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Quote from Jackzor

Bashiok has recently told us that there are plans to have gem levels past level five

I guess you missed the word "drop"

Haha thanks.

I like that getting top level gems was a long process and an end-game goal, however, with the five level drop, it was just too many. I think if they included 1-2 more levels it would make this something more obtainable that more people can get but not all if you are not trying.

Yea. The earlier stuff about it being a long term goal but Radiant Star gems not being completely necessary seemed a bit contradictory, but if they just let a few levels higher drop in game, or something along those lines, then the reward should be more in line with the amount of work required.

I sort of like the idea of the long term goal objective although it could get annoying after a while specially for people with jobs and responsibilities that can't play that much but i do like long term goal although such a long grind for only 1 high lvl gem might be too much.

I like the idea of having the Jeweler craft gems for you for some cost. Has this been discussed?

The Jeweler can combine gems for a cost, but I don't know about making them out of nowhere. It would be cool if he could convert gems to a different type or something like that, although that would also take away trading's job.

Hopefully they won't be too hard to get because at some point I want to make a character that is completely decked out, and that means having full sockets with highest quality gems in them!

Yeah, as someone who usually plays SP, things like zod runes were impossible for me to get. I want to at least be able to achieve some end goals.

I like the raising of the levels that drop, but i agree that it should only be 1 or 2 more. It will still be quite a challenge to just get 1 with the 6 possible types to drop.

What worries me is just how much better can a gem get between radiant and 1 level down

Quote from ScyberDragon

Yeah, as someone who usually plays SP, things like zod runes were impossible for me to get. I want to at least be able to achieve some end goals.

Well depending on what the trading system is like, you could play single player games online while occasionally trading when you need certain items.

Yeah 19k is a bit too much for each radiant, I can go for the less than 7k which I think is still a long term goal. We also have to keep in mind that we don't lose gems anymore (meaning if a jeweler un-socket a gem from an item, it won't break) meaning it's always a progress.

Has Blizzard commented on how many gems are needed to create one of the next level? Because with 14 levels it would make way too much sense if it only takes 2 gems to make a higher quality one. Which would drastically reduce the number you would need to get the highest level. Instead of 19,683 gems (using 3 to get one), would instead be 512(using 2) which is still a lot but MUCH more manageable. I voted for having the long term goal, but 20,000 seems to much.

Quote from Jackzor

Quote from ScyberDragon

Yeah, as someone who usually plays SP, things like zod runes were impossible for me to get. I want to at least be able to achieve some end goals.

Well depending on what the trading system is like, you could play single player games online while occasionally trading when you need certain items.

Personally, I cheat, I mod. I play offline completely. No trading. I still want things to be achievable in this manner.

I'm with the majority on this one. It should take a long time, but 19,000 gems to get one level 14 is too many.

I obviously speak for the majority of the Diablo community when I say, Getting a lvl 14 Gem should be very difficult, and reward the player for it. I feel at most, they should let the lvl 6 gems drop, but very rarely. As rare as prefect gems did in D2 would be about right.

Quote from Winged

I obviously speak for the majority

You should never say something like that.

One gem is not that much. In the end, you can have 10+ slots to fill up. You can't have getting a single radiant star take so much time.

Okay, but none of the numbers really matter much if we don't know how often the gems will drop. Can we expect 4-5 top level gems per hour of play, or just 1? The rate of gem dropping will have a direct affect on how long it takes to make the radiant star. If you can get lvl 7 gems, and need 2000 to get the radiant star, I'd expect at least 30-40 per hour... That's still put you at 50 hours of play just to obtain one radiant star gem. And for something like that, it's be more of a thing on the side, I would never play to try to obtain the gem, rather, just drop 'em in a stash until I have enough. And then, actually combining them to get the radiant star when I have enough will be nothing more than a literal grind... And unless gems stack, or you have some kind of infinite bag for them, you going to have to combine them as you get them, or there is no possible way to obtain as many as you need.

I'd expect us to be able to find up to lvl 9 gems, probably as a frequency of 9-10 lvl 9's per hour (hopefully with some kind of gem storage bag, that holds infinite gems, as to not waste our inventory). So that's ~25 hours of play to obtain one. That way casual gamers can obtain one by themselves realistically in a few weeks, and hardcore in a few days.

Quote from Winged

I obviously speak for the majority of the Diablo community when I say, Getting a lvl 14 Gem should be very difficult, and reward the player for it. I feel at most, they should let the lvl 6 gems drop, but very rarely. As rare as prefect gems did in D2 would be about right.

You are dead wrong.

Let's say you can get 50 lvl 6 gems per hour of play. (which is ridiculous to be honest, the game would be more about picking items up and combining them then anything else) To go from a lvl 6 into 14, you would need 6561 gems. At 50/hour, it would take 131.22 hours of play to get a single gem.

Now let's go with what you want (you masochist you), "as rare as perfect gems did in D2". What was that then, about 5 perfect per hour of play, depending on what you were doing? You'd need 1312.2 hours just to get one gem. 54.675 days of playing straight (with no sleep, or anything BUT playing D3) for one gem. A full year of playing (again with no sleep, or anything else) would only yield 6.675 gems. Let's add some sleep and other-things time into that, shorten our play time down to 6 hours per day. 218.7 days for 1 gem. Basically, you'd be lucky if you got a gem after playing the game for a year, 6 hours a day.

That's just not realistic. People would probably kill themselves trying to get the damn thing... Seriously.

50 level 6 gems per hour would be less than a gem a minute, which really wouldn't be all that unreasonable in higher difficulties considering the level 6 gems by themselves are pretty useless. And as I said in the OP, simply raising it to level 7 gems dropping in combat would make it so that you only need about 2k dropped gems for a level 14. Obviously if a level 6/7 or whatever drops in game is as hard to find as a perfect in D2 then it would get ridiculous.