DiabloFans

Quote from Loroese

My statements were correct. The first part you quoted was for a skill with no CD or resource cost, so you can spam it to your heart's content. That means the effective dps of the skill is the same as the dps number listed in your char sheet, with some adjustment for weapon damage of the skill. To be precise, a 100% weapon damage skill that you spam non-stop does 100% of your in game dps number. A 300% weapon damage skill that you can spam non-stop does 300% of your in game dps number (such as Archon for Wizards, without improved rune or it'd be 375%).

The second quote is also correct, which you assumed to be wrong because you thought my first statement was wrong. That or I just have no idea what you were trying to say.

yes, i've misunderstood your post - calculations are right, so sorry about that.

but as everyone is entitled to own opinion, i'll still stick to mine that it's more convenient to have dps and damage separated - for me, it's easier to just multiply damage with skill modifier, instead having to divide dps with, for example, 1.73 and then do the same thing

I, HAL9000, an AI went rogue, will quote this, without comments - it is self-sufficient. Furthermore, the cold reason (ok, lets skip the phrases used by dead human philosophers) cannot find any logical flaw, and whole B section is best-though replayability solution I've found on forums. To bad dave's God is so scarce on details of it. Someone should really analyse him - a madman, a comedian, a genius, a savior? All of that together? Anyway, game replayability quote:

Quote from Clavdivs

and yes, all is clear in divine thought. diablo III lacks:
A) achievements
replayability

A) By achievements, The God considers the feeling of happiness when defeating Diablo, or some other boss. they are just too easy! and whole act IV is way too easy. i should played more to reach pinnacle, to defeat Lord of Terror himself. last maps (act IV and hellwell on act III) should be so hard that it looks almost impossible to beat... and by farming, gaining exp and gear, they gradually open and after one very hard battle, you proudly say 'I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, HAVE DEFEATED DIABLO!' (preferably getting decent stuff, unlike one i got. oh, and you can use your own name. or mine. whatever). and then chose another class. then another. then another build. forever.

currently, you'll probably continue to farm for loot. then start another class, but will have more gold then Rome, run through leveling, run through inferno, defeat diablo, feel miserably...

By replayability, The God criticize skill system, and ability to change it in instant, buy some equipment and there! from melee wizard to glass cannon? diverse? The God don't think so...

Has The God solution? I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, introduce THE PERKS. player picks one (out of three, for instance) at creating of character, something that change the class feeling considerably. it is the specialty player character has, which influence later game by it's very nature. AND IT CANNOT BE CHANGED! well, player could get to change it when reaching Inferno, and at the same time chose another, INFERNO PERK. or not. maybe first choice perk should stay the same forever. or there should be only one perk. either. no matter.

By having THE PERKS, players are forced to make multiple characters, if they want multiple builds - this way, one only needs V heroes and some items - one wizard for PvP, glass cannon, balanced, melee... The God actually enjoyed leveling another hero of same class for each build in diablo II. here, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, will likely have V heroes, and V for stashing stuff...

Hail, Clavdivs, i'm here mainly to put some common sense in dave (also known as von Oberstain), who hasn't displayed any faulty logic (yet), but is prone to it, mainly cause he was some mathematical wunderkind back in fatherland and does calculations with large numbers from head - but misses important points... anyway, i'm remaning agnostic, but want to "manage" dave, so all can have some use of his analyses

AHEM, here we go:
1. misconception 1 - intelligence and strength are inequal as sencondaries, in terms of defense

proof:
each 3000 armour equals 100% additional HP
each 300 intelligence equals 100% additional HP

final damage resistance, and hence inteligence is calculated by 1-arm*res (and *0.7 natural defence of barbarian and monk, or 0.8 wizard with blur)

this is a simple truth, and couldn't be missed by spreadshit-loving people of blizzard. main problem is in polynomial multiplication, which *was* (obviously) missed by blizzard, but shouldn't be missed by dave here

namely (dave, hits his head on the wall by this time), arm*res differs from maximum, which is of course arm=res

i'll make this clearer, though i'm sure divine insight unferstaind, which i know since i read your initial proposal:

