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I havent done anything on the PTR and I can't seem to find satisfactory answers regarding Imperial Gems: Please feel free to correct any of my (bad) assumptions:

What I have found/assume to be true:

1) They will drop like legendaries

2) They are higher level than Marquis both in terms of rank and effect

3) They can be combined to make even higher level gems.

What i can not find:

a) Are they a continuation of the current gem ordering? (are they really HIGHER than Marquis or the start of some new system)

Did they drop any tiers of gems?

c) Why the heck are current gem prices through the roof if a potential drop which is literally the equivalent of a thousand or more "flawless square" drops just around the corner with the expansion.

/I'm basically wondering if I made a huge mistake unloading my stacks of flawless squares for HUGE profit or if I just got lucky for once.

Quote from Ryude

If the console is anything to go by, you wont even need magic find anymore. I have found 20 legendaries and I haven't even hit level 40 yet.

That number is just unbelievable - and I am NOT saying you're making it up. From what I've seen of the console they seem to fall like rain. Gonna miss that little thrill that the "legendary drop sound" used to give - hell it still worked its magic when a keywarden would drop a key.

I'd say there's a fairly large minority of people (myself and several others) who aren't really all that interested in starting over every year - I have a wife and kids and while starting over "fresh" with the new expansion is something I expect most people will do (including me) I won't be starting fresh every time they reset the seasonal ladder.

I'm 100% confident there will be a non-seasonal ranking based on total paragon xp that will span the entirety of D3 - would be just as nice to see my account climb a few places on that ranking as the seasonal ladder.

If you factor in things like endless dungeons and trials (whatever they called it I cant remember) - if there is ANY kind of ranking system for these "events" then people will be interested in playing non-ladder as well because ultimately the characters with the highest of everything (DPS, HP, whatever) are going to be non-ladder characters with hundreds and hundreds of paragon levels AND gear accumulated over years.

I had considered crafting mats but basically came to the same conclusion - potentially they have a high upside but I figure there are at least several scenarios that would devastate their carry over value:

a) Their is an entirely new tier of materials for items ilvl 63-70
They greatly decrease the amount needed for each craft
c) They increase the amount of materials you get from one salvage
d) They add a new drop only BoA item to all high level crafts (essences)

I've never had 150M gold - so by most standards I am stupidly poor but given my play time compared to a casual player I know I have still had at least 10x as much gold move through my account. Current crafting for me is gold limited, while the insanely rich are essence limited - ,materials in either case are a minor complication. I'm guessing they will maintain the essence limiting factor to crafting (you have to play a lot to craft a lot).

None of those situations points to a surge in the value of materials.

I liked certain aspects of the AH but it did totally ruin the EQ hunt in nearly every respect.- I think the GAME could be better for it.

Having said that the price of gems has more than quintupled in the last 24 hours.

Diablo is about the eq hunt and followers are a place to put more eq. I think they added a fair amount of flavor to the game AND there are legitimate choices to be made regarding which ones to use (well at least Sorceress v. Rogue)

Playing on PC I abandoned any hope of them doing real DPS a long time ago - by the time you reach inferno they might as well be throwing spitballs - but you can squeeze some extra MF/GF out of them and the sorceress can actually be quite good for crowd control.

I'd hope they'd at least give them a few more skills to choose from and maybe an eq slot or two - can never have enough places to stash interesting eq.

Quote from Slakr

hmm changes to the DH are not what I imagine and some of them seem like nerf... but I gues that now that we won't have op builds like WotB, Archon wizard or CM wizard everything will be more equal between classes... So let's see everything looks interesting.

Great work guys! and ty for the info.

Well my take was that they did nerf the DH - which I find almost shocking since I basically abandoned mine at P41 for a new WD I built for considerably less cost (not that I ever had much gold) but was able to get to MP7 pretty quickly whereas my DH could never effectively get past MP3. I'm no expert player but it's pretty well agreed DH is currently the most borked class.

I went in to the read expecting to see more buffs but it's definitely a mixed bag, maybe even a nerf in total.

I'd also say they're trying to cut crit chance percentages in half - no more 70+% crit chance builds I think.

I guess I understand Blizzards reason for public games being the way they are but I have NEVER thought the new system was superior in any meaningful way to the D2 games were joined. Even being able to see how "old" a game was, was very useful. Hey I wanna run A1 for xp but that game is 12 minutes old - they're probably at 5 stacks and in Fields or Hallow already. - but NO, you get dropped in to whatever game the server decides. Wasting tons to time trying to find a game near the beginning, or sequentially dropped in games where people are selling off their junk with most areas cleared - even getting dropped back in to the SAME game you just quit.

Quote from aljung

In what universe is NV too restrictive? He probably didn't play any D2....

Obviously wants to be able to change skills for different elite packs - what's it take, maybe 5-8 minutes to get a full 5 stacks (less in A2 if you start in VoA)? If you can be bothered to make a new game and "waste" 5 minutes to try a "new build" you've never actually played the game to the end. I think they should leave it alone or get rid of the number of skills on your hotbar restrictions because the one is useless without the other.

