28 May, 2012, Gicker wrote in the 21st comment:
Votes: 0
I wasn't even going back that far, and I would have to say Bioware and perhaps Bethseda are exceptions to the rule. I was thinking the Baldur's Gate, but I guess I was comparing Diablo III more to Modern MMOs than to modern single rpgs, though that may not be logically sound to do so.

Perhaps it's just nostalgia speaking, I also remember having a lot of fun with the old Gold and Silver box SSI games. But come to think of it there are a lot of modern, high quality rpgs that excel with depth and storytelling, diablo just isn't one of them and it's not meant to be.

But if I go back to my initial line of thinking and compare MMOs to MUDs, which is probably entirely off topic, so excuse this, there's not a whole lot of depth to most MMOs compared to most of the more well done MUDs out there.

Anyways I digress :) Diablo III is a great game, it'll be installed on my computer for a while to come, for a little hack and slash fun every niow and again. But games of this nature, and modern MMOs will never replace MUDs for me, though they'll always have a place beside them. Probably the same goes for all of us, I'm guessing.
28 May, 2012, Gicker wrote in the 22nd comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
I had the chance to play again last night, and completed normal difficulty (which isn't much of an achievement, but it does give me a better overview of the game, and particularly of the storyline).

A lot of people have complained about the story, but I rather liked it. I actually reckon it would be pretty cool to add something like that to a mud - there'd be nothing stopping you from wandering off and doing your own thing, but it would give you a very clear path to follow. I'm not talking about railroading, just giving players direction if they want it.

The main difficulty would be keeping the challenge level in line with the character. I guess you could have the monsters scale in strength though (probably using instanced areas) - normally I dislike the idea, because it discourages exploration (why hunt for a new area if you can just keep earning exp in your current one?) but in this case it could be tied to your progress, with completed areas becoming less worthwhile.


I haven't gotten past act II yet, but I like the story too, it's actually well done compared to previous diablo games, and the voice acting is nice as well. It's not as deep as a traditional rpg, but it definitely made slaughtering zombies and demons a lot more interesting. To be honest I probably wouldn't have liked the game nearly as much if there wasn't as much story as there is. I know I didn't get into diablo II a whole lot because at the time, I couldn't get into the story.

We've started putting story into our MUD using the tbamud quest editor. We have one quest line that centres around Coruscant (it's a star wars mud) and the Sith War (Old Republic Era) and another one in the works about Czerka's enslavement of the wookies, with quests from both czerka's point of view and the wookie's. The quest system is pretty basic, though it's awesome to have so thanks to whoever developed it, but it does add a nice story element to the mud and makes the hack and slash grind aspect of the mud a little more interesting.
30 May, 2012, hollis wrote in the 23rd comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
In Diablo II there was an unofficial tool that allowed you to respec, and I used it a few times, but it obviously couldn't be done during play. My choices could be changed, but I had to design a specific build before the session, and stick with it throughout (at least) that session. It allowed me to undo mistakes, but I still had to design a specific build in advance.


Worth pointing out that this is handled very elegantly at level 60. Every time you kill an elite/unique pack, you get a 20% buff to magic find and gold drops. Once you change your skills, this resets. There is a very strong motivation to stick with a single build through individual sessions.


KaVir said:
I admit I've only reached level 30 in Diablo III, but so far the only real choices I've made in terms of gear is how best to balance damage, armour, health and mana. Mostly I just pick the stuff with the highest damage, particularly when it comes to weapons. But the same gear seems to work fine no matter which powers I'm currently using, it doesn't commit me to a certain build - the only thing I might do is pump up my mana if I wanted to focus more on the big offensive spells.

Perhaps such items are unlocked later on, but so far I don't feel I've had to make any meaningful choices at all. The only thing I could really customise was my banner.


