Quote from lorien1973
The other video demonstrates his almost 7 minute fight with the Skeleton King.
All this video does is show it to be a complete waste of time for MP10 in normal. He took 7 minutes for 1 yellow and a blue? You can do that in any mode.
The point of playing in MP10 normal (or any other lower difficulty) is not for efficency, it's for challenge. You will get more efficient leveling using a fairly low MP as you can still kill quickly and get 20% XP gain per MP level. I imagine MP 2 or 3 might be the most efficent for someone just running through with no twink gear. This could be increased if you have some gear on reserve for that character.
As for item finding, unless you're in act 3/4 in Hell or in Inferno, I don't see many people careing or using MP for item hunting. Not unless you want to take a lvl 60 into MP10 and farm for low level legendaries for an alt or something.
Quote from Grimraven
Wow, this is shocking.
How are people agreeing with a nerf more than not???
I think Blizzard finally succeeded in brainwashing people.
EDIT: Clearing up for clairty and after re-reading the original.
I think it's about being reasonable. You can't just buff everything, if you do, there'd be nothing left and everything would be trivial. I think people are finally starting to realize you sometimes have to bring things down in order to maintain balance. Otherwise they'd then have to buff the monsters all over again and we'd start seeing ridiculous numbers and values all becuase no one wanted to see the word "nerf".
Quote from Cor7ez88
MP10 in normal is to level faster, imo very usefull if you want to start a new char.
Not entirely true. MP10 appears to be for challenge more than anything else. There's even a thread here in Diablofans that shows it's not efficient even though you have higher levels for the content that you're at. If you were to twink out a character, then maybe it could be efficient.
0
Well since you asked so nicely :Thumbs Up:
Going to admit, re-watching some of these has been kind of painful. Commentating while trying to learn a game for the first time is certainly not easy and I can see so many mistakes now. I'm also somewhat frustrated because YouTube is taking over 12 hours to render any videos lately. oh well, here's Exploring Hearthstone #2.
Video Description and Timestamps
Learn more about Hearthstone:
http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/
Topics:
0
Here it is for those who want to follow along. I might add that I really love how the title card tuned out, I think it looks sexy.
Learn more about Hearthstone:
http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/
Topics:
0
Video Description and Timestamps:
Learn more about Hearthstone:
http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/
Topics:
0
Okay, it's REALLY in HD this time, for reals (tested and verified and if it isn't I give up <_< ). In my effort and haste to save the thread before I had to leave I forgot to update the YouTube URL. Sorry Folks!
Well that's odd, but certainly explains things. The old thread was somewhat cluttered with with beta videos so keeping this one up to date might be better, but I do thank you for bringing back the old thread from the dead.
Glad you liked it, I'm really looking forward into digging into RoS if I can get into any beta they might have for it. I'm not sure how lucky I'll be since everyone around me is getting Hearthstone beta invites and I'm still in the dark. hehe
Thank you very much, Cheers!
3
Notice: I will post my latest releases as replies into this thread as usual.
Post Updated 12/15/13
For those who don't know me, I am KageKaze. I create guides and tutorials on YouTube for several games and even have a newer "Diablo Digest" podcast for D3. I take a look at the current news for Diablo and try to break it down into into easily digestible bits and throw in my own thoughts about what current changes to the game mean for not only us, but for Diablo and Blizzard as well. Aside from that I do Analytical Playthroughs (okay so it's just a glorified Let's Play) on games and betas
UPDATE: I would like to say while I love Diablofans, this new forum editor is really weird and it took me a lot of time to get this to look nice
It's official, I hate the new post editor.. please see the latest reply to the thread for the latest videos for Diablo 3's PTR.
1
Second is you really don't explain the build you just kind of show it off. you say "no life steal" but your health goes up. I'm assuming life on kill, but you don't outright state what your build is about. I happened to be watching your video from my cell pone since I'm at work and it's hard to read in game text, that's partly where the confusion lies.
So unless I'm oversimplifying things, the answer to the topic seems to be "yes" but you need a good amount of DPS and/or life to make something like this work.
0
Knowing blizzard this is also a marketing thing to keep from having to say "the revamped hell" so they can instead say "all new difficutly mode" even though it's just a rework. Speculation speculation. Blizzcon would have to be a month away...
