One set item that comes to mind is the Immortal King Boulder Breaker, I dont think the Call of the Ancients % will update with the patch. You will have to refind it if im not mistaken.
This is correct.
Set bonus changes are retro-active.
Set item stat changes (IK and Nat's weapons, for example, getting new skill damage bonuses) are not retroactive, just as most Legendary changes are not.
I am not 100%, but I think some Legendary balance changes, ones that only involved re-balancing the proc chance or other things that are not rolled or visible on the item (ie: Not a visible stat on the item), are retroactive, but no source to confirm/deny.
Regarding the design of MoP: Players took on ALL content at once. Even I did. I was Exalted with every faction 1-2 days after all the hardcore-dinged-level-90-day-one guys (I dinged in 3 days just enjoying the leveling process). It was not intended to be done that way, to be upwards of 50 Daily quests a day. The problem is, if the option is there, people will do it. And if the option seems too much like work, people will still do it, and will then turn around and complain, despite having freely chosen to do it by their own actions, and claim it is "mandatory". Not a single thing in WoW is "mandatory", short of following the Terms of Service and End User License Agreement. Outside of that, you could pay for WoW and never even log in (not the best way to spend money, but hey).
Back to Diablo 3, yes I agree there is some flaws. No matter what the very small elitist (and LUCKY, due to getting the gear drops to DO it) playerbase says about the nerfing, Inferno was overtuned at launch. I consider myself to be an above-average gamer at least, and that was literally brick-walled back then, unless you got that rarer-than-hell drop that let you break through that brick wall, which was amplified by the fact you virtually needed items that dropped from past said wall, while being unable to get past it. I got friends that quit, and still have not come back, because of that difficulty ramp-up. But, like many gamers, comparing what they wanted out of a game when they loved Diablo 2 to now with Diablo 3, a decade later, it's not the same (no matter how much people say they want Diablo 3 to just be Diablo 2 with better graphics). Immediate issue my friends claim why they don't like Diablo 3? World of Warcraft. Being part of an MMO for the last 5 years has changed their interest-level in games. Mindless farming item-hunts are not interesting to them anymore. And I get that. It took me almost a week to get that answer out of them, but I understand that. It's not that the game was designed bad, it's that other games have impacted them to a degree that their tastes have changed that much.
Jay Wilson may have been the man driving the bus, but he wasn't the one making all the bus route plans. The fact that a portion of this game's community (which, I actually feel dirty about calling myself a part of) feels the need specifically to single out Wilson and attack him for any and every design decision, and blame him for the fact that Diablo 3 isn't the game you wanted, but the game the company designed (btw: They are the ones paid to develop games, you aren't. As a budding programmer myself, I can tell you: It is not as easy as you might think it is). The fact alone that they actually do take and use our feedback, and keep in mind that just cause we make a suggestion, doesn't mean it will be right for the game's overall design or may clash with other design goals they have, but let's face it: Most game developers don't give a rat's ass what the playerbase thinks, as long as they got their money. Think EA cares? SquareEnix (see: Final Fantasy XIII and XIV)? Activision (yes, I know they are linked to Blizzard, but they are separate, and really, what has changed with CoD since Modern Warfare)? They are in it to pull in the money, and hope their playerbase just keeps swallowing down the content they produce.
Before Diablo 3 launched, I believe it was Bashiok who outright said that players need to lower their expectations, and not to over-hype a game they expected to be so much more. Yes, it's a beloved franchise, but really, no developer is going to live up to the expectations of 90% of their playerbase when they sell literally millions of copies of the game the first week. And when people got exactly that, they lash out at the developers? Really? Are we all that immature? And I'm not meaning about bugs/balance issues that made it through Beta to Live. I mean about "the story is crap!" and "the skill system doesn't feel like Diablo!" and things that hell, over half of you knew about from the Open Weekend Stress Test, and then still turned around and bought the game anyways.