Quote from csense

"There will be no runewords in Reaper of Souls. Or runes as knew them in Diablo II for that matter."
But there should be. Finding armor and weapons and weapons and armor and even more armor is no variety. Finding runes, relics, high quality gems, charms, armor with x sockets, that makes item hunt fun. Maybe I will not find a good weapon today but I might find a good charm, that gave players motivation. It is frustrating that the devs don't see or understand something simple like this.

Pretty sure they will eventually get to their earlier idea about some sort of charm/socketable medallion for additional customization. Probably at least a year down from the expansion launch however since I'm guessing all the "new" things that might drop from the expansion will relate to using the Mystic for crafting.

Quote from itirnitii

You'll probably be asked if you want to convert your character to expansion, and once you do you can't go back. Expansion characters only play with expansion characters. Just like Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm.

If you're allowed to keep your characters I agree: Which automatically requires a separate GAH/RMAH to be created (would be needed anyway IMHO).

Now, if one of the biggest problems with the current economy is the number of people running around with x-billions in gold while the game mechanically (crafting/combining) functions with thousands and maybe millions - why would you WILLINGLY import that problem in to the new economy?

Quote from Shebnumi

Quote from Fizpez

Quote from Bagstone

They already said that paragon levels will be transferred somehow, why would they then wipe characters. That's just nonsense. I agree that I don't see the point of this thread.

They said paragon level would be transferred - and I realize this is not D2 LoD but there is precedent for making people start over.

There would be a back lash from people who have used the RMAH. They will not make you start over. What is this precedent for making people start over?

I agree it would piss certain people off something fierce - the point I have been trying to make is that there is a very non-trivial amount of work involved in trying to maintain peoples characters/stash/equipment and gold AND (this is the important part) STILL allowing any kind of interaction between expansion and non-expansion characters.

Quote from Bagstone

They already said that paragon levels will be transferred somehow, why would they then wipe characters. That's just nonsense. I agree that I don't see the point of this thread.

They said paragon level would be transferred - and I realize this is not D2 LoD but there is precedent for making people start over.

Quote from ot4ku

I totally don't get the point in this thread.
Why would they ever need to either wipe all the characters / items or do all those strange requirements with the expansions.
It's so simple. Everyone who doesn't buy the expansion won't have access to the crusader and can't level beyond 60.
All the level 60 gear will be quite worthless after the inital leveling wave and if somebody uses level 70 items with reduced level req - who the fuck cares?
So there is simply no need to do anything else. Don't know what you are freaking out about.

You do realize that the new eq would have stats, skills and other expansion type artwork that is not included in D2 vanilla - it's not as simple as use/don't use. It's entirely possible that without considerable coding effort D3 vanilla programs would have no idea what to do with a D3X formatted item.

The point was to solicit opinion/information from other people on the topic of a character reset associated with the xpac for which there is precedent and a certain logical consistency with solving several logistical problems - you know, the type of things people DO on a discussion board.

And I'm not freaking out because I recognized right away that since the vanilla gear would be worthless by 70 I could care less if they make me reroll another character as the only REAL thing of value is the time tied up in paragon levels and they've already indicated that WILL be retained.

Quote from Stephenk291

Quote from Campfire

Quote from Stephenk291

we might see a beta, but It would probably be in December/January depending upon their release date. The reason the beta for D3 was done so early was because they were testing so many new features and functions. With this expansion you won't be seeing nearly as much in terms of new mechanics and game design. You will not see RoS released in 2013 so I don't know why there is speculation on that. Blizzard has given you the year of 2014 and when have we ever known blizzard to release anything early or 'on-time'. cough every game they've ever done, cough.

It may be a huge change in diablo 3 but its still an expansion not a new franchise emerging, i doubt they'll postpone a given release date for an expansion

I didn't really say they would postpone this, but they've done it in the past. Like i said, they don't give release dates until they are 100000000% sure its ready. You will never see them give you a date until several months before release.

The only "official" date that matters is the quarterly projection conference call with investment brokers/stock markets. The developers can say whatever the hell they want "Tomorrow.... When it's ready..... When it's perfect.... blah blah blah" But when the bean counters get on the phone and tell the other bean counters a major revenue source is imminent then you can start believing dates.

Quote from Bagstone

Quote from Fizpez

They've never changed the stats on already rolled items. They're redoing the Legendary items (again) with Loot 2.0

Not correct - see APS change last summer... but yeah, except for that one time, they don't want to touch already rolled items (see the black weapon "mistake" that was discovered too late by them).

Memory is hazy (getting old) but if I recall they changed a single code multiplier parameter that automatically changed the displayed (and game effect) of APS. My impression is that the changes to Legendary items is such that the only adjustment they could (theoretically) make would be to reroll every Legendary on conversion - and what a train-wreck that would be

/quietly starts hording 500 copies of each Legendary just in case.