Yes, the first two difficulties (and half of Hell, I'd say) are such a cakewalk, that you your individual choices about gear or skill selection hardly matter. While I cannot confirm that this changes later on, it at least *appears* as if it might. Last night, I found a level 60 weapon that heals for 500 damage PER HIT, which seems to open up a whole new host of abilities that I had previously thought were useless for demon hunters (rapid fire, grenades, turret). I then began looking around and saw that there is a unique ring (forget what it is called) that is lackluster in all respects, except it is the only way to get +health per hit on a ring (and it gives about +200 if the stat rolls well).

It seems like there are certain "pivotal drops" that break the mould of the standard "good" item for your class, but can open up new, unconventional build types. I'm interested to see if this pans out on a larger scale, but for now I am certainly very excited about my new bow.
31 May, 2012, Kline wrote in the 24th comment:
Votes: 0
hollis said:
Every time you kill an elite/unique pack, you get a 20% buff to magic find and gold drops. Once you change your skills, this resets.

Actually it's 15%. It's also quite annoying that dragging a skill off your skill bar is also considered "changing your skills" and will also clear the buff. I've done this more than once while trying to move quickly toward the bottom of the screen and inadvertently pulling a power off the skill bar since there is no way to lock it.

hollis said:
Yes, the first two difficulties (and half of Hell, I'd say) are such a cakewalk, that you your individual choices about gear or skill selection hardly matter. While I cannot confirm that this changes later on, it at least *appears* as if it might.

Inferno is a game changer. Go lurk around the D3 forums and you'll see that pretty much the only people who have progressed in Inferno either relied on broken skills (that were hotfix nerfed) or by skipping as much content as possible and only killing the bosses. Elite packs are more difficult than bosses, and even normal monsters hit like trucks. I don't believe any Monk (what I'm playing ATM) has made any tangible progress without switching to a fully defensive sword & board spec. So much for diversity?

Blizzard has already publicly stated that no one on the development team could clear Inferno; and then they doubled the difficulty from there. The thought being that if any players manage to clear it then they have some broken / overpowered skills that need to be addressed. Inferno is currently meant as a balancing test for Blizzard to gather metrics from, it wasn't intended to be conquerable yet. Adding to the problem is that loot drops in wide bands. Usually you can find items +/- 1 act from where you are. So Inferno Act 1 drops loot from Hell Act 4 through Inferno Act 2. Sadly, most drops are on the lower end, and most players have come to the consensus that to progress beyond Inferno Act 1 (Act 2 apparently ramps the difficulty even more exponentially) that you essentially need gear from Inferno Act 4.

Also, I did see a post yesterday inquiring if experience scales with the players in game (as monster strength does) – it doesn't. In D2 people would join 8 man games then go off and solo to gain larger experience per kill. D3 only scales the monster difficulty as more players join. So unless you have some well equipped people in your game, you are probably better off playing solo to make any progress.
31 May, 2012, hollis wrote in the 25th comment:
Votes: 0
Kline said:
hollis said:
Every time you kill an elite/unique pack, you get a 20% buff to magic find and gold drops. Once you change your skills, this resets.

Actually it's 15%. It's also quite annoying that dragging a skill off your skill bar is also considered "changing your skills" and will also clear the buff. I've done this more than once while trying to move quickly toward the bottom of the screen and inadvertently pulling a power off the skill bar since there is no way to lock it.


Oh, good to know. Thanks for the correction. And yes, it seems bizarre you can even drag skills off the toolbar. Seems like residual functionality brought over from the WoW interface.

Quote
hollis said:
Yes, the first two difficulties (and half of Hell, I'd say) are such a cakewalk, that you your individual choices about gear or skill selection hardly matter. While I cannot confirm that this changes later on, it at least *appears* as if it might.

Inferno is a game changer. Go lurk around the D3 forums and you'll see that pretty much the only people who have progressed in Inferno either relied on broken skills (that were hotfix nerfed) or by skipping as much content as possible and only killing the bosses. Elite packs are more difficult than bosses, and even normal monsters hit like trucks. I don't believe any Monk (what I'm playing ATM) has made any tangible progress without switching to a fully defensive sword & board spec. So much for diversity?


