Except that's not what the game was about? There are quite a few people that spent more time in the last difficulty than hundreds of people spent in all 4 difficulties combined.
It just would have been nice if they made each difficulty a little bit different. Maybe in normal we fight Zoltun Kulle. In nightmare we fight his father. In hell we fight his grandfather. In inferno we fight the first of his bloodline. I don't know. Something like that.
I found it extremely boring fighting the same people with the same story for each difficulty.
I can respect that. Diablo 3 comes from a lineage where the story just isn't that important. It's kind of like an arcade game in that sense; that's why it sucks so much that they made this version so scripted, with all the stupid events and cutscenes, and how you have to "pick a spot in the story" before you start any given game.
I agree with you in the sense that the final difficulty needs more stuff that is unique to that difficulty, like the Key Wardens. They also need to bring back that world event that triggered when enough SoJs were sold, and Super Diablo (or whatever) just dropped into your game.
The original inferno was a great idea; super hard mode to test your character. The problem was, it required too much unrewarding grinding. 99% of the stuff you needed to progress in Inferno, was in Inferno, so it was a catch-22. Only 1% (probably less) of what dropped in Hell mode would help you in Inferno. It just sucked. If you want to have something like original inferno, you need something like today's inferno where you can go farm up that uber set you need to rock the oldschool inferno, if you see what I mean.
This is nothing but speculation, but I can see them revamping difficulties. Removing the requirement of defeating the one to unlock the other and simply giving players the ability to switch between them as difficulties in other games let you do. I can see Monster Power being removed as an option and being integrated into the difficulties themselves. Much like it is on the console version. You start your game and choose your difficulty.
That would explain adding a 5th difficulty, removing the requirement from the tooltip and giving the players that feel they don't want to play past Normal a great answer.
This is nothing but speculation, but I can see them revamping difficulties. Removing the requirement of defeating the one to unlock the other and simply giving players the ability to switch between them as difficulties in other games let you do. I can see Monster Power being removed as an option and being integrated into the difficulties themselves.
I don't think that they will remove the unlocking tier difficulties because each difficulty has its own set of items associated with it (it's hard to notice because you can't see item types on rares or legendaries). I think they're going to rework them, though, because 4 difficulties plus 10 monster powers is just too much. They suggested as much at Gamescom. I think we'll get an official announcement at Blizzcon.
I'm drawing the line here though, if they just add a fifth difficulty I'm out.
I'm glad to see the AH go because it was replacing many of the aspects I used to enjoy about D2.
I had stopped muleing things leveling up other characters because I could buy whatever I needed whenever I needed it. The appeal of farming for specific items was greatly diminished by knowledge of the fact that my time was genuinely better spent looking for a deal on the AH than actually playing.
I'm also glad to see the AH go because I felt like it fragments the gameplay experience, which makes it hard for me to relate to other players. "Oh, you play Softcore No-RMAH 1.5B Budget MP8? That's cool, I play Hardcore Self-found MP2." It's like we're not even playing the same game.
I swear, I read some forum posts about whether some item is worth 2B gold, and these guys all have like 5 marquise gems, and here I am, never had more than 10m gold at one time. Like, what game are they playing? How do I have a conversation about barbarian builds with these guys? It's like I'm at a bar and the bouncer won't let me in because my Skorn doesn't have 4% lifesteal.
It would be absurd to release Loot 2.0 before removing the AH. That's the whole point of Loot 2.0, to find your own items. It would be a complete contradiction.
Maybe they think no AH with the current loot system is the lesser of two evils?
On the one hand, it seems silly to me that they'd release the new loot system, with its vastly improved drop rate and drop quality, while the AH was still open for business. It would just get flooded with stuff and exacerbate the super-cheap availability of high-end items (which is why I think they're shutting it down in the first place).
On the other hand, how could you shut down the AH without the new loot system in place? I know there's a self-found community out there, but that's pretty niche. I think a lot of players would be turned off to playing if they lost the AH but didn't have Loot 2.0 to take its place (and if you've ever played the console version, you know Loot 2.0 will be a worthy replacement).
Does this basically guarantee no Loot 2.0 after March 2014?
With all this negativity, I thought I was in the official forums for a second!
I, for one, am super excited about the expansion. The Crusader looks like a total badass and Act V looks great from what I've seen. I'm also really amped about the 60-70 skills for the original classes. Can't wait for the specifics to start rolling out. The Mystic, I'm sort of whatever about; if the game actually starts dropping the fun stuff at a reasonable rate, I will happily spend my time smashing about looking for orange pillars of light, as God intended. Not terribly worried about modding items. Transmog will be a nice perk too.
