Blizzard will not nerf items. And they will not touch items that you already own. If they change specific items, they might introduce "legacy" as for the old sets. They will just buff everything else.
I used to have gloves with 20% Attack Speed. I think that's enough to prove the precedent.
If they introduce a whole slew of new items that are as good or better than (or let you improve) existing items, this would have the effect of devaluing existing gear.
As I think about this I just try to view what the game would be like if the changes I suggested were implemented. I'm not thinking about the shitstorm of complaining they would create. As I'm fairly certain this will never come to pass I can comfortably theorize on this from a totally objective viewpoint. Sadly, Blizzard doesn't have this luxury.
Weapon DPS and Skill Damage: The correlation between the two has been devastating the item pool of Diablo 3 since the beginning. Diablo 3 focuses heavily on a simple formula that even a child could understand: Skill Damage = weapon damage + class stat + IAS + Average Damage + Critical Chance + Critical Damage. Any way you look at it all you have to do is stack these affixes and your damage will go up, and not only will YOUR damage go up but EVERYBODY'S damage will go up because Diablo is a game about using skills, and because every character uses skills... every character will follow that formula.
Diablo 3 decided to do away with the chance to miss. It got rid of any kind of hit recovery and let your character be a beast tank who could take hits but keep on the move. They consolidated resistances and DR% by trivializing elemental damage with the introduction to +all resist on EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF GEAR. There is no more CHOICE left - only +all resist.
That's hitting the nail on the head, IMO. They oversimplified the interaction of weapons to character and then allowed for certain items to be clear winners in all categories.
While these mis-steps will be hard to fix, I really wish Blizz would step up and get to work on fixing them.
My thoughts for places to start:
Cap the hell out of All Resist. Just like they lowered IAS back in the day, take AR and cap it at 15. This will immediately make individual resist items far more valuable and force people to think about their selection.
Split up the Trifecta. Make it so IAS, CC & CD cannot co-exist on any item anywhere. You can only have one at a time. This would immediately diversify the item pool and make any item with one of these stats with a good roll is now a good item. As for retroactively applying this.. Keep whichever stat had the highest roll. If there's a tie, randomly select the one to keep.
Get rid of, or change, "stupid" items: Witching Hour, Mempo of Twilight, Vile Ward. There are probably others, but these are the ones that strike me as being completely OP to the point where nothing else even comes close. The sheer number of people with ugly-ass goat shoulders (myself included) is idiotic.
Wyllder
Im sorry, that's a TERRIBLE idea.
Buff the lesser used affixes, add new diverse affixes (that are competitive with the top dogs), improve elemental damage/effects (they had this in at one point, easy to bring back.), add socketing (they already HAD this in earlier builds of D3, would be EASY to bring back in), improve crafting, have an Inferno version of lower level Legendarys.
POW
The end game just got a whole lot more interesting.
Make the lesser appealing stuff BETTER, dont nerf the hell out of everything.
Ok.. So tweaking the existing item pool to improve diversity is a terrible idea but adding all sorts of new items, affixes & tweaking capabilities to have the same net effect (spread out the pool of "best" items) is a grand idea? Sounds to me like they are just philosophically different solutions to the same problem.
I am not nerfphobic and could care less how we arrive at a better balanced game with improved item diversity so long as we get there.
Weapon DPS and Skill Damage: The correlation between the two has been devastating the item pool of Diablo 3 since the beginning. Diablo 3 focuses heavily on a simple formula that even a child could understand: Skill Damage = weapon damage + class stat + IAS + Average Damage + Critical Chance + Critical Damage. Any way you look at it all you have to do is stack these affixes and your damage will go up, and not only will YOUR damage go up but EVERYBODY'S damage will go up because Diablo is a game about using skills, and because every character uses skills... every character will follow that formula.
Diablo 3 decided to do away with the chance to miss. It got rid of any kind of hit recovery and let your character be a beast tank who could take hits but keep on the move. They consolidated resistances and DR% by trivializing elemental damage with the introduction to +all resist on EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF GEAR. There is no more CHOICE left - only +all resist.
That's hitting the nail on the head, IMO. They oversimplified the interaction of weapons to character and then allowed for certain items to be clear winners in all categories.
While these mis-steps will be hard to fix, I really wish Blizz would step up and get to work on fixing them.
My thoughts for places to start:
Cap the hell out of All Resist. Just like they lowered IAS back in the day, take AR and cap it at 15. This will immediately make individual resist items far more valuable and force people to think about their selection.
Split up the Trifecta. Make it so IAS, CC & CD cannot co-exist on any item anywhere. You can only have one at a time. This would immediately diversify the item pool and make any item with one of these stats with a good roll is now a good item. As for retroactively applying this.. Keep whichever stat had the highest roll. If there's a tie, randomly select the one to keep.
