I can't tell you the years that I poured into D2. For some reason it took me awhile to want to even play D3. I bought it with my PS4, but it sat while I played all the other games.
So, this Christmas break I finally started. I picked a Crusader for the first play through. I started initially on Normal difficulty and dug in. I'm enjoying the game, but it really is not challenging at all. By the end of Act 1 I had upped the difficulty to Hard (the other levels are locked), but I haven't even broke a sweat with anything.
No, I'm not the greatest player in the world, in fact I am intentionally playing with some pretty bad tactics. That's where I have some concerns.
Ive just started Act 3 and my Crusader is already level 40. He deals about 3000 damage, and that seems fairly normal. In the boss fights I've faced so far, none have done any damage it me, my health has never been lower than 90% and it is only there for a split second. That's because my defense rating is 51.5k.
Yes and no. The fact that you probably level slower and let's say less efficient than a player that has 1k+ hours into this game makes it so that your gear is a lot better than what a "fast" leveler would have at that point. It is normal to increase and decrease the difficulty that you play at depending on the gear you get.
As a reference, fresh lvl 60 chars used to have about 10k damage back in vanilla diablo, so the 3k that you have at 40 is significant. I'd suggest you increase the difficulty to Hard, Expert or Master and look where it puts you. Is it still way too low? go higher. Are they killing you? Go back down. I am pretty sure you should be able to play all difficulty levels except torment, so there should be more than just Normal and Hard?
The leveling used to be more challenging, but it was nerfed alot. The only purpose now is to tell you a story and get you familiar with your class. The real game begins on 70th level now. You will unlock more difficulty levels after you beat the game first time.
I will check to see if I can go up more. I'm already on Hard, and I've never even been close to death.
My current strategy is to run to get as many enemies on screen as possible so I can get the biggest massacre and XP bonus. Currently my best is 187ish.
Killing the Butcher, Maghda, Ghom took about 30 seconds, Belial took a minute or so. I have no need to dodge, use tactics, chase health drops... I just stand in front of them and swing until they fall.
Playing through the campaign the first time is basically the game's (sadly neglected) tutorial now. Once you finish the game for the first time, Adventure Mode opens, with a huge increase in difficulty settings at 70, which is what everyone actually plays.
(Actually not sure if the PS4 version is the same, but I assume so?)
Back to Vanilla, you should be at lv 25 at the end of act 1. But today, it's far easy to lv up. This happens just because actual game play starts at lv 70, and difficulty becomes interestig just about Torment 3+. You will feel a little hard to pass the limite line to Torment 4 to 6, and again to Torment 8-10. But with a few hours of game play you will be fine to run T10 speeds soon. Bad game designe that puts all effort at Adventure mode, having the Campaign mode just for fun at first.
Most of us play the Campaign only a few times. After you know better the game Adventures mode with bounties and rifts becomes mode interesting. But D3 is a farming ARPG. All final objectives are after T10 difficulty. and you will need some hundred hours to prepare for most of them properly.
Excellent, thanks for all the feedback. I am going to keep bumping up the difficulty as I unlock it. You guys say the first play through is slow, but it feels like I'm running through it now. I'll keep going and look forward to playing at level 70.
I can vaguely recall when I first got the game (on release day) and my friend and I played trough most of it together. I was a DH and he was a Barb. It wasn't very difficult (this was just Normal mode, of the Normal/Nightmare/Hell/Inferno options that existed back then) but we did die here and there. I think a big difference is the nature of loot drops though. Back then rare (yellow) items were actually rare and there were no smart drops so even when you did find a good item it probably wasn't for your class, so overall your gear was much worse.
Back then it was like Diablo 2 in structure; no endgame, just the story to play through and if you wanted to farm you could do so in some area of the story.
Now the focus is 99% on endgame features that were added around the RoS release.
It's too bad they don't open torment 1 difficulty for new players from the start. You can actually start to experience challenge at that difficulty when playing through the story with a fresh, no-paragon character.