So, I can only speak from the perspective of a demon hunter on this. I acknowledge that the story may be different for different classes. I read the forums daily and am also currently in act 3 inferno (mostly solo, some group play with a barbarian friend). Yes, at inferno level viable skill diversity is not as much as the developers had hyped (though I do expect to see large changes in the next few months). However, there is more diversity than the forums convey. For instance, the nether tendrils rune for elemental arrow is way broken. It is a solution to almost every obstacle. Despite that, you can make functioning builds without it. My main build uses spike trap+scatter, elemental arrow+freeze, bola shot+bitter pill, prep+battle scars, 1.5 second vanish, and caltrops+45%dmg/sec. Aside from vanish, this build does not include any of the obviously overpowered skills, but I can still take out 99% of elite/unique packs with creative play. It is not *easy*, requires clever movement and kiting, I occasionally die, but I never feel as if I have to actively avoid elite packs.

So, as to my statement about the bow I found seeming to make a few skills suddenly seem more viable, I say that in the context of knowing the difficulty level of inferno, and at least having a basic comprehension of what is required to progress through it. Again, it *seems* to, and I hope to put this to the test once I get a couple pieces of jewelry to supplement the life gain. My intuition may be wrong once I put it to the test.
31 May, 2012, Kline wrote in the 26th comment:
Votes: 0
hollis said:
So, I can only speak from the perspective of a demon hunter on this.


Which means you are used to kiting enemies the entire game. It's bad news to have demons up in your face as a ranged class in any game. Both melee classes are forced into defensive kiting roles come inferno. Now I'm not against forcing people to play more tactically, and make use of the environment and doors, stairs, etc; but I picked melee because I want to smash things in the face, not run around in circles waiting on cooldowns so I can engage them again.
31 May, 2012, hollis wrote in the 27th comment:
Votes: 0
Kline said:
hollis said:
So, I can only speak from the perspective of a demon hunter on this.


Which means you are used to kiting enemies the entire game. It's bad news to have demons up in your face as a ranged class in any game. Both melee classes are forced into defensive kiting roles come inferno. Now I'm not against forcing people to play more tactically, and make use of the environment and doors, stairs, etc; but I picked melee because I want to smash things in the face, not run around in circles waiting on cooldowns so I can engage them again.


Are running around like a girlie-man and build diversity mutually exclusive? I am pretty sure with the right game design, you could allow for dozens of different build types where barbarians got to run around like 16 year-old girls and cry about not being able to fight without cooldowns. I sympathize with you, but I think you're taking my comment out of context. That context was I can only speak about build diversity from the perspective of a demon hunter at the moment.

And, for the record, just because I'm a ranged class and I am used to kiting doesn't mean that is what I want to do. I'd much rather be an acrobat, darting here and there, taking precision shots on key monsters… not a track athlete.
01 Jun, 2012, Kline wrote in the 28th comment:
Votes: 0
hollis said:
a track athlete.


I hear that's the secret hidden class everyone gets to remort into if you can clear Whimsyshire Inferno…
01 Jun, 2012, Ssolvarain wrote in the 29th comment:
Votes: 0
I still haven't finished Titan Quest :(
01 Jun, 2012, Runter wrote in the 30th comment:
Votes: 0
The simple fact is inferno isn't really meant to be played/beaten right now. You can consider the end of normal/leveling content to be Hell mode. It's like when burning crusade first game out, trying to run into black temple and win in the first week. On some servers even 2 years later when the next expansion was coming out, there were still no guilds farming black temple. The viability of classes is solely based on the gear they have in diablo3. Even more so than WoW. It's not surprising at all that inferno would seem ridiculous.

and re people wanting a challenge, diablo 3 lets you do that. It's called wearing +magic +gold gear. Your stats will suck more, you'll get more reward, and if the game was not enough of a challenge before, it will be more so with more reward. The difficulty of getting good gear (inferno viable gear) is nearly impossible without stacking lots of magic and gold gear, and getting the bufs from elite packs. So if the game doesn't seem like a challenge it's probably because your playing defacto easy mode. So I wouldn't even look at the nightmare and hell modes like difficulty settings. They're just level ranges. If you have good gear they're just as easy as normal mode at the recommended levels they're played at. I run around one shotting stuff in hell mode, too. I can't do that when I'm actually wearing +magic find gear.

