DiabloFans

Hey OP, I am a player who is very similar to you demographically. I am also in my 30s (albeit with no kids), and my play time is a lot more limited than it used to be. I also enjoyed the trading aspect of D2 (which I played a ton of in my younger days). I also agree that it's important to have a goal in the game that you feel that you are actually making progress towards rather than just a crap-shoot lottery for items.

Here is my goal: getting my character to Paragon 200, then eventually to Paragon 800. See, at P200 I will be able to max out one stat in each of the three max-out-able tabs. At P800 I'll be able to max out all of them. Once that happens, I'll consider my character ready for "end game," but until then, I'm not getting everything I can out of the character and even if I had awesome, irreplaceable items, I'd still be able to progress with Paragon levels. Along the way I am happy to find the items I find, and if they help me make those levels even faster, so much the better. I think you are ignoring the fact that in D2, for a lot of players, hitting level 99 was the ultimate goal. As long as I make 2-3 Paragon levels a day I feel like I've made progress, and that's not really very tough to do.

Quote from DiegoF

The short answer to OP is no, it doesnt bother me at all. In fact, I'm pretty happy that OP itens are gone. My problem with itemization right now is how easier and better is to focus in fire builds than everything else. Sure, there are physical, cold and lightning builds out there (I think that poison is completly out of question) but fire damage is sure the easier and mos efficient for most classes. But I do think that, with time, more itens will come and we will have a great deal of itens that supports differents play styles.

I agree that fire builds are the easiest to flat-out max your DPS with, but they don't really give you the utility/CC options that cold and other choices do. I'd rather do a little less damage and be able to stay at a safe distance (as a wizard) using cold. Then again, I'm pretty biased because I love the fact that I can play chain lightning/frozen orb cold sorc just like back in the day if I want to.

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Quote from Zhaph

What do you call the RoS beta that allowed players to try nearly everything expect the final boss fight then? Getting to eat a whole cake with only a sliver-sized piece sliced out? Obviously the vanilla beta should have been a bit longer, but they clearly learned from that and changed the game plan with the RoS beta.

Did you got a Beta key? Nor did i....or anyone of my Friends or the people i know.

Its been a FAMILY & FRIENDS beta...not a closed beta followed up by a open beta.

Its been the same. Streamers / Press got the Crumbs... to get everybody heated up about RoS.

The purpose of a Beta should be to get rid of those "Gamebreaking Bugs" we see today like the one with the SoH.

There was a F&F beta, then there was a closed beta after that. Some bugs just can't be assessed until a much larger playerbase gets involved, and this was apparently one of them. I could understand your arguement if NO bugs were fixed, but the RoS beta(s) took care of lots of problems before release.

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Funny, I recall being in the Vanilla beta. Also, I recall that the RoS beta solved a very large amount of potential problems. So, yes, there were betas.

Level 1-15 up to the Skeleton King... you call that a in Depth Beta?

I call that crumbs of the Cake, to get everybody heated up about the Game.

What do you call the RoS beta that allowed players to try nearly everything expect the final boss fight then? Getting to eat a whole cake with only a sliver-sized piece sliced out? Obviously the vanilla beta should have been a bit longer, but they clearly learned from that and changed the game plan with the RoS beta.

You won't like this answer, but... It drops in Diablo 3. There aren't any specific places or monsters you can focus on for certain item drops (besides crafting materials, of course), you've just got to keep slayin' and hope that luck is in your favor. Good luck to you!

PS- (this is not directed at the OP) All this "I just found this!" "Where at?" discussion over items is nonsense as well. Just because one person found an item in, say, the Act I Cemetery, does not mean that everyone else has a good chance of finding that item there. It's all totally random.

Quote from Revolutions

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Quote from Revolutions

"So they made a really cool legendary in a fluke accident and regardless of it "working as intended" you can easily draw the conclusion that there will never ever be a weapon that will come close to being as strong as pre nerf Shard of Hate which is rather stupid considering the fact that they want to make legendaries feel more legendary."

This is where you lost me entirely. Not only can I not "easily" draw that conclusion, but in fact no one can draw that conclusion at all. That is, unless you've got a crystal ball that lets you see what all the yet-to-be-implemented legendary/set weapons will be. Fixing one bugged weapon doesn't mean that all future weapons MUST be less effective than it was when it was bugged. That's just terrible logic you've got going there.

Maybe, but that's the thing with precedents once they are set its unlikely they will go against their ultimate decision. If they weren't going to leave a weapon in that made a build barely able to farm T6 do you really think they are going to add more items that are like it prenerf?

I think you need to analyze what the "precedent" is that's being set here (hint: there isn't one). They fixed a broken item. Period. This is not setting a precedent, as Bizzard has fixed many, many broken items/mechanics in many, many of their games, including several already in this one. Many more legendary items will be developed and released as the game progresses over the next several years. Your biggest problem is that you are only looking into the next several weeks/months, not into the long-term implications of leaving a broken item in the game. An item that broken (or "that good," depending on your perspective) is not good for the game, because it makes a lot of players feel that they MUST have that one item in order to maximize their characters.