At the same time, I can definitely appreciate it if someone feels like $40 is too much. The fact is, a lot of the cool stuff is going to get patched into the original game - Loot Runs, Nephalem Portals, Loot 2.0, Paragon 2.0 - but you shouldn't look at that as a downside of the expansion. Frankly, with all of those new additions, I'm excited for new content to explore it with, even if it's just one act. But if $40 is too high, don't pay it. Your original $60 is still working for you.
I'm with you in hoping that they improve randomization throughout the original 4 acts (and I would LOVE open world / ignore-the-story mode), but I will also say that a the Loot Runs look like they'll help slake your thirst for randomness even if the original 4 stay the same.
For PvP, I don't have much to say; I'm not into it, I don't really care about it, and I believe them when they say they haven't released anything beyond Brawling yet because they haven't come up with anything that's fun. I'm curious what you mean by Deathmatch PvP - is that not what Brawling is?
And at the end of the day, while there are things I wish D3 had done differently, I have about 400 hours played, which is well worth the $60.
And +skills were never random rolls - you couldn't roll between 1 and 50 +skill. In D3, all relevant stats have pretty huge ranges, which adds to the perception that the itemization sucks.
I'm still messing with the item ranges to figure out a good balance of random and pointless.
If I'm understanding this whole discussion at all (somewhat difficult to extrapolate from varying opinions but trying hard), +1 skill was an easy way to boost DPS.
Perhaps in my game a good way to do this would be to have items that give +1 fire skills, or +1 melee skills, or +1 area skills
Yes, lots going on in this thread!
What I was trying to say with regard to +skills is that they have three main benefits: first, they scale well. +1 to All Skills was just as valuable to a level 50 character as it was to a level 70 character. Second, there wasn't a huge range - you could find +1 or +2 to All Skills, and that was it. This means that you can't get a bad roll, unlike D3 where STR can add a lot of damage, but an item can have between 1 (terrible) and 300 (amazing). Finally, it was usually guaranteed - unique items either had it or didn't, there was no randomness.
People forget that although D2 had a "random" item system, most builds used primarily unique weapons which had fixed stats. They had ranges, so your Doombringer might have 250% damage up to 300% damage, but that was about it. Even a low-roll Doombringer was decent. Thinking about your standard Hammerdin, for example, the normal setup was all uniques and runewords. You could get away with rare jewelry if you wanted to, as long as it had certain stats.
So the main point is, don't make your high-end loot as random as it is in D3. The random stuff should be for leveling up, and then when you get toward the end, you get into the uniques which are pretty specific.
If I am not mistaken this really only applied to non-magic based characters. I could swear (I could also be misremembering) leveling a barb a million times in D2 and thinking, "damn I wish a new weapon would drop because the damage on this one sucks and it is slowing me down".
That's correct; the melee characters generally required high-damage weapons, unless you were (ab)using Crushing Blow, because most of those skills added % damage (which is another fun trick nostalgia plays ... anyone else remember when Zeal only added accuracy and not damage??).
It wasn't much of an issue in D2 however because there were several weapons that were guaranteed to roll with high damage. You didn't run into a situation where you found the unique you were looking for but it was garbage because the damage rolled to low. This was also coupled with the fact that once you had the damage, you could get the other stats elsewhere; that is, you also didn't run into a situation where you found the uniqu you were looking for and the damage rolled high, but it was garbage because you didn't get a high STR roll.
This goes back to what I was saying about needing everything instead of just a few stats from each piece.
So for the Laws, when it says "Active", does that mean when you cast it you get that bonus, sorta like how Monks get that initial bonus when they first cast the Mantra? Is it a short duration bonus like the Monk, and then the "Passive" bit always applies until you cast a different Law or it wears off?
I hope so. I really liked the Hammerdin playstyle.
I think it's possible, considering that the Tornado Barb plays somewhat similar to the D2 Hammerdin (laying down a damage field and manuevering enemies into it). If it's fair game for Barbs, should be fair game for 'Saders.
It'll depend on if the Crusader has a way to generate Wrath from Blessed Hammers, similar to how the Barbarian can use BS: Into the Fray to gain Fury from Tornado crits.
