Lvl 60 raiding was hard, though most of that can be attributed to the fact that only one class could REALLY tank (yeah we had some lols with rogues or paladins/druids at points in time) but when you had to get 40+ people online at a specific time several weeknights... It's rough. Especially if you were on an established server with established guilds (which I was) and were to try and start up your own, the top teir players at that time were already in guilds and server transfers which were kinda nonexistent plus you could only have one faction per server.
In MC it was whatever, you really didn't need much coordination outside of a few tanks and a handful of healers, Blackwing lair it got much harder because now it was one person skrews up and everyone dies in quite a few situations, when 15 members of a 40 person raid were basically afk auto shooting anyways, people can disconnect and there was a gear requirement- pots only took you so far- and the gear was actually really hard to get, it took a lot of time to get good stuff. This only got harder for 2.5 and especially for the original Naxx which few guilds even got halfway through in before the first wow expansion, which I really feel is where the game started to get dumbed down hardcore.
It was around the time that only the top guild or so per server had a chance in Naxx and BC was coming out that blizzard started dumbing down and nerfing the content routinely. It got old fast. I personally burnt out because managing a 40 person raiding guild and dealing with all the drama and work that went into that, at the time, was a load of bullshit. It occupied ALL of my time, as if it were a job I was paying to keep, but not getting paid for completing.
Now things are extremely easy. Blizz quickly learned how to trick players into being addicted by rewarding them every step of the way, such is the nature of both an RPG and MMO. People will log into wow and just jump around for hours waiting for their auctions to sell or something, let alone show up to raids in which they have a good shot at gear, and easily but annoying grind gear that any idiot can get if he puts in the hours required and logs in and shows up to a raid.
The instance queue system, which was awesome while leveling up new characters btw, kind of in turn also factored into dumbing down content. If you have the option to pug deathwing, the fact is deathwing is actually going to be made pug-able if he wasn't somehow at first.
After my experiences with WoW, and then reliving them very briefly in another MMO in LOTRO, I can very confidently say that while an MMO may kick ass, it's hard to play without being a total loser in life, and then if it's so easy that anyone can do it, it's not even fun or worth playing. I'm still very excited for diablo 3's release, but it isn't a game that tricks/forces the players into thinking they have a virtual social life and you can take it at your own pace.
That's why I am currently so in love with starcraft 2. I can pick it up and an hour later put it down, then tune into my favorite tournament events for a few hours a few days every month or so, and it's a game of skill, not grind. Yeah the more time you invest the more your skill will increase, but if you have more natural talent or are smarter than other players you can get away with not doing that as much and still get every bit as much out of the game.
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Enkeria posted a message on Some high-end gear and stuffSome high-end gear and stuff..Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
All pictures are from: http://diablo3.playforum.net/
Edit #! New stuff below.
BARB stuff
MONK stuff
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wishedhehadbeta posted a message on Is January 17th still viable?Posted in: Diablo III General DiscussionQuote from Zaagazug
Who knows when they will release the game but January 17th is still clearly possible. Like any other game the DVDs/Manuals/Boxes are made well in advance and if they were not made in November already they most likely have the print slots in December.
Question is still when Blizzard think the product is ready - there are no practical problems with January 17th nor is it against what Blizzard has done in the past (like some claim above) - WoW was released 19 days after the announcement.
proof of release date announcement date being 19 days before or it didnt happen.
seriously. -
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VladDracul posted a message on My issue with PVP wins based on Number of KillsPosted in: PvP Discussion
I agree with you on a lot of your points, however to say that nonrated arena won't last long but praise Diablo 2 for surviving so long on nonranked pvp just seems all sorts of contradiction. The PvP community will do what we always have done and that is make our rules, make our ladders, and take control of the PvP. We don't require and honestly I don't want Blizzard to intervene with this process, this is what makes a community shine. We don't have to worry about Blizzard making radical changes because some new comers don't quite understand all of the mechanics and how to be good at PvP.Quote from Conax
DUNCAN99: "small amount of people" rofl, how come D2 survived this long? Not to kill mephisto, diablo or baal one more time thats for sure. Also, there wouldnt be nerfs in PvE because the PvP and PvE skills are separate and they can adjust things specifically to PvP without nerfing PvE. The fun in a nonrated arena wont last long, it will get boring and repetetive when there is no specific goal. A part of the fun in PvP is to climb rankings, get achievements, get braging rights about your rank/rating etc. Also, you're wrong about Diablo 3 not being competetive when it comes to gear. Its a competetive nature there aswell even though its not competetive in a tournament kind of way. People will compare gear with others and start braging about your awsome gear once you've collected the gear you want and thats competetive in its own way.