Get rid of, or change, "stupid" items: Witching Hour, Mempo of Twilight, Vile Ward. There are probably others, but these are the ones that strike me as being completely OP to the point where nothing else even comes close. The sheer number of people with ugly-ass goat shoulders (myself included) is idiotic.
My DPS is only 109k, but I manage MP3 pretty well and can pretty much faceroll MP1 & MP2.
I've got some life steal and life on kill to ease things but I have started to notice problems with damage reflection and often find it's easier to just stunlock them until they are low enough to blast through with Archon.
Could you imagine what would happen if people posted items with low entry bids and let the market really decide how much things were worth?
Or if Blizzard allowed players to see the last 10 sales of items matching their search criteria so they could better establish what the items value was?
Right now I cruise the AH and get annoyed with mediocre or merely good legendary items with min bids & buyouts set equally at 100M or more and they often have only a few minutes or hours left. If something didn't sell after being posted for 36 hours, that means the item did not have a market at that price. That is to say, the people who had 100M to spend already had similar or better or items and the people for whom that 100M item represented a desirable upgrade didn't have 100M to spend.
Right now there just doesn't seem any good way for buyers or sellers to determine what the market is currently willing to bear for their items.
I use a crit mass build with Archon (improved), Shock Pulse (living lightning) and Frost Nova (deep freeze). Between cooldown reducing passives and a base crit of 27% right now I'm able to stay in Archon quite a bit. There's no room in my build for disintegrate but the Archon's disintegrate more than makes up for it. Living Lightning, in my experience, procs CM more than anything besides twister, and I enjoy that it frees me from having to worry about managing my mana.
I also miss Teleport, which I don't have in my build. I use diamond skin so I can stand in the middle of large groups of mobs and just spam LL & refresh diamond skin. I run into problems with heavy CC mobs that I can't melt quick and/or whose damage output exceeds my ability to mitigate. I can clear most any pack I hit in Inferno A2, but struggle in A3 solo. A3 public I do just fine in so long as there's a semi-decent tank around to buy me those precious extra seconds I sometimes need. I haven't tried A4 yet.
But the thing is, CM barely procs with spectral blades... the only thing that I saw proccing CM was WW, Meteor. None of the Signature Spells, Arcane Obs... nothing triggers it.
I got 40%crit, 1.5AS and 17APOC, and I really don't know what to do... I really don't want to play CM just to make archon up faster...
I use Shock Pulse - Living Lightning and find it procs CM pretty nicely. I haven't tried to do a comparison to WW or meteor, though.
This game was created by a bunch of Tals sorc wearing scrubs in Diablo 2, or scrubs who left Diablo because they couldn't hack it and went to WoW.
LOL
Someone leaving a game after playing it for 4+ years (I forget how longer after D2 came out before WOW) was because they couldn't hack it? I think you've got the delusional finger pointed in the wrong direction...
How long has the game been out? Not even 2 weeks and people who have already logged more than 50 hours are declaring it dead. Maybe it's me but I think these proclamations lack perspective.
I really can't remember how Diablo 2 played out, but I am pretty sure I remember people complaining about how much it sucked until (forgive me if my memory fails) patch 1.10 came out. Then a bunch of people shut up and didn't start complaining again until patch 1.13 came out. Now, 8 damn years later it would appear (if you believe all the comparative forum posts) that Diablo 2 shit roses, belched gold, and made people's lives complete.
If you really think D3 is so bad as to be beyond redemption: quit.
If you think it's worth saving, realize that maybe 25hrs per week is a bit aggressive in-terms of playtime and relax a bit.
I played Diablo 1 & 2, though I never played Diablo 2 near as long as many.
I guess I'm responding the general value complaints I am seeing here. People who have probably logged 50+ hours in the game complaining that they've been ripped off with the $60 price tag.
The idea that somehow, now that you've gotten into the $1 per hour of play range and have become frustrated with certain gameplay elements, you've been "ripped off" or sold an inferior product is just silly.
I've logged about 12 hours, and am just now getting to the end of Act IV in normal: YES, I am a ways away from the point which many people seem to complain about.
The thing is, people need to chill out on the bashing. Blizzard is in this for the long run. I'm sure they are hoping that D3 has a long healthy life and that they can open a big revenue stream with the RMAH. Hell, they supported & tweaked Diablo 2 for 8 years and it likely was only costing them money after 3 years past launch.
Not happy about something? Fine, make a post and explain what it is you don't like. Be constructive & offer suggestions for improvement and understand that it's going to take some time.
Spare us all the whining & bashing, though. No one wants to hear it.
(well, maybe I shouldn't speak for everyone. I'm sure there are people out there who LIKE to listen to whining & bashing. These people can contact me privately where we can arrange for them to babysit my 6 & 4 yr olds).