0
Certainly this is fine if that's what people want, I just don't think a majority of D3 players are going to care about the race. It'll probably just be between the most hardcore of players. Not that there's really a problem with that, it's just not something I would care about if that's all it is. If I want to make a new character for fun I'd do it regardless of a ladder being in place.
Agreed, This is the opposite end of the spectrum and a cause for concern. So we basically have two extremes here. On one side a ladder with no incentive to play it outside of a personal goal.. on the other side a ladder with incentives that make it feel mandetory. They'd have to find something in the middle to get people to want to play but not feel cheated if they still played their characters off the ladder.
That's not a bad idea. It gives them cause to keep creating new items and keep adding them to ladders. Once the season ends everyone gets a chance. The only issue that might cuase is of course the new items would have to be interesting and it might not be easy to keep making new items. If the seasons were long enough they would probably have enough of a lag time to do it, though.
The cosmetic or 'non-essential' reward idea is also a good place to go with it. I could see that working.
Yes the other stats are more intersting and thankfully they take a long time to cap so they're not overpowering. I think the reason they are tying it into base stats is because they want to make the paragon level unlimited. A +1 to a primary stat (or even a +5) after a long grind won't terribly offset things and it still keeps the skill choices interesting. I just don't think keeping things like crit or movement speed without a cap working well, it would just end up with the same problem we have now, people will maximize that stat and it kills the balance of skills again.
0
Yeah, strange isn't it? I saw it on Diablofans' main page as I was researching RoS and was surprised it just showed up as a blue post overview.
Now on to the discussion piece!
Certainly you could choose the order that you unlocked skills as you went, but if you had a build in mind you typically would pick the same skills if you were to rebuild. You'd ignore the stuff you didn't want so most D2 players would either save their points or only buff the skills that would buff the final ability they were going for. It wouldn't be uncommon at level 4 to not spend a point so you could put 2 separate points into abilities at level 5. So instead of a choice you're doing nothing and waiting.
On top of that, there would be a few levels in between that the only thing to do was to pump a skill point into a skill to make it hit harder. No additional affects no special procs, just slightly more damage. I think I would rather take D3's method of giving me 5 skills for 3 slots (with all those skills being useful) and having to decide how to build even if they are the same skills than having to sit on points or put them into the same skills I already have.
Now to be fair, this argument is a bit different than what I originally stated above and had in the video, but these were some of the problems I had with the tree. Sure there are skills you probably won't use in D3 as you level so they feel useless but nearly every one of those skills has some use or reason.
To further play devil's advocate to my own argument, I really did like the way Torchlight 2 did things compared to D2. you had 3 skills to choose from at level 1 compared to Diablo 2's approximate 5 (based on class, sure) and each skill could be bumped to do a little more damage, but if you put in 5 points (or a tier) then you might unlock a proc or additional effect. I don't think TL2's added effects were near as varied or cool as D3's but it was something that you could look forward to by investing into the skill. They also made sure you didn't have to do that since skills also were based on weapon damage so you weren't gimping yourself (too much) by buying all the skills if you so desired.
I think it shows that a skill tree with the right modifications could be good, but I also think D3's method is just as good. We're basically trading builds from point expenditure to limited slots. It's one of the reasons I like talking about this subject: There's no one obvious way to do it right. I think that's also my way of saying thanks for always having interesting counterpoints, Sir.
3
I'm back with a new Diablo Digest video podcast this time focusing on Paragon 2.0 and all the details of the system since it seems to be a hot topic. For those who have been following the news it's nothing new, but I have seen a lot of questions regarding it and wanted to get as much information into one place as I could. This includes the information regarding how Ladders will work with Paragon 2.0.
Worry not for there's more and plenty of discussion and some hot topics to cover, so let's begin with a synopsis for those who cannot watch at present.
With Paragon 2.0 we've been given some information by Travis Day how Ladders would work with the new system. This little bit of news seems to have been glossed over by many as if it was only natural, but this is the first time it's been mentioned with specifics. This leads to something that concerns me about Ladders, is Blizzard going to do it right?