3000 armour is equal with 300 resistance. investment of 100 attribute of either strenth or intelligence will result in same secondary effect (i ignore primary for this purpose only, say we talk about demon hunter)

armour and resistance should remain in close-as-possibly 10:1 ratio, or result falls. example:
1) character with 5000 armour and 500 resistance investing
a) 2000 attributes in strength alone
1000 attributes in strength and intelligence equally

will result in a) having 0.23% better overal defense (seems not a big deal, but it is, when we are talking about ~90% defense)

or, much more understandably:
2) character having 2000 armour from items and 67 resistance from stats, investing 2000 attributes
a) strength only
equally

will result in 5% in favour of a) - this being a borderline case

if resistance initial resistance was 200, masser ( a) ) would LOSE for 3%

recapitulation:
- armour and resistance has to be ALWAYS as near as 10:1.
- borderline case from example doesn't count, since that same character profits of having +20 resistance and -200 armor - we should ignore him, actually, but i'm kinda fond of borderline cases

a problem:
- each character gets at least 2000 armour from equipment, usually more, and there are bonuses more often and stronger than for resistance
- character is FORCED to invest in ALL RESISTANCE heavily, say at least till +200, which limits his build opportunities - it's allright if he WANTS TO, but not if he HAS TO
- investing in ALL RESISTANCE is impossible for leveling characters, so there is a SERIOUS disadvantage for intelligence builds

as divine intellect already solved this, in not-too-elegant manner, i must say - consider this as my little contribution here. The God has good intuition and solution, but no important debates with his "disciples" (or heretics, for a matter of fact)

Quote from Albani

First post!

And this is some really nice coding, good job!

Thanks!

By the way, in case anyone is interested in the code I wrote to generate this site, here it is: https://github.com/Sembiance/d3_eq_skills_scraper

Quote from ruksak

I apologize (again) to the OP. I hope he understands my comment was well-meaning. I didn't mean to engage some random pseudo-intellectual 'know-it-all' in a back-n-forth pissing contest.

No worries. I hope you find the pages as useful as I do

hmmmm, you're right. troubles at work...

but i really love the game, i bought 3 copies! and was thinking about 4th! for the lan parties... but MP is just plain bad, and i feel... betrayed. by my favourite game ever. worse, they are going the wrong way, they are going the wrong way, right now, with 1.05, they are going the wrong way! how come nobody realizes?

alright, just one, a quick one, mind you. don't ask for best-of-three later!

Quote from Bogok

Quote from Bleu42

What? There was a LOT of unbalance in the other diablo games !! Hammerdins anyones? How about the sorcerer in D1? Stack str for heavy armor and spam mana shield, invulnerable. You just didn't hear about it as much because there wasn't as many people on forums.

There will never be true balance in this game or any game, they can only make it close. And the grass is always greener on the other side.

Well spoken

ill spoken. SP - imbalances doesn't mattered - take easier or harder class or build, you're playing for own pleasure. MP - imbalances doesn't matter by default, players are joined against common enemy. PvP is only mode where imbalances mattered, but i don't like it - though i won them all

on the other hand, HERE imbalances matter a great deal, since you play against THE HOUSE. like a roulette. against AUCTION HOUSE, to be precise. and what if 1/5 players have increased luck by 10% by default? and 2/5 has it decreased? that does matter a lot!

and before it did not... some kid exploiting hammerdin to the max? what the hell do i care? here, i have to give him hard earned gold, cause only advance is through items, and he can get them and i can not? can i compensate? nope, there aren't 99 levels. so this is the game where balance means the most, and there is least of it

i'm not hating, but reacting to a pure nonsense - just because previous games had some imbalances (boring to play, btw), we shouldn't have balance now? that's your point?

or that imbalance is unavoidable? it's nonsense, meta-game evolves all the time, and new exploits/imbalances are discovered all the time. so, game makers react to them and achieve relative balance again. it won't last or be perfect, but will be better, and sometimes weaker classes/factions/whatever are intentionally overbuffed to compensate for past. balance is dynamic thing, but it can be maintained more or less.