If the nonrated arena came with more rewards then just cool banners, achievements etc it would be alot more fun. For example: The higher "rank" you get in PvP even though its not visible, the cooler you can look through vanity items. That would make the arena alot more rewarding because eventually you can stand out from the rest if you get high rank enough to get that last PvP vanity item to look awsome. Having just a banner to brag about aint that cool.
I am sure Capcom when they made Street Fighter had the idea that it would be a global phenomenon and a huge tournament game...not. The community makes the game in the long run, the developer pretty much just gives us the tools to do what we want. If the community deems that Diablo 3 become an esport or a hardcore PvP game then it will happen, we won't get help from Blizzard but who cares? As far as I am concerned from listening to interviews, the Diablo team isn't even good at Diablo, they struggle with PvM and couldn't hang with PvP, those arn't the people I want sticking their nose in the communities business. -
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SemperHi posted a message on An organized Image Compilation of all sets of armor for all the five classes [17 tiers and spoilerish] EDIT: Wizard helms includHey everyone, I took some of the leaked datamined item pictures posted on a Diablo fansite, and organized them to take a peek at how our characters will look like as the progress through the game. I think it came out pretty nicely, so much in fact, that I created an account (finally) to share it with you guys.Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
Sadly, I couldn't find any files with the Wizard helms, and I did not include itens with shared appearence such as rings, bracers and so forth. Also there appear to be class specific armor such as belts and helms which I couldn't find for all 5 classes so I excluded them as well.
On a side note, all the itens listed below are in their male version ATM.
You can check them out on the following links:
Barbarian:
1-9
10-17
Demon Hunter:
1-9
10-17
Monk:
1-9
10-17
Witch Doctor:
1-9
10-17
Wizard:
1-9
10-17
What do you think? Which tier &/or class did you like the most?
EDIT: Wizard helms are now shown! -
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Crypto137 posted a message on REAL leaks here!Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion -
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paroxysm2010 posted a message on My biggest disappointment with D3 so farYeah your right, 8 players are funner than 4, no one is denying that, but there is more to it than that, its not about opinion its about mechanics, and gameplay.Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
Are they being lazy for not trying to implement 8 players because of the different issues? maybe,
but do you seriously want to wait another year for the D3 release?
Keep your head on, wait for beta, try beta, think of ways to counter their arguments of why the cap is 4, gather some people who agree with you, leave it in the beta feed back, and you might get your wish.
just be careful what you wish for... -
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Jackzor posted a message on Follower RespecAh, never mind, I was wrong about them being free. All the talk of easy customization threw me off, especially the video that shows their skills changing so quickly.Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
So it will at least be very cheap/easy to respec them.
Official Blizzard Quote:
You can do poison bolt, which has such poison damage over time like the classic rogue-like skill, you can do a crippling shot which will slow your enemies down which for certain builds like the Barbarian where not having to chase things down is very useful, or you can do rapid fire that increases DPS (Damage Per-Second), and it goes on like that as well, you know, the respecs are very cheap, you can take him and use one of his skills that increases your gem and rune find and maybe you want to go on a mission to find better runes for yourself or take on a boss, and you can change it.
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FingolfinGR posted a message on Things we know about Diablo III - updatedArtisansPosted in: Diablo III General Discussion
A real hero doesn’t craft items! He fights! Even though you can create items in Diablo III, it’s not exactly “you” that makes them. It’s them! You meet those merchants through the game and gain their trust after a series of quests. They don’t follow you to battle, but they do follow to the nearest city or village. There are three types of artisans:
-The Blacksmith creates weapons and armor. In addition he can add sockets to items. In those you use gems, just like in Diablo II.
-The Jeweler creates… well jewelry (Rings and Amulets) and can transmute multiple lower level gems to one higher level variant. This way you can get gems of quality levels 6 to 14 that can’t be found on monsters. He can also remove used gems from sockets.
-The Mystic is responsible for enchants. Enchants add special bonuses to items. She also creates and sells staves and other magical supplies. The Mystic also identifies items for the player - Deckard Cain has retired the identifying business.
To create an item, you need to have the recipes and the crafting materials needed for them (some gold too). Crafting materials you get from equipment you salvage (there’s a special box in your inventory after you acquire it). Certain special crafting materials are drops from monsters. This can save time from going back to town to sell useless items. Every Artisan can be upgraded (there’s 5 total levels). To upgrade them you use gold and materials (the higher their level, the more the materials required). Higher level Artisans offer better items for sale and crafting. Some of which are the best in the game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIob8wXaQkU
Character Classes
There will be 5 character classes for the game.
