Inferno and Balancing
Even with the recent hotfixes, there will still be balancing to be had. Below are a few blue posts about Inferno and its balancing.
Originally Posted by (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
There are definitely some aspects of Inferno and the way damage comes in that we're looking at. Before we get there though we want to address the skills that are 'must haves', and see how the skill and gear game settles out a bit before we address content. If there's a skill that you absolutely can't survive without, that's a much more serious issue to customization, build diversity, and the game as a whole than someone not being able to progress as quickly as they feel they should.
I think tweaks to content difficulty is a given, it's going to happen in some shape or form, but we're not there quite yet.
As it stands, nothing works well for DH past act 1 Inferno. Wizards have it just as rough. Mean while i witnessed a barb solo 3 packs of elites on Inferno on the same act i'm struggling to complete the first quest.
You should go tell the barb players that. Consensus is they're the worst class in the game.
Since you nerfed the 2 classes capable of doing it it is now virtually impossible. There are a few players who have done things such as kill diablo, but bosses are the easiest part of inferno.
We purposely launched the game with Inferno being far more difficult than what we were able to progress in ourselves, assuming people would find it as difficult but with a few skilled players able to pull it off, or the difficulty would simply help root out problem skills and builds that allowed flaw-filled progression possibilities.
I think the main problem we're running into is people progress more or less linearly to Inferno, and the brick wall effect makes it seem like these broken skills were the correct way to overcome the difficulty because the belief is that Inferno must be an immediately surmountable challenge, which it isn't intended to be. Or the reverse, that because these skills allowed progression the classes that did not have them were too weak/broken, which isn't correct.
We'll provide a bit more info/context on Inferno tuning through an article we're working on for the front page.
Not gonna lie, that is a pretty nice way of saying "we didn't test Inferno".
We did, we just couldn't beat it. Which is fine.
Bashiok how the f did you get a job at blizzard? You must be really good at convincing people. How about instead of someone from PR telling us about inferno, can we get one of the devs to give us information that makes sense?
I'm, like, SUPER good at banning people. Super good. So they were like, want a job? And I was like "Only if high ilvl blue items can NEVER be as good as low ilvl Legendaries" and they were like "DEAL". I'm just as mad as you, man. Broken. I don't want to equip a blue item. I want to be able to rush into Inferno and begin farming it as soon as I want to. That's what Diablo is about. It's about a new game with a new difficulty level being just like a previous game without it.
There is nothing else to do at end game except Inferno and you make it impossible?
It's clearly not "impossible", but we need to get all classes on somewhat equal footing before we can know where people line up and how to address content difficulty. We have a plan, man. It's just going to take time.
I hit inferno and it was incredibly hard, after farming alot of act 1 with friends its getting better by the day, people complaining because they're used to wow , where items come oh so easely.....
Thanks blizz once more.... you just ruined the last possible game i've waited this long for.
Well, I wouldn't say that, I'd say the entire game is more or less a linear progression and then you can hit a wall in Inferno, if not Hell, but definitely Inferno, and that's jarring. Honestly some of that is on us to address, but we can't address it when classes are one-off farming it due to broken skills and we have no good idea how balance is actually shaking out.
It's a good thing everyone had spent so much time "polishing" the game. Can you remind us what exactly was being polished?
Oh rhetorical question. My oldest companion. Come close; let me drink deep your lack of substance.
The problem is you'll never be able to put inferno on farm.
Never is a strong word.
Are you kidding me? nobody is talking about LOW LEVEL legendaries. The BEST LEGENDARIES IN THE GAME are worse than common as dirt blues.
Just because an item says it's for level 60 characters does not mean it has an equal stat budget as all other level 60 items.
If only you guys have had the time, it's only been in development for ELEVEN YEARS.
Yes, and I understand this is the battlecry of those outraged that the game did not get end-game balance that a fraction of a percent are currently attempting perfect on day 1. But we'll get through this. You and me. Together.
You must not know what the word "testing" means.
Yes, yes, it's broken and unbalanced and you're very astute in your observation. Gold star. Let's move on with our lives to the issues and their solutions.(Blue Tracker/ Official Forums)
I think tweaks to content difficulty is a given, it's going to happen in some shape or form, but we're not there quite yet.