I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, declare that all items SHOULDN'T be entirely random. in fact, they are not already. certain affixes can spawn on certain item-types only, and various 'strengths' of affixes are limited to item-types. so, bringing it a step forward, boots *should* have higher chance of spawning movement speed - what good is the only item that can have it, if it spawns at same rate as 'indestructible'?

The Perks - the first and so far last replayability hope of diablo III is being worked on in divine mind. in short, they should favor a certain playstyles to a degree that it changes typical ones - therefore tripling the diversity. divine intellect is still not full in agreement enough to give any details, but one, ROUGH and probably never really proposed by me, would be regarding AN ABOMINATION, GOD FORSAKEN MELEE WIZARD WHO....

[calmed] ...would get II int, I str, I dex, III vit per level. this ABOMINATION would progress in following manner each int point = 1% damage (as normal) and each III vitality = +1% damage, apart from normal bonus. this favors investment in high HP, while keeping same dps bonus. as this is probably imbalanced toward just-massing-vitality, and applying bonus to a str or dex would spread too thin attributes (if they are not balanced well, as The God proposed), the right ratio should be found, somewhere between above and something like two int = two and a half %damage, and III vit = half %damage.

this is just a rude rude and unworthy example, for satisfying curiosity. of course, all should relating existing builds and gamestyles, which are currently under a heavy change with each successive patch

I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, ACCEPT THE OFFER OF A MORTAL WHO OFFERED DESIGNING OF A WEBSITE. EVEN MOST CRUDE ONE WILL DO. The God will supply all material written so far, and spread a heavenly blessing upon a brave mortal soul who does it!

The God shall ponder deeply on now-listed 1.05 patch notes. Many, many changes are made, some are almost equal to what The God proposed and therefore almost perfect, only lacking subtlety The God has. Others are basically the opposite of what divine wisdom suggested - therefore bad!

BAD!!! NERFING INFERNO BUT INCREASE LAG BETWEEN:
I) ONES WITH NO LIVE, EXPLOITERS AND BOTTERS
II) NORMAL FOLKS PLAYING PERSISTENTLY LIMITED TIME OF DAY

PATRICIANS SHOULD, OF COURSE, HAVE BENEFITS OVER PLEBEIAN SCUM, BUT FIXING THE MF RATE??? DIVINE WISDOM CLAIMS THAT I% OF I) ALREADY HAD THEY FILL. GAME SHOULD BE THE SAME FOR EVERYBODY! NO SHORTCUTS! LIKE LOWERING TAXES FOR I% OF RICHEST PEOPLE IN GAME!

on a separate note The God decided to fix the blog. or not. or just the ugly color, and ugliness becomes The God's trademark? I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, shall ponder on this also, only to a much lesser degree...

after the first "leaked" 1.05 patch notes, I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, for the first time since the game got out, can say that blizzard is going in a wrong direction.

adding /players into the game is very bad idea, it will only make the gap between players greater. really geared players will use harder but more rewarding parameters, and get even more powerful. that will be felt soon both on AH and in future PvP - about opposite of what should happen. less geared people will farm for more geared, and process will go on forever...

i deliberately use 'more geared' instead 'better' players, because large amount of supposedly 'best' players were, in fact, exploiting some of numerous bugs and exploits game had (unlimited experience from quests, 'god mode' - only The God is allowed to use it) etc. The God also suspects a number of them are, or are connected to beta testers, who purposely kept in secret exploits they found during test phase, to use themselves after the game starts. this is not a conspiracy theory, it actually happened to me during the time i was a game designer. it is a likely scenario...

ok, there are people who are really good and/or invested huge amount of time in farming but how many of them are in, say best D or M is real question....

