DiabloFans

If there is not more than one new act I'll be extremely disappointed. I know hoping for 4 was a pipe dream, but assuming they will charge as much for the Xpac as they do the original game it would seem reasonable. 3 would be tolerable. 2 disappointing. If there is only one I think i'll say thank-you for the fixes in the patch but no thank you for the Xpac.

Sounds awesome otherwise. Lots of good news.

Main reasons for an endless dungoen? There's three:

1) Randomization.
2) Randomization.
3) Randomization.

Start at Inferno difficulty, with MP choice that effects all levels. Should never be the same experience, except in realative terms of difficulty at each level.

To address the "measuring stick" playstyle, give each level (or every so many levels) two exits - one goes deeper (more difficult), the other is a new randomization of the same difficulty.

On exit, the dungeon resets. On death, dungeon resets.

Like the idea of old Diablo bosses making appearences - just keep most special features of it uncommon to rare, maybe some very rare so it is unlikley to see everything for a long time.

Including events would be nice. Maybe have some random quests with objectives that fit the endless/random style. Maybe spice it up with overpowered/flavor shrines.

Make Whimseyshire "endless" for it's own sake, but completely seperate from The Endless Dungeon.

Maybe have bosses randomly but rarely "intervene" with your journey in unexpected ways.

Just ideas. Basically, anything to make it unpredictable. The more the better, just keep difficulty progression reasonable for progress competition.

Quote from Molster

You know you can play D3 without uusing the AH and RMAH just like the ps3 version

True, which is how I play hardcore. It's great!

However, until perhaps itemization, alternatives to the AH are very punishing, to the point of feeling broken. It is also difficult not to use it when playing multiplayer with people who do use it since it drags down the group. It also wasn't until well after I started using the AH that I realized it how much it spoiled my playtime. A "Spoiler Alert" disclaimer would have been nice.

Have high hopes for the coming year!

"Once we confirmed that an account was involved in this exploit, we either banned or rolled back the account depending on their activity."

That alone makes this entire situation a win regardless of outlying benefactors or an economic burp. Still dream of the AHs not existing at all, but with some shady billionaires banned, that lack of market manipulation will work out to be a positive for the AHs in the long run.

Largely agree with coodav, but I don't think speed, necessarily, needs to be a part of difficulty progression but complexity definately should be.

The game does reward high-damage AOE slaughter builds greatly compared to play-style or strategic oriented builds - for exactly the reason he stated - no strength/weakness analysis of units required (if even present) when one-size-fits-all tools are placed on the belt. Boss encounters are the only times when strategic play is required, but that only lasts until those mechanics are learned.

Without changing the dynamic of the game, they should try to take those strategic aspects that make boss encounters interesting and apply it to more units, and take some of the random aspects of elites/rares and apply those to boss encounters in a suitable fashion - maybe an equivilent of assigning "runes" to the abilities of bosses randomly with each encounter.

It is bland when, with a few exceptions, most types of units are engaged in exactly the same way as all the others. Skill selection is bland in much the same way - 4 skills & 3 passives to maximize damage & uptime, 1 skill for mobility, 1 skill for "Oh *#@!".

Quote from TheSeanis

While this does tackle a lot of the mundane issues with Diablo 3 at this time, I feel its still neglecting improper incentives. Who wants to play a game and grind to level paragon 100 just for a portrait border and a larger number?

Agreed. I wouldn't mind a talent tree system or a point allocation system for paragon leveling where select skills and/or runes can be enhanced. Or a specialization system, like 'Sword & Board: Grants +0.1% block to shields and +0.1% damage to 1H weapons per paragon level' with a repec for X gold, some Demonic Essence and a Fiery Brimstone. Or a respec at the cost of -1 paragon level. Something significant but not punishing for some kind of character development that includes playstyle customization choices.

I like many of the things here - especially more randomization (especially in overworld), reasons to explore (no incentive to do so currently) & Mystic (but limited upgradability).

The only thing I wouldn't like as stated would be the trading post. By allowing only item trades it's just blind luck to find both a desired item as well as posessing an item the seller desires, compounded over time as players get better geared they will have little/no interest in what most will have available to trade. I think an in-game trading post, accessed via NPC, where a player could place 10 items up for sale (no bid/buyout) and that player could take offers (one at a time) on that item (gold or trade) for as long as that player is logged in. Making an offer puts a hold on offered gold/items for, say 5 minutes, where selling player can accept or reject the offer (maybe an auto-reject below a certain point and/or an "accept best offer" after X time or offers). Basically, facilitate a fair amount of player trading without the incredible efficiency/exploitability of an AH.

