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Hi guys, I'm new here.

I have to say, I've never played HC in D2, so, I don't have that background that many of you have.

Still, I dont understand why would I ever play HC, so far, its only about e-penis, forgive my manners.
There are no real benefits playing HC over normal, no better items, no new secret areas, no nothing. Only a banner that you can decorate, to me, there is no point in playing HC, at all.

I know, you may think: "then don't play it", but that's not the point, I see HC as a game mode that can offer something else, but it doesn't, AFAIK.

IMHO, it lacks of a motivation to be interested enough to say: "ok, I die once, and its over", it should be more like "ok, I dice once and its over, HOWEVER, I got these things that in normal mode I dont have".

What do you think?, am I missing something?

Thanks!

Ah, some new blood! First let me say, this is a good question and it shouldn't be dismissed with a simple "Then don't play it".

What is the point of Hardcore? Well, much of this is my personal motivation for playing Hardcore so YMMV depending on what stimulates you in a game.

First off, it gives the game more of an edge. I envision playing a multiplayer game with friends and having a blast. Now, I re-envision playing a multiplayer game with the same friends but now with more determination and focus. After all, we cannot make a mistake or we die. The bar was raised to stay within that boundary of not making a fatal mistake. I feel this only serves to amplify the comradery and strengthen our playing abilities as individuals as well as a team leading us to further accomplishments and an overall higher level of satisfaction as a result. It immerses us much more heavily into the game world and the experience because there's something at risk of loss now. Our time invested (and should there ever be a HC-RMAH, real money for those that buy stuff there).

The second major ingredient for me is from my personal perspective of Hardcore. It REALLY IS a fantastic rush when you are on the precipice of that encounter you haven't yet beaten or even tried on Hardcore. You've been farming other levels, tuning your characters, helping your friends with those same things, and now you're there. The furthest you've been in Hardcore mode to date. And then you begin the encounter. You've stocked up all supplies, made sure every equipment slot is as tip-top shape as you can make it and you're taking the plunge to conquer this new (to you) challenge. You've researched all strategies as much as you can, tried to memorize the important points as well as you can, and here you are in the middle of this battle that, one wrong move, and it's all over. EVERYTHING will be gone if you fail. And you're watching the boss animations, GTFO of the way of incoming damage, being as careful as you can to take as little damage as possible, dealing with adds if there are any and getting in every jab and hook you can while keeping your neck. Then you pass the halfway point in the boss' health and you start to take a lot of damage. OMG IT LOOKS LIKE THIS COULD BE MY DEATH! BUT NO! I MANAGED TO ESCAPE THE AOE! BOOYA, GRAMMA, BOOYA! And you press on until OMG YOU GUYS WE JUST F***ING KILLED HIM OMG!!! YEAH MOTHA F***AS!!

THAT is what Hardcore is about. It's about getting your adrenaline pumping because you are on the edge of losing all of the time you invested in progressing your gear and your character on this one encounter. Hardcore is a THRILL to play. Once you go Hardcore in a hardcore way, you quickly realize there is no greater reward to rpg's and then you never go back to Softcore.

That's just my 2c. Most peoples' are similar in the thrill of the risk and accomplishing repeated victories over the hardest encounters and their first victories over new encounters, etc. It's those moments when great loss is right in your face and YOU BEAT THE SYSTEM. YOU WIN. With Softcore for me now, it's like "Oh, k, I can just keep dying and dying and dying and eventually faceroll the entire game. Yay. -.- *twirls finger in the air*" lol

Also, I've found that for those with advanced gaming skills usually run into other fellow gamers with similarly advanced gaming skills more often than on Carebear-mode. It's just really nice when all your friends are offline, that a lot of times you can join a public game on the moderate to higher levels of hardcore and chances are really good (obviously never guaranteed!) that those players are similarly skilled and focused on staying alive and "doing it right" which makes the game experience a whole lot smoother and more enjoyable overall.

So TL;DR - The rush. The thrill. The risk. The friends that help me get there and likewise the strangers in public games that I happen to further some progression with here or there which is even MORE MEANINGFUL because of the risk of permanent death. It's just damn fun. Stick me in Softcore and I get no rush, no thrill, and no risk of consequence for failure.

