DG wrote on May 28, 2012, 17:26:
Hmm, I'm not even done on Act II of Normal yet but I was getting a very strong impression that the blacksmith is a total waste of gold. I blew quite a bit on training, plus lost sales salvaging blues plus the gold to craft random items.

I also initially went heavy on increased magic find, and thought I was doing okay with that.

Then I hit the AH. It makes everything in-game look like a bit of a joke. In any given number of playing hours, it's vastly better and cheaper to just buy on the AH.

Merchants are superfluous to the AH, though I keep looking as occasionally they'll be offering decent stats for cheaper.

The only thing I'm not sure about at this stage is whether to go for high gold find attributes or high magic find - in order to sell the items on the AH. I probably made about 1/3 of my gold income from selling items over the past few days, though this is with something like +50% magic find but +0 gold find. It's also a nuisance to sell on the AH as it times out a lot. Also I check prices and sell at a discount since it's a buyer's market and anyway limited to 10 items. I guess with high gold find I should make about the same but with much less hassle.

The second thing is, does this still work on the higher levels, or does crafting and drops become much more valid?

RollinThundr wrote on May 28, 2012, 16:07:
That's the problem in a nut shell, in Diablo II, uniques were exactly that unique and usually the high end one's were powerful. In Diablo III it's oh hope the randomize dice roll plays nice for you.

Tumbler wrote on May 28, 2012, 17:08:
But even that is tedious because you get so much crap.

I miss my dog in torchlight...

The whole town portal, walk to merchant, right click right click right click. Am I missing something that makes this all easier?

DangerDog wrote on May 28, 2012, 16:52:

jacobvandy wrote on May 28, 2012, 16:46:

Obviously you've become desensitized in the last 10-15 years. Forget the environments, just the violence of combat is so over the top... Blood splatters everywhere and covers the ground, critical hits or certain skills cause enemies to explode in a cloud of gore, exaggerated ragdoll physics have intact corpses flying through the air, etc. The sound effects are a little too good sometimes; the first time I looted a 'Bloated Corpse' and it swelled and burst (with a spurt of green/orange gak) made my stomach churn a little.

Maybe, but go look at the pixelated dungeon they made for Diablo. It's like what id software did with Doom 3, there was a metric ton of disturbing shit in the original Doom and Doom II but only a token amount in Doom 3. I don't expect it to be amped up but the "shock" is missing from the game, so far anyway.

jacobvandy wrote on May 28, 2012, 16:46:

Obviously you've become desensitized in the last 10-15 years. Forget the environments, just the violence of combat is so over the top... Blood splatters everywhere and covers the ground, critical hits or certain skills cause enemies to explode in a cloud of gore, exaggerated ragdoll physics have intact corpses flying through the air, etc. The sound effects are a little too good sometimes; the first time I looted a 'Bloated Corpse' and it swelled and burst (with a spurt of green/orange gak) made my stomach churn a little.

ItBurn wrote on May 28, 2012, 16:28:

DangerDog wrote on May 28, 2012, 16:24:
I'm struggling to make it through the game one time, the game feels lacking - over simplified dungeons, repetitive environments that lack the shock value of previous games.

I'm not huge into Diablo but I do remember the "Butcher" from the first one, bodies impaled on sticks and dismembered parts hanging from the walls, blood everywhere.

http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/The_Butcher

The most disturbing thing in D3 so far has been baskets of sacrificed heads and perhaps a ghostly recreation of a lady being killed by guillotine. They (repetitively) put in torcher chamber equipment but it's just sitting there unused, like your passing through some museum.

I sort of have expectations of being put on edge by the environments in what should be a dark and violent themed game.

instead it's been stripped down to a PG rating. Rated M "my ass".

I don't want to be the diablo defender here, but there's gore everywhere. A lot of it, everywhere. People laying around with their intestines hanging out, people on pikes, half people on pikes, bloated rotting corpses... My first impression of the game was "darker than d2; perhaps too dark".

DangerDog wrote on May 28, 2012, 16:24:
I'm struggling to make it through the game one time, the game feels lacking - over simplified dungeons, repetitive environments that lack the shock value of previous games.