Oh, and just from my own experience with the game, I didn't find a single legendary item until I regeared for +magic. Now I regularly find them (and tons of rares). Without the buf I'm sitting at about 75+%. I don't know what the algorithm is, but at face value I feel like I'm finding more than it suggests. In other words, I don't think I'm finding them at +150% the rate that I used to, even though it would suggest that.
01 Jun, 2012, KaVir wrote in the 31st comment:
Votes: 0
Some people view "hardcore" as a higher difficulty setting, which I can sort of understand (although with the amount of lag and other server problems it might be more accurate to describe it as a lottery).

But using inferior equipment, or no weapon, or no active skills, etc, just reduces your effectiveness, it doesn't increase the difficulty of the game itself. While I admit to occasionally playing console games with my feet to increase the challenge, and have also found alcohol reducing my competence, for me a higher difficulty setting implies that I'm still playing the game to my full ability.

Lots of lag, disconnections and error 37s recently, so progress is still slow. Still a while before I reach the Farmville stage.
01 Jun, 2012, Runter wrote in the 32nd comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Some people view "hardcore" as a higher difficulty setting, which I can sort of understand (although with the amount of lag and other server problems it might be more accurate to describe it as a lottery).

But using inferior equipment, or no weapon, or no active skills, etc, just reduces your effectiveness, it doesn't increase the difficulty of the game itself. While I admit to occasionally playing console games with my feet to increase the challenge, and have also found alcohol reducing my competence, for me a higher difficulty setting implies that I'm still playing the game to my full ability.

Lots of lag, disconnections and error 37s recently, so progress is still slow. Still a while before I reach the Farmville stage.


Well, fair enough, but the point is the game lets you itemize your rewards on your equipment. Experience, gold finding, rare equipment finding. And it lets you stack the bonuses (at your own peril) to the heavens. This in itself is a way to modify the difficulty of the game for greater rewards. So the brief version of the point I was trying to make: If the game is too easy, you aren't maximizing your rewards appropriately.
05 Jun, 2012, Kline wrote in the 33rd comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
Oh, and just from my own experience with the game, I didn't find a single legendary item until I regeared for +magic. Now I regularly find them (and tons of rares). Without the buf I'm sitting at about 75+%. I don't know what the algorithm is, but at face value I feel like I'm finding more than it suggests. In other words, I don't think I'm finding them at +150% the rate that I used to, even though it would suggest that.


RNG is random. I've found 4 Legendaries just in the course of normal leveling without any MF gear (sadly they were all absolute crap, Wizard staff with Barb stats, really?). Also, it's been fairly well confirmed that the NV buff you get at 60 is a requirement for drops; period, particularly on bosses. The designers did not want D3 to turn into the "boss farmfest" of D2. Bosses drop guaranteed 2+ rares on your first kill in normal, and after that you get absolute crap loot that MF barely impacts unless you have a 5 stack of NV. My own playing has netted me maybe 3 blues on Inferno Butcher with ~80% MF and no NV, but 6 blues and 2 yellows with only the 5 NV stack. Consider NV the prerequisite to "unlock" items beyond magic (blue) and MF the dice roll upgrade to land them with better stats.

Runter said:
The simple fact is inferno isn't really meant to be played/beaten right now. You can consider the end of normal/leveling content to be Hell mode. It's like when burning crusade first game out, trying to run into black temple and win in the first week. On some servers even 2 years later when the next expansion was coming out, there were still no guilds farming black temple. The viability of classes is solely based on the gear they have in diablo3. Even more so than WoW. It's not surprising at all that inferno would seem ridiculous.