Ladders are a great way to get people to start over again and replay, but Ladders usually have some kind of system in place that entice people to play it. What made Diablo 2's ladder work so well wasn't just the race to the top it was the Ladder-specific items that you could find along the way. Things you couldn't find if your character wasn't part of the active season. A good example of this is what Path of Exile has been doing, they've been making challenge ladders that add new gameplay elements and surprises. It could be about anything, but there really needs to be something unique to that ladder to get a majority of people to want to play it or it's just a character reset just for the sake of resetting.. which I guess works for some people since there are player who like the "Prestige" thing in other games. I'm hoping Blizzard keeps these things in mind when they crate Ladders again.
Paragon 2.0 is going to introduce allocateable skill points into the game again. Of course this is only for high level characters, but I half wonder if there's even a point to it. The next topic is about Attribute Points and Skill Trees. A lot of people like to claim they disliked the removal of both of these elements and it looks like Blizzard is at least willing to acquiesce to Attribute points for Paragon. I'm not really sure this is needed, really the benefit of these points isn't going to amount to much by end game when you unlock it. The secondary stats are pretty minimal (crit, crit damage, etc) unless you have maximum paragon points into them (Paragon level 800). However, I don't think they could have made these points be more than they are because then it would be too strong, especially for hardcore characters who thrive on the razor's edge of life and death. Skill points have been done well before, I like to use Torchlight 2 as an example just because they put a few different gameplay mechanics on some of the stats, they also made it so gear unlocks by level not just by what stats you had, which was a failing in my eyes for Diablo 2.
The video goes into my thoughts on skill trees and points a bit further. For the sake of discussion here I'll just say that I don't believe the argument that having skills unlocked by level rather than by a skill tree offers much of a difference in gameplay choice. I've seen it argued that if you start a new character then its always the same skill progression, but if you had a skill tree, wouldn't it still be the same progression? You can't unlock high tier abilities until you go through the low tier. I submit to you that the Skill Tree of Diablo 2 just provided the illusion of choice when leveling. The final product might be different, but that doesn't change the leveling (or ladder) experience as you go.
Lastly I talk about game difficulty, but I'm out of time to type for now. I'll edit and post a response with this subject when I get to work because I love you guys. <3Edit belowLastly, there's discussion about difficulty. Specifically I wanted to get into the statements made by Wyatt Cheng and how the rapidly bobbing health bar is a bad thing. I'm in full agreement with Wyatt's statements, the idea of being Near Death or losing health and having to be careful doesn't really seem to exist when you get to the end game. While leveling it seems to okay (unless you turn on MP) you have moments when you can run around with 50% or so health and feel like you'll be okay as long as you're careful. The higer the "difficulty" gets the higher your chances of just dying outright. I'd love to see health matter. If health matters we can start to see mechanics where you can stay a low life and get some kind of benefit until you heal up. I think there's even a legendary affix blizz is working on where you will crit when you're low HP. This kind of thing won't work with the way the current life generation and instant death mechanics work. Good play should be rewarded, but making mistakes shouldn't be such a Razor's edge that makes you die at the slightest error. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing what changes they have in store for monster damage values now that we've seen soem datamined HP regen values go down.
Whew that's a lot.. it was an hour long podcast.. hopefully it doesn't scare everyone off. Thoughts? Feedback? Tickets to see the Blue Man Group? (aww you shouldn't have)... oh just have at it, you know I love to lurk and read comments
Click the button for Timestamps and Major Topics covered
Interview with Wyatt and Travis:
http://diablo.somepa...-and-travis-day
For Diablo 3 and Reaper of Souls news:
http://www.diablofans.com
Topics that are included in this broadcast:
- Paragon 2.0:
- More data-mining from Reaper of Souls (00:50)
- The original reason for Paragon Levels (1:40)
- Converting Paragon to an Account wide reward (2:18)
- No level capping for Paragon 2.0 (3:07)
- Paragon split between Normal and Hardcore (3:20)
- Removal of current Paragon Level benefits (3:40)
- How Paragon Points split into categories (4:00)
- Limits (caps) to non-core stats through Paragon (5:20)
- A look at some of the upper limits (6:20)
- New data-mined stat caps for Reaper of Souls (7:55)
- Paragon to add to caps or to open up gear slots? (9:40)
