DiabloFans

Quote from Swillard85

Also, as for your "par for the course" claim, was this guy hiding something as well?

I'm not trying to argue with you. If you're genuinely innocent then I hope you can get the shit resolved.

But you, as a rational human being, have to understand that these forums have seen DOZENS and DOZENS and DOZENS of people claiming to be "wrongfully banned" who ultimately weren't telling the whole story and just wanted to vent about how evil Blizzard is by telling half-truths.

We all know that Blizzard tends to overban and then lift the ones that were wrong if the owner can offer some proof that they were wrongly banned. That's their MO. It's how it is, whether you like it or not. The fact that they operate like that, and despite your tickets, didn't lift your ban is more telling than anything. It shows that you haven't "proven" your innocence to them, at all.

There is some reason they're stonewalling you. Nothing you've said convinces me that it's a detail that's been conveniently left out. Do you really think Blizzard wants to risk NOT selling you the RoS box that you claim you were just about to buy over this if they didn't have a good reason? They're not dumb. The man-hours alone dealing with you aren't worth their time unless they have some pretty good reason to ban you. An expansion box sale certainly isn't worth it.

Use your head. Your whole proposition doesn't make much sense from a business perspective. They're wasting resources on you at this point. Why wouldn't they just take the easy road out, un-ban you, and sell you an RoS box? What do they know that we don't know?

Quote from Swillard85

A company telling a paying customer that they refuse to "respond at all" to their issues?

I'm sorry, but you're really stretching the phrase "paying customer."

By your own words, you've not logged in for almost a year. You haven't purchased the expansion. How exactly are you a valued customer again? If they hadn't sent you emails notifying you of activity on your account you probably wouldn't have known anything was happening.

Honestly, I'd love to see the tickets sent to Blizzard. My bet is that they're rant-y and not very professional and that is probably why they got closed. There have been many stories here about people who have been hacked, had their account used for botting, summarily got banned, and were able to get customer service to restore their account. One of the common denominators in those cases is being POLITE, COURTEOUS, and PATIENT with Blizzard.

Judging by how you post here, I'm fairly certain when I say I doubt you were polite, courteous, or patient. In fact, I'm betting one, or more than one, of your tickets probably ranted at them for their "shitty customer service."

Quote from Ducha

That's crazy, I wonder why they would respond in such a way. Are you sure there's no reason as to why they would be acting like that?

There always is a reason. Blizzard gains *nothing* from leaving wrongly-banned accounts (particularly those which were compromised) banned after being contacted by the owner. It's par for the course with these "I GOT UNFAIRLY BANNED" threads for the player to leave out some detail that changes the whole complexion of the discussion.

Quote from Bagstone

As long as you realize your mistake and don't stay on the path to darkness, it only helps to prevent doing similar mistakes in the future.

I completely agree, but I don't think that applies in this situation for the following reasons:

1) Both Jay and Josh have taken a stab at fixing itemization. Jay was marginally successful. Josh was more successful, but Josh still fell short.

2) Wyatt was a part of BOTH ventures.

3) Wyatt made that statement *after* being a part of both leads attempting to fix itemization. Meaning that Wyatt, of all people, learned precisely Jack and Shit from his previous experiences.

I seriously lost about all respect for Wyatt I had when he made that single statement. He had the benefit of having TWO attempts to get it right (that's more than Jay got). And when the second attempt wasn't received quite as well as hoped from the community.... largely due to the legendaries that WEREN'T build-changing... Wyatt didn't respond like someone who had been through the process twice before, or like someone who even understood why we disliked Jay's itemization.

After two years of this product being live, I simply expect more from him. He *has* to know by now what was wrong with items in 1.0 and he *has* to know by now what shortcomings 2.0 items have. He's had too many opportunities to learn. He's been a party to too many mistakes that he could have learned from.