Hey everybody, I was really bored and decided to throw together some simple but, IMO, elegant Diablo related signatures. If you want one just let me know which one, what style text and what you want it to say. They're free to the community but if you want to repay me I'd appreciate helping support my youtube channel by commenting, viewing or thumbs up/down my videos. Here's a link to it. http://bit.ly/GG6v2a Either way, I hope you enjoy the signatures

P.S. If you don't want any signatures leave me some feed back, What you think of them, what you think I should do or shouldn't have done? Thanks.

P.P.S. I am taking suggestions for personal signatures, if you want me to make you one just give me details on what topic or images you want to be in it, the text, font or a preference and your preferred color scheme.

Examples of some of these with peoples names edited on them are in the comment below this one

Notice: These are my opinions and beliefs. I do not believe that I know everything about the rmah and I like hearing varied opinions on the subject. Please share your own estimate for how much money players will make on the rmah after reading. And if you somehow read this as negative towards force and sixen, it's quite the opposite! I respect and admire both of them.

First off, I want to thank the guys at Force Strategy Gaming for mentioning me on their most recent podcast, particularly Carlos aka "Sixen." It's funny, because I had just spoken with him a few weeks prior on skype and I think I tainted him with my grandiose RMAH ideologies. Sorry Sixen! But seriously, both hosts had a very interesting discussion about whether the RMAH will be a viable way to make consistent income. They seemed to agree that the occasional random item will drop and be worth hundreds of dollars, but that this sort of scenario will be the only way to make any real money in Diablo 3.

Besides this occasional lucky drop, Force stated very firmly that competition would make it so that people would make very little money on the auction house despite devoting hours of game time to farming. Today I'd like to respond to these ideas and emphatically explain my complete OPPOSITE position. I believe that Force has said what's on everyone's collective mind, and it is a reasonable as well as intelligent position to take on the subject. Thankfully, he is wrong.

What Force Said That Was Correct

Force stated several times that competition would drive down prices to make farming virtually slave labor. He jokingly mentioned a certain ethnicity known for gold farming and said that this group of people would drive prices into the ground. You're right Force, but they can only drive them down so much. At some point, demand and supply will meet to create a consistent trend for prices. Being ignorant of this balancing act will lead to the assumption that it's impossible to make any money playing the system. But you are correct that simply farming items and selling them is a terrible way to make money on any auction house. Unfortunately, that's as far as people usually go when thinking about this subject.

He also mentioned that the occasional super rare item would make a lucky person quite a bit of money. Of course, this is absolutely correct, and it will drive people crazy farming for such items. Time wise however, it will never be worth it to go farming for hours on end even for $100+ items. It's just not cost effective due to the insanely low drop rates.

There will be tricks and secrets that make people lots of money, only to be ruined once enough of the player base discovers them. This is absolutely true, but unfortunately Sixen made the conclusion that this will be my modus operandi. Actually, these secrets are just parlor tricks used to bring the masses to my website. There, I admitted it. I use fantastic "secrets" to increase interest in auctioneering among the masses. You know what I do next however? Instead of attempting to bottle these secrets and sell them as miracle cures, I take the person aside and explain the error of their ways. Next, I show them how to truly play the auction house and discover systems that work long term, not just as parlor tricks. In essence, I'm an educator, not just a marketer.

This is where a lot of people hit a fork in the road when it comes to approving or disproving of my methods. They either believe that I'm trying to sell snake oil to trick people or I'm actually doing a good thing educating would-be auctioneers. Usually it's buyers who side with me and skeptical non-buyers who go on with hating me.

What Force Said That Was Wrong

Force, there will be many more ways to make money with this game. I have covered tons of them on this blog already, but I will write a few methods here that put very large holes in your theory.

Force's Mentality Opens Up Doorways for Auctioneers

The way Force mentally processed the concept of making money on the RMAH is an accurate prediction of how the masses will as well. Don't get me wrong, Force is incredibly intelligent and a very solid gamer. I used to think exactly as he did, but it was only after many years of playing the auction house that I began to unthink the common sense that drives us to foolishly ignore the auction house. What you really need is uncommon sense to succeed.

