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    posted a message on Bashiok Responds
    Quote from "goodguy8705" »
    Blatently is the word you want. No biggie, you'll get it next time.

    Look it up before you flame over word choice next time, jackass. Spelling your replacement word correctly might be helpful too, rofl.

    I'll get back to ya later sil, just had to respond to the twerp.
    Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
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    posted a message on Bashiok Responds
    Quote from "Sildrugtanni" »
    Diablo was a game of items and practice. What do you mean by reasoned analysis? Don't try and make the game sound more in depth or complicated than it was, because it wasn't. You got good items, did some research into how to counter such and such build and what to do when something arose, then practiced until you could effectively use it in actual combat. It's not enough to simply know that you need to do something to counter something else. You have to put in some work to develop the reaction time and practical know-how needed to use it. This is a simple example, but when I first started doing magic find runs off Mephisto, I knew that the best way to do it was to stand across the river and keep out of range of his spells while simultaneously making sure you can still hit him. I died a decent number of times until I was able to figure out what those ranges were, regardless of the fact that I did research ahead of time. As far as PvP goes, you could spend a bunch of time reading the kind of damage other peoples' skills do, what works against those skills, how to deal with pets and what not, but that doesn't mean you'll necessarily be able to recall it and put it into action quick enough unless you give it some practice. As far as Smash goes, I know plenty of very good players, and every single one of them would say that the biggest thing you need to become skilled at the game is practice. I know how the mechanics of Smash works, I know what sort of counters or attacks I should be using against certain characters, but I'm still mediocre at the game because I don't play very often.

    Honestly I'd love to adress the rest of your post but I have two midterms this week and should be getting to studying. I will say that it's refreshing to argue with someone who isn't an idiot.

    What I mean by reasoned analysis is this: choosing items/charms/skills/stat distributions based on your OWN understanding of the game, and not some guide's. For example, I was most active in 1.09-1.10, and quit just before 1.11 or whatever came out. After 09, every barbarian out there, every barbarian guide, was telling people to use steelrends for gloves. These gloves had some high strength bonus and some ED% or something. I didn't take those guides at face value; I went through every unique glove on the arreat summit site looking for something better. I stumbled on Dracul's grasp, with 25% open wounds and a lesser strength bonus. Because I actually understood the meaning of 25% open wounds versus 40 str and 20% ED (or whatever those numbers were), I was able to do some math and see which glove would make me the more effective BvBer. The clear winner was Dracul's, yet whatever forum I posted on or person I told, no one agreed, because no one had taken the time to do a [B]reasoned analysis [/B]of the item properties involved.

    Fast forward to now, where every BvB guide tells the player to use Dracul's. Time has proven me right. Another example: angelic set amulet and rings. Everybody was so focused on damage, damage, damage. All the guides were advocating Mara's amulet for the plus skills, and a raven frost, and another ring I can't remember. I recognized that the angelic set amulet and rings gave a huge bonus to AR at high levels, weighed that bonus mathematically against the damage bonus from all other possible amulet/ring setups, and decided that the angelics were far superior. Again, time has proven me right.

    The point is that these sorts of analyses are the thing that should separate great players from the masses. Diminishing the various parameters that players can tinker with, by definition, does just that.


    As for smash bros: I'm not speaking from a casual perspective. I'm the undisputed 64 smash champion of my school (no, it isn't in south dakota). I can tell you that yes, practice is very, very important. But I got where I am from watching Isai the master play, seeing how he reacts to different situations, seeing how he combos people. There's the practice of just playing the game a lot, which is relatively useless after a point. Then there's the practice of deliberately studying the weights of every character, understanding exactly how each moves through the air at what damage %. There's doing combos over and over in different situations until they're perfect. And then there's putting all that into an actual battle and tweaking it to fit your opponent's style. Practice helps--but it can only do so much without some very focused analysis. You say that you understand game mechanics, but I doubt you know how to properly space a forward air fastfall jump forward air with pikachu, for example.

    Quote from "slidrugtrani »
    I guess we will have to agree to disagree because I could never call the attribute system in Diablo II anything but a nuisance. That's not to say stats had no effect, because they obviously did, but as much as you'd like to argue that your careful planning was what got you so much health, you are not representative of the population.[B] I've seen plenty of people with over 5k health: the barbs and druids who pumped a lot more vit over dex; life in lue of block. It was also those with insane gear.[/B'] For you to reach 7k health, you would need top gear and a lot of vit, and that is that. Besides, what do you defined as a reasonable stat distribution. The reason people say everyone just pumps this or pumps that is because that is what works. You want max block? You gotta pump dex. You want high life? You have to pump vit. No one pumped into energy because it was worthless, and there was pretty much no point in pumping strength beyond what your gear needed (I think any knowledgable player would agree that the benefit to getting more life outweight the benefit of a bit more damage from higher strength).