That being said, I *applaud* whomever was responsible for basically backtracking that statement to something that was more-desired by us. That person deserves a pat on the back for standing up for us and getting what was *right* done. I definitely don't think the entire team is out-of-touch. I never have. In fact, Wyatt really is the only one whom I think doesn't understand the game, one iota, from a fan's perspective. I think he's busy being in "dev mode" all the time and just doesn't have the ability to put that hat aside and understand why what is good for him may not be good for us and that, ultimately, making a game that's good for the players is more important than what he, or his team, thinks is the best direction. This was clearly a case where the fans were right and one dev, in particular, was completely wrong.

It really would have been nice to hear from Wyatt why he was wrong to say what he said, though. It would help me believe he isn't that guy in an office who doesn't really play his own product with the same passion and vigor as the people who are saying "PLEASE FIX THIS!" and then he says "NAH, NOT A PROBLEM HOMIES, WE'LL DO THIS OTHER THING THAT YOU DON'T LIKE BECAUSE I SAY IT'S BETTER!" I mean it's not like there is much question among the fanbase as to whether or not stat-stick legendaries should be fixed. It's one of the most-universal issues for us fans.

Quote from Bagstone

Just stop saying "they're out of touch" or whatever.

I think it's basically a fact that Wyatt is out-of-touch at this point.

He's made several cringeworthy statements that prove his "vision" simply doesn't mesh with what players want. The most recent was when he said he didn't want to go back and fix stat stick legendaries but would prefer just to add more. To me that's a major problem. It shows that he, as a developer, really doesn't understand the game he's making, or at least why *we* want more Starmetal Kukiris and less Angel Hair Braids.

I don't agree that the entire development team is "out-of-touch" because, clearly, they didn't follow his "lead" on that subject. So, someone, somewhere, realized that what he said was not only stupid but wouldn't really resonate with *us* if they went down that path. But it still strikes me that someone so high up could be that.... blockheaded.... about such an important subject. It shouldn't require Josh to take him into his office and paddle his ass to get him in line on something like that.

I still can't even understand what would spur on the initial comment.

Quote from Glowpipe_

Quote from martonapoo

Blue Post : This month
So... Couple weak+ This month = August 19 or 26

Really hoping for the 19th. But doubtful. I guess 26.
Diablo is dead atm. Ive been playing nonstop the last 6 days to get ready for 2.1 and there is no activity. My clan is dead. All the communities im in is dead. General chat is dead, cept the the disease ridden assspammers. And public games hardly got peeps in it

Most people on Reddit believe that the PTR isn't even close to being ready.

For example, Blizzard recently asked the players how they would scale difficulty without simply making massive HP/damage increases. If they were serious about that for Greater Rifts, which most posters had hoped they were, there's no way they could overhaul difficulty scaling in GRifts and still release it "this month." But if they aren't serious about that then we get something that people are NOT excited about: ridiculous HP/damage scaling. Eventually you will reach a GR level where, without an arcane (or lightning) immunity neck you will simply get one-shotted by jailer or thunderstorm. To me, and many others, that sounds pretty fuckin stupid. Getting one-shotted by something you can't avoid doesn't sound fun. It sounds like an asinine "and then we doubled it" gone even more wrong than Jay's Inferno.

Monks are still not exactly in a good place.

There are still numerous sets that need attention. Helltooth, Nat's, and Slayer's come to mind immediately.

The most recent PTR build made legendary gems bad enough that many people won't even use them now. There's tons of backlash about their touted "design philosophy" and how they promised infinitely-upgradable gems and now they are literally hard-capped based on what GRift level you can get to. There have been dozens of suggestions as to how to fix this, but none of them will ever be implemented if they are seriously considering pushing 2.1 live in August.

M6 is seriously one of the paragons (pardon the pun?) of item design. It gives you the option of completely changing up how you play. I liken it to Grin Reaper which similarly allows you to put abilities on your bar that you aren't going to use, but your clones will be using... frequently.