I don't want to derail the thread too much on a discussion on the resource system alone but rather how it plays into itemization which you didn't address in my response.. So I'll pose it again:
What people are implying is that any benefits you've pointed out in terms of itemization (i.e., that it streamlines the number of affixes available) are outweighed by the gameplay benefits associated with having various different types of resources, which I agree with. I'm willing to accept 5 affixes instead of 1 if it means each class can play differently in terms of resource management. It's a good tradeoff.
It is my opinion that there are too many affixes to shoot for in D3, but there are much better places to offer streamlining than resources - such as the 7 (or whatever) different individual resists. This plays into what I discussed above about how there are too many stats where you just want as much as possible on every item.
Let's take, for example, a weapon in D3. It can roll +flat dmg, +dmg%, +crit dmg, +socket, +attack speed, +mainstat. This is the perfect roll for all builds and all characters dps wise, no exceptions. Lifesteal might be more desirable instead of attack speed or mainstat if you can't get any of it elsewhere, but that's it. Any other affix is, by comparison, bad.
Let's now imagine that these all could not roll at the same time. A rare could still have 6 mods, however 3 would have to be prefixes and 3 affixes. You could have 4+ of these mods as prefixes. Some builds would value +flat dmg and +attack speed more than +mainstat or +dmg%. Even if it's still just boring dps increases we're dealing with, now there's some flavor to it. The perfect weapon isn't predetermined for all situations anymore.
Great point - I think the current affixes would be much better if it were impossible to get all the "good" stats on one item. D3 tries to address this by allowing certain stats to roll higher on some items than others (i.e., Shoulders and Belts can roll higher STR, and Chests/Pants roll higher VIT) but at the end of the day you still ideally want every stat on every peice.
I think availability of items through the AH has caused people to raise their expectations with regard to item power though, which is also a big part of the problem. That is to say, my barb can handle Inferno MP2 pretty well and his gear is nowhere near perfect on most of his rolls. If D2 had an AH, you'd have people calling everything except the most perfect roll of the high-power items "vendor trash."
To those who say that the different resource system they've implemented in Diablo 3 is better - can you all elaborate instead of just saying that you think it's better?
Different resources makes more sense thematically, but more importantly allows class/skills to behave and play differently. For example, if a WD or Wiz wants to use a spell that needs Mana or AP, they can kite monsters until they have enough to cast but a Barb or Monk needs to keep attacking to generate Fury/Spirit, forcing them to go toe-to-toe. A Monk can carry over a big attack to the next group because Spirit does not degenerate; a Barb has to start from scratch because Fury does.
Just to add my 2c, I think D2's itemization worked better than D3's because of two reasons: First, for most stats, you could eventually have "enough," which gave players a lot more flexibility when it came to choosing gear sets. Second, the most powerful damage stat, +skills, was a) not random and b ) equally useful to every class of every level.
So regarding the first point, in D2, you only need 120 resist-all to meet the cap in Hell mode; you only need enough STR to wear your gear; you only need enough DEX to maintain block rate (else just gear requirements); and you don't need Mana at all. Attack/Cast Speed, you just need to hit certain break-points.
In D3, you need your key stat for damage, and there's no limitation on the return. You always want more of it, and more of it is always better. Crit, Crit Damage, and IAS are the same - more is always better. All-res is a little more subjective, as people often offer values to "shoot for," but ultimately more is always better, even with diminishing returns.
The other peice of the puzzle for D2's itemization is +skills. This stat single-handedly allowed low-level gear to scale as the player leveled up, because +1 skill always maintained a constant benefit (and in some cases, got even stronger the more you got because of the way a skill scaled). So you could put that stat on a lower-level item and it wouldn't be out of control, and it would still be useful later on. It also made items have much broader appeal than D3 items because as I said above, you always want more of your relevant stat. The Harlequin Crest was an awesome helm for every character in the game, regardless of what it rolled. If that same helmet existed in D3, except it could roll Crit Chance and a Main Stat, only a fraction of them would be useful.
And +skills were never random rolls - you couldn't roll between 1 and 50 +skill. In D3, all relevant stats have pretty huge ranges, which adds to the perception that the itemization sucks.
0
I can respect that. Diablo 3 comes from a lineage where the story just isn't that important. It's kind of like an arcade game in that sense; that's why it sucks so much that they made this version so scripted, with all the stupid events and cutscenes, and how you have to "pick a spot in the story" before you start any given game.
I agree with you in the sense that the final difficulty needs more stuff that is unique to that difficulty, like the Key Wardens. They also need to bring back that world event that triggered when enough SoJs were sold, and Super Diablo (or whatever) just dropped into your game.