As it stands, nothing works well for DH past act 1 Inferno. Wizards have it just as rough. Mean while i witnessed a barb solo 3 packs of elites on Inferno on the same act i'm struggling to complete the first quest.
You should go tell the barb players that. Consensus is they're the worst class in the game.
Since you nerfed the 2 classes capable of doing it it is now virtually impossible. There are a few players who have done things such as kill diablo, but bosses are the easiest part of inferno.
We purposely launched the game with Inferno being far more difficult than what we were able to progress in ourselves, assuming people would find it as difficult but with a few skilled players able to pull it off, or the difficulty would simply help root out problem skills and builds that allowed flaw-filled progression possibilities.
I think the main problem we're running into is people progress more or less linearly to Inferno, and the brick wall effect makes it seem like these broken skills were the correct way to overcome the difficulty because the belief is that Inferno must be an immediately surmountable challenge, which it isn't intended to be. Or the reverse, that because these skills allowed progression the classes that did not have them were too weak/broken, which isn't correct.
We'll provide a bit more info/context on Inferno tuning through an article we're working on for the front page.
Not gonna lie, that is a pretty nice way of saying "we didn't test Inferno".
We did, we just couldn't beat it. Which is fine.
Bashiok how the f did you get a job at blizzard? You must be really good at convincing people. How about instead of someone from PR telling us about inferno, can we get one of the devs to give us information that makes sense?
I'm, like, SUPER good at banning people. Super good. So they were like, want a job? And I was like "Only if high ilvl blue items can NEVER be as good as low ilvl Legendaries" and they were like "DEAL". I'm just as mad as you, man. Broken. I don't want to equip a blue item. I want to be able to rush into Inferno and begin farming it as soon as I want to. That's what Diablo is about. It's about a new game with a new difficulty level being just like a previous game without it.
There is nothing else to do at end game except Inferno and you make it impossible?
It's clearly not "impossible", but we need to get all classes on somewhat equal footing before we can know where people line up and how to address content difficulty. We have a plan, man. It's just going to take time.
I hit inferno and it was incredibly hard, after farming alot of act 1 with friends its getting better by the day, people complaining because they're used to wow , where items come oh so easely.....
Thanks blizz once more.... you just ruined the last possible game i've waited this long for.
Well, I wouldn't say that, I'd say the entire game is more or less a linear progression and then you can hit a wall in Inferno, if not Hell, but definitely Inferno, and that's jarring. Honestly some of that is on us to address, but we can't address it when classes are one-off farming it due to broken skills and we have no good idea how balance is actually shaking out.
It's a good thing everyone had spent so much time "polishing" the game. Can you remind us what exactly was being polished?
Oh rhetorical question. My oldest companion. Come close; let me drink deep your lack of substance.
The problem is you'll never be able to put inferno on farm.
Never is a strong word.
Are you kidding me? nobody is talking about LOW LEVEL legendaries. The BEST LEGENDARIES IN THE GAME are worse than common as dirt blues.
Just because an item says it's for level 60 characters does not mean it has an equal stat budget as all other level 60 items.
If only you guys have had the time, it's only been in development for ELEVEN YEARS.
Yes, and I understand this is the battlecry of those outraged that the game did not get end-game balance that a fraction of a percent are currently attempting perfect on day 1. But we'll get through this. You and me. Together.
You must not know what the word "testing" means.
Yes, yes, it's broken and unbalanced and you're very astute in your observation. Gold star. Let's move on with our lives to the issues and their solutions.(Blue Tracker/ Official Forums)
Elective Mode
Though a lot of us know the wonderful world of 'Elective Mode'. There are a great deal of people that still don't. Elective mode lets you use any ability in any slot, thus allowing you to use more than one ability per each type. This option is rather hidden and a great deal of players would like it to be a bit more visible.
Originally Posted by (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Make what is currently an obscure setting in the options into the default. Most players don't even realize they can use multiple types of skills from the same category.
We could, but this isn't useful to players who are completely new to the game or the genre. So, instead, we made sure to add in the setting for those who are more experienced players.
It would help to have a pop up in game to introduce 'elective mode' to players, instead of a pop up reminding people about loot in multiplayer
I'll pass along the feedback. I've seen more than a couple of people say that it's not a very visible option.
it isn't useful to new players? Considering 75% of your player base aren't new players to the genre or Diablo your screwing over your biggest fan base by making things obscure.