I like what I am hearing, mostly. There are a few things I still disagreee with though. One is that the skill system in D2 is inherently flawed - I think simply addressing the issues of rerolling characters as well as balancing skills it would have made a far more compelling system than the new system. I also disagree that Inferno was too hard - Nightmare and Hell were too easy leaving people unprepared. Maybe this stems from "I think the right way to introduce challenge is to make it optional,..." which I also disagree with. This requires a sort of masochist mentality from players along with the prior knowlegde that the game will be underwhelming to actively seek ways to create their own challenges right from the start of the game. Without both, many players (including myself) intuatively assumed the game would get progressively harder, which was not the case until after playing through the game 3 times to get to Inferno - before which players will write the game off entierly not caring to or knowing about how to set up their own obstacles. I definately get the most out of the game HC, no AH, MP10. But having already played multiple characters to 60 SC, with AH, MP 0 to not find the challenge I was looking for, the story/landscape has become unbearably repetative.

Knit-picking aside, I think this is the best news for D3 yet. Here's to hoping for more of this type of refinement and more content.

I can't help but wonder how large a role consolability played in early developement - even if only as a possibility and not a probability. They really, really wanted Deathmatch PVP to work wich would really fit the bill for console play. "Customization, replayablity and itemization" are exactly the things PCs can deliver on to a much greater extent than consoles and D3 definately has a superficial feel to it.

Here's hoping the console version is and stays it's own entity and the near future will bring some meaningful depth to the PC game.

I would not count on, nor desire "Battlegrounds" - not very Diablo-ish. I always envisioned Diablo PVP as more along the line of joining a public game - difference being players can kill each other. The game world is much to linear for that though. Maybe something along the lines of highly randomized maps with chests/champions and maybe even a random boss to fight over. Maybe 4 to 8 players so it's not too crowded and killing others grants NV stacks.

I wonder if this is the first game to make it into the top of the google lists.

I am liking the Nephalem Valor system as it is - especially now I'm not loosing stacks when accidentally grabbing an action button.

HOTS Beta key!

I still think the root issue is that Nightmare and Hell are too easy in that they are readily overgeared via the AH. Since players level cap at Inferno demand for those max level items peaks, gear is upgraded/recycled through the AH more slowly, and the AH is no longer the cheap crutch that worked all the way through Hell. Not that I think it would be wise to revamp everything now, but it is understandable for players to be disheartened when difficulty/progression goes from near horizontal to near vertical. Too many lines intersect at the one vertex that is Inferno Act I.

I would like to see a character type between normal and hardcore - where both auction houses are disabled but death is not permanent.

My concern stems from my experience so far in that Normal through Hell have been trivial and Inferno Act I only moderately challenging while spending about one-tenth of my gold on upgrades from the AH. Upgrades for Act II are extremely steep which was blunt, but forced on me the way I should have been playing from the begining.

"If you don't like it don't use it." is not an ideal solution since, as with hardcore characters, multiplayer interaction between play-styles spoils it. It's hardly worth the self-control of not using the AH if a friend whom does use the AH joins the game and starts plowing through everything like a hot knife through butter. There really should be some type of distiction so that multiplayer interaction does not defeat the purpose.

I had high hopes for crafting, but even with the reductions in the cost of crafting coming I doubt the gold cost plus the work of breaking down and storing materials will be a viable alternative to the AH. I stopped crafting first tried teh AH when 12 crafts of the first rare helm rolled zero useful items for any of my characters. If there was an AH-free zone it would place a much greater emphasis on crafting and, I think, a much greater solo and multiplayer experience.

I don't see either auction houses as a problem in itself, but thier implimentation all but eliminated the classic in-game trade that would normally occur which is by far less prone to market volatility, farmers, exploits and stays far more realistic in terms of supply, demand and price. The current system of auction houses essentially gives every player access to every item that has ever dropped - the problem being that the best items are always available yet become very expensive due to the relatively low supply yet very high demand while prices on everything else, even good items, plummets since the supply pool is extremely large. When the market pool is shallower, many of the best items wouldn't even be on the market at any given time, therefore making lesser items, such as crafted ones, more valuable.

And the RMAH defiantely exacerbates the issue adding additional demand pressure from an outside resource.