I realize this, and even posted it previously. I'm not expecting farm mode but the difficulty does seem to leap exponentially between acts once you hit Inferno. You're correct that leveling through Hell isn't really difficulty settings rather than just progression. It's a facerolling fest as long as you have gear appropriate to your level. I managed to solo A1 Inferno on my Monk this last weekend, despite hitting enrage timer on Butcher, and can now handle it comfortably. The first Lacuni you meet a few feet outside of the A2 city, though, absolutely decimate me while I have 60% dodge, 18% block, 65% armor DR, 50% all resists, 40k hp, and am using skills that drop yet another 30% of the damage off the NPCs. People are still finding ways to break the mechanics and create viable builds, though. Everyone agrees Energy Armor was broken; and it got a quick hit with the nerf bat. Given that Monk healing skills do not increase with level / stats, the new broken build is to keep a glass-cannon sized HP pool of ~25k but try to push 700+ life per hit with 90%+ mitigation. Suddenly you're still taking 20%-25% of your life in hits but healing a far greater amount considering AoE hits will generate life per hit for all monsters. Waiting to see this one get broken, too.
05 Jun, 2012, Kline wrote in the 34th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Some people view "hardcore" as a higher difficulty setting, which I can sort of understand (although with the amount of lag and other server problems it might be more accurate to describe it as a lottery).


The lag is all I've worried about so far with my one (still living!) HC guy. I actually had to preload all the MPQ files into a RAMdisk because I nearly died from the poor resource loading D3 currently has. No assests are preloaded from disk, it's all on-demand. So when I resumed my game and my last checkpoint happened to be within some dungeon my game was skipping all over for a good 10-15 seconds as monsters rushed in and I scrambled to save myself. It's already been noted that this will be addressed in a future patch, but hey, the future doesn't help me today. All that said, barring any server faults, I'm pretty confident I will at least make it to 60 on the HC side. Most people clear normal mode topping out around 28-30ish, I'm sitting at 30 and barely into Act 3. Just trying to over-level and stack +vit. With the 1% life healed passive on Witch Doctor most things hit me for less than 1% of my current health and I don't even see the bubble ever move.

Here's the RAMdisk guide I posted up to the official forums if anyone else has the asset loading stutter issue: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5...
06 Jun, 2012, KaVir wrote in the 35th comment:
Votes: 0
I've been watching the compromised accounts situation with some interest - more and more people claiming to have been "hacked", youtube videos of bots stripping accounts and selling their gear to the vender, etc. Whatever the cause, I can't help but feel it's going to seriously undermine confidence in the security of the game, and the real money auction house is due to open soon.

Blizzard insists there's no fault at their end, and blames it on keyloggers, phishing, etc. Perhaps they're right, perhaps not, but I can't help drawing parallels between this situation and the cross-realm password exploit in Diablo 2, which Blizzard also insisted was impossible, and blamed on the exact same things they're blaming now.

Blizzard claims that nobody with an authenticator has been compromised, so I watched with some interest as around 65-70 compromised players posted a breakdown of their individual situations, with 7 of them claiming to have been using authenticators. Yesterday a staff member said they'd investigate the claims, and this morning the entire thread had been deleted (not locked, but actually deleted).

I'm not a big fan of conspiracy theories, but based on everything I've seen and read it's really starting to look like some sort of server-side exploit.
06 Jun, 2012, Runter wrote in the 36th comment:
Votes: 0
Don't know, but it seems fishy to me too. I have 2 friends playing diablo 3 that both were "hacked" last week. Both didn't have authenticators, but they're otherwise astute users that I've played with on various games over the years without any incident.

It's really not reasonable for blizzard to say that if you don't have an authenticator it's your own fault. I mean, most games don't even support the option yet they manage.

I have a theory that a lot of people involved in the beta were compromised and instead of exploiting it at the time would-be thieves built databases of user accounts and passwords to use after launch.
07 Jun, 2012, Kline wrote in the 37th comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
I have a theory that a lot of people involved in the beta were compromised and instead of exploiting it at the time would-be thieves built databases of user accounts and passwords to use after launch.