Did you know that over 80% of statistics are made up on the spot?
Here's the straight deal. We are happy to take constructive feedback. We're not even just saying that to say it. We appreciate it greatly when we get it. It's an overstatement to say this is "screwing over" the biggest fan base. I can understand if it may be frustrating to those who did not realize the option was available, but let's dial it back a little bit and keep things in proper context. You have to take into account that there are a large portion of the community that has never played Diablo or Diablo II. There may even be those that have never played an RPG. To accommodate both the veterans and the new players, the option isn't on until you turn it on.
This seems rather condescending. You're basically saying new players are too dumb to handle skill choices on their own and need you to hold their hands through it.
No, we're saying that learning something new can be overwhelming sometimes for new players and we want to make sure that we are supplying a good experience from the start and add in the complexity as we go along.
So yes, option for experienced players = good, hiding it under the bed, inside a locked box with the key in a 3 foot hole in the neighbors back yard guarded by a Doberman = not so good.
I totally understand. For those that have taken the time to post their viewpoints, it's appreciated. Again, we do love getting constructive feedback provided it's kept constructive. In this case, feedback is noted and will be passed along. I can't promise anything more than that.
We could, but this isn't useful to players who are completely new to the game or the genre. So, instead, we made sure to add in the setting for those who are more experienced players.
It would help to have a pop up in game to introduce 'elective mode' to players, instead of a pop up reminding people about loot in multiplayer
I'll pass along the feedback.
I've seen more than a couple of people say that it's not a very visible option.it isn't useful to new players? Considering 75% of your player base aren't new players to the genre or Diablo your screwing over your biggest fan base by making things obscure.
Did you know that over 80% of statistics are made up on the spot?
Here's the straight deal. We are happy to take constructive feedback. We're not even just saying that to say it. We appreciate it greatly when we get it. It's an overstatement to say this is "screwing over" the biggest fan base. I can understand if it may be frustrating to those who did not realize the option was available, but let's dial it back a little bit and keep things in proper context. You have to take into account that there are a large portion of the community that has never played Diablo or Diablo II. There may even be those that have never played an RPG. To accommodate both the veterans and the new players, the option isn't on until you turn it on.
This seems rather condescending. You're basically saying new players are too dumb to handle skill choices on their own and need you to hold their hands through it.
No, we're saying that learning something new can be overwhelming sometimes for new players and we want to make sure that we are supplying a good experience from the start and add in the complexity as we go along.
So yes, option for experienced players = good, hiding it under the bed, inside a locked box with the key in a 3 foot hole in the neighbors back yard guarded by a Doberman = not so good.
I totally understand. For those that have taken the time to post their viewpoints, it's appreciated. Again, we do love getting constructive feedback provided it's kept constructive. In this case, feedback is noted and will be passed along. I can't promise anything more than that.
Diablo III Becomes Fastest-Selling PC Game Ever
Originally Posted by (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Following the global launch of Diablo III on May 15, the Lord of Terror has consumed a record number of souls. More than 3.5 million copies of the game were sold as of the first day of release, making Diablo III the fastest-selling PC game of all time. As of the first week of release, Sanctuary’s heroes had already reached a total of more than 6.3 million. See the press release for all the gory details.
Blue Posts
Some good blue posts today, make sure to check them out.
Originally Posted by (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Blacksmith Cost VS AH Costs
The intent was to use your Blacksmith to fill those itemization gaps that can happen due to the randomized drops. The issue is the Blacksmith compared to the AH is just not worth spending gold to level up right now. It's something we're aware of. (Blue Tracker/ Official Forums)
Advanced Warning on Hotfixes
Blizzard, if you're going to change something about a class, give atleast a 24 hour window of warning so that people of said class can make adjustments.
This is our goal (for some of the reasons you've outlined), and going forward we'll be working with our developers and quality assurance teams closely to deliver as much advance notice as possible on hotfixes. We'll be providing updates as frequently as possible here.
I appreciate the response Lylirra, but the goal was not met with how this was handled.
We agree. We understand the impact that some changes can have and want to provide players with as much notice as possible so that they can prepare accordingly. We were unable to give advance warning in this situation and have taken steps to ensure that we are able to do so in the future.