As far as getting oneself to the point where you can "farm" T6, I'm not sure I ever want to reach that point or that ANY player should be able to reach it independently. To me, "on farm" means I one-shot everything but elites, and I three- or four-shot them. The hardest difficulty in the game should, just in my opinion, always be a challenge to all players, and one that is more easily completed in a solid, well-balanced group.

Quote from Revolutions

"So they made a really cool legendary in a fluke accident and regardless of it "working as intended" you can easily draw the conclusion that there will never ever be a weapon that will come close to being as strong as pre nerf Shard of Hate which is rather stupid considering the fact that they want to make legendaries feel more legendary."

This is where you lost me entirely. Not only can I not "easily" draw that conclusion, but in fact no one can draw that conclusion at all. That is, unless you've got a crystal ball that lets you see what all the yet-to-be-implemented legendary/set weapons will be. Fixing one bugged weapon doesn't mean that all future weapons MUST be less effective than it was when it was bugged. That's just terrible logic you've got going there.

I'd like to see a VERY strictly limited trading system put into the game. For example, you could trade crafting mats or plans, but only on a 1:1 ratio. If I want to trade you my crafting mat, you have to trade one back to me so that we swap equally. Same with plans. I would also like to see this happen with set items, but not with all legendary items, because there would be too much room for exploitation.

But if a map template had only "1 tile" and randomized from there out, wouldn't that account for more variation rather than less? I agree that we all know that a lot of the vanilla "random" maps weren't truly random (i.e. most of the outdoor/exterior areas), and that when they appear in a rift they make it SEEM less randomized. But I'm saying that the ones that have the most potential for true randomization (e.g. interior corridors such as sewers, jail area, caverns, etc.) are often the ones that seem to "come up" in a certain, specific configuration the most (e.g. "giant jail" or "long hallway").

Past a certain observable point, the pattern crosses the threshold from RNG to intent;where is that point in this instance, and are we there (yet [assuming future possible expansions])?

I don't know that the "long hallway" one isdefinitely RNG; that seems like it would be a pretty low chance to happen given all the possible tile sets and map patterns. There are so many rift levels that I enter with other, random players where they say something like "oh, I like this one" or "I had this one yesterday, it sucks," etc. It just doesn'tfeellike it's 100% random, but I haven't seen any conclusive Blizzard proof either way. Anyone have a blue post or article to shed some more light on this?

Greetings! I've been rifting quite a bit lately, as I'm sure a lot of us have, and I've got a couple questions for anyone that can provide some personal experience or some linked evidence from Blizzard to explain. Are rifts totally randomized, i.e. tile set is random, pattern of map is random, color scheme is random, mobs are random? Or are there some rifts that are "set," i.e. tile set, color, mobs are random, but pattern of map is not? Or is it a combination of both?

Here's why I ask/what I've experienced: a lot of players seem to be getting the "long hallway" rift, or the "giant jail" rift, which might suggest that there are SOME rift configurations that are "set," at least to a degree. Now, RNG being what it is, it COULD simply be that those map patterns have been put together completely randomly, and since the player base is gigantic, a lot of people have seen them.

What, precisely, happens when one opens a rift? Does the game "roll" the rift, perhaps with a chance to roll a "long hallway" or a "giant jail" pattern? What about some "set" monster patterns? Some people have gotten rifts with a level of nothing but gobs; others have gotten them with levels that contain several gob packs; others still have seen Whimseyshire mobs in their rifts (me included). However, these don't seem to occur with the same frequency that I see any/every other mob in the game in rifts. Again, this could just be RNG messing with our heads via sample size, but somehow it feels intentional to me, at least to some degree.

So what do you think? Truly random (everything is randomized, we just see these "patterns" because of the giant sample size), drawn from a set (there are many pre-configured rift map patterns, one of which is randomly drawn and then filled with random mobs), or a combination of both (you get a CHANCE for a pre-configured map pattern, but you don't necessarily get one every time)?

Did you mean right this minute, or did you mean that 5-10 rifts at once is your general play style and you are building a list of people who play the same way? If the latter, you can add me, Zhaph#1849.

Never thought about that... great observation!

I would probably start on Master if I were you; you may need to go down a difficult from there. As for drops, just keep on playing. Try to kills lots of elite packs; do rifts, you can find a lot of them there. Bounties will also give you caches, which can contain great items sometimes, and blood shards which you can use to gamble for items.

Hrm, I would guess this is probably some kind of a known issue then. I'll look for it to get hotfixed in a small update, I'm just weirded out that there aren't more people mentioning it. I've never had a problem with a Blizz game that was specific to me (or a small group), rather than a game-wide thing.