May have been said already, but they added a restriction to moving to torment levels. You have to have 70. Then some paragon. How much depends on the torment level. iirc 200 will open all levels. To me crusader is one of the easier classes in early game as they are fairly hardy. Not like a WD or DH. Even a Wiz is tougher as they have INT, which boost resistance.
Well its very easy on low diffs. I usually start new season on torment 2-3 and drop down to master after lvl60 and instantly up to torment again on 70.
But that 1300 VIT for lvl40 seems high. Id expect to have someting like that when hitting lvl70.=D
Could explain why you are tanky.
Its kinda fast to level now, but even if you say your going fast remember that 1-70 on new season takes 4-5 hours for many.
Last season I was lvl70 paragon 130 when I went to sleep (played solo), That was in 8 hours with the normal breaks for food, toilet and drinks.
Right there with you, man. Got the game a month ago, rolled a crusader, and was bored to tears by Act 2. I could literally walk through levels with my eyes closed and mashing the right trigger until I ran out of wrath, taunt to get all my wrath back, then rinse and repeat.
But I beat the game and hit 70 last week and things are sooooo much better now that I'm doing rifts and bounties on torment 2 (perfect level for me right now as it gives me plenty of "oh *@?!" moments while still being manageable).
So yeah, you're not doing anything wrong. Sadly, you just gotta grind out the story "tutorial" mode until you unlock the actual game and can start hunting legendary gems, set and crafting recipies, etc.
I'm a little torn on this... On one hand I'm happy to know that the game has a lot to offer after the campaign. On the other hand, it is disappointing that campaign isn't very challenging and becomes a grind to get to the end.
I took my time exploring every nook and cranny during the campaign but YMMV and you might be better off just putting it on normal mode and roflstomping to the end quickly to unlock adventure mode.
Honestly, I almost have up on the game a couple of times going through the story but I'm so glad I didn't... Totally addicted to endgame playing now and trying to get the mats I need to twink my new Mage (hellfire amulet, gem of ease, etc.). Plus I still have to hunt down kanai's cube and the endgame gear for my crusader. Probably going to be playing this game exclusively for a while.
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I can't tell you the years that I poured into D2. For some reason it took me awhile to want to even play D3. I bought it with my PS4, but it sat while I played all the other games.
So, this Christmas break I finally started. I picked a Crusader for the first play through. I started initially on Normal difficulty and dug in. I'm enjoying the game, but it really is not challenging at all. By the end of Act 1 I had upped the difficulty to Hard (the other levels are locked), but I haven't even broke a sweat with anything.
No, I'm not the greatest player in the world, in fact I am intentionally playing with some pretty bad tactics. That's where I have some concerns.
Ive just started Act 3 and my Crusader is already level 40. He deals about 3000 damage, and that seems fairly normal. In the boss fights I've faced so far, none have done any damage it me, my health has never been lower than 90% and it is only there for a split second. That's because my defense rating is 51.5k.
Is is this normal?
I will post a screenshot later.
Yes and no. The fact that you probably level slower and let's say less efficient than a player that has 1k+ hours into this game makes it so that your gear is a lot better than what a "fast" leveler would have at that point. It is normal to increase and decrease the difficulty that you play at depending on the gear you get.
As a reference, fresh lvl 60 chars used to have about 10k damage back in vanilla diablo, so the 3k that you have at 40 is significant. I'd suggest you increase the difficulty to Hard, Expert or Master and look where it puts you. Is it still way too low? go higher. Are they killing you? Go back down. I am pretty sure you should be able to play all difficulty levels except torment, so there should be more than just Normal and Hard?
The leveling used to be more challenging, but it was nerfed alot. The only purpose now is to tell you a story and get you familiar with your class. The real game begins on 70th level now. You will unlock more difficulty levels after you beat the game first time.
I will check to see if I can go up more. I'm already on Hard, and I've never even been close to death.
My current strategy is to run to get as many enemies on screen as possible so I can get the biggest massacre and XP bonus. Currently my best is 187ish.
Killing the Butcher, Maghda, Ghom took about 30 seconds, Belial took a minute or so. I have no need to dodge, use tactics, chase health drops... I just stand in front of them and swing until they fall.