The issue is, simply, most of the rest of the items aren't nearly as game-changing as M6 and they should be... because M6 is fucking GENIUS. It breaks the mold. It gives the player a way to truly think out-of-the-box. It's what all item design should strive to be. We need more things like M6 and less things like Helltooth!

Quote from Bagstone

Morlu Casters, who do the same what Exarchs do, just fire (Meteors) instead of lightning. Again, the frequency of their casting is one of the reason why I personally think channeling spells for wizards are the most useless tool ever.

A single non-elite Morlu Incinerator can wipe out an entire army of fetish sycophants. It's absurd. My rift clear times go up by a factor of 2-4 when Morlu Incinerators are included simply due to the drastically-reduced number of fetishes. The fact that they teleport around and have a melee knockback make them just as annoying for non-ranged specs.

Quote from Bagstone

Winged Assassins, who will instantly kill you by spawning right freaking on top of you. In numbers of 5. BAM, out of nowhere, dead.

In the past few weeks I'd say the vast majority of deaths I've experienced are from Winged Assassins with Fire Chains. It's unreal. Fire Chains does high damage because it's got a small area that it actually effects and, generally, is pretty easy to avoid. Pouncing monsters, however, can get you hit by all 3+ chains in the blink of an eye. Not good. Not good at all. I would not be pleased by this on hardcore. It almost feels like a "gotcha" mechanic more than a point of testing the player.

"Angel" rifts, however, are just plain not fun. Anarchs + Exarchs + Corrupted Angels + Winged Assassins + Executioners. I'd rather have my balls ripped off by a pit bull than have that rift. The issue with rift generation seems that it's not always selecting monsters randomly, but moreso selecting an act and the level is populated mostly by random monsters from that act.

As said on Reddit, though, the general problem is that there's a *reason* people don't typically do Act 5 bounties. They're disproportionately difficult compared to the rest of them. When you get a rift level full of Act 5 monsters it feels disproportionately difficult compared to one full of Act 1 monsters. The solution to this is to better intersperse them. Don't have "Act 5 rifts" or "Act 1 rifts" but have them mixed in with each other better. You know... really randomize it. Instead of the all-too-familiar rift levels that have all three Corrupted Angel types plus Executioners and Mallet Lords, which clearly is just Act 4 & 5 monsters.

EDIT
Then there are the "annoying" monsters. Particularly the ones that can fly off the level (Wasps, Wraiths), ones that can disappear (Scavengers, Dune Threshers, Terror Demons), and ones that spend more time running away than fighting (Tomb Guardians, Fallen Shaman, Imps, fat shaman). It's not to say that every monster should simply walk in a straight line towards me, but I do think that if you got a GRift level with a lot of Wraiths, Terror Demons, and Scavengers, that would artificially inflate your clear time just because there would be a significant amount of time waiting for the monsters to actually become attackable.

EDIT 2
I once had the Corrupted Angel Rift Guardian (Eskandiel?) charge off a graveyard level. It took me 2+ minutes to kill him because he wouldn't charge back in and was out of range or otherwise unhittable by most of my attacks. Not fun. Very lame.

Quote from ruksak

If you don't like or accept BoA, you have to come to terms with the facts. You are in the minority, most people disagree with you.

That's actually not true.

Unless you actually can prove that <forumgoers> are a representative subset of <Diablo players>.

Which, to anyone with an objective mind, they clearly are not. And, in terms of polling, the less-representative the sample is the larger the error. Even meticulously-conducted polls, like what they do during presidential races, still have 3-5% error.

The most-glaring thing that really jacks up this discussion is that most people who dislike BoA probably didn't buy RoS and aren't frequenting forums. Most of the people that I know who picked up D3V and RoS actually played D3V longer. Almost EVERYONE I know who plays D3 does *not* visit the forums, yet of that subset <D3 players Nick knows> every single one of them thinks that BoA is a bad idea.