I'm not huge into Diablo but I do remember the "Butcher" from the first one, bodies impaled on sticks and dismembered parts hanging from the walls, blood everywhere.

http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/The_Butcher

The most disturbing thing in D3 so far has been baskets of sacrificed heads and perhaps a ghostly recreation of a lady being killed by guillotine. They (repetitively) put in torcher chamber equipment but it's just sitting there unused, like you're passing through some museum.

I sort of have expectations of being put on edge by the environments in what should be a dark and violent themed game.

instead it's been stripped down to a PG rating. Rated M "my ass".

Darks wrote on May 28, 2012, 16:34:

RollinThundr wrote on May 28, 2012, 16:07:

Alamar wrote on May 28, 2012, 15:45:

Beelzebud wrote on May 28, 2012, 15:39:
I love how everyone is an expert about itemization for legendaries vs. rares based on roughly 2 weeks worth of random drops, and a few forum posts by people with anecdotes.

Surely, the comments from those not even playing the game are amusing...

But in this regard, reality is handy, but perception is king...

The problems (in this area) with perception is that people don't value certain lines (affixes) on a legendary, when they have some real use... Personally, I skip stuff with 'increases health globe pickup range', but then, I die from not being able to reach a health globe, so maybe that's karma heh...

Also, that whole comparing higher level blues with lower lvl legendaries is useful... The 'real' problem is that while it may be one in a billion drops, if there is ever one blue with perfect high rolls that beats one (equal ilvl) orange with perfect low rolls people scream that the system is broken... I half agree, as I think it's pointless to have gear that has such an absurdly low chance of dropping, not be overpowered, but apparently they want orange gear to just be a tad stronger (partially for balance I imagine, and to prevent AH abuse - go figure).

-Alamar

my lvl 51 DH says hello btw. And that's just it, for items that drop as rarely as legendary items do, their stats flat out suck. In 51 levels I've found 2 total. 2! Through a complete play through of normal and Nightmare. One was a lvl 10 Witch Doctor helm with terrible stats, the other a lvl 41 quiver that if it didn't have +104 dex on it, I would have AH'ed in a heart beat since the rest of the stats on it suck.. oooo +3 to disipline! oooo Reduces the cost of Cluster arrow! (a skill I don't even use)

That's the problem in a nut shell, in Diablo II, uniques were exactly that unique and usually the high end one's were powerful. In Diablo III it's oh hope the randomize dice roll plays nice for you.

Dude, I agree, legendary items blow big time, hell sometimes a blue item will drop that makes the legendary items look horrid.

As for balance changes, ok blizz, that’s right let’s make the classes even more under powered. As it is now, no one is able to get through Inferno mode because it’s entirely OP. And don’t ever go on the forums and post a negative comment about the game or blizz. It will get nuked, that is just pathetic when a company can’t even allow customers to vent their frustrations.

Great job as usual Blizz, you never fail to disappoint.

RollinThundr wrote on May 28, 2012, 16:07:

Alamar wrote on May 28, 2012, 15:45:

Beelzebud wrote on May 28, 2012, 15:39:
I love how everyone is an expert about itemization for legendaries vs. rares based on roughly 2 weeks worth of random drops, and a few forum posts by people with anecdotes.

Surely, the comments from those not even playing the game are amusing...

But in this regard, reality is handy, but perception is king...

The problems (in this area) with perception is that people don't value certain lines (affixes) on a legendary, when they have some real use... Personally, I skip stuff with 'increases health globe pickup range', but then, I die from not being able to reach a health globe, so maybe that's karma heh...

Also, that whole comparing higher level blues with lower lvl legendaries is useful... The 'real' problem is that while it may be one in a billion drops, if there is ever one blue with perfect high rolls that beats one (equal ilvl) orange with perfect low rolls people scream that the system is broken... I half agree, as I think it's pointless to have gear that has such an absurdly low chance of dropping, not be overpowered, but apparently they want orange gear to just be a tad stronger (partially for balance I imagine, and to prevent AH abuse - go figure).

-Alamar

my lvl 51 DH says hello btw. And that's just it, for items that drop as rarely as legendary items do, their stats flat out suck. In 51 levels I've found 2 total. 2! Through a complete play through of normal and Nightmare. One was a lvl 10 Witch Doctor helm with terrible stats, the other a lvl 41 quiver that if it didn't have +104 dex on it, I would have AH'ed in a heart beat since the rest of the stats on it suck.. oooo +3 to disipline! oooo Reduces the cost of Cluster arrow! (a skill I don't even use)

That's the problem in a nut shell, in Diablo II, uniques were exactly that unique and usually the high end one's were powerful. In Diablo III it's oh hope the randomize dice roll plays nice for you.