The Barbarian
The Witch Doctor
The Wizard
The Monk
Demon Hunter
Skills
The new UI reflects this change to seven skills. On the left will be your seven skill slots which will unlock as you level. To the right is a window with all the skill choices possible, broken up by when you can access them. This will help you to see directly what you have as well as what you can get and plan for future levels. All skills start off with a possible increase of five ranks but there will be a chance to increase this amount through other means. Leveling up a skill will be as simple as clicking o the skill in the UI.
For more information about the skills you can check the wiki page
Traits
Traits is a new system that will be replacing passive skills. This mechanic was added to allow players to customize their character without having to waste skill points to do so. As you level, you currently gain one trait point every other level. Traits will vary and help distinguish your particular play style. Each Trait will have ranks that will range from one to five that you can upgrade. Helping define you character as a tank, berserker, or battle master for the Barbarian, each trait also includes some flavor text to help explain and immerse your character into the world. There will be about ninety possible choices, including upgrading, but your character will only get about thirty points to distribute. Jay mentioned that right now there are actually too many possibilities and that some will probably be cut out.
* Skills and Traits quoted by Scyberdragon's post here.*
Runestones
Every active skill, no matter if it’s magic or melee attack, can have a rune attached. The rune will change the way the spell/attack works. It has been confirmed that the rune/skill combination will be about 700, all with their own effects. More info on the runes can be found here . *Update* The Diablo Wiki on Runestones has been updated with some more info and images from Blizzcon.
Character Stats *New*
Attack: Increases damage
- This stat will be a universal damage increasing stat for all classes to prevent confusion about what you should increase to do more damage.
- We realize that ‘Attack’ is less flavorful than ‘Strength’ and ‘Willpower’, but we feel the pros of understanding clearly how to build your character outweigh that con.
- This stat has no secondary effects.
Precision: Increases crit chance
- This will be tuned to be comparable in power to Attack increases for the most part.
- So why have Precision? Mainly so we can play into it with affixes, runes, and traits. Linking effects to crits gives us another hook for designing skills and gives the player options to create ‘crit builds’ that play different than normal attack builds. Examples of the kind of crit effects we 'could' do (not saying we are, these are examples):
- - Cleave crits cause monsters to explode and do damage to those around them.
- - Lifesteal could be an ‘on crit only’ affix.
- This is a more finesse stat, and we’re fine with that. Most people will want Attack by default, but they won’t mind getting precision.
- This stat has no secondary effect.
Vitality: Increases health
- And it's staying that way!
- This stat has no secondary effect (seeing the pattern here?).
Defense: Decreases all damage taken
- This stat is separate from armor and resistances, each of which effects different damage types. This stat effects ‘all’ damage.
- This stat will allow players to control incoming damage rather than increasing health capacity, which is useful to reduce the need for health globes and pots, and allows players to double down on defense for survival focused builds.
- This stat is also useful for PVP, and likely will be valued in the arenas, but isn't tuned to be a 'PVP' only stat.
- This stat has no secondary effects.
Willpower: Affects resource in class-specific ways
- The effects of this stat will change from class to class. It will be our goal to make it roughly equivalently valuable across classes and versus other attributes.
- Basically this stat will give you more access to whatever restricts your resource by default: capacity, regen rate, degeneration rate, generation rate, etc.
Full article on it in the Core Attribute Changes to D3 thread.
*update*
Hit Rating: Bashiok strikes back! According to his latest posts on battle.net every melee hit has a flat 5% miss chance, meaning that hit rating is more or less out of the game. Ranged and Area of Effect attacks still have to be aimed to hit.
There's a topic about it from Jackzor in the news section here.
Followers
There has been very little information about Hirelings in Diablo III. Unfortunately, there has not been much change on this front. From what we know, in the first gameplay video, there were some archers you ran into while on a quest to rescue Deckard Cain. These archers would follow you for a short while fighting monsters until they would meet their own demise. These mercenaries were never meant to follow you for a long time and would only help you through a quest. We saw this again in the Demon Hunter gameplay video when a weapon maker needs your help. These NPC's are just to help you through a quest temporarily.
In addition to these characters, many have wondered how the hirelings, as know of them from Diablo II, will work in Diablo III. There was actually an interview with Leonard Boyarsky back in 2009 where he touched upon the subject. In the interview, he is asked about mercenaries returning in Diablo III. He first talks about the temporary mercenaries from the gameplay trailer as a smaller version of the followers. He then expands upon the newer version of the "Followers" as they are now known as.