Seriously, some portions of the gaming community needs to grow up, or just GTFO. I miss the days when being a gamer was looked down upon. We had more respect for those that provided us with countless hours of entertainment. With gaming so mainstream now, if you don't game, you aren't "cool" (got no idea how many weird looks I get when people find out I don't play any CoD games). Get off your own freaking hype and realize that while yes, they want our feedback, it takes time to see changes and it may not be the best idea, no matter how good you think it is. You aren't all-knowing in what is best for the game, you merely know what you want to see from the game. Pretty sure if they made it so when you placed your banner down in-game it would spawn a Legendary item every time, someone would STILL complain, either because it was too easy OR because they couldn't get the one they want. There is no way to please everyone.
what a load of bliz PR horseshit, the section on pvp and the launch is just crap, "In terms of the actual game, our development team had total say on if and when Diablo III was ready for release, and we shipped it only after we felt it had met our vision for what a great game could be on day 1."
Really? GREAT?
i would barely rate it sub-par on day one, based on connectivity and server issues alone.
So, you have say 2mil people play on your Open Beta weekend, figuring there will be a fair bit more for launch, maybe double that, based on pre-order info from retailers and digital orders + annual pass.
Turns out your estimations were off by about 100%.
HOW do you plan for that? Overcompensate to the point of ridiculousness, only to have to sit with unused hardware (refering to your connectivity and server issues).
I think they did damn well, considering that their servers got so heavily flooded on launch, they had no idea it was gonna be that bad. And Mike Morhaime ADMITTED TO IT. They planned based on expectations from retailer info and digital sales. The fact it doubled that or something crazy was beyond their scope of knowledge. Would you like them to start working with Ms Cleo to determine what the playerbase and customer wants, to try and pre-emp all our demands and interests?
A legendary giving +Fire Skill Damage, would make it hit harder.
A Legendary giving "Adds X% Cold Damage" would still add that percentage of damage to it AS cold, but the skill is still fire.
So, for a Barbarian, I am pretty sure all your attacks just to Weapon Damage, so physical. And no, using a Cold Damage weapon won't make your skills Cold Skills. They just do cold damage.
Short answer: The skill involved must, by default, assign the damage type involved.
So, value for the "Increases X Skills by Y% Damage" is as follows:
Barbarian - No value, all skills deal just weapon damage as physical
Monk - Limited to Lightning and Holy mostly, though they got a couple doing Fire.
Witch Doctor - Poison and Fire (IIRC).
Demon Hunter - Mostly Fire, but they got some of nearly everything except Holy.
Wizard - Fire, Arcane, Cold, and Lightning.
Loyalty points end when the cashier hands you your receipt for a $60 game. We should be happy Blizz is even bothering to fix things and take user feedback; unlike some game companies that drop a $60 game in your lap and say, "here".
The sense of entitlement with this game is unreal.
Not just this game, but most games. The majority of the vocal playerbase should be thankful we see anything at all more than bug fixes (and even that is subject to question with some games). But no, they will whine and cry cause "it isn't enough!".
Realize something: You are entitled to nothing more than the product that you paid for. Anything after that is gravy. Patches, updates, new fatures, on a F2P game is all BONUSES. You are not entitled to get a single thing from the company once you pay for the game. A sub-based game is different to an extent (basically your sub entitles you to have server access, but that is it. Again, content is at the dev's discretion, not your demands).
Hopefully people will understand this concept, but... people have let me down plenty over the past, and I think I need to stop classifying most posters on the internet as "people", it might make me less pessimistic to others.
What do you call a 100 Paragon Barbarian? Chuck Norris
Do you think with Paragon 100 that Diablo would be any tougher? Or will we be able to kill him with a gazillion-dps 'physical damage to attackers' buff by just standing next to him?
What happens when a just-turned-60 player co-ops with a Paragon 100? He'll need 'sprint' just to get to the boss before he dies.
I think Blizzard is counting on our eyesight being so bad after 3 years of ACTIII at 30 runs per day, that Diablo will be a challenge just to find.
Let me get this straight: you farm Inferno to get gear to sell to buy gear to farm inferno to get gear to ...
600% Magic Find? Even the urns will drop lvl63s!
I'll glow
Better buy chains for your monitor, WW will throw it across the room.
We'd better get a 'jailer' cast or the bosses will probably run and hide.
1: MF is capped at 300% with the patch (375% if you got 5x Neph Valor).
2: As of right now, jars/chests/etc still not affected by MF.