Unfortunately, we are unable to provide in-game notifications of when a hotfix goes live (I saw this as a suggestion earlier in the thread), but we will be updating the hotifix list as frequently and consistently as possible. Depending on what changes are made, daily updates are likely. We may also call-out certain upcoming changes separately, in a forum post like this one. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Barbarians and Game Balancing
Thanks for the heads up, looking at Revenge.
Barbarians, please direct feedback to MetaGensis.
Too arrogant to see flaws in your game.
So sad.
We are actually looking at Revenge, but I was ... attempting to be funny. I apologize. I realize it's serious business, but I'm trying not to allow my soul to be crushed by exclamations that Legendary items and class balance are the end of the world and will never be fixed and the game is simply the worst thing ever excreted by humans. I humbly recommend a healthy dose of chillaxification, but I understand some people take that as an act of dismissal.
It's funny how everyone claims the blues post was a "joke" but if a member posts a vulgar comment they're immediately under threat of being banned? Why, I was "joking" too man! HAHA! It's all just a happy !@#$%^- world isn't it?
It's what you make of it.
The game is still very young, and it's an amazing game (as most will agree.) But there does have to be some changes in the way classes play out. We were promised various viable builds for customization, but it seems like everyone is following 1 person's build just so they can survive past Act 2 Inferno.
Absolutely! That's the problem exactly. These outlying OP skills need to be handled before we can pinpoint any content adjustments we need to make for the difficulty to feel a bit better, fight the need to kite everything which is killing melee's souls, address items, like, we understand and are working on all of these things. We're going to be working on and supporting this game for years to come, two weeks out, sure it's probably going to need some sanding. Bear with us. We love you.
Act like an animal? Oh so voicing your opinion is now considered to be barbaric? Wow, this game has really brought the best out of the community hasn't it.
You found your first post to be reasonably worded and expressed in a constructive and metered tone? K.
That the thing these thing should of been polished out before launch by blizzard's top-notch QA team, since you wouldn't let us go past level 13, because you guys could handle it without us. Which seems to not be the case as we can see.
Yup, and we can live in What Could Have Been land all the live long day, but it'd be infinitely less destructive to everyone's mental health if we could focus on the here and now and what issues exist and how we're planning to address them. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Authenticators
To be clear, the mobile authenticator (the phone application that mimics the physical authenticator code generation), and the dial-in authenticator, are not the same, and do not offer the same types of protection. While the dial-in authenticator can be a helpful addition to your account security by attempting to detect fraudulent login attempts, it is not the same as the physical and mobile authenticators which require a unique code be generated from the physical or mobile device to allow access to the account.
In addition, the dial-in authenticator is only currently supported for World of Warcraft -http://us.battle.net...ticator-faq#q-7 (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Leveling Blacksmith / Jewlcrafter
I've been prioritizing the jeweler over the blacksmith, but I'm playing multiple characters, and it makes sense to me to keep the crafters as highly-ranked as possible, because they benefit my lowest-level characters the most.
Your mileage may vary. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Metacritic
I see a 4.1 user score? Which I just want to point out is 0.1 higher than Mass Effect 3! YES!
Yeah, but an 89/100 metacritic is pretty good, IMO. Of course that means all the reviewers are just shills and who could enjoy a game where an orange colored item can be worse than a blue colored item. IT'S MADNESS. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Witch Doctor
I just started playing one myself. (I have a demon hunter and wizard as well so far). That said though (and I'm going to sound like a broken record here), we appreciate constructive feedback but "spiders sucks" isn't exactly constructive. You are almost there with this, but it would be better if you took the time to lay out the particulars of what you like or don't like and how you feel it affects your gameplay rather than a general laundry list of issues. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Wizard Nerfs
As you can see here from the recent hotfixes blog that we posted, a change has been made to this ability; it will now only absorb up to 100% of your characters maximum life. This change was made because as most wizards know, this ability was overpowered; Force Armor was the sole reason they could progress through Inferno and in most cases be near invincible.
With this change it will bring wizards more in line with the survivability of the other classes in the game.
So we are not supposed to progress thru Inferno anymore. Not a question.