I did not play the beta and with the beast computer i have, i doubt i will have any issues regarding gameplay unless it is related to connection (Core i7, radeon 5450, TTR3 HD). One thing which decieved me a lot is seeing how this game is being noob-oriented. They took out one of the best feature that was in D2, weapon swapping. Blizzard justified taking out this feature by saying that newbs would be too confused with it. This totally pissed me off even to a point where i am reconsidering buying the game... If this game is newb oriented, i will look for another game and won't even bother buying D3. I don'T wan't 13 years old and under game... Since this game is full of blood, it should not be focused around 13 years old kid, really. Make the game for people 18+.
I wouldnt say noob-oriented, but friendly to casuals.
And swapping weapons is really just little detail. I mean, its such small feature and I rarely used it in D2 anyways.
Little detail??? This either shows you are either noob or narrow minded (i quoted you but could've quoted another newb too btw).
Pro gamers like me own newbs like you because of such small features and this part of the game is actually the "brain-part". Now those blizzard games are down to who will have better micro but is no more about who can build up the best strategy. MF is actually the last thing i worry about when thinking about what weapon swapping would bring to the game... I guess ill need to explain:
Take a barb with weapon mastery for example
1. Close on your target with 1H+shield (damage mitigation)
2. Build up fury with DW, mighty weapons (fury builder)
3. Throw damage with 2H, axe, mace or sword (fury spender)
This is a basic example of how this makes a huge difference in my game play. DH and monk are 2 more caracters which would benefit greatly from being able to swap weapons. In D2 for example, a Hybrid Amazon could put 1 point into frost arrow, freeze target, swap to javelin (damage), and go on like this swapping back and forth. A lot of builds would not be playable in D2 without weapon swapping. The same applies to D3. Take the Dh for example. Who the fuck would still use crossbow when the target is toe to toe? Not being able to swap for a big 2H or 1H+shield for this caracter is really decieving. Most players think that this is a small feature but it could actually bring a lot more variety to the game and allow more hybrid builds. Imo, the only reason why Blizzard did not want to implement it is because they are lazy bastards who do not want to spend much time balancing the game and they are building it newb-oriented.
Maybe you'll have to learn new mechanics and develop new strategies rather than being a "lazy bastard" who doesn't want to adapt.
Do you even hear yourself? I'm going to stomp my feet and hold my breath if Blizzard doesn't do things my way!
Go for it, champ. Let's see how well that works for you.
1. Boss grips you firmly in one hand and rips your head off with the other. Then, holding you upside down over his head, he squeezes all the good stuff out and drinks your guts down like he's squeezing out a yogurt tube. After this he tosses your body aside and belches for good measure.
2. Boss grabs you by the legs and begins to use you as a blunt weapon against other party members. As he does so, bits of your armor and limbs will break off in the process. After a short time, you'll be too flimsy to use as a weapon and he'll discard you.
3. Boss uses a special possession skill to possess either another party member or mercenary just long enough to stab you in the back and deliver the killing blow. For added fun, they can get an ear in the process.
Wyll-
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I used to have gloves with 20% Attack Speed. I think that's enough to prove the precedent.
If they introduce a whole slew of new items that are as good or better than (or let you improve) existing items, this would have the effect of devaluing existing gear.
As I think about this I just try to view what the game would be like if the changes I suggested were implemented. I'm not thinking about the shitstorm of complaining they would create. As I'm fairly certain this will never come to pass I can comfortably theorize on this from a totally objective viewpoint. Sadly, Blizzard doesn't have this luxury.
Wyllder
Ok.. So tweaking the existing item pool to improve diversity is a terrible idea but adding all sorts of new items, affixes & tweaking capabilities to have the same net effect (spread out the pool of "best" items) is a grand idea? Sounds to me like they are just philosophically different solutions to the same problem.
I am not nerfphobic and could care less how we arrive at a better balanced game with improved item diversity so long as we get there.
Wyllder
That's hitting the nail on the head, IMO. They oversimplified the interaction of weapons to character and then allowed for certain items to be clear winners in all categories.
While these mis-steps will be hard to fix, I really wish Blizz would step up and get to work on fixing them.
My thoughts for places to start:
Cap the hell out of All Resist. Just like they lowered IAS back in the day, take AR and cap it at 15. This will immediately make individual resist items far more valuable and force people to think about their selection.
Split up the Trifecta. Make it so IAS, CC & CD cannot co-exist on any item anywhere. You can only have one at a time. This would immediately diversify the item pool and make any item with one of these stats with a good roll is now a good item. As for retroactively applying this.. Keep whichever stat had the highest roll. If there's a tie, randomly select the one to keep.
Get rid of, or change, "stupid" items: Witching Hour, Mempo of Twilight, Vile Ward. There are probably others, but these are the ones that strike me as being completely OP to the point where nothing else even comes close. The sheer number of people with ugly-ass goat shoulders (myself included) is idiotic.
Wyllder
I use pinpoint barrier instead of prismatic armor, as I don't have enough crit gear at the moment.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Wyllder-1808/hero/3650225
My DPS is only 109k, but I manage MP3 pretty well and can pretty much faceroll MP1 & MP2.
I've got some life steal and life on kill to ease things but I have started to notice problems with damage reflection and often find it's easier to just stunlock them until they are low enough to blast through with Archon.
Wyllder
Or if Blizzard allowed players to see the last 10 sales of items matching their search criteria so they could better establish what the items value was?
Right now I cruise the AH and get annoyed with mediocre or merely good legendary items with min bids & buyouts set equally at 100M or more and they often have only a few minutes or hours left. If something didn't sell after being posted for 36 hours, that means the item did not have a market at that price. That is to say, the people who had 100M to spend already had similar or better or items and the people for whom that 100M item represented a desirable upgrade didn't have 100M to spend.
Right now there just doesn't seem any good way for buyers or sellers to determine what the market is currently willing to bear for their items.
I also miss Teleport, which I don't have in my build. I use diamond skin so I can stand in the middle of large groups of mobs and just spam LL & refresh diamond skin. I run into problems with heavy CC mobs that I can't melt quick and/or whose damage output exceeds my ability to mitigate. I can clear most any pack I hit in Inferno A2, but struggle in A3 solo. A3 public I do just fine in so long as there's a semi-decent tank around to buy me those precious extra seconds I sometimes need. I haven't tried A4 yet.
Wyll
I use Shock Pulse - Living Lightning and find it procs CM pretty nicely. I haven't tried to do a comparison to WW or meteor, though.
Wyll
LOL
Someone leaving a game after playing it for 4+ years (I forget how longer after D2 came out before WOW) was because they couldn't hack it? I think you've got the delusional finger pointed in the wrong direction...
Wyll
How long has the game been out? Not even 2 weeks and people who have already logged more than 50 hours are declaring it dead. Maybe it's me but I think these proclamations lack perspective.
I really can't remember how Diablo 2 played out, but I am pretty sure I remember people complaining about how much it sucked until (forgive me if my memory fails) patch 1.10 came out. Then a bunch of people shut up and didn't start complaining again until patch 1.13 came out. Now, 8 damn years later it would appear (if you believe all the comparative forum posts) that Diablo 2 shit roses, belched gold, and made people's lives complete.
If you really think D3 is so bad as to be beyond redemption: quit.
If you think it's worth saving, realize that maybe 25hrs per week is a bit aggressive in-terms of playtime and relax a bit.
Wyll-
I played Diablo 1 & 2, though I never played Diablo 2 near as long as many.
I guess I'm responding the general value complaints I am seeing here. People who have probably logged 50+ hours in the game complaining that they've been ripped off with the $60 price tag.
The idea that somehow, now that you've gotten into the $1 per hour of play range and have become frustrated with certain gameplay elements, you've been "ripped off" or sold an inferior product is just silly.
I've logged about 12 hours, and am just now getting to the end of Act IV in normal: YES, I am a ways away from the point which many people seem to complain about.
The thing is, people need to chill out on the bashing. Blizzard is in this for the long run. I'm sure they are hoping that D3 has a long healthy life and that they can open a big revenue stream with the RMAH. Hell, they supported & tweaked Diablo 2 for 8 years and it likely was only costing them money after 3 years past launch.
Not happy about something? Fine, make a post and explain what it is you don't like. Be constructive & offer suggestions for improvement and understand that it's going to take some time.
Spare us all the whining & bashing, though. No one wants to hear it.
(well, maybe I shouldn't speak for everyone. I'm sure there are people out there who LIKE to listen to whining & bashing. These people can contact me privately where we can arrange for them to babysit my 6 & 4 yr olds).
Wyll-
Maybe you'll have to learn new mechanics and develop new strategies rather than being a "lazy bastard" who doesn't want to adapt.
Do you even hear yourself? I'm going to stomp my feet and hold my breath if Blizzard doesn't do things my way!
Go for it, champ. Let's see how well that works for you.
Wyll-
2. Boss grabs you by the legs and begins to use you as a blunt weapon against other party members. As he does so, bits of your armor and limbs will break off in the process. After a short time, you'll be too flimsy to use as a weapon and he'll discard you.
3. Boss uses a special possession skill to possess either another party member or mercenary just long enough to stab you in the back and deliver the killing blow. For added fun, they can get an ear in the process.
Wyll-