3: Item level has zero bearing on Item quality (and vice-versa). More MF =/= More ilevel 63s. More MF = More Blues/Rares/Legendaries/Sets
like the new changes but still doesnt solve their end game problems, i juts simply dont care enough to continue playing beyond killing diablo inferno.
Then you don't care about/understand the genre.
Why did you play after killing Diablo/Baal (depending if you had LoD or not) in Diablo 2? To farm more gear (and technically experience levels, but given that 1-98 = 98-99, that doesn't account for much other than GRIND). They was no end-game, except to farm. That IS the genre of ARPGs. Hack and slash to the end, and get to slaughtering faster and faster, farming more and more gear.
You seem to think there is supposed to be specialized content in some form of progression, like an MMO. Wrong genre.
OT: Very happy with all these changes. One question I hope gets answered: Will the buff to damage range for 61 and 62 weapons apply to crafted 62 weapons?
LOVED the way it was when it started: very difficult, the way it was promoted to be.
Yes, you considered it hard. Blizzard considered it TOO hard for what they wanted. Blizzard's vision and yours didn't line up. They made changes, and because you had accustomed yourself to playing in that harder environment, the changes made to balance (note: not nerf, no matter how much you wanna call it one) the difficulty properly, made the game easier for you.
In your eyes: Original Inferno was challenging, post-1.0.3 was nerfed.
In Blizzard's eyes: Original Inferno was over-tuned, post-1.0.3 was better balanced.
And since Blizzard is the ones who get the final say, you either take it, or walk away. But it will never be reverted. It made that part of the game actually possible to progress in without having scored tons of gold in the first month when certain items were hotter than hell and paid your way through it. It made it so with enough farming alone, you CAN progress (though even now, still more likely to see people buy a few items to boost along if one slot or another has been picky).
The issue that still stands is: there is no endgame. Just by reaching 60 and finishing off Hell I feel like I'm done. Collecting gear for characters you're never gonna make is useless. Unless you farm in order to sell the gear/gold for real money, but is this a game or a job?
This is all Diablo 2 was. And Diablo. And Titan's Quest. And Torchlight. And Borderlands (which, despite being an FPS, is an ARPG too). And DarkSpore.
What do you want? Raid content like an MMO? I think you don't understand how the genre works...
More endgame or lots of people will leave really soon.
Hah! endgame?! more like.......mendgame!
Amirite
True. There is no endgame atm. Its obsolete.
You mean grinding for items... just like Diablo 2... Diablo... Titan's Quest... DarkSpore... once you reach level cap and story's end, isn't what the game is about?
I'm sorry, when did Diablo 3 become an MMO with content updates and extensions, on a 3-4 month basis? Where is the subscription fee you pay for such developments? Not to mention, even if this WAS an MMO (which seems to be the implication by many with the whole "there is no endgame" or "endgame is dead"), you'd be still waiting at LEAST 2 more months for any new content.
You are a better player now than you were when Diablo 2 first came out. Experience and Skill did make the game "easier" for you. Blizzard, or any game company, cannot design games around "the elite" players only, because that is not a profitable market (no matter how much you try to claim otherwise, it isn't).
OT: Glad to hear about many things that are coming out for the game. I just hope at least Patch 1.0.4 comes soon, like end of July/beginning of August time-frame. I don't wanna find any more pre-buff Legendaries!
I just got the Crumbling Vault in my current Act 2 inferno loot run.
I tried the enter and immediately portal out.
I left, cool. I go back, and re-enter the dungeon manually: Timer was still moving (was down to 2min 10sec when I re-entered), from the original 3min you get.
1
This is correct.
Set bonus changes are retro-active.
Set item stat changes (IK and Nat's weapons, for example, getting new skill damage bonuses) are not retroactive, just as most Legendary changes are not.
I am not 100%, but I think some Legendary balance changes, ones that only involved re-balancing the proc chance or other things that are not rolled or visible on the item (ie: Not a visible stat on the item), are retroactive, but no source to confirm/deny.