You are still able to progress through inferno and we heavily expect that wizards, and every other class for that matter, will continue doing so; it is simply a matter of formulating new strategies and focusing more on your gear without relying on a particular skill to survive. We can understand that this might frustrate players who invested so heavily into building around this skill, but as has been said — it was the sole reason that wizards were so powerful and near invulnerable in Inferno which is why the change was implemented. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Character Order
Why my second character is in the first position
I believe the order is based on last played. (Source)
Amount of Players in Public Games and Matchmaking
That's weird, I wonder if it's based on ... yeah I have no idea. It could be correct as while people play multiplayer games with their friends (and by the current stats about 1/5 are in multiplayer games) not too many open up their games to public. The rumors of public game hacking could also be scaring people away from it (which is nonsense, FYI). Anyway, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people are currently playing on the Americas server alone, and we're not fully into peak hours. On a Wednesday.
With that said why is matchmaking so broken? Why is it so hard to find or get 4 people to play together in public games? Can you guys fix that please..
Yeah that's something we're aware of. It's actually the matchmaker preferring to distribute players out over the game servers for performance reasons, rather than make full games. Until we nail down more performance issues, it's on the to-do list.
So class nerfs come before platform stability.... seems legit.
I'm sure if the game designers had any ability to assist with platform stability, they'd be putting their works hours into it.(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Account Secruity
People are having their account names and passwords stolen through means outside of our control. It is absolutely not happening to anywhere near that many people. They are very understandably upset and are likely to be vocal about it, and I don't think anyone can blame them, but it can create a sense that a disproportionate amount are being affected. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
The intent was to use your Blacksmith to fill those itemization gaps that can happen due to the randomized drops. The issue is the Blacksmith compared to the AH is just not worth spending gold to level up right now. It's something we're aware of. (Blue Tracker/ Official Forums)
Advanced Warning on Hotfixes
Blizzard, if you're going to change something about a class, give atleast a 24 hour window of warning so that people of said class can make adjustments.
This is our goal (for some of the reasons you've outlined), and going forward we'll be working with our developers and quality assurance teams closely to deliver as much advance notice as possible on hotfixes. We'll be providing updates as frequently as possible here.
I appreciate the response Lylirra, but the goal was not met with how this was handled.
We agree. We understand the impact that some changes can have and want to provide players with as much notice as possible so that they can prepare accordingly. We were unable to give advance warning in this situation and have taken steps to ensure that we are able to do so in the future.
Unfortunately, we are unable to provide in-game notifications of when a hotfix goes live (I saw this as a suggestion earlier in the thread), but we will be updating the hotifix list as frequently and consistently as possible. Depending on what changes are made, daily updates are likely. We may also call-out certain upcoming changes separately, in a forum post like this one. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Barbarians and Game Balancing
Thanks for the heads up, looking at Revenge.
Barbarians, please direct feedback to MetaGensis.
Too arrogant to see flaws in your game.
So sad.
We are actually looking at Revenge, but I was ... attempting to be funny. I apologize. I realize it's serious business, but I'm trying not to allow my soul to be crushed by exclamations that Legendary items and class balance are the end of the world and will never be fixed and the game is simply the worst thing ever excreted by humans. I humbly recommend a healthy dose of chillaxification, but I understand some people take that as an act of dismissal.
It's funny how everyone claims the blues post was a "joke" but if a member posts a vulgar comment they're immediately under threat of being banned? Why, I was "joking" too man! HAHA! It's all just a happy !@#$%^- world isn't it?
It's what you make of it.
The game is still very young, and it's an amazing game (as most will agree.) But there does have to be some changes in the way classes play out. We were promised various viable builds for customization, but it seems like everyone is following 1 person's build just so they can survive past Act 2 Inferno.
Absolutely! That's the problem exactly. These outlying OP skills need to be handled before we can pinpoint any content adjustments we need to make for the difficulty to feel a bit better, fight the need to kite everything which is killing melee's souls, address items, like, we understand and are working on all of these things. We're going to be working on and supporting this game for years to come, two weeks out, sure it's probably going to need some sanding. Bear with us. We love you.
Act like an animal? Oh so voicing your opinion is now considered to be barbaric? Wow, this game has really brought the best out of the community hasn't it.
You found your first post to be reasonably worded and expressed in a constructive and metered tone? K.
That the thing these thing should of been polished out before launch by blizzard's top-notch QA team, since you wouldn't let us go past level 13, because you guys could handle it without us. Which seems to not be the case as we can see.
