Think you may need to fix your fix....

If those are yards, then all of the playable characters are giants.

While I don't have as many complaints as some people do, things do need to be tuned a bit so that there's a more steady increase in difficulty for a character going straight through all the difficulties in order.

Not to pick here, but they were up front about the fact that Normal mode is meant to be little more than a tutorial. Nightmare is supposed to be on part with D2 Normal.

The last I remember it was "We really want people who didn't do the higher difficulties of D2 to give them a try in D3."

If you want to a provide a statement that says point blank that normal wasn't intended to challenge anyone at all, feel free.

But consider that all the tension of the story, the bosses and all that junk was completely wasted on normal, and has no real value in further playthroughs. By the time you get to the "real game", you've already seen the majority of major content, other than the mini-dungeons and lore. There was no chance to skip that experience or qualify for a harder one so you could both enjoy the story the first time and be challenged by it.

Which all in all makes it a royally stupid decision on their part, even if they did state up front that it would be a "trainer" for higher difficulties. You do not endear your customer to your game by boring the **** out of them for 4 to 8 hours and making them question if doing the same thing again is going to be better, more fun or more challenging. It actually hurt my appreciation of the story when major characters like Belial, Khule, Magdha...died within 30 seconds.

At one point a friend of mine who had put about 3 hours total into D3, who was in Act 3 with us at about 10 levels behind us, asked "What is the threat again? Why are we in trouble? You could beat this with a half naked character. Where's the threat that only we can stop?" Without a challenge in your first playthrough, all the drama and voice acting and fancy looking attacks came across as trite, when if you'd actually been challenged in the first place, it might have felt slightly meaningful. As it is, it left the whole game feeling like window dressing.

ITT; elitest bitches.That's assuming that Hell is meant to be played single player.

It probably isn't.

If wanting my first 7 hours of a $60 game to be more challenging than Space Invaders makes me an elitist, I'll gladly embrace that title.

**** whoever came up with Invulnerable Minions. **** them, their family, and their friends. That **** is just stupid, was playing with someone else and we died several times each, he ended up kiting them back to the zone line, zoned, and then teleported to me. There's not much in the way of tactics you can use to counter that crap in a cramped dungeon, the only thing is cheesing it, if you can even do that.

No, that was actually in reference to group play.

Kill the unique and ignore the minions?

While that is obvious... it becomes an extreme pain in the ass (read: nigh impossible) to survive something like "Horde Illusionist Invulnerable Minions"

Edit: Ugh... FYI, trying to solo Rakanoth on Hell is actually the pain in the ass. Hello, random instant teleport + 20k damage.

So what do you guys think the inevitable expansion pack is going to be about?



Haha, I had to read what some of those powers were.

That sucks. Sounds like its time to restart at that point.

This was linked earlier in this thread, but: if you are wondering about the ease/difficulty disparities.

The expansion to Diablo III will not release until after the other two thirds of StarCraft II have been released. Then Blizzard will be releasing a dual SC2/D3 expansion in one package.

Obviously the Angels are the descendants of the Protoss and the Demons are the evolutionary culmination of the Zerg. Accept the fact that the "renegade" Nephalem are none other than the Xel'Naga and we can wrap up TWO IP's with a single expansion pack.

Thats easier said than done when you have three minions who hit you for about 1/4 of your life on your ass and the unique has 400k HP.

Yeah, it's clear they didn't play through all of Hell even.

When he talked about melee wizard viability I started laughing. I'm still lowly geared, but at 29khp with 200+ in resists and 4k armor I could maybe solo a few non-champ packs in Hell with a melee Spectral Blades setup. Even in the video clip they showed, the wizard is about to die. All builds viable? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's why most Wizards in Hell+ are currently running Blizzard/Venom Hydra/Diamond Skin/Energy Armor. Well at least the last two skills could be different.

I'm sure this might change in the future, but until you get massively geared there are definitely skills you are going to be locked into or at the very least feel pressured by the difficulty to have.