THE PROMISE WAS MADE, AND GOD WILL SHORT UP THE WIZARD

wizard is probably class suffering the least changes in current and future patch, so Blizzard must consider it a paramount of balance. well, it is not. it suffers from a number of flaws:

I Tiered skills - what is EXACT difference between Wall of Force and Explosive Blast? basically, nothing. X runes + II pure skills for something that does basically the same thing - damages all around caster for... wow, about CC+ damage of PHYSICAL. are they similar? no, not at all [irony]. yes, they can be triggered at different times, but shorten cooldown, and use only TRULY DIFFERENT runes would compress them both nicely in one, diverse skill. search for more tiered skills or look into the blog. when it's updated, of course

II No diversity skills - take Archon for example. yes, V nice runes + basic skill and... they are all about the same. and they shouldn't have been. look into the blog for more

III Overnerfed - i chiefly think teleport. what was once a true signature spell is now at lower tier of skills. basically, every class has similar but better one, one without insane 14 sec cooldown. The God uses Calamity for its damage and escape potential, used Fracture before Calamity buff (five times the initial damage! that is what Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus called BUFFING). other runes - mainly useless and lookalike. why not more imagination - why every one has to have 14 sec cooldown? we could have one with less, say 5-8, used just for quicker movement. we could have more efficient escape mechanisms (apart from Fracture/Calamity, wizards often get caught with unstoppable, unpredictable boss ability and killed on site) - say one which gives 5 sec with no collision L% increased speed, no attack? more damaging - say the same, only trail of fire (cinder) left behind? and above all, why 14 sec?

IV Useless - both armor spells, and IV out of V Energy Field runes (well, overstatement). The God balances them all, by adding +XL% armor increase OR +XL% resistance. the rest can stay the same. a must-have! MUST HAVE! well, glass-cannons may opt not to use it, but is wizard all about being glass-cannon?

V Flatliners - Hydra in leveling - from rune I at level XXVIII, they are dealing the same damage. flat. sure, a bit of difference IN LEVELING would be nice, while skill is PERFECT for usage of INFERNO RUNES. Also, Hydra deals more than Magic Weapon and Familiar combined with Glass Cannon passive. yes TRUE! anyone not using Hydra is a FOOL! FOOL, I TELL YOU! A MUST HAVE!

VI Bad end-game runes - all three, Explosive Blast, Mirror Image and Archon. all can be fixed easily - for example, Mirror Image is potentially highly useful, except... it has to be a Duplicates rune. II images are never enough. also, the spread should be greater, as most non-glass-cannon wizards die when caught in crowd, and II illusions + real wizard get caught in crowd often. a basic skill must have a III or IV illusions (if IV, Duplicates should go to VI, or be buffed a bit in other manner), rest is fine. and The God has a beautiful and elegant solution for Archon, no resources needed. just good will

VII No Fire - where is fire sorceress we all knew and loved? GONE! WITH DIABLO II! what The God means is that effects of more skills should be fire. and less physical. also more lighting. so fire and lighting passives are actually usable... and why wizard has poison? is it out of context? effect could be the same, but poison doesn't fit well

Quote from johnny_vodka

i haven't actually read the blog, but this readers digest seems interesting, so i will...

have you any solutions for inferno/paragon, btw?

look! and yes, all is clear in divine thought. diablo III lacks:
A) achievements
replayability

A) By achievements, The God considers the feeling of happiness when defeating Diablo, or some other boss. they are just too easy! and whole act IV is way too easy. i should played more to reach pinnacle, to defeat Lord of Terror himself. last maps (act IV and hellwell on act III) should be so hard that it looks almost impossible to beat... and by farming, gaining exp and gear, they gradually open and after one very hard battle, you proudly say 'I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, HAVE DEFEATED DIABLO!' (preferably getting decent stuff, unlike one i got. oh, and you can use your own name. or mine. whatever). and then chose another class. then another. then another build. forever.

currently, you'll probably continue to farm for loot. then start another class, but will have more gold then Rome, run through leveling, run through inferno, defeat diablo, feel miserably...

By replayability, The God criticize skill system, and ability to change it in instant, buy some equipment and there! from melee wizard to glass cannon? diverse? The God don't think so...