Yup, and we can live in What Could Have Been land all the live long day, but it'd be infinitely less destructive to everyone's mental health if we could focus on the here and now and what issues exist and how we're planning to address them. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Authenticators
To be clear, the mobile authenticator (the phone application that mimics the physical authenticator code generation), and the dial-in authenticator, are not the same, and do not offer the same types of protection. While the dial-in authenticator can be a helpful addition to your account security by attempting to detect fraudulent login attempts, it is not the same as the physical and mobile authenticators which require a unique code be generated from the physical or mobile device to allow access to the account.
In addition, the dial-in authenticator is only currently supported for World of Warcraft -http://us.battle.net...ticator-faq#q-7 (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Leveling Blacksmith / Jewlcrafter
I've been prioritizing the jeweler over the blacksmith, but I'm playing multiple characters, and it makes sense to me to keep the crafters as highly-ranked as possible, because they benefit my lowest-level characters the most.
Your mileage may vary. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Metacritic
I see a 4.1 user score? Which I just want to point out is 0.1 higher than Mass Effect 3! YES!
Yeah, but an 89/100 metacritic is pretty good, IMO. Of course that means all the reviewers are just shills and who could enjoy a game where an orange colored item can be worse than a blue colored item. IT'S MADNESS. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Witch Doctor
I just started playing one myself. (I have a demon hunter and wizard as well so far). That said though (and I'm going to sound like a broken record here), we appreciate constructive feedback but "spiders sucks" isn't exactly constructive. You are almost there with this, but it would be better if you took the time to lay out the particulars of what you like or don't like and how you feel it affects your gameplay rather than a general laundry list of issues. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Wizard Nerfs
As you can see here from the recent hotfixes blog that we posted, a change has been made to this ability; it will now only absorb up to 100% of your characters maximum life. This change was made because as most wizards know, this ability was overpowered; Force Armor was the sole reason they could progress through Inferno and in most cases be near invincible.
With this change it will bring wizards more in line with the survivability of the other classes in the game.
So we are not supposed to progress thru Inferno anymore. Not a question.
You are still able to progress through inferno and we heavily expect that wizards, and every other class for that matter, will continue doing so; it is simply a matter of formulating new strategies and focusing more on your gear without relying on a particular skill to survive. We can understand that this might frustrate players who invested so heavily into building around this skill, but as has been said — it was the sole reason that wizards were so powerful and near invulnerable in Inferno which is why the change was implemented. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Character Order
Why my second character is in the first position
I believe the order is based on last played. (Source)
Amount of Players in Public Games and Matchmaking
That's weird, I wonder if it's based on ... yeah I have no idea. It could be correct as while people play multiplayer games with their friends (and by the current stats about 1/5 are in multiplayer games) not too many open up their games to public. The rumors of public game hacking could also be scaring people away from it (which is nonsense, FYI). Anyway, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people are currently playing on the Americas server alone, and we're not fully into peak hours. On a Wednesday.
With that said why is matchmaking so broken? Why is it so hard to find or get 4 people to play together in public games? Can you guys fix that please..
Yeah that's something we're aware of. It's actually the matchmaker preferring to distribute players out over the game servers for performance reasons, rather than make full games. Until we nail down more performance issues, it's on the to-do list.
So class nerfs come before platform stability.... seems legit.
I'm sure if the game designers had any ability to assist with platform stability, they'd be putting their works hours into it.(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Account Secruity
People are having their account names and passwords stolen through means outside of our control. It is absolutely not happening to anywhere near that many people. They are very understandably upset and are likely to be vocal about it, and I don't think anyone can blame them, but it can create a sense that a disproportionate amount are being affected. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
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Posted May 23, 2012-
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Posted May 23, 2012I'm so glad they're taking a look at this. I don't want to kite.
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Posted May 23, 2012Me neither. I'm okay with kiting a bit, but if my barb/monk have to spend an entire fight kiting until their stun is off CD... that is definitely not fun. At all.
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Posted May 23, 2012Yeah I think there is a big difference between "don't stand in the fire" type of deal and having to actively kite things to the point I almost may as well be a ranged class.
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Posted May 23, 2012-
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Posted May 23, 2012-
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Posted May 24, 2012I totally agree with you. Massive props to blizz people who have to deal with these whiners on a daily basis. Game gonna be too easy! Game is impossible! Fuck blizz!! It's always like that on their forums. I wouldn't have the patience for it, not even close.