The original inferno was a great idea; super hard mode to test your character. The problem was, it required too much unrewarding grinding. 99% of the stuff you needed to progress in Inferno, was in Inferno, so it was a catch-22. Only 1% (probably less) of what dropped in Hell mode would help you in Inferno. It just sucked. If you want to have something like original inferno, you need something like today's inferno where you can go farm up that uber set you need to rock the oldschool inferno, if you see what I mean.
0
I don't think that they will remove the unlocking tier difficulties because each difficulty has its own set of items associated with it (it's hard to notice because you can't see item types on rares or legendaries). I think they're going to rework them, though, because 4 difficulties plus 10 monster powers is just too much. They suggested as much at Gamescom. I think we'll get an official announcement at Blizzcon.
I'm drawing the line here though, if they just add a fifth difficulty I'm out.
0
PS - I really liked Invulnerable Minions, and I wish they'd bring it back.
0
I had stopped muleing things leveling up other characters because I could buy whatever I needed whenever I needed it. The appeal of farming for specific items was greatly diminished by knowledge of the fact that my time was genuinely better spent looking for a deal on the AH than actually playing.
I'm also glad to see the AH go because I felt like it fragments the gameplay experience, which makes it hard for me to relate to other players. "Oh, you play Softcore No-RMAH 1.5B Budget MP8? That's cool, I play Hardcore Self-found MP2." It's like we're not even playing the same game.
I swear, I read some forum posts about whether some item is worth 2B gold, and these guys all have like 5 marquise gems, and here I am, never had more than 10m gold at one time. Like, what game are they playing? How do I have a conversation about barbarian builds with these guys? It's like I'm at a bar and the bouncer won't let me in because my Skorn doesn't have 4% lifesteal.
0
Maybe they think no AH with the current loot system is the lesser of two evils?
0
On the one hand, it seems silly to me that they'd release the new loot system, with its vastly improved drop rate and drop quality, while the AH was still open for business. It would just get flooded with stuff and exacerbate the super-cheap availability of high-end items (which is why I think they're shutting it down in the first place).
On the other hand, how could you shut down the AH without the new loot system in place? I know there's a self-found community out there, but that's pretty niche. I think a lot of players would be turned off to playing if they lost the AH but didn't have Loot 2.0 to take its place (and if you've ever played the console version, you know Loot 2.0 will be a worthy replacement).
Does this basically guarantee no Loot 2.0 after March 2014?
Or maybe same time?
0
I, for one, am super excited about the expansion. The Crusader looks like a total badass and Act V looks great from what I've seen. I'm also really amped about the 60-70 skills for the original classes. Can't wait for the specifics to start rolling out. The Mystic, I'm sort of whatever about; if the game actually starts dropping the fun stuff at a reasonable rate, I will happily spend my time smashing about looking for orange pillars of light, as God intended. Not terribly worried about modding items. Transmog will be a nice perk too.
At the same time, I can definitely appreciate it if someone feels like $40 is too much. The fact is, a lot of the cool stuff is going to get patched into the original game - Loot Runs, Nephalem Portals, Loot 2.0, Paragon 2.0 - but you shouldn't look at that as a downside of the expansion. Frankly, with all of those new additions, I'm excited for new content to explore it with, even if it's just one act. But if $40 is too high, don't pay it. Your original $60 is still working for you.
I'm with you in hoping that they improve randomization throughout the original 4 acts (and I would LOVE open world / ignore-the-story mode), but I will also say that a the Loot Runs look like they'll help slake your thirst for randomness even if the original 4 stay the same.
For PvP, I don't have much to say; I'm not into it, I don't really care about it, and I believe them when they say they haven't released anything beyond Brawling yet because they haven't come up with anything that's fun. I'm curious what you mean by Deathmatch PvP - is that not what Brawling is?
And at the end of the day, while there are things I wish D3 had done differently, I have about 400 hours played, which is well worth the $60.
0
Yes, lots going on in this thread!
What I was trying to say with regard to +skills is that they have three main benefits: first, they scale well. +1 to All Skills was just as valuable to a level 50 character as it was to a level 70 character. Second, there wasn't a huge range - you could find +1 or +2 to All Skills, and that was it. This means that you can't get a bad roll, unlike D3 where STR can add a lot of damage, but an item can have between 1 (terrible) and 300 (amazing). Finally, it was usually guaranteed - unique items either had it or didn't, there was no randomness.