Now, that's not scientific. It's purely anecdotal. But it makes good sense. And I'm not arguing that BoA is good/bad for the game here. But I am arguing that a poll conducted five months post-RoS, and six+ months post-2.0 surely isn't going to be representative of <Diablo players>. Hell, the forum is barely representative of <People who are active> let alone people who haven't played the game in a few months.

My one friend knows developers at Blizzard. He told them that he thought D3V sucked ass, so he didn't buy RoS. They gave him a free copy and asked him to give RoS a shot and let them know what he thought of it. His response was that RoS is worse than D3V and that whomever came up with BoA should be fired on the spot. I guarantee he doesn't visit this site, hasn't voted in this poll, and probably doesn't do a ton of other things that *we* consider "normal."

My guess is that "BoA is not a good idea" is a much more prevalent opinion among people who bought RoS and have since quit playing, or even among people who played 2.0 and didn't buy RoS than among active players. Whether inactive players matter could be debated from now until the cows come home. But I have a gut feeling that if you polled all however-many million people actually purchased and played RoS on the subject you'd find that the "minority" is actually people who like BoA.

If the "majority" of RoS purchasers loved BoA it would stand to reason that there would be a lot more active people. The posts on this forum, along with the official forums, incgamers, and reddit all tell the tale that activity in the community is at a pretty low point. For better or worse. Only time will tell.

But you are completely right that this discussion is completely pointless. The ship has sailed on it. The ship sailed on it long before Josh even announced BoA to us. He had his mind made up on the subject even before he was hired to replace Jay, if you ask me. In fact, my guess is that he made a pretty hard sell on it at his interview. "He could sell a ketchup Popsicle to a woman in white gloves!"

Quote from Bagstone

TL;DR: All cache items are completely being rolled when you open them (type, rarity, affixes).

Most reasonable people expected this was the case, but thank you very much for doing enough work to disprove that the items in the cache are predetermined. It was such a silly theory because it would have meant that cache items don't roll the same way as every other item in the game. I'm glad to see that there is data to debunk it.

Quote from UndeadProtoss

Once you start to feel strong you just move up to a new difficulty were you feel weak again. It's an oft made point by online reviewers and critics as well.

This was true of D2 with the /players command.

The fans more or less demanded that /players be reintroduced.

Jay gave us Monster Power. Josh revised that, basically, into what we have today.

People criticizing that aspect of D3 are suffering from nothing more than selective memories because the way D3 does it isn't fundamentally any different from how D2 did it.

So let me get this straight, you made a post about Blizz exploiting their customers for profit by stating that you exploit Blizz's customer base for profit?

Firstly, giving players completely new abilities deep into the progression curve is, IMO, a dick move. In fact, I don't even like the way D3 does it. You're either gating the best builds behind huge amounts of time, or giving players the best builds early on, then a trickle of irrelevant crap from then on. D3 is tolerable, as the between rolling a new character and getting to the build you actually want to try isn't too long, but its still a total cock-block.

On the other hand, if leveling up just increases the power of abilities they already have, you may as well attach that power either to their bases stats or their items, and get rid of the fake complexity and/or underwhelming rewards from having a conga-line of "+2% to fire skills", "-2% mana consumption" crapskills that I hate (screw you, Torchlight2... you let me down badly).



However, the fact is that as well as being focused on power acquisition, aRPGs are necessarily grindy. By giving us all of our abilities within a few hours of gameplay, but having cross-account gear and paragon levels, D3 sacrifices some degree of power-through-progression for a many more options that take the edge off the tedium. Whether that works or not is, obviously, subjective... but at least Blizzard didn't just barf up "Diablo 2 HD".

What's mostly missing is the incentive to switch things up in the form of build-baiting legendaries. Blizzard isn't dropping those in as fast as they should, but that's the direction they're headed.