DangerDog wrote on May 28, 2012, 16:24:
I'm struggling to make it through the game one time, the game feels lacking - over simplified dungeons, repetitive environments that lack the shock value of previous games.

I'm not huge into Diablo but I do remember the "Butcher" from the first one, bodies impaled on sticks and dismembered parts hanging from the walls, blood everywhere.

http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/The_Butcher

The most disturbing thing in D3 so far has been baskets of sacrificed heads and perhaps a ghostly recreation of a lady being killed by guillotine. They (repetitively) put in torcher chamber equipment but it's just sitting there unused, like your passing through some museum.

I sort of have expectations of being put on edge by the environments in what should be a dark and violent themed game.

instead it's been stripped down to a PG rating. Rated M "my ass".

Alamar wrote on May 28, 2012, 15:45:

Beelzebud wrote on May 28, 2012, 15:39:
I love how everyone is an expert about itemization for legendaries vs. rares based on roughly 2 weeks worth of random drops, and a few forum posts by people with anecdotes.

Surely, the comments from those not even playing the game are amusing...

But in this regard, reality is handy, but perception is king...

The problems (in this area) with perception is that people don't value certain lines (affixes) on a legendary, when they have some real use... Personally, I skip stuff with 'increases health globe pickup range', but then, I die from not being able to reach a health globe, so maybe that's karma heh...

Also, that whole comparing higher level blues with lower lvl legendaries is useful... The 'real' problem is that while it may be one in a billion drops, if there is ever one blue with perfect high rolls that beats one (equal ilvl) orange with perfect low rolls people scream that the system is broken... I half agree, as I think it's pointless to have gear that has such an absurdly low chance of dropping, not be overpowered, but apparently they want orange gear to just be a tad stronger (partially for balance I imagine, and to prevent AH abuse - go figure).

-Alamar

Verno wrote on May 28, 2012, 13:00:
Some positive stuff in there but some other things are a bit weird. The gems thing makes no sense because you get way too many great gems in Hell/Inferno for free, low level gems serve zero purpose except to entirely brand new players and even then the AH nullifies that.

Some things I'd like to see:

- Repair from the blacksmith please
- imbues and player added sockets (great gold sink here)
- better drop rates on sets/uniques/etc, we were swimming in them in D2 which wasn't necessarily good but this is too far in the other direction
- The servers lower than 200ms in primetime (on FIOS no less)
- Bosses dropping at least 1 piece of decent loot in the higher diffs without 5 stacks of Valor. People honed in on specific bosses in Diablo 2 and WoW to get the loot they want which is why people play the game.
- Champion pack affixes being reexamined, some are so obnoxious that people usually just skip them in higher diffs.

- Inferno ready gear that doesn't drop in Inferno itself, no clue what they were thinking there. Progression is fine but they say too many people are doing it without adequate gear while ignoring that the gear comes from Inferno itself.

Retuning Inferno is definitely necessary and I'm glad they see that, insane spike damage that you can barely avoid is more at home in something like Dark Souls than this.

Beelzebud wrote on May 28, 2012, 15:39:
I love how everyone is an expert about itemization for legendaries vs. rares based on roughly 2 weeks worth of random drops, and a few forum posts by people with anecdotes.

RollinThundr wrote on May 28, 2012, 15:24:

ItBurn wrote on May 28, 2012, 15:12:

Vex wrote on May 28, 2012, 15:07:
If anyone is on the fence about this game, I strongly suggest you wait to purchase it. At this point you are paying to beta test the game, which is an insult considering how long the development cycle was. The game has been designed to train you to go to the auction house for your gear.

Are you nuts? Sure the game isn't perfect, but it's amazing. I'm going to go with this instead: Buy it right now. Give them money, so that they can continue to make amazing PC games.

If by amazing PC games you mean mediocre average games with 10 year old mechanics and pretty cinematics then yes you're spot on.

The itemization in D3 sucks and sucks bad. The legendaries are weaker than regular magic items half the time. And the randomization on everything was a bad design call. In fact the game reeks of bad design throughout.