They just nerfed Azmodan runs for exp. The devs in this game seem all kinds of retarded, loot without any kind of amazing effects, bosses drop **** tier loot, and now the only boss worth doing repeatedly got nerfed into the ground.

So I was right when I said to Drole the other night that the Pony level's music sounded like it was being played backwards: http://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comme...rnate_reality/

Yeah but people were pulling down 300,000xp per run set.

Everyone talks about that being ridiculous but you can still get one level an hour doing the quest in Act 2 where you clear the guards in that small town. I can't remember the name at the moment, but it ends up being 80-90k for about two minutes of work.

That is crazy about the song in reverse, maybe it will lead to something more elaborate but I think it's likely just an easter egg. Like the pages that reference Lost.

EDIT - It's Hell Act 2.2 The Road To Alcarnus, Lieutenant Vachem.

If the expansion isn't in Hell I'm going to be I was looking forward the whole game to an entire act slogging through Hell, and the infernal-lite sublevels didn't cut the mustard at all. After the Halls of Agony in Act 1, I was like "oh man, Hell is going to be awesome!" Turns out the hellish parts were actually pretty bland.

Eh, I was glad to see heaven for a change. So many of the works of fiction with this theme focus on hell that the other side of things always seems to get ignored.

I admit, I would like to see a hell that isn't the usual cliche of lava, bones, and spikes. I was hoping that we would see some creativity when fighting in the lord of sin's areas, but all we got that was sin themed was a fat miniboss and a spider woman who apparently enjoys flirting with people trying to kill her. While they probably would have to go easy on the lust themed part of Azmodan's domain to avoid an adult rating, I'd like to have seen what they could do with areas based on greed or gluttony.

Boobs? Screw her boobs, look at all them legs!

Yeah, it sure is retarded how the devs made the game so that everyone doesn't just run the same 15 minute boss encounter over and over again and actually plays through the game instead...

And the best way to do that is to make bosses completely worthless? And at this rate, most people aren't going to be replaying the game anyway since loot isn't nearly good enough.

To be honest, things like Azmodan runs and the Act 2.2 farm were going to happen eventually anyway because Act 3 and Act 4 of Hell have level requirements for co-op play. You had people legitimately hitting Act 3, not being able to solo it and then trying to join co-op games to find out they were level locked from them. Then they decided they wanted to level their character but didn't want to slog around all of Act 1 or Act 2 for hours on end to do so.

Obviously this isn't the only reason, and it's likely a small one. Most people probably do it for the gear so they can play through Hell with a little more ease (and I can personally assure you being 60 going through Hell is a lot easier than the mid 50s).

Getting to max level is hardly the endgame anyhow, Inferno is the endgame and it is a gear check not a level check. Skill comes into play as well, but it is mostly a heavy gear check. Even skilled players will tell you that after the current series of hotfixes it becomes mostly impossible to play after Act 2 of Inferno because you end up needing roughly 700+ resists (maybe less if you can kite everything effectively) which isn't viable with current gear drops. Every topic I've read from people playing Inferno seems to suggest that the playerbase is waiting on some retuning to be done because it is unacceptable as it currently stands.

My barbarian is level 60 and I put every skill that I could to something defensive, and he still gets almost instantly murdered by elites/champions in in inferno. I'm not sure what kind of equipment is needed for that difficulty, but I'm pretty sure it will take a very long time to get enough gold or do enough farming to get it.

You could spend time.....OR you could go to the AH!

Um... Don't go to the AH right now. I just lost 290k in there by not getting the items that I purchased. Many others are having the same issue. ><

Pearll, you might still luck out on that. I've had that happen several times so far and sometimes up to a day later you'll find either the item or the gold refunded under your completed auction tab.

I got the big item that I purchased for 275k, thankfully, but I'm still missing the other item. We'll see if it pops up as well.

Yeah, the AH is completely borked. It's been nothing but a pain in the ass to try and use.

I also can't fathom why the filters for gems are so terrible. What exactly is the reasoning behind forcing me to choose a stack size for gem searches? I just want to buy 4 of the cheapest flawless amethysts! I don't give a **** how the seller chose to stack them!