2
Back to Diablo 3, yes I agree there is some flaws. No matter what the very small elitist (and LUCKY, due to getting the gear drops to DO it) playerbase says about the nerfing, Inferno was overtuned at launch. I consider myself to be an above-average gamer at least, and that was literally brick-walled back then, unless you got that rarer-than-hell drop that let you break through that brick wall, which was amplified by the fact you virtually needed items that dropped from past said wall, while being unable to get past it. I got friends that quit, and still have not come back, because of that difficulty ramp-up. But, like many gamers, comparing what they wanted out of a game when they loved Diablo 2 to now with Diablo 3, a decade later, it's not the same (no matter how much people say they want Diablo 3 to just be Diablo 2 with better graphics). Immediate issue my friends claim why they don't like Diablo 3? World of Warcraft. Being part of an MMO for the last 5 years has changed their interest-level in games. Mindless farming item-hunts are not interesting to them anymore. And I get that. It took me almost a week to get that answer out of them, but I understand that. It's not that the game was designed bad, it's that other games have impacted them to a degree that their tastes have changed that much.
Jay Wilson may have been the man driving the bus, but he wasn't the one making all the bus route plans. The fact that a portion of this game's community (which, I actually feel dirty about calling myself a part of) feels the need specifically to single out Wilson and attack him for any and every design decision, and blame him for the fact that Diablo 3 isn't the game you wanted, but the game the company designed (btw: They are the ones paid to develop games, you aren't. As a budding programmer myself, I can tell you: It is not as easy as you might think it is). The fact alone that they actually do take and use our feedback, and keep in mind that just cause we make a suggestion, doesn't mean it will be right for the game's overall design or may clash with other design goals they have, but let's face it: Most game developers don't give a rat's ass what the playerbase thinks, as long as they got their money. Think EA cares? SquareEnix (see: Final Fantasy XIII and XIV)? Activision (yes, I know they are linked to Blizzard, but they are separate, and really, what has changed with CoD since Modern Warfare)? They are in it to pull in the money, and hope their playerbase just keeps swallowing down the content they produce.
Before Diablo 3 launched, I believe it was Bashiok who outright said that players need to lower their expectations, and not to over-hype a game they expected to be so much more. Yes, it's a beloved franchise, but really, no developer is going to live up to the expectations of 90% of their playerbase when they sell literally millions of copies of the game the first week. And when people got exactly that, they lash out at the developers? Really? Are we all that immature? And I'm not meaning about bugs/balance issues that made it through Beta to Live. I mean about "the story is crap!" and "the skill system doesn't feel like Diablo!" and things that hell, over half of you knew about from the Open Weekend Stress Test, and then still turned around and bought the game anyways.
Seriously, some portions of the gaming community needs to grow up, or just GTFO. I miss the days when being a gamer was looked down upon. We had more respect for those that provided us with countless hours of entertainment. With gaming so mainstream now, if you don't game, you aren't "cool" (got no idea how many weird looks I get when people find out I don't play any CoD games). Get off your own freaking hype and realize that while yes, they want our feedback, it takes time to see changes and it may not be the best idea, no matter how good you think it is. You aren't all-knowing in what is best for the game, you merely know what you want to see from the game. Pretty sure if they made it so when you placed your banner down in-game it would spawn a Legendary item every time, someone would STILL complain, either because it was too easy OR because they couldn't get the one they want. There is no way to please everyone.
2
So, you have say 2mil people play on your Open Beta weekend, figuring there will be a fair bit more for launch, maybe double that, based on pre-order info from retailers and digital orders + annual pass.
Turns out your estimations were off by about 100%.
HOW do you plan for that? Overcompensate to the point of ridiculousness, only to have to sit with unused hardware (refering to your connectivity and server issues).
I think they did damn well, considering that their servers got so heavily flooded on launch, they had no idea it was gonna be that bad. And Mike Morhaime ADMITTED TO IT. They planned based on expectations from retailer info and digital sales. The fact it doubled that or something crazy was beyond their scope of knowledge. Would you like them to start working with Ms Cleo to determine what the playerbase and customer wants, to try and pre-emp all our demands and interests?
1
Example:
Meteor - Molten Impact: Deals 390% weapon damage as Fire.
A legendary giving +Fire Skill Damage, would make it hit harder.
A Legendary giving "Adds X% Cold Damage" would still add that percentage of damage to it AS cold, but the skill is still fire.
So, for a Barbarian, I am pretty sure all your attacks just to Weapon Damage, so physical. And no, using a Cold Damage weapon won't make your skills Cold Skills. They just do cold damage.
