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[Nadaka]

Its not even that inferno is hard.

It isn't hard to realize that to be successful you have to follow a cookie cutter build and max out certain critical item mods at all cost.

There just isn't any variety, or purpose. Its nothing but a grind, so you can grind a little faster, so you can grind a little faster, so you can give blizzard a cut of the profits from the real money auction house.

There is nothing that makes it special. There is nothing to find that is awesome. There is nothing new to try. Its dull, and contrived.

[SalmonGod]

But... that's absolutely no different from how it was in D2... where you could basically play any way you wanted, but endgame content or pvp would kick your ass if you didn't do exactly ______.  Their stated goal was to avoid exactly that situation, and now they're just reproducing it.  And from what I can tell, most people's complaints aren't about Inferno being too hard... it's about the entire game leading up to Inferno being too easy, and then a ridiculous spike in difficulty leaving the majority of players without a satisfying median at any point.  I'm facepalming so much over Blizzard right now...

[nenjin]

Yes, except the gear and customization options in Diablo 2 were INTERESTING.

In D3, they're limited, one-note, boring and they're even more cookie-cutter than the days of D2 that Blizzard seemed to think was so broke.

I could put up with a lot if the gear that dropped at least led to interesting considerations. But it doesn't. It's just "More damage? More vitality? More protection? Resist?"

The rest of the stats are 100% incidental unless you've spent a fortune and most of your free time trying to farm for viable gear that lets you stack the bonuses you're looking for in interesting amounts. There are so many traits that COULD be interesting, but they appear in such low numbers so infrequently, they're not even considered in the "gearing schema." Non-elemental resists, effect on hit weapons and just the bog standard thorns and what not. None of these compare to the core stats, not only because the game is weighted so heavily to just the core stats....but because Blizzard refuses to put other traits on gear in any worthwhile amounts. These could be providing interesting solutions to higher difficulty problems, but they can't because Blizzard didn't weight them for shit either in drop tables or in the grand scheme of things.

So while at its core it's not doing much different than D2, at least D2 gave you a lot of options that were visible and viable from the first playthrough. Compared to D3 where, right from the outset, gear sucks and is simple and the game is too easy to require you to do any creative thinking. Fast forward three difficulties, the gear is still boring because only 3 stats are relevant and the game is doing the equivalent of corner fucking you when it comes to difficulty.

The last straw for me was "Mobs will regenerate to full health if they're not visible on your screen." In a game that's been reduced down to 10 minutes of kiting to get through these difficulties, putting you in a shoe box covered in ground aoe while you do it is just crap. The difficulty and challenge and sweetness of victory mean fuck all to me if the rewards and the core of the game it's based on is about as flavorful as milk toast.

Like, you remember when we had way more gems that had way more effects based on slot? Compare that to what we have now. Even if the gems in D3 are "streamlined" and "purposeful", consider what the net effect on your interest level, imagination or possible builds was. For me, it amounted to a whole lot of "how fucking boring."

I mean, one of the gems gave +XP before Blizzard changed it. FUCKING +XP. A stat that is completely goddamn worthless in the THING Blizzard cared most about: the Inferno experience. When I saw that I just kind of face palmed even in Normal Mode. An entire gem stat/slot, completely worthless. Even if they did eventually change it, it speaks to how little they thought through what they were giving players. Blizzard honestly thought dry humping the game for minimal upgrades was going to be fun for anyone besides people trying to make money off the RMAH.

I sometimes wonder: if you subtracted out the production values and the Diablo franchise name, if anyone would find the game as compelling or replayable. Because the well of interest for me went dry at about 2 weeks of solid playing.

[sambojin]

Since the IAS nerf (cut most numbers in half) I'm hoping that bliz has an appropriately heavy-handed fix to the rest of itemization. Just double all the cool stuff.

Double stun, slow, freeze, fear, etc percentages on everything. Make chance-to-cast items. Give them some fun percentages and reasonable power levels based off various stats (rather than just DPS). Give skills and passive charges on items with either set, stat-based, time-based or weapon DPS amounts. Cooldown modifiers on items. Resource cost mods on items. Have sets and legendaries with these things so they stand out more. Make resists be worth something more than a spread out resist all. Make elements other than cold do something, based on either damage or crits.

Hell. Why isn't this in the original release? When they do an item fix, you know something will come out too powerful. Who cares, as long as there's a lot of other things with other cool stuff on them?

Diablo hasn't ever really been about balance or realistic levels of power curving. It's about having HEAPS of potentially unbalanced stuff, getting and stacking that stuff, making it all overpowered to hell, and having a lot of fun doing it.

[sambojin]

To put it simple: It's not an MMO. Don't treat it like one.

PvP is a side concern. AH and RMAH will sort out the price and power of items in time. Being overpowered or broken isn't necessarily a bad thing. Everyone's epeen will get over their neighbour's enormous new toy. They'll probably get their own soon enough. Traders and farmers will still trade and farm regardless.

Just make lot's of cool shit and worry about "balance" later, maybe never. Some classes will always be better than others. Some items or mods will always be better. Some affix combos or stacking them will go a bit outside the bounds of "intended" gameplay experience. Who gives a shit?

Worry about bugs. Worry about adding new content. Don't worry too much about balance. It's not a competitive sport, it's a game. Even in PvP

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Worry about bugs. Worry about adding new content. Don't worry too much about balance. It's not a competitive sport, it's a game. Even in PvP

I feel like they took your advice to heart on this one. Excluding worrying about the bugs/content.