I don't know what was wrong with the way the WoW AH works that it couldn't be used here...

I think the biggest problem they have with the D3 AH is that it handles such a massive load compared to the WoW AH. It isn't divided by something like server to keep the number of people using it to a decent load size, it is only divided by region. Several million North American players are using the same AH. It was likely never designed to sustain such a huge load, or at least it was not tested at anywhere near a fraction of it's current capacity which is probably why it is currently buggy as ****.

The thing with Gems/Crafting materials is that they seem to be purchased from a pool of all gems/materials currently in the AH system. When you select the stack size it chooses the lowest pricepoint for that amount of item being sold via the system. Something like that I'd imagine is why it doesn't show listings, only the amount you are buying and the price. I can't honestly say I fully understand what they are doing really, only that I think it works something like that.

This is how you get resists.


Sorry, couldn't help it.

That's what I thought it was doing at first also, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Case in point, yesterday, I want to buy a couple cracked amethysts.

I enter Amount: 2

Comes up: Price Per Unit - 25g Total Price - 50g.

Great, I think, I'll buy it.

"Sorry, you have to buy in amounts totaling at least 100g"

Okay, annoying. So I enter Amount: 5

Comes up: Price Per Unit - 220g Total Price - 1100g

What the ****?

To be fair though, it could still work that way. The prices fluctuated constantly whenever I tried to buy gems/crafting things. I could put in 5 and get one price then refresh and get something completely different.

Also the cheapest option for 2 could have been 50g, but the cheapest option for 5 was 1100g. *shrug*

Also, if you need gems, I have a lot of lower level gems I could throw at you.

So is that the end-game switch? Elemental-based damage means very little and then suddenly you need resists stacked out the wazoo to not get one-shot?

I mean, it was kind of the same way in D2 iirc, resists became vital for the end-game. But mid way into nightmare only now am I beginning to see pieces with it.

Ugh... after farming out the rest of the gold to make the Hell version of the Staff of Herding, I check my inventory and realize that sometime along the way I either dropped or sold my Nightmarish Staff of Herding.

There goes 350k.

I think its mostly because they are sold like a commodity instead of like normal items due to them being used for crafting other gems.

Yeah, that happened to me when I first started looking for stuff, it only happens with the really low end gems though.

I just bought a bunch of +resist all gear because of how hard I was getting hit in Act II Hell, my resistances shot through the roof compared to what they were and my damage reductions went from like 3% for each element to 30%. Havent played around much since Im just farming that thing in Act II for exp that Drole mentioned since its not fixed yet.

a lot of people have mentioned theirs disappearing, I havent read much into it but it sounds like either a lot of people drop/sell theirs and dont realize it or there really is some bug causing them to poof. I still havent even made a normal one yet even though I have all the pieces other than the bell.

-----------

I REALLY wish the AH actually compared gear to yours, I wasted 15K on a bow that I thought would be better DPS, but it feels like it isn't due to a huge loss in Dex. It not comparing stuff makes it a real pain in the ass / gamble to buy certain things.

That's why it sucks you can't just access the AH in game like in WoW.

I don't know why there's not just an Auctioneer in the camp somewhere.

http://www.diablofans.com/blizz-trac...design-update/

So they through up news on an upcoming update. Fixing some of the spikiness of Inferno damage, revising the cost of the Blacksmith/Jeweler (still not enough imo) and working on retuning some of the legendaries (which won't affect ones that have already been dropped).

Weird to think that only 1.9% of people have cleared to Inferno... then again that's 1.9% of more than seven million people.

Why is that weird? It's balls ****ing hard.

It's probably a similar percentage of people that beat any game on the hardest difficulty.

That number isn't for clearing Inferno, that's for people who have cleared Hell and unlocked Inferno. I'd imagine the number of people that have completely beaten Inferno is significantly lower than 0.5% because it is indeed balls ****ing hard.

It just seems like more people have cleared Hell.

I unlocked inferno 3 nights ago and have only made it past Act I. Holy hell is it hard. Even just trying to farm for some cash to buy the resist gear that I need is going to take a while.

