DiabloFans

Quote from KageKaze

I don't quite agree here. Just because something is there doesn't mean you have to use it and I think if some is really a hardcore gamer they will avoid what makes it 'too easy'. For example, if you pick up a game that's a pure action game. The game will let you play through the whole thing on 'easy'. The game also lets you choose 'ultra hard' but doesn't offer any bonuses for doing so. As a hardcore gamer, which do you choose? Those are built into the game just like the D3 Auction House.

I don't think choosing a difficulty is the same kind of self imposed restriction.

Here's my take on playing ANY game:

1) The player sees the rules to the game
2) The player agrees to follow them.
3) Under the constraints of the rules every player can then use any methods possible to win or succeed. That's what makes it a game. The challenge comes from figuring out what you can do AFTER the rules have been set.

Choosing a difficulty is the action of seeing the rules and agreeing to follow them. You choose the difficulty before the game starts, right? Luckily, video games can enforce rules absolutely (besides exploits and hacks) without either 1) self enforcement from players or 2) referees.

What I personally don't enjoy (again, a personal problem) is agreeing to the rules, playing my best, and coming up with an experience that is mind numbingly easy from lvl 1-60. I'm not particularly rich or skilled, but because of the rules (looking at you RLR) it has become far too simple. RLR is just way too strong.

So I have been running in to an issue while trying to play alts. I leveled up a Wizard to 60, progressed to Act 3 inferno through a lot of farming and working up a decent bankroll. A few weeks ago I began to get bored and decided to try leveling an alt (this time a Barbarian.)

I progressed through Normal without much difficulty (as expected) but ran in to the eagerly awaited jump in difficulty once I got to Nightmare. Being a gamer and wanting to improve my character, naturally I went to the Auction House. There I was presented with such an incredible selection of low priced gear that purchasing just TWO weapons with reduced level requirement was enough of a boost to make Nightmare BORINGLY easy once again, just the same way Normal was before it.

Fine, okay. Now I just have to push through to Hell where a real challenge will start. Sadly, once again, I found myself making a single item purchase (this time a level 62 one-hander) that made Hell laughably easy for a very low price. Talk about a first world problem! The modest bankroll from my Inferno progressed Wizard was making my Barbarian playthrough a boring, easy, repetitive cycle of buying a cheap but awesome weapon and then smashing through an entire difficulty without any challenge whatsoever.

So my question is: Does the existence of an Auction House ruin replayability, specifically for alt characters after your Inferno progression? I'm curious if other people ran in to this same problem as I have.

In particular I want to point out the "Reduced Level Requirement" stat that makes AH-gear unreasonably good for low level characters. Right now my level 52 Barb is using a level 62 one hander. Does that seem reasonable? How would you feel about removing Reduced Lvl Req alltogether?

Now before you use the argument of "Well just don't use the Auction House" let me address that real quick. The AH is built in to the game. It is part of the game. Sure, I can make the choice whether to use it or not, but it's not like I am choosing to go to a third party site and buy new gear. The AH button is right below the button I push to start playing! It's practically unavoidable! And as a gamer, I am going to use all in-game resources available to play as well as possible. So for me, choosing to just "not use the AH" is putting up an artificial barrier in front of myself that isn't any different than saying "don't use a follower" or "stop using two skill slots." The competitive GAMER in me doesn't enjoy putting artificial constraints on myself to make the game more difficult. I want to be pushed to my limits as a gamer, not limit myself.

Anyways, this has been on my mind recently as I find myself losing the will to play, and I wondered what you guys thought about the subject. My thoughts are further expanded upon in this commentary, which I hope you'll listen to:

Rather than spend countless hours farming items that probably won't be good, you can just watch me identify a stash full of rares.

Also, I take no responsibility for making this video. I swear I blacked out for a few hours and found this uploaded to my channel....I'm not sure what happened....