    I do have to respond to this though. I hope you don't mean to suggest that I was bragging about 7k life without 75% block, because that is ridiculous. I didn't think I had to say that my barb had max block; what kind of idiot melee pvper didn't? About the insane gear...insane gear means a 415 botd instead of a 385. The difference is tiny. I never went for those "insane" items because of their absurd cost; I had a 15% DR dungo's with only 39 vit instead of 40, big deal. The build was what mattered. Also, I never said anything about druids, who can easily get over 10k health with oak sage and a proper build.
    Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
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    posted a message on Bashiok Responds
    Quote from "Sildrugtanni" »
    To your first point, I think that's a load of crap. Every single person I personally knew who played barely did any PvP. The PvP system in Diablo II was crap, and it got boring/frustrating after about 15 minutes (in my opinion). Not to say that my friends and I are representative of the population, but I bet a very large group of people played for the PvM aspect. Why do people spend hours and hours in MMOs raiding/farming bosses? Not so much to be able to kill better bosses faster, but because of the satisfaction in finding a new, awesome weapon or replacing that piece of crap chest piece you've had since 10 levels back. I loved finding items in Diablo II for the joy of finding items, not for PvP.

    I'm actually shocked. My jaw literally dropped when I read that. How long did it take you to get rich enough to trade for whatever item you wanted? It took me maybe 2 months after I got the hang of trading. After that, by your logic, I would have just wanted to quit. The ONLY thing that kept me playing for YEARS afterwards was the epic duels that I had with some of the best barbarians on UsWest. That, and owning countless (perpetual) noobs in pub duel games. The only reason I spent any time on WoW was the competition for the top of the damage meter, and the satisfaction of being on top more times than not. Getting new and awesome weapons was fun, but putting them to use in competition was the main (and non-transitory) benefit to having them.




    Quote from "Sildrugtanni »
    To your second point, of [B]course[/B] it's a matter of time spent. You can study the game all you want, but if you don't spend a good amount of time putting it into practice, it doesn't meant squat. Moreover, I can't believe you're making such an argument over the attribute system. The attribute didn't add one iota of strategy to that game. You either did one of two or three things or your character blew and got owned by everyone else, it was that simple. The stat system was [B]not[/B'] a parameter of excellence, nor did it make any of the time spent planning less important, because you didn't spend that much time on stats. You pumped dex to max block (subtracting item stat points), pumped strength to match your gear requirements, and the rest into vit (or no block and all vit).

    Obviously some time is required to put all that careful thought into practice. My point (which you totally failed to adress) was that time input past a certain, [B]low[/B], minimum should not be very important. What should be important is the careful thought that goes into planning a perfect character. My time input, as I said, was significantly less than many other players; the reason I destroyed them was planning and an understanding of game mechanics, not time spent.

    The stat system [B]was[/B] a parameter of excellence. Everyone always says "oh all players just pumped vit and that was it". I respond that some players tried to do a reasonable stat distribution, and of those most failed at it. In all my public duel games, over the course of maybe 4 years, not once did I come by a barb with more than 5k health. [B]Not once[/B]. Tell me how if everyone was doing perfect stat distributions, nobody had my 7k? By giving everyone a perfect stat distribution, blizzard not only puts players who tried reasonable stat distributions on the level of the best planners; they put players who didn't even bother trying at that level.

    Edit to italo:
    Quote from "italofoca" »
    And if you are truelly better then someone, just prove it with your SKILL, not by using other ppl's lack of time and patience to reroll their chars, ok ?

    That's why I play smash bros, and I prove it all the god damn time. Don't lecture me about skill based games. Diablo 2 isn't one of them. Neither is the abomination WoW, for that matter. It's a game of planning and reasoned analysis.

    By the way, the [B]reason[/B] I'm good at smash bros (an entirely skill based game) is because I have studied it carefully, watched the best play, etc. I didn't expect to be good effortlessly, which is what you've suggested.
    Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
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    posted a message on Bashiok Responds
    Quote from "Krow" »
    Diablo is a PvM, not PvP, game.

    That is patently false. The only reason anyone played Diablo 2 through more than a few times was to build perfect pvp characters. Really, what the hell is the point of getting better gear and optimizing your stats/skills/charms? To kill baal and his minions faster? I hope that last sentence conveyed my incredulity..

    Edit to Italfoca:

    Quote from "italofoca" »
    @angelmaz:For God sake, diablo is not school. To play a game you don't have to study it first. Reroll is something 100% frustrating that only ppl who have almost unlimited time to play a game accept. This elitist point of view, were the ones who can dedicates hours in lvling like 300 characters must excentially be better then the someone that wants to level up just one is redicolous. As i said, if you want to be better then someone, you must get a competitive game. And for a game been competitive the only factor that diferenciate a good and a bad play is SKILL. Not patience and time to make the same thing again and again 300 times.

    To be good at any worthwhile game one must study it, understand how it works, how to take advantage of every possible opportunity and maximize every parameter of excellence. It isn't a question of time spent; plenty of the perpetual noobs I often refer to (players who play the game for years without ever comprehending game mechanics) play much more than me. The difference is that I spend more time thinking carefully about how best to play the game. Fools like yourself don't want to have to do this, and are tired of being owned by more thoughtful players like myself. Removing aspects of customization, and thus parameters of excellence, makes the careful thought and preparation that should go into making a perfect character less important. That is a tragedy to all the real gamers out there.
    Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
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    posted a message on Bashiok Responds
    Quote from "Sandman53" »
    Oh, and to those who said people need to fail to learn. There is nothing fun about realising that the character you have been leveling for weeks has just been fucked up because you allocated his stats or skills "wrong", and now have to re-level the same character just to be on par with other players or the difficulty.