The Mercenaries/Hirelings/Followers article was created by ScyberDragon and can be found here.
*update*
As you can find in the Follower System Unveiled article, the "Followers" system has been unveiled.
There are three follower classes in Diablo III:
The Enchantress
The Scoundrel
The Templar
Each has it's own unique abilities split in 4 tiers of 3 skills each.
Quests
Staying true to the action-rpg tradition, the quests won’t be too complicated. In the playable versions the quests were simple like “go in the desert city” and “slay the skeleton king”. In addition to the story quests, there will still be side quests that can be found while exploring.
These optional quests appear to be like quest chains. For example, you save a girl from desert cultists. She still dies, but before she does she asks you to visit the village. The mayor there informs you that some women have been taken – find and rescue them!
Enemies
There will be 4 different types of enemies in Diablo III (the Act bosses don’t fall into any of the categories).
-Normal enemies
-Champions
-Rare enemies
-Unique enemies
Loot
The usual item gathering will be reduced in Diablo III. Blizzard announced that the item drops will be reduced in comparison with Diablo II. There will be more useful items to be found, though, magical or better. There are also more item slots in the inventory too. In addition to the slots we had in Diablo II we get to (finally) wear pants, shoulder pads and bracers. The inventory changed again to a more tetris like one. Weapons and armor take 2 slots. Potions, crafting materials and scrolls require only one and are also stackable. We’ll also be able to change the colors of the armor through dyes.
Latest news mention 18 different armor tiers (so far), which is subject to change till the game is released. Source.
*update**update 2* - The Talisman was cut from the game
Charms are after all in the game. They don't go to the inventory, however, they get their own little place called Talisman. We start the game without it and we upgrade it until the end of the game so it can have more charms placed in it.
*update*
In our very own interview, we got information about Quivers making their way back into the game. It's most likely going to be exclusive to the Demon Hunter. So far they only mentioned it being used with pistol crossbow - the ranged weapon exclusive to the Demon Hunter.
Full interview here.
*update*
There's been several updates on items "binding" on the character after being used or earned through quests. Latest Blizzard comments, however say that the whole "binding" of items is out of the game. All items will be able to be used and transfered after they're no longer useful to any character, or even traded.
News article about it here.
Looting
Everyone will get his/her own share of the loot. Meaning that whatever you see drop, it's individually for you and nobody else can take it unless you pick up and drop again. So there's no need to rush to the loots and die trying to pick it up anymore.
Town Portals
They’re gone! Instead you get to go back to town through waypoints that will be placed better than in Diablo II. There won’t be a really big need to go back to town as often anyway because of the new “Salvage” feature that’s been explained in the Artisan section. There’s also supposed to be a “scroll of wealth” that will change items in gold directly without the need to find a merchant to sell it.
Health System
The potions are rare to find and also have a cooldown. Instead there will be health globes dropping from enemies during the fight to replenish lost hit points. There’s different kinds of health globes too that replenish different amount of health. Bosses are supposed to drop some health globes at certain percentages of their total hit points. In most cases there will be minions of them aswell to make sure we’ll have a decent amount of health globes when needed.
Death
Inevitably we’ll all die sometime (hopefully the hardcore people won’t do it often). In death you don’t appear in town but in the nearest checkpoint. You also have all of your gear so there won’t be any more corpse runs. -As of 10/7/2010 we got some news about the death mechanic. Bashiok mentioned the death penalties aren't final yet. In his latest battle.net post he talked a bit about the developer's team thoughts on death. In multiplayer there's an other option to avoid running back (even from the checkpoint nearby). Other players will be able to carry "Scrolls of Resurrection". Those scrolls existed back in Diablo 1 and made it possible for friends in coop to revive the dead players of the group. They will have the same function in Diablo III aswell.
*update*
On the death penalties, in the current build, all the character gets after death is durability loss on his items. As mentioned before, it's not final so we can't possibly tell just yet how this will end up.
Horadric Cube
As expected it’s out of the game. Most of its uses have been replaced by the artisans.
Private Stash
It’s still here. Whenever there’s items not really needed right now but still useful they can be placed in there and remain in your possession. Jay Wilson stated that from the start it will offer more room than the stash of Diablo II. It will also be possible to upgrade it so it can store more items and gold. *Update* This years Blizzcon we heared that the storage space offered with the Stash is one of the ways Blizzard plans to eliminate muling.
A shared