People forget that although D2 had a "random" item system, most builds used primarily unique weapons which had fixed stats. They had ranges, so your Doombringer might have 250% damage up to 300% damage, but that was about it. Even a low-roll Doombringer was decent. Thinking about your standard Hammerdin, for example, the normal setup was all uniques and runewords. You could get away with rare jewelry if you wanted to, as long as it had certain stats.
So the main point is, don't make your high-end loot as random as it is in D3. The random stuff should be for leveling up, and then when you get toward the end, you get into the uniques which are pretty specific.
0
That's correct; the melee characters generally required high-damage weapons, unless you were (ab)using Crushing Blow, because most of those skills added % damage (which is another fun trick nostalgia plays ... anyone else remember when Zeal only added accuracy and not damage??).
It wasn't much of an issue in D2 however because there were several weapons that were guaranteed to roll with high damage. You didn't run into a situation where you found the unique you were looking for but it was garbage because the damage rolled to low. This was also coupled with the fact that once you had the damage, you could get the other stats elsewhere; that is, you also didn't run into a situation where you found the uniqu you were looking for and the damage rolled high, but it was garbage because you didn't get a high STR roll.
This goes back to what I was saying about needing everything instead of just a few stats from each piece.
0
0
I think it's possible, considering that the Tornado Barb plays somewhat similar to the D2 Hammerdin (laying down a damage field and manuevering enemies into it). If it's fair game for Barbs, should be fair game for 'Saders.
It'll depend on if the Crusader has a way to generate Wrath from Blessed Hammers, similar to how the Barbarian can use BS: Into the Fray to gain Fury from Tornado crits.
0
What people are implying is that any benefits you've pointed out in terms of itemization (i.e., that it streamlines the number of affixes available) are outweighed by the gameplay benefits associated with having various different types of resources, which I agree with. I'm willing to accept 5 affixes instead of 1 if it means each class can play differently in terms of resource management. It's a good tradeoff.
It is my opinion that there are too many affixes to shoot for in D3, but there are much better places to offer streamlining than resources - such as the 7 (or whatever) different individual resists. This plays into what I discussed above about how there are too many stats where you just want as much as possible on every item.
0
Great point - I think the current affixes would be much better if it were impossible to get all the "good" stats on one item. D3 tries to address this by allowing certain stats to roll higher on some items than others (i.e., Shoulders and Belts can roll higher STR, and Chests/Pants roll higher VIT) but at the end of the day you still ideally want every stat on every peice.
I think availability of items through the AH has caused people to raise their expectations with regard to item power though, which is also a big part of the problem. That is to say, my barb can handle Inferno MP2 pretty well and his gear is nowhere near perfect on most of his rolls. If D2 had an AH, you'd have people calling everything except the most perfect roll of the high-power items "vendor trash."
Different resources makes more sense thematically, but more importantly allows class/skills to behave and play differently. For example, if a WD or Wiz wants to use a spell that needs Mana or AP, they can kite monsters until they have enough to cast but a Barb or Monk needs to keep attacking to generate Fury/Spirit, forcing them to go toe-to-toe. A Monk can carry over a big attack to the next group because Spirit does not degenerate; a Barb has to start from scratch because Fury does.
1
So regarding the first point, in D2, you only need 120 resist-all to meet the cap in Hell mode; you only need enough STR to wear your gear; you only need enough DEX to maintain block rate (else just gear requirements); and you don't need Mana at all. Attack/Cast Speed, you just need to hit certain break-points.
In D3, you need your key stat for damage, and there's no limitation on the return. You always want more of it, and more of it is always better. Crit, Crit Damage, and IAS are the same - more is always better. All-res is a little more subjective, as people often offer values to "shoot for," but ultimately more is always better, even with diminishing returns.
The other peice of the puzzle for D2's itemization is +skills. This stat single-handedly allowed low-level gear to scale as the player leveled up, because +1 skill always maintained a constant benefit (and in some cases, got even stronger the more you got because of the way a skill scaled). So you could put that stat on a lower-level item and it wouldn't be out of control, and it would still be useful later on. It also made items have much broader appeal than D3 items because as I said above, you always want more of your relevant stat. The Harlequin Crest was an awesome helm for every character in the game, regardless of what it rolled. If that same helmet existed in D3, except it could roll Crit Chance and a Main Stat, only a fraction of them would be useful.
And +skills were never random rolls - you couldn't roll between 1 and 50 +skill. In D3, all relevant stats have pretty huge ranges, which adds to the perception that the itemization sucks.