This seems most plausible to me. People are still clamoring over "session hijacking"; which Blizzard has refuted as "technologically impossible", and I'm inclined to agree with their response based on my general IT / network experience and the dabbling I've done with one of the WoW server emulators (TrinityCore). I've had an authenticator on my account since they came out a few years back and have never had an issue with anything. I haven't run anti-spy/mal-anything-ware software for years, either, and use Windows for my personal desktop at home. Even despite the fact that only a few months ago did I finally randomize my passwords all over the place and move away from the horrible practice of using the same password everyplace I've still never had any of my accounts hacked or broken into. Banking, medical, games, forums, anything. So given all of the horrible security practices I had myself aside from knowing better yet I've never had issues like the vocal masses are reporting on the forums, I really believe it's people who were phished during/before beta, entered a "beta key giveaway", or have just visited some unscrupulous "buy gold now" websites. I've stayed fine, safe, and un-compromised over the years just by not clicking stupid links in email or visiting stupid websites (or if I felt like doing either, doing it within a VM instead).

edit: Also, for the handful of people saying "but I had an authenticator and STILL got hacked", Blizzard has refuted any of those claims I have seen either stating the user did not have an authenticator before the compromise, or that they were using the "dial-up" authenticator which they have flat out said will not work with Diablo 3 (yet). SMS service is not an authenticator, either, as some people posting seem to think. It's only an alert service letting you know after something has happened. The only valid authenticators are the physical keyfob or the mobile app. There is also an open source work with Diablo 3 (yet). SMS service is not an authenticator, either, as some people posting seem to think. It's only an alert service letting you know after something has happened. The only valid authenticators are the physical keyfob or the mobile app. There is also an open source [url=http://code.google.com/p/winauth/WinAuth...] that is compatible with the secret codes Blizzard uses for their mobile app. It's obviously not supported by them, but it works fine and is better than nothing, although I'm sure the value of it is certainly diminished if you run it on the same machine you play on (which most users probably would).
07 Jun, 2012, KaVir wrote in the 38th comment:
Votes: 0
Kline said:
People are still clamoring over "session hijacking"; which Blizzard has refuted as "technologically impossible",

There's a more detailed break-down of their comments here: http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Blizzar...

However it rather reminds me of this post: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5...

Quote
I'd also like to give you a brief history lesson. In Diablo 2, many years ago, an exploit surfaced called the cross-realm password recovery exploit. It was a vulnerability in battle.net's automated password recovery systems. Using that exploit, you could take control of literally any Diablo 2 account. When people complained that their accounts were getting hacked, Blizzard blamed the victim, phishing, and keyloggers. When people said it was a vulnerability in the password recovery system, Blizzard said that was impossible. Turns out it wasn't impossible.

Even after patching, Blizzard remained extremely unwilling to talk about the breach. People were curious and wanted specifics, but getting Blizzard to admit that it ever even existed was not easy, to put it lightly.


If it is a server-side exploit, I expect it'll get stealth-patched. I've seen a few people speculating that it may even have been addressed in the latest update, but of course there's no way to know.
07 Jun, 2012, Ssolvarain wrote in the 39th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
the real money auction house is due to open soon.


So they've gone down the path of ultimate evil…
07 Jun, 2012, Runter wrote in the 40th comment:
Votes: 0
Ssolvarain said:
KaVir said:
the real money auction house is due to open soon.


So they've gone down the path of ultimate evil…


If that's the path of evil, then every MMO since the beginning of MMO time has been down that path. Players have been buying and selling items, usually from 3rd party companies, for as long as theres been a demand. And under the table in unsafe and dubious ways. The great thing about the proposed system is that players sell to other players rather than buying from blizzard. That's a huge distinction, and one I support fully. Hey, your 60 dollar investment might be able to get some returns. Maybe even pay for the game itself after a few hundred hours. What's bad about that? I personally think they've taken a principled approach with this system. It'll give players an equal chance to trade in the games premium currency without having to spend a dollar to do it. What I mean is you can sell an item on the real money auction house, get your blizdollars, and buy other items in game with it. Never once dealing with real money. That's way more than you can say about other games with premium currencies. They're usually impossible to obtain without buying, over priced, and non-transferable.
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