I think they're looking at this the right way, start by making sure all classes are on equal ground then start looking at content. They said Inferno would take weeks/months to be farmable, If people are still stuck in act2 after a few weeks/months (and they have good gear from all the farming) then maybe it needs to be looked over.
And i totally agree that a skill should not be REQUIRED to clear content. If something is absolutely mandatory on your skill bar to do any kind of progress then it's most likely broken. Some skills might be common sense or very good to use and make your life easier but if it's mandatory I think it needs to be looked at.
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Posted May 24, 2012-
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Posted May 24, 2012Yeah, I totally love this forum instead. Full of defending fanboys who think entitled is an insult instead of a right.
Here's the harsh truth: This place is the exact opposite of that forum, and as such is equally awful.
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Posted May 24, 2012-
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Posted May 24, 2012"oh but my class is broken waaaah"
no it's not. you don't know what you're doing and you haven't collected the appropriate gear. it's like a witch doctor complaining about his pets dying after stacking vitality.
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Posted May 24, 2012-
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Posted May 24, 2012so if someone is having trouble in inferno act 1 or 2 then that's good. working as intended.
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Posted May 24, 2012-
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Posted May 24, 2012http://www.twitch.tv/nl_kripp
there is a nice stream of guy soloing act3 inferno with barb.. some kiting but not all the time.
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Posted May 24, 2012This is a great post.
Also, to those of you who say everyone who plays "doesn't have to kill Diablo". Then what is the fun of the game? A majority of players want to be able to HAVE A CHANCE at getting the best items and to be able to complete the full game. Most people (I'm not sure why anyone really likes this) don't like running into a difficulty and continuously getting one shot.
Like I have said in multiple posts now... there is a difference between difficult and just stupid. There are other ways to make the game hard besides getting one shot by every monster in A2 or HAVING TO KITE EVEN WHEN YOU ARE A MELEE CLASS.
Use a little common sense and realize that wasn't the intended purpose of the difficulty. EVEN BLIZZARD ADMITS THAT IT ISN'T BALANCED PROPERLY, YET YOU STILL DEFEND IT.
I love the game and I don't get a lot of the bitching. It's awesome, I like the itemization and I'll continue to play it even if they don't change anything. But to just defend everything that they do is foolish. Pretty much every game that comes out needs tweeking and changes, it's impossible to release a perfect product.
Luckily Blizzard isn't as stupid as a lot of the posters on the official forum and they aren't as stubborn as the ones on here. They are going to do what is right for the game in the end... and look for a way to make Inferno challenging outside of making Inferno a place where you grind through by dying hundreds of times regardless of what you do or how you gear.
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Posted May 24, 2012I was thinking the same thing. Bash is very unprofessional.
This is my main gripe with it. It seems like at the very least you need Act 2 Inferno Gear to survive in Act 2. The problem is... if you get 1 shot in Act 2 with Act 1 gear.... how exactly do you get Act 2 gear? I can kill normal monsters and I can graveyard rush a few easy rares in Act 2 to VERY SLOWLY get Act 2 gear but how is that fun? I wouldn't even call that playing Diablo. I'd prefer to farm Act 1 but I already have and I have Act 1 Set's, uniques and rares. I have them rolled with +int, +vit, +all resists (I'm a WD)... but it doesn't matter. I get 1-2 shot by champs/rares in act 2.
I think it comes down to lack of testing. They couldn't do Inferno so they didn't know what type of gear will allow you to survive in Inferno. They didn't know a thing, they just took a shot in the dark. This is what you get when you design a game like that... it doesn't take a genius to see that coming a mile away.
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Posted May 24, 2012The basic problem that the game is facing is that Blizzard has to cater to two demographics at the same time. There is the veterans, who played D2 and loved every second of it (like me). Those are the people who have a lot of expereince in the genre and also a lot of expectations. They want their gaming exprience to be challenging and difficult so that there is higher skill ceiling in the game and more potential for greatness and adrenaline-filled action. Then there is the causal crowd, the ones who didn't get to experience D1 or D2. And who can blame them? The game is 12 years old and for some of them that's just too far back to have played it and coming back to it now is difficult. Those are the people who need easing into the game and need to have a good learning curve so that the game is fun and they get to develop gradually.