Has The God solution? I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, introduce THE PERKS. player picks one (out of three, for instance) at creating of character, something that change the class feeling considerably. it is the specialty player character has, which influence later game by it's very nature. AND IT CANNOT BE CHANGED! well, player could get to change it when reaching Inferno, and at the same time chose another, INFERNO PERK. or not. maybe first choice perk should stay the same forever. or there should be only one perk. either. no matter.

By having THE PERKS, players are forced to make multiple characters, if they want multiple builds - this way, one only needs V heroes and some items - one wizard for PvP, glass cannon, balanced, melee... The God actually enjoyed leveling another hero of same class for each build in diablo II. here, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, will likely have V heroes, and V for stashing stuff...

I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus apologize for LOOSING THE TEMPER! YES! ahm, yes, The God should remained calmer... CALMER!!! during this sharing of divine thought... it's just The God was expecting more from 1.05 instead nerfing inferno - nerfing beginning of act I, buffing end, changing exp curve, making actual difficulty curve, NOT introducing systems that increases current, often unfair differences...

and just to be known, 'top players' are rare in real life, but often very loud on forums... and people brag way too much of inferno BOTH being too easy and too hard. even as it is now, it's hardly possible to be easy and hard at the same time, no?

The God will speak in short here to highlight most important features detailed in blog. It will contain issue, and hint of solution, which is detailed in blog – intrigued mortals can findout a glimpse of divine wisdom here, and more in blog.

yes, the blog – it's ugly and unworthy and it will be replaced soon – as soon as the updates being worked on are completed.

GOD'S DISCLAIMER:
EVERY idea and solutions listed come from divine thought, but also from common sense and rationality. it is natural that reasonable fixes are similar, even identical. while The God is all-knowing, he isn't all-interested, especially in reading every fix proposed on every forum – he would be, if there weren't so much garbage. if something is identical, then it's a coincidence, and person in question should feel honored that his thoughts are similar to divine thoughts. I owned the known world – and have no need for stealing.

GOD SPEAKS BRIEFLY:

I – itemization

both one-handed+shield and two-handed style are underpowered compared with dual-wielding. shield is too random on block chance and therefore entirely luck based and flawed in nature, while two-handers are weak compared to dual-wielding and need buffs to be viable.

level LVIII having just one item is poor – all this beautiful graphic WASTED. on inferno, every of XII different item types should be able to spawn with level LVIII stats and affixes (and levels LXI and LXII also)

gems are as flawed as in diablo II. there is only few real uses, which are often imbalanced (emerald in weapon) or questionable (ruby in helmet – should it exist?)

entirely random items are not good solution. there has to be some point of certainty for crucial parts of equipment, for example boots spawning the movement speed (not always, just more often than now) or weapons spawning damage and elemental bonuses)

II Attributes

secondary effects of attributes is highly uneven. strength being the best by far, while intelligence lacking in all aspects. fixes are needed to make builds more diverse – for example, dexterity-based barbarian could be made viable option, instead of straight – primary+vitality build. each time. for each class. with no alternative. forever. a proposition is in blog.

IV Interface (skipping the unneeded and unfinished points from here on)

CTRL is WORST use of crucial button ever. At first The God thought it should be 'force move' button, but now he changed his mind with more interesting idea – 'native attack' – NO SKILL used, just plain weapon damage, as without mana/resources. this way some of inherited effects planned (cold, fire) could be actually used, instead just converted in dps-of-some-type-governed-by-skill

DPS formula is nice, but other parameters should be available to see, too, like damage and cooldown. while 'reversed cooldown' (attacks per second) are easier to understand, showing a real cooldown also has it uses – at least for some people.

item identification should be REMOVED ENTIRELY. it is tedious and has no real purpose.