I'd be further along, but I've been taking the time to complete as many achievements as possible.

I'd have more cash, but I've upgraded the Jeweler and Blacksmith up to levels 10 and 9.8 respectively.

I imagined most of this being said by someone who is actually retarded. Rares getting perfect rolls and being better is one thing, Legendaries sucking a big fat **** like they do now is a completely different issue and the reason why people are pissed, and rightfully so. Showing the level of the item won't help, Legendaries suck, period. The problem with the blacksmith isn't so much the cost, its that everything he makes is crap compared to what you can easily get in the AH.

Legendaries don't have scaleable stats. That's why they want you chasing yellows. Now, maybe if the gear upgrade train wasn't moving at 100,000 mph, using an item with fixed stats wouldn't be such a problem. But yes, when the right weapon or piece of gear can double your damage, legendaries do indeed suck a fat one.

And thats retarded, they shouldn't want you trying to chase after common stuff, Legendaries should be better than pretty much everything other than perfect drops. What's the point of having super rare items when they aren't worth using 99% of the time? Them being in the game is about as useful as the white items being in the game past Act I Normal.

Well, it is quite expensive to level him, several hundreds of thousands of gold have to be poured into him. It's what, 100k+ for the levels past 5?

My biggest complaint, however, is the idea that after you funnel all this money into him you can make some of the best possible gear in the game via the blacksmith according to Devs. (Which apparently isn't true anyhow, high level Inferno rares will have additional bonus stats over crafted rares). You can only make this gear if you manage to luck out and get one of the level 60 recipe drops from late Inferno and then luck out on the crafting roll. So you have to get some of the best gear in the game, to eventually have a chance at crafting some of the slightly worse than best gear in the game... should you be lucky enough to get the recipe drop and win at crafting rolls. By the time you've got something decent from the blacksmith that you might use, you've wasted countless hours of playtime and millions in gold. All of which could have been circumvented by spending 5 minutes on the AH.

Throw us a bone, make it slightly more complex than it currently is if necessary. Make it so there is some way we are at least guaranteed to get two of the base stats we actually need from Blacksmith gear. Perhaps having to use one of the highest tiers of gems in the crafting of recipe drop pieces to guarantee that stat is actually on the gear (this has the benefit of actually removing gems from the game). Then at least we are only painfully randomizing the few extra stats. I personally stopped crafting gear after I got my twentieth piece of gear with useless stat allocation. There are still going to be better drops anyway.

When it comes to the Jeweler, the cost is exceedingly larger than necessary. Cutting it down to two gems doesn't offset the fact that it takes like 200k to combine them and massive mudflation on the AH has the gem down to less than 5k to purchase. Honestly, showing Shen some love sometimes feels like the reason the commodities AH has been down for a week or so.

EDIT - On the topic of Legendaries, there are quite a few at 60 that are still pretty damn good and sought after. Pre-60 there is almost no way to make them better than rares when "Reduced Level Requirement" is a stat that exists. At this point there isn't a single Legendary weapon in the game that actually beats out more common weapons. Really they just need to up the current ilvl budget for Legendaries over their level requirement to at least make them someone competitive. I think I am more depressed that some of the best weapons in the game are common drop magic items.

I'm sure there are Hell/Inferno model legendaries. That's just cold comfort when you're trashing your first legendary in normal mode without using it.

There are, but not weapons. Someone did the math on the best possible roll for the highest damage legendary weapon and it works out to be something like 900dps on a 1h. There are currently 1200+ blue 1hs. If I could find the article I would link it.

Like I mentioned though, there are still amazing level 60 armor legendaries (they get beat out by rares, but that's intended).

My first Orange dropped at the end of Act 1 of Nightmare. It is a Mojo for a Witch Doctor, and I play a Monk...

That's really annoying.

My friend found two WD legendaries in Act 3. I used the first because, even though it was worse, I had to sport a legendary. I replaced it before we even hit Act 4. I didn't even bother equipping the dagger.