[sambojin]

I just tend to think that balance is an unachievable goal in D3, in both PvM and PvP. Simply due to the different play dynamics and character types. So I think the best option would be to go for a "balance of overpoweredness" scenario, rather than a true "balance" scenario. Which is easy to create by making more items and the types of bonuses they can have.

How do you balance all the skills in D3, especially if you want to take into account the level you get them at or their effect in a PvP environment? PvP simply can't be balanced with the skills available to even an early level player. Level 6 quick-teleport-lightning punch of a monk? It'll have to be nerf batted. Smoke screen CC breaking? Bat. Evasive fire vs a melee toon? Thump.

Can't be done, or you'll have to swing the club at half the skills available, so I hope they don't bother trying too hard. Now if everyone had a chance of getting an item with 4 charges of quite-expensive-to-recharge SS with a cool-down on a boots item? Probably not as unbalanced. Or, equally unbalanced for everyone. In both PvM and PvP.

Just add a tab to your skills screen so you could assign charges a button. You'd lose a normal skill for a charge skill, so there's some trade off. Then go wild. That's only one example (charged item skills), they could do a million other things as well.

When it's broken, but it's so broken that it can be fixed without making it boring, then break it even more but in a fun way.

[pilgrimboy]

Frustrated. My Butcher Runs the last two days have been disconnected. Three different runs and three disconnects. The last one happened while fighting my fifth mob. Frustrating.

[hemmingjay]

Frustrated. My Butcher Runs the last two days have been disconnected. Three different runs and three disconnects. The last one happened while fighting my fifth mob. Frustrating.

Are you on wifi or in an area with sketchy internet service? I haven't had a DC in weeks.

[pilgrimboy]

I'm on wifi.

Sadly, and this one is the worst. I have been playing hardcore today. I just logged on to play my level 12 character. It jammed immediately upon entry. I had to close Diablo manually. Then I got back on and my character was dead. Oh, I'm sad.

[nenjin]

Got an email from Blizzard saying my account was locked due to suspicious activity. I probably played 2 in hours in the last three weeks. So, awesome. Either someone has had my password for a long time or it got exposed some other way. Strangely, all my gear was still on my toons. Maybe it's because they're not Inferno level.

I'm pretty sick of this crap though. Playing a Blizzard game is like inviting yourself to get hacked by someone.

[KaelGotDwarves]

Use the authenticator. Use the authenticator. Use the authenticator.

If I haven't made myself clear, Use the authenticator.

State of the Game:
You're going to have a lot more fun with the game if you pretend that Inferno, hardcore mode, the RMAH, and even the AH don't exist. (Unless you're like me and making money from the RMAH) Once you get to Inferno, there are certain ways the game HAS to be played.

I've nearly paid off my copy of D3 through the RMAH, and played 3/5 of the classes to level 60, and almost done with the last two. If you want some advice, read on and feel free to ask questions.

1.03 was aimed to nerf the prevalence of farming Demonhunters. Unfortunately monks got caught in the crossfire.

Demonhunter: Vastly overplayed, almost everyone has one. All you need is a great weapon to farm as a glass cannon, and built well is very survivable. Because everyone has one, gearing one through the Auction House is a pain in the ass. Seriously. Have fun competing with everyone. On the other side, great drops for them are worth a ton of money. One of the only classes I haven't spent too much time on because I'm always playing with them anyway.

Monk: Pretty much nerfed into oblivion because they were so broken before. Fun class to play before inferno, but if you go inferno be prepared to stack All Resist and One With Everything resist, otherwise you'll melt. Ridiculously expensive to gear and very difficult to get through inferno. I'd say it almost isn't worth it.

Barbarian: Stack all resist, strength, vit, life on hit/lifesteal... Still able to tank with the right build. Unfortunately you have to use the right build. Everyone complaining about barbs not being viable in inferno are not using tank builds. Unlike demonhunter and other classes that can kite, you're in the face of mobs hitting for 30k+ if you have no resists, so get resists and armor.

Wizards: Crit wizards, surprise, surprise, are still broken after nerfs. You can youtube videos of people permafreezing Diablo in Inferno and killing him with ease. Critical Mass + Wicked Wind rune on Twister, 40+% chance to crit, perma-Diamond Skin, mobs are perma-frozen while you dink at them.

Witchdoctors: Zombie Bears are so good. So good. Although because of various builds viability, the class might as well be called Vision Questers, or Spirit Vesselers. Every endgame build involves activating vision quest in some way, and then spamming.

[hachnslay]

I regret buying D3 - it isn't as fun or as D2. the only thing it got for it is what? better graphics? I couldn't care less.
I could have bought several other games for that money.
I advise everyone who doesn't have it yet to wait for it to go budget. Most of the bugs should be cleared up by then and the servers might be on most of the time.

ps: I live in germany. The situation might change depending on location.

[LASD]

Witchdoctors: Zombie Bears are so good. So good. Although because of various builds viability, the class might as well be called Vision Questers, or Spirit Vesselers. Every endgame build involves activating vision quest in some way, and then spamming.

I've tried Zombie Bears, but I just feel Dire bats are way safer (they still outrange even Mortar elites) and still do formidable damage. How are bears supposed to be used so I don't get gibbed while they are spawning from the underworld?

[pilgrimboy]

I think the advantage of always on DRM is that it might not even go discount.