- Paragon Points distributed per character (11:40)
- What will happen to existing Paragon (12:35)
- You can respec your Paragon Points (13:32)
- No Paragon lost for HC character death (14:04)
- You cannot gain more XP by playing a Paragon 100 character (15:45)
- Ladders:
- Ladders coming to Diablo 3 with Reaper of Souls? (16:20)
- Low Paragon 2.0 will work with Ladder Seasons (18:50)
- Why Ladders work so well in Diablo 2 (20:50)
- The Path of Exile Ladder example (21:20)
- Stats and Skill Trees:
- Stat points and character "customization" (24:50)
- The problem with Diablo 2's stat points (25:40)
- The problem with adding Stat Points to Diablo 3 (26:30)
- Illusionary choices with Stats and Trees (27:47)
- Better stats: The Torchlight 2 example (28:42)
- Another alternative: The Path of Exile example (30:15)
- How Skill Trees can go wrong (30:40)
- Travis Day on Diablo Skill Trees (31:40)
- Individual skill points not compelling (35:10)
- Something to look forward to each level (38:10)
- Do skill trees really change skill progression? (38:55)
- Difficulty:
- Wyatt Cheng on the rapidly changing Health (41:20)
- The difficulty wall of old Inferno (43:10)
- Wyatt's second point on Health issues (44:05)
- The rationalization of Glass Cannon as a popular build (44:47)
- Finishing Wyatt's post (45:28)
- Combat flow and tactics with rapid healing abilities (47:50)
- Whirlwind Barbarian one of the showcases of the flawed difficulty (50:00)
- Changes coming to Life Steal and Life Regeneration (52:30)
- Excitement about changes, but maintaining some skepticism (54:10)
If you missed the previous Diablo Digest you can find the major discussion posts here:0
Funny I feel the same, but I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt... and I'm bored while I edit my next episode of Diablo Digest so it's something to do
0
Subject to change doesn't provide 100% protection nor does it prevent people from thinking you tricked them. It's merely a cover your ass clause that can be overturned with the right argument and evidence.
Of course it relates to the AH. The WW barb build doesn't work without the right type of gear (trust me I tried). How do you suspect everyone got that gear? You seem to think that talking about popular specs doesn't include the AH. ANYTHING you discuss about builds, especially if that build needs a lot of one type of stat can be brought back to the AH.
0
Players feel jilted by Blizzard now those players are very angry and are out money. Do you think they will continue to play the game? Do you think Blizzard, legal action or no, would ever want to make their players feel like they had just taken their money and ran? It's about image and making the customers feel welcome and that they want you to play. To just screw over millions of paying customers wouldn't be conducive to that.
I just want to go ahead and say I personally don't care if the AH stays, I don't use it, but I recognize that it washes Blizzard's hands of having to deal with people feeling remorseful about a purchase. Blizzard themselves have admitted to how often the AH comes into discussion when they make any changes when it comes to skills and builds and I'm honestly glad it won't anymore. If it frees up Blizzard to make really cool changes for the health of the game, then so be it.
0
A lot of high end players tend to gravitate to the path of least resistance. We're talking Min-Maxers here. If you think people don't change classes or specs just because another spec becomes dominate then I don't think you remember WoW very well.
In World of Warcraft, people would change specs all the time just to get a 1% better theoretical DPS. If a patch nerfed a spec, most raiders jumped ship and moved to another. Yes not everyone did it, but it happened enough.
If Blizz put out a patch that made one very specific set of gear or one specific class super over powered, do you think that a bunch of people wouldn't scramble to play that spec and class? Hell why do you think there's so many whirlwind barbs out there?
1
Critical Mass and One With Everything are two very prominent abilities that haven't been touched because people have bought gear to make them work to ridiculous levels. These passives are amazing when geared correctly and thanks to the AH it's easy to gear them right, but it can pigeonhole the players into needing only specific gear which means finding interesting upgrades is very difficult.
They've spent months telling us how they want to fix OWE but they haven't been able to because they acknowledge that it would be unfair to everyone that spent their cash into it. Ever since IAS Blizzard has been gun shy about changing loot affixes because they dont' ever want someone to buy something and feel like Blizzard just pulled a "Bait and Switch" on them. You haven't seen any examples of game changing occurrences because they aren't making those decisions due to the AH.
Yes a self found person could have found the right setup and gotten lucky, but a self found person didn't spend hard earned cash. Truth is, a self found person probably wouldn't have bothered with OWE (at least to the degree it was used) because it needs such very specific gear that it wouldn't be thinkable unless you got very lucky.