    Why the quotation marks? You think that there shouldn't be a wrong answer, that there "are no wrong answers" or some other bullshit cop-out position? You should be able to fuck your character up utterly, just as you can fail utterly at actually playing the game.

    When you answer that 2+2 is five in kindergarten, other kids or the teacher correct you and you actually learn the right answer. Those that don't never make it anywhere, as it should be. The same principle applies to retarded engineering students who can't even grasp the concept of partial differential equations, and similar examples. There is such a thing as being WRONG, and learning from it is critical.
    Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
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    posted a message on One lifelong fan loses interest in Diablo III
    Those perpetual noobs I was talking about: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
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    posted a message on Bashiok Responds
    Quote from "Dvirus55" »
    Annnnd with that, we can stop hearing all the crying about people wanting to make a bow barbarian or a melee wizard because now they can -_-

    I never wanted to do that random shit, though I believe players should have the option to. I wanted the game to retain another parameter of excellence (stat distribution) that separated me, and players like me, from the unwashed masses of clueless perpetual noobs.
    Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
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    posted a message on average game for D2 1.2 players - JW IS WRONG
    Quote from "DarkWyrm989" »
    I think the 4 player limit is due to more than one thing. 4 player is more spooky, more horror vibe.

    That's your conjecture, and it's patently false anyway. The number of players in game has nothing to do with "spooky vibe" or whatever you want to call it.

    Quote from "DarkWyrm" »
    And the technical reqs, like how much they can push the awesomeness of FX.

    Bullshit. That's what graphics options are for. So people with mediocre systems can turn things off. They should make it look as good as they possibly can at maximum graphics options, with a host of ways to make it look worse but run faster. You know, like all other successful modern games.

    Btw, MY computer is mediocre, so I'm not saying this from an uber machine standpoint. It's a god damn laptop. 1.7ghz core 2 duo, 256 mb radeon X1400, 1 gig DDR2, 5400 rpm SATA HD.
    Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
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    posted a message on average game for D2 1.2 players - JW IS WRONG
    Quote from "Doppelganger" »
    Please, the only reason why you weren't in "close knit groups" in Diablo is because you didn't have any friends. I'm pretty sure you made a kazillion "i need halp, PLZZZZ" games and felt butthurt people ignored you and if they didn't half of the time only joined your pathetic games to hostile your ass. I think i'm correct in saying that you naively expected everyone to be the goody two shoes and help out a poor sod like you, well boohoo to you and now you need big ol Blizz to make it all right for you.


    ahahahaha

    so true! I didn't even think of that
    Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
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    posted a message on One lifelong fan loses interest in Diablo III
    Quote from "Dimebog" »
    Fixed.

    3 already shows deeper, more tactical combat mechanics and stronger RPG elements.

    Don't be absurd. Combat is going to be slightly more compex than D2, if that. Anything more and it won't even be diablo.
    Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
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    posted a message on One lifelong fan loses interest in Diablo III
    Meh, character customization was something I was exceptionally good at. Good planning, deep understanding of game mechanics, etc. I doubt that active skills in this kind of action rpg will be nearly as complicated or deep, so these noobs will essentially get a "free ride" on one of the most important parts of character customization.

    People say that everyone in diablo followed the cookie cutter stat mentality. I respond by saying that some people tried to follow a proper stat distribution, and the overwhelming majority of those failed at it. Giving everyone a perfect stat distribution takes away just one more facet of the game intelligent players can take advantage of, another parameter of excellence.
    Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
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    posted a message on One lifelong fan loses interest in Diablo III
    Quote from "Archetype_Zero" »
    What experienced players? As soon as D3 comes out, we are all "noobs," but i guarantee there will be people running around on the release date calling people noobs.

    You clearly misunderstood his post. He wasn't referring to new players. He was referring to perpetual noobs--players who play for years without ever comprehending (sometimes even realizing that they must comprehend, haha) game mechanics.
    Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
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    posted a message on One lifelong fan loses interest in Diablo III
    Quote from "JNM-illiquid" »
    The auto stats is a heaps bad decision aswell as it puts very experienced gamers who extensively play the game on the same lvl as noobs (stat wise) who have no idea what they're doing. Where is the reward in being a smarter more skilled player. and where is the desire for the new players to want to learn how to be better and improve themselves.

    That's exactly what I've been saying.
    Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
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    posted a message on PvP - System
    Quote from "ShadowGoat" »
    Why are you keeping the team sizes so linear? Whats wrong with a good ol' 1 v 4... Not every day you can find a person as good as you...

    QFT! Back in 09 with leech I'd go like 6 on 1 BvB
    Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
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    posted a message on Four Acts?
    Quote from "oren88" »
    he said "it's can go fast or slow it's up to you" someone yelled "that's what she said"..

    LOL! Lighten up, I'd laugh my fucking ass off if I were him. Link??
    Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
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