The issue is that catering to one does not cater to the other. If you make the game easy so the casual fan can finish everything and not throw tantrums and keyboards all around, the hardcore fan will be bored off of his ass. If you make the game difficult so that even the hardcore players and minmaxers have a hard time going through it, you will have swarms of casual fans demanding that all content be made accessible to them as well. No matter what you do you will not please everybody. The only way to do this is to have dedicated sections for each. Casual fans have normal where they can screw around without much punishment and if they feel like it they can go nightmare and hell to test their skills and improve. The hardcore fans have inferno to sink their teeth into and really get the most challenge out of their game. Nerfing inferno sounds a lot like making inferno accessible to the casual while removing this dedicated section for the hardcore players. The basic design philosophy for inferno was that not everybody will get to experience it, it's the difficulty for the elite and quite naturally it will carry elite benefits only for those who are good enough to make it there. If you remove these benefits so that the casual fan does really have access to all the gear and such, what entices a hardcore player to play Inferno when he knows he will get bugger all out of his play time and might as well just play Hell over and over again for the same benefit?
As for the one shots, they are in fact a test of skill and ability. I remember playing Titan Quest, another hack and slash game in the style of Diablo. The best feature in that game was that on higher difficulties, bosses and some mobs had skills that just simply meant guaranteed death if you didn't learn to avoid them. If you were mindless and ignored what the enemy was doing, you were dead guaranteed 100% of the time you fought to boss and could do 6000 runs and never get it. If you were skillful and kited the dangerous abilities, you were in for a fast paced, high octane fight full of near escapes and close calls and you really got a great feeling of reward out of your skill in playing the game. Would you get the boss the first time? Hell no. But through learning their tells and knowing what to do when and what's coming you could gradually master the boss and the next time you encountered him with a different character you suddenly found that it wasn't all that terribly hard if you played well.
Diablo 3 has been out for a week and a half. How can any of you expect to have mastered the game so that you can tell what needs nerfing and what is balanced? Nobody has the experience with the game necessary to judge anything. I'm not 100% defending what Blizzard has produced and that it shouldn't never ever be touched. All I'm saying is, it's just too damn early to try and think about balancing the game when the feedback they get is from people who have a whooping 10 days of experience in the game. So hold your damn horses and don't go all nerf this nerf that balance this class and this needs to be buffed when we know bugger all about the game at this point. If anybody thinks that they have the perfect build that should be able to beat inferno and they are unable to pull it off, think about this. The game doesn't necessarily have to be broken, it's just that maybe your knowledge of the possible builds and gear isn't good enough after 10 freaking days.
Another thing. People wanting better gear. I repeat whe have had exactly 10 days to farm the items. There's no way anybody is geared up well enough to think they can progress through inferno as if it were hell difficulty. What happens in the long run? After year or two when people will be all geared up with the best of the best items in the game through constant farming, just playing the game or buying stuff through the AH? Suddenly with the ideal gear inferno will not be so hard anymore, people will start progressing through at some slow pace. If they make gear better and/or nerf Inferno now, what will people be doing on year from today? Being bored of the game cause it's too damn easy.
Funny how people have become these days. I don't remember id Software thinking about nerfing Doom 2's Nightmare difficulty even though it was unreal how hard it was. There are just difficulties that are not meant for everybody, deal with it.
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Posted May 24, 2012If you sink that much into staying alive, then you should be able to survive longer... but the trade off should come with you not being able to do enough damage and being slowly broken down.
People who say they have a lot of experience in the genre forget that when Diablo 2 first came out, Hell difficulty was a ton harder than it was in Diablo 2: LoD... but it was nothing like Inferno is now. You could still go into Hell and not get instantly smashed, but getting to the end of it without dying a lot was still difficult.
I dunno, like I have said countless times... there are more ways to make the game difficult than to just make monsters do absurd amounts of damage. The monsters in the game are complex enough that if you make the fights longer, skill will shine through.
I watched some videos from that Kripparian dude (I think that's how you spell it) and he's able to stay alive some of the time. But he has a lot of gear that I don't think is attainable until A3/A4 Inferno. So like many people are saying... how do you survive when you can't get the appropriate gear to survive?
The game has flaws, I'm confident Blizzard will fix it.
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Posted May 24, 2012