Players do not change. Seriously, their spending habits, ignorance to certain aspects of the game, and unwillingness to modify play style is ingrained into most gamers. You know why? Because people play games to have fun. This concept explains 99% of player behaviors. They aren't lazy or stupid, they just want to play a game to have fun. If someone doesn't have time to play a game to reach the highest levels then they will compensate with money, quit the game, or live with their inadequate situation.

Where auctioneers can turn a profit is in identifying a few key aspects of the market place:

Where are the points in the game where players get stuck and need help gearing their characters (Ex: Going from Hell to Inferno difficulty)?
What stats do players really want on their gear at what points in the game (Ex: Resistances for certain boss fights)?
When do prices go up and down for certain items/commodities and why (Ex: During holidays when more people can log on)?
How can you get crafting materials cheaper in order to better compete in price wars (Ex: bidding on cheap items to salvage)?
What do players consider necessary while leveling their characters (Ex: Gold, +experience gear, +core stat for damage, etc)?

We have partial answers to some of these questions already, but many are still blanks since we have only played a small section of the first act of Diablo 3. Once we know the answers, however, we can focus on building long term strategies for playing the auction house. We call these strategies "shuffles" and they usually involve multiple spreadsheets and stages to track on a daily basis. The amount of work is far more complicated than what a normal person is willing to achieve on their own, so even if the strategies are revealed there are still many people who will doubt them like Force. However, once you have a system down, it's fairly easy to repeat it over and over again for huge profits. You just keep modifying and practicing with your system to maximize its potential.

These "shuffles" are the secret to being an auctioneer in any mmo's economy and they are the reason why I believe that Force's estimate of $5 per week is completely off. Shuffles rely on having a total understanding of the game in order to work properly, not just knowing how to follow directions. Reason being is that much of the shuffle involves making decisions in real time. When to buy in bulk, when to sell for the long haul, when to wait and do nothing. That's why most people cannot just play the auction house and miraculously pull consistent earnings out of their butts.

Some of you may have heard that buying low and selling high is the answer to playing the RMAH. That's actually just a small part of the equation, and it's really only going to get you some starter cash for the more serious and lucrative strategies (like shuffles). But if you thought of this then you're on the right track, don't be discouraged!

I would be most interested in seeing a reaction from both Sixen and Force to these ideas, and whether they are still skeptical about the RMAH being a money maker for those willing to put the work into learning to play the marketplace. I completely agree with them that for the common person who just farms and hopes for great drops that this game will be an excruciating exercise in futility. If ForceStrategyGaming ever wanted me to come on and debate them or share my ideas then I would be more than happy to.

What do you think? Are you in favor of Force's $5 per week or my $25 per hour? Are you somewhere in between?

Take a look at the monk defensive skills...ridiculously powerful. On death, dont die, come back with 35% health and spirit, can happen every 90 seconds? dodge looks like it could easily approach 80%. Massive aoe healing. Finally, all your resistances can be as strong as your single strongest resistance. Those passives are potent! I guess we will see how it goes, but they definitely gave melee alot of survival skills, which is only fair.

Laevus:

No disrespect intended to softcore players. I really just enjoy hardcore more, and this thread is practically a screaming as an appeal to justify the existance of HC.

There are many reasons not to play HC or reasons that make it impractical. Bad internet connection, low end computer, a girlfriend that likes to sit in your lap or otherwise distract you, as well as other behavioral considerations.

I too experience major mood swings, and honestly i have lost several HC characters to that. You should have seen how pissed i was when my lvl 96 amazon was killed by a necromancer. He gathered up all of the cows with his minions and left them on top of the portal. I was killed before my screen loaded, and i had top of the line everything as far as computer/internet connection. He laughed when i died and said "umadbro?". I did get over it a few hours later but the fact is those situations are inevitable.

As ubernoob mentioned, you will die, you will lose high level characters, you will likely be hurt/angry. Its all part of the process, which is why i gave the advice above several times. Taking those preparations make the loss easier to take when it does inevitably occur. My sons and I all game in WoW, especially arena pvp and all 3 of us can rage when taunted in a stressful situation. So don't feel alone! I hope you enjoy your hardcore experience, just remember that the deaths are inevitable.

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