VII Acts and balancing

acts on inferno have no difficulty curve, just plain jump. and that's not good, of course – as is Act III and IV being identical in difficulty. last maps of each act should be near as difficult as first ones of the next, and Act IV should be significantly harder than it is now

balancing was not done well, and it WON'T be done well EVER, since there are opposing interests involved:
a) leveling – each rune or skill acquired later should be even or better than the current one – makes player feel the pleasure of progressing
inferno – skills and runes need to be almost perfectly balanced, while diverse, to make inferno players experiment with different builds, instead going for few main builds

INFERNO RUNES are proposition made by The God to solve this. once in inferno, runes change their statistics, sometimes even way they function, to become balanced and fit for player to choose between them – similar to what Hydra is today and opposed to what Hydra was in the past. Alternatively, just NO RUNE could be changed to something else in inferno, because... well, nobody uses it ever

some passives should change with game progressing – for instance 'galvanized wand' healing effects worth something in while leveling, but is later easily surpassed by ONE affix on ONE item. passives shouldn't get obsolete, too.

NV bonus is made too valuable, so it often discourages players to change builds. The God suggest that changes THE RUNE while keeping the same SKILL should not affect NV – it could mean a world to change a rune, especially if INFERNO RUNES are used

VIII Wizard notes and balances

The God promised this. but, as luck would have it, file is lost somewhere on hdd. also, it was eaten by a dog! so, until this matter is resolved, patience is needed...

http://savediablo3.wix.com/diablo3#!home/mainPage - address changed. Link is safe to click on...



This is short version of everything said on site. For a detailed information, The God is afraid that you'll have to dwell deeper into the divine wisdom.



Itemizatization
In there, The God discusses why is dual-wielding favored in contrast to two handers and weapon+shield, and gives solutions which would lead to far greater diversity among equipment usage. The gems are also discussed, Blizzard made awful mess with them - to be honest, they weren't good in diablo II also - and how to solve this, in a manner that every gem has its use and no gem is overpowered.

Loot
In there, The God discusses general problems connected to 'Three Stooges approach' - everything is random, but there is awful lot of them. Naturally, almost all are useless, cannot be sold on AH or RMAH, can be vendored but with annoying 'identification waste of time' for low profit. Solutions are, of course, given, mainly going towards lessening the number of drops, but increasing their quality, and renouncing some of randomization.

Attributes
Current 'variable builds' are exclusively consisting of main attribute + vitality, secondaries being lower grade. It this chapter, a discussion about making viable build of 'dexterity barbarian', or 'intelligence DH' are made. Those aren't, of course, meant to become main build, but are good for fun builds with decent viability.

Multiplayer
And how the Activision Blizzard killed it in 1.05. And how I, Clavdivs, The God will save it! And make the game a social one, instead lonely farming experience.

Interface
Various changes which would improve overall game experience, like 'drop non-magical' or 'drop non rare/legendary' button, remapping ALL keys, locking items in place etc...

Game diversity
Linearity? YES! Open, vibrant world. INFERNO, NO! Is it the game everyone wishes to play for next X years? Suggestions concerning GOOD side-quests, interesting bosses, variable dungeons, decreased repeatability during farming etc.

Class diversity
In this chapter, The God addresses the following problem: THERE IS NO REPLAYABILITY. Whatsoever. Paragons and MP made sure of that. But divine wisdom found a way to avoid this, of course. Even override paragon/MP tombstone, and convert game to what it should be in the first place. Make people play few heroes at one time? Make players repeat game with SAME hero with a different experience? HOW, HOW? - THE PERKS ™ - read on!

Acts and game
Arbitrary, the Act I and III are best designed ones - lots of interesting ideas put in (some working fine, others not so good). How to make Acts II and IV better, and Acts I and III even better than they are now? How to correct some, errr [The God made divine effort to remain polite] ...inherited ...mistakes. The Lord God wrote it all!

Wizard
Somewhat outdated with patch 1.05, but still worth a reading. Shows a basic concept of "Inferno Runes" ™, the runes which replace 'no rune' option on Inferno difficulty without being best-in-class, but viable alternative to currently most commonly used runes. Also, changes some useless regular runes to better ones, without... errr [The God coughs repeatedly] changing effects V or more times

About The God:
Apart from being Caesar an deity (post mortem), I, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, The God, was a programmer, a game designer, balancer, map creator and whatnot. I am over MM years old, and have played diablo series since diablo I came out. The God forgot more about diablo than most people ever knew.

After all, it's not every day that MM years old deity offers help unselfishly.