You're right! Blizzard is a lying pack of lying liars who lie! I shall henceforth stalk every forum I find and post breathless hyperbole so that I can make people who liked a thing hate that very same thing! When I tell them about those lying liars, the lies will make people hate the liars! And that is good, because those people should not like lying liars who lie. Constantly. I shall help those people, and together we shall stem the endless tide of infinite lies from lying Blizzard liars! EVERYONE! JOIN US IN THE EXTERMINATION OF DISHONEST LYING LIARS AND THE ENDLESS TSUNAMI OF FALSEHOOD SPOUTING TRUTH-FLOUTERS!!!

Oh God. I think I just became so full of self-righteousness and crap, my legs are wobbly and my pee-pee feels funny in my pants.

Quote from Twoflower

There will always be a BiS item (mathematical fact guys) and the sooner we stop fighting, the sooner we will have peace.

Yeah, but if that BiS item is the same for every class and every build, you've got problems, and RROG is particularly problematic, because not only is it a tough slot to upgrade, it also makes other slots hard to upgrade.

IMO the damn thing was brain-damaged to start with, mainly because it applies to all sets that you're currently wearing. Ideally, it'd only apply to one set at a time, but there's really no elegant way for the player to choose which set it should apply to. IMO they should just retcon the affix out of existence... at which point their numbers will show that only 6 people and a single incredibly smart parrot are still doing bounties.

It's not really about what's 'optional' or 'mandatory' (although, much like 'viable', 'forced' and 'mandatory' are words that forum idiots refuse to use correctly), it's about facilitating fun by not coupling various gameplay options together. Adding stat-points to achievements would only affect two groups of people: achievement nerds like myself who would simply be getting a free upgrade, and people whowant the upgrade enough to start doing achievements because it's the most efficient path (e.g high paragon players), but don't actually like doing them. The former group wouldn't really care, as we clearly do achievements simply because they're there, and the latter group would feel railroaded into activities they'd prefer not to do. That's a net negative, IMO.

D3 already has too many tightly coupled systems. Bounties -> Rifts -> GRifts or GTFO. That's bad enough, as it disregards anyone who just wants to do bounties (that aren't Act I Normal), just wants to do Rifts, or (God forbid) actually prefers Story Mode (assuming 99% of Story Mode fans haven't already quit playing by now). True player freedom requires decoupled game options with appropriate reward structures.

Quote from yuhanz

or yeah, a little stat bonus wouldnt hurt i think

I think it would. A lot of the achievements are extremely boring and grindy and only appeal to the most obsessive-compulsive personalities. Do you really want to say to every player "hey guys, either do these achieves, or you're gimping your character" ?

And I say that as the sort ofobsessive-compulsive personality who has the most achieve points in his clan of 100+ people.... :-)

Quote from Bagstone

Sigh... not sure where this is going. If you discard my opinion because I play "mostly in groups", I might as well say that shaggy's opinion, who's playing "mostly solo". Anyways...

I spend the overwhelming majority of my time outside of T6, because as you might now, my main class is wizard and since I don't have the Wand of Woh, T6 is not really an option. Yes, I have farmed many stacks of key fragments solo because I hate split farming. And yes, I have paid 20 fragments for 4 rifts many many times (I hate when everyone is just doodling in town and no one wants to open the rift).

I'm not discarding it completely, but I was under the impression that you didn't know the suffering from solo players. You mention 4 player t6 farming quite often, at least that's what I had in mind.

If you DO know it, which is what my questions were supposed to find out, I wonder how you came to the conclusion that we are at a sweet spot regarding loot distribution. That sounded like you hardly ever spend time out of rifts, like shaggy also concluded.

Quote from iPeedInMySpacesuit

I see where you confusion comes from, its worded really terribly, when you have a follower at max level you already have access to all thier skills, so how does this relic give you even more access to the skill set then what you already have?

What it should really say is "Enables all follower skills" cause thats what it really does it lets your follower use every skill they haver rather then you speccing them.

It's worded perfectly fine as it is. If someone can't infer that it's referring to follower skills, then they should probably stop playing video games and go back to middle school.