Playing through the campaign the first time is basically the game's (sadly neglected) tutorial now. Once you finish the game for the first time, Adventure Mode opens, with a huge increase in difficulty settings at 70, which is what everyone actually plays.
(Actually not sure if the PS4 version is the same, but I assume so?)
I've unlocked Master now, so I will go up the next time I play.
Just grabbed a screenshot:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CXj8Uj1WEAAGXH5?format=pjpg&name=large
Back to Vanilla, you should be at lv 25 at the end of act 1. But today, it's far easy to lv up. This happens just because actual game play starts at lv 70, and difficulty becomes interestig just about Torment 3+. You will feel a little hard to pass the limite line to Torment 4 to 6, and again to Torment 8-10. But with a few hours of game play you will be fine to run T10 speeds soon. Bad game designe that puts all effort at Adventure mode, having the Campaign mode just for fun at first.
Most of us play the Campaign only a few times. After you know better the game Adventures mode with bounties and rifts becomes mode interesting. But D3 is a farming ARPG. All final objectives are after T10 difficulty. and you will need some hundred hours to prepare for most of them properly.
Excellent, thanks for all the feedback. I am going to keep bumping up the difficulty as I unlock it. You guys say the first play through is slow, but it feels like I'm running through it now. I'll keep going and look forward to playing at level 70.
I can vaguely recall when I first got the game (on release day) and my friend and I played trough most of it together. I was a DH and he was a Barb. It wasn't very difficult (this was just Normal mode, of the Normal/Nightmare/Hell/Inferno options that existed back then) but we did die here and there. I think a big difference is the nature of loot drops though. Back then rare (yellow) items were actually rare and there were no smart drops so even when you did find a good item it probably wasn't for your class, so overall your gear was much worse.
Back then it was like Diablo 2 in structure; no endgame, just the story to play through and if you wanted to farm you could do so in some area of the story.
Now the focus is 99% on endgame features that were added around the RoS release.
It's too bad they don't open torment 1 difficulty for new players from the start. You can actually start to experience challenge at that difficulty when playing through the story with a fresh, no-paragon character.
May have been said already, but they added a restriction to moving to torment levels. You have to have 70. Then some paragon. How much depends on the torment level. iirc 200 will open all levels. To me crusader is one of the easier classes in early game as they are fairly hardy. Not like a WD or DH. Even a Wiz is tougher as they have INT, which boost resistance.
i'm new. Just started playing today and I feel so lost....
But that 1300 VIT for lvl40 seems high. Id expect to have someting like that when hitting lvl70.=D
Could explain why you are tanky.
Its kinda fast to level now, but even if you say your going fast remember that 1-70 on new season takes 4-5 hours for many.
Last season I was lvl70 paragon 130 when I went to sleep (played solo), That was in 8 hours with the normal breaks for food, toilet and drinks.
After vanilla on old gen, it's the same
Right there with you, man. Got the game a month ago, rolled a crusader, and was bored to tears by Act 2. I could literally walk through levels with my eyes closed and mashing the right trigger until I ran out of wrath, taunt to get all my wrath back, then rinse and repeat.
But I beat the game and hit 70 last week and things are sooooo much better now that I'm doing rifts and bounties on torment 2 (perfect level for me right now as it gives me plenty of "oh *@?!" moments while still being manageable).
So yeah, you're not doing anything wrong. Sadly, you just gotta grind out the story "tutorial" mode until you unlock the actual game and can start hunting legendary gems, set and crafting recipies, etc.
I'm a little torn on this... On one hand I'm happy to know that the game has a lot to offer after the campaign. On the other hand, it is disappointing that campaign isn't very challenging and becomes a grind to get to the end.
I took my time exploring every nook and cranny during the campaign but YMMV and you might be better off just putting it on normal mode and roflstomping to the end quickly to unlock adventure mode.
Honestly, I almost have up on the game a couple of times going through the story but I'm so glad I didn't... Totally addicted to endgame playing now and trying to get the mats I need to twink my new Mage (hellfire amulet, gem of ease, etc.). Plus I still have to hunt down kanai's cube and the endgame gear for my crusader. Probably going to be playing this game exclusively for a while.