill that hits 5 times a second to now give 5x the life of every skill that hits 1x per second?
Coefficients are *the* way to balance this, and they already do so better than the above sentence would suggest. They could be more transparent and balanced better, but I don't follow how removal is going to magically fix anything.
A valid point, but just wait till ladder rears its ugly head.
AH have been around MMO for millennia, the difference is these games actually design around the feature. If they want compelling random loot, they make sure that stuff is bound; yet quite often their rewards are more resource-grind based so that works well with trading, not to mention there being actual stat caps on items.
RMAH might be dead but really, it should be. Letting players sell cash shop currency for gold is a vastly simpler system that does near the same thing, there's no good reason to create two item economies when one will suffice.
+1 for originality, but this is pretty minor in the grand scheme. Blizzard does not want D3 to be a "hard" game anymore, and it still has no real PvP. They aren't going to take balance all that seriously, beyond "let's make everything equally overpowered" as has been the mantra of late.
A relative *handful* will do this. They know how often trade window was opened on D2 battle.net. When they say that a small portion of D2 players took trading seriously, they have the data to back it up.
In Jay's word the AH was a feature aimed at this relatively small demographic, because D2 is a sucky way to do trading. The problem from Blizzard's perspective is the vast majority of players ended up getting into the AH thanks to its relative convenience, and then losing the fun of finding random stuff. (not to mention, it's just plain easier for good stuff to get on the market with so many sellers.) It's a numbers game. Yes, those who take trading seriously are going to be screwed with more time wasted running around trading games. But many more people won't even touch that crappy environment and de facto reap the benefits of self-found. I don't think this is the best of possible solutions, but it is one that will be enjoyed by the majority, at the minority's expense.
Also it needs to be pointed out that I was speculating on Blizzard's motivations. Even if you think it's a bad idea, evidence suggests it is Blizzard's idea, and we should therefore not expect a great new trading alternative from them, unless maybe enough people raise a stink about it.
These victims just aren't as angry as everyone on the internet, ever, that has given D3 such a terrible name thanks to the AH. Blizzard's willing to put up with this if it gets them another 10 mil + copies.
Regardless of whether you think OP is right, I think this describes the current Blizzard's stance on why they are doing this.
While they may do something, they don't have a new "awesome" trading experience up their sleeve. The whole problem with the AH according to them is that it's too convenient. The "fix" is to make trading a huge pain in the ass like it was in the D2 days, so that only a small handful of players who love bargaining so much to put up with that godawful system, will whittle their time away doing that instead of farming. (And even then, they will still acquire upgrades far slower than on a real AH, which extends the time it takes to hit the upgrade ceiling, etc.)
So far really their "replacement" are systems that were actually anethema to the "total randomness" of D2; class-tailored drops, rerolling specific mods. I expect more customization systems that don't rely on other players if anything.
And it was so awful that even Blizzard forgot about it.
Every other part of the prophecy refers to an angel, and there is a known angel of fate. We even met him. He (or something he is closely tied to, like the book of fate) is what will be "shattered" (possibly figurative.)
Fate is unable to read the actions of the Nephalim, not the *fate* of the Nephalim in particular. According to the book of Fate, heaven was already doomed once Hope (Auriel) was lost. But the unpredictable actions of the Nephalim could change that fate according to Ithereal, and they seemed to with Diablo being cast out. Thus the Nephalim's role in the future of Heaven cannot be known by the book of Fate; and with the destruction of the worldstone, more powerful Nephalim are running around now, some which may be antagonists. Adria is still unaccounted for, while Zoltun Kulle being "unkillable" is possibly still alive as well. And after main game -> Demons and first expansion -> Angel antagonists, some Nephalim harvesting their powers could make a good capstone and contrast for the 2nd (likely final) expansion.
Not that Ithereal necessarily *revealed* everything he knew from the book anyway, he may well have some foresight about the coming calamity that he just hasn't shown off yet.