Short answer: The skill involved must, by default, assign the damage type involved.
So, value for the "Increases X Skills by Y% Damage" is as follows:
Barbarian - No value, all skills deal just weapon damage as physical
Monk - Limited to Lightning and Holy mostly, though they got a couple doing Fire.
Witch Doctor - Poison and Fire (IIRC).
Demon Hunter - Mostly Fire, but they got some of nearly everything except Holy.
Wizard - Fire, Arcane, Cold, and Lightning.
2
Not just this game, but most games. The majority of the vocal playerbase should be thankful we see anything at all more than bug fixes (and even that is subject to question with some games). But no, they will whine and cry cause "it isn't enough!".
Realize something: You are entitled to nothing more than the product that you paid for. Anything after that is gravy. Patches, updates, new fatures, on a F2P game is all BONUSES. You are not entitled to get a single thing from the company once you pay for the game. A sub-based game is different to an extent (basically your sub entitles you to have server access, but that is it. Again, content is at the dev's discretion, not your demands).
Hopefully people will understand this concept, but... people have let me down plenty over the past, and I think I need to stop classifying most posters on the internet as "people", it might make me less pessimistic to others.
1
1: MF is capped at 300% with the patch (375% if you got 5x Neph Valor).
2: As of right now, jars/chests/etc still not affected by MF.
3: Item level has zero bearing on Item quality (and vice-versa). More MF =/= More ilevel 63s. More MF = More Blues/Rares/Legendaries/Sets
1
Why did you play after killing Diablo/Baal (depending if you had LoD or not) in Diablo 2? To farm more gear (and technically experience levels, but given that 1-98 = 98-99, that doesn't account for much other than GRIND). They was no end-game, except to farm. That IS the genre of ARPGs. Hack and slash to the end, and get to slaughtering faster and faster, farming more and more gear.
You seem to think there is supposed to be specialized content in some form of progression, like an MMO. Wrong genre.
OT: Very happy with all these changes. One question I hope gets answered: Will the buff to damage range for 61 and 62 weapons apply to crafted 62 weapons?
Yes, you considered it hard. Blizzard considered it TOO hard for what they wanted. Blizzard's vision and yours didn't line up. They made changes, and because you had accustomed yourself to playing in that harder environment, the changes made to balance (note: not nerf, no matter how much you wanna call it one) the difficulty properly, made the game easier for you.
In your eyes: Original Inferno was challenging, post-1.0.3 was nerfed.
In Blizzard's eyes: Original Inferno was over-tuned, post-1.0.3 was better balanced.
And since Blizzard is the ones who get the final say, you either take it, or walk away. But it will never be reverted. It made that part of the game actually possible to progress in without having scored tons of gold in the first month when certain items were hotter than hell and paid your way through it. It made it so with enough farming alone, you CAN progress (though even now, still more likely to see people buy a few items to boost along if one slot or another has been picky).
5
This is all Diablo 2 was. And Diablo. And Titan's Quest. And Torchlight. And Borderlands (which, despite being an FPS, is an ARPG too). And DarkSpore.
What do you want? Raid content like an MMO? I think you don't understand how the genre works...
5
You mean grinding for items... just like Diablo 2... Diablo... Titan's Quest... DarkSpore... once you reach level cap and story's end, isn't what the game is about?
I'm sorry, when did Diablo 3 become an MMO with content updates and extensions, on a 3-4 month basis? Where is the subscription fee you pay for such developments? Not to mention, even if this WAS an MMO (which seems to be the implication by many with the whole "there is no endgame" or "endgame is dead"), you'd be still waiting at LEAST 2 more months for any new content.
You are a better player now than you were when Diablo 2 first came out. Experience and Skill did make the game "easier" for you. Blizzard, or any game company, cannot design games around "the elite" players only, because that is not a profitable market (no matter how much you try to claim otherwise, it isn't).
OT: Glad to hear about many things that are coming out for the game. I just hope at least Patch 1.0.4 comes soon, like end of July/beginning of August time-frame. I don't wanna find any more pre-buff Legendaries!
1
I tried the enter and immediately portal out.
I left, cool. I go back, and re-enter the dungeon manually: Timer was still moving (was down to 2min 10sec when I re-entered), from the original 3min you get.
So that part is horribly incorrect.