After getting to Inferno finally and messing around a little bit I have all but decided there is no point in trying to take ANY damage in Inferno. With my old Hell gear I was getting killed in 2-3 shots on average, so upgrading my resistances and armor and stacking defensive abilities would end up with me dying in...what...4-5 hits?

In my opinion the trade off of getting more defense far outweights the benefit of higher DPS, which is how I landed on a Decoy based build. Rather than TAKE hits and try not to die, I would prefer to never get hit in the first place.

Here is my skill setup:
http://us.battle.net...PQRS!bdY!abZYbZ

Primary: Magic Missile - Penetrating Blast
Secondary: Arcane Orb - Arcane Nova
Action Bar 1: Mirror Image - Duplicates
Action Bar 2: Teleport - Fracture
Action Bar 3: Hydra - Venom Hydra
Action Bar 4: Magic Weapon - Force Weapon

Passives: Evocation, Illusionist, Glass Cannon

My equipment is quite bad, and consists of mostly +Int, +Vit, and +%Crit stats. Not sure where to go with this.

Right now I am using this build effectively in Act 1 Inferno. My gear is rather terrible though and I am wondering if others are using this effectively in Act 2 and beyond, and what types of gear they are using. Is it worth going for Dexterity over Vitality to rely on Dodging?

Anyway, I'm curious who else is using a Decoy build like this and their thoughts on it. Watch my video below to see a longer explanation, as well as the build in action in Act 1.

I've got an evil plan for this one.

Step 1) Wait for items to appear on RMAH, and immediately buy them.
Step 2) Win contest
Step 3) Re-sell Alienware computer
Step 4) PROFIT

Assuming each item sells for the maximum value of $250, and the Alienware X51 is worth $700, I'll walk away with a handsome profit of... -$550 FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Back to the drawing board. The evil drawing board.

I am not in the beta - could you explain a little more about what you mean by autotargeting, please? Is it something more than just the hitbox size?

I'm not sure whether it is an autotargetting or a hitbox issue, but basically it comes down to this: For firing at a single target you don't have to be very precise with your click--if you are anywhere close to clicking on the monster, your attack will automatically hit. This is fine versus a single target, but it poses a problem in groups especially when you want to target a certain creature that is further away than others. Even if you try to attack the creature in the BACK, often times your missile will autotarget one of the monsters closer to the front. Even if you have a CLEAR line of sight of the back monster and there are no others in the way, your attack veers off to the side to hit a closer monster that is a victim of your autotargetting (or hitboxes....not sure)

It makes using ranged attacks very frustrating and reduces the skill ceiling significantly.

Hello Diablo Fans! My name is Trebis and I run a (somewhat) well known YouTube channel called Team Trebis. While my channel was built around high quality StarCraft 2 tutorials and guides, I plan on covering Diablo 3 extensively with just as high standards for quality and entertainment.

For Diablo 3 I plan to cover a broad range of topics, such as leveling guides, build demonstrations, MF and GF guides, high level PvE and PvP, and much much more.

I invite you to follow my channel on YouTube or through this thread. I hope to maintain this thread as a place to better organize and categorize my content, as well as to provide a discussion place for my viewers and all Diablo Fans. As I make more videos I will reorganize this thread for easier viewing.

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Most Recent Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDbXdegZwDc

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Diablo 3 News Update #1
Diablo 3 News Update #2
Demon Hunter Playthrough and Diablo 1/2 Nostalgia Pt 1
Demon Hunter Playthrough and Diablo 1/2 Nostalgia Pt 2
Barbarian Playthrough and Diablo 1/2 Nostalgia Pt 1
Barbarian Playthrough and Diablo 1/2 Nostalgia Pt 2
Resource System Descriptions
Real Money Auction House Announcement
Inferno Mode Announcements

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Thank you mods for maintaining such an awesome community and resource for Diablo 3 fans, and for allowing me to make a thread here. I am as excited about Diablo 3 as every one of you, and I am thrilled to make a new home here

Cheers!

Quote from Trebis

Now before you use the argument of "Well just don't use the Auction House" let me address that real quick. The AH is built in to the game. It is part of the game. Sure, I can make the choice whether to use it or not, but it's not like I am choosing to go to a third party site and buy new gear. The AH button is right below the button I push to start playing! It's practically unavoidable! And as a gamer, I am going to use all in-game resources available to play as well as possible. So for me, choosing to just "not use the AH" is putting up an artificial barrier in front of myself that isn't any different than saying "don't use a follower" or "stop using two skill slots." The competitive GAMER in me doesn't enjoy putting artificial constraints on myself to make the game more difficult. I want to be pushed to my limits as a gamer, not limit myself.

I don't quite agree here. Just because something is there doesn't mean you have to use it and I think if some is really a hardcore gamer they will avoid what makes it 'too easy'. For example, if you pick up a game that's a pure action game. The game will let you play through the whole thing on 'easy'. The game also lets you choose 'ultra hard' but doesn't offer any bonuses for doing so. As a hardcore gamer, which do you choose? Those are built into the game just like the D3 Auction House.

I think it comes down to choosing what will be a good mix of less frustration but still being a challenge. If you wish to challenge yourself further, you go on the hardest settings. If you want a challenge but still want to 'progress' (maybe you're not quite good enough yet) you pick a middle of the road difficulty. If you just want the story, you play easy.

This exact issue of things getting too easy is why I find and make all my gear when I play through as an alt. It makes things a little harder and it makes the game more interesting. If I don't use the Auction House then I still have items I can find in the world. If I DO use the AH then I'm killing things too easily and there's no reason for me to explore as all I want to do is level up fast to get to the end. I don't find that fun at all.

I think you might be looking at things from the wrong side here, you state you want to push your limits, but then you put up a barrier in front of yourself unknowingly. You bought stuff that made the game easier, therefore you bought a lower difficulty setting instead of picking the hard one you wanted. You just limited your potential without realizing. Being hardcore isn't about buying the best gear and killing everything around you, it's about taking what you have and being better at using it than everyone else.

Honestly gamers challenge themselves all the time to make themselves better. That's why you see ironman challenges in WoW and here in D3. You also see "no death" runs in action platforming games. You see putting an artificial barrier in front of yourself as a bad thing, but many players LIKE doing just that. If you don't challenge yourself then you can't improve. This is the same reason why some games have unlockable items that can hinder a character (make you have less health or do lower damage) because challenging yourself can be fun and can force you to get better at the game you're playing. It's obviously not for everyone, but it's there as a choice. Those who want to have it easy can, those who don't.. won't.

I personally find myself somewhere in the middle. I like a good challenge, but I know I'm not good enough for alot of the super hardcore challenges and difficulty modes in some games. Personally I never challenged Master Ninja Mode in Ninja Gaiden, I just die too easily So I avoid the AH until about inferno, then I find things even out a bit more. Even then I buy sparingly and try different builds to see what I can get away with.

Well those are my $0.02. I think you have a good write up here and it's going to be an interesting debate from both sides of the floor. Thumbs up, old chap. (b^.^)b :Thumbs Up:

Your weapon dmg is a random number generated on a swing in between the min and max dmg on your weapon. Attributes that increases your dmg is then factored, and it gives you the "weapon dmg" number, on which is calculated the dmg of your skill.

ex: you are a barbarian, and you do a Hammer of the Ancient. You have a 2h axe that has 11min dmg and 17 max dmg. A random number is then generated in between 11 and 17, let's say 15. Then your strenght increases this dmg to 25. Hammer of the Ancients does 200% weapon dmg, so 25 x 200% = 50 dmg.

In this case, if you were dual-wielding, Hammer of the Ancient counts weapon dmg on your main hand weapon. Cleave alternate hands, so one time if counts it on main hand, the other on off-hand.

Attack speed is not factored at all in weapon dmg, but is for DPS (Damage Per Second). Attack speed will not increase the dmg of your Hammer of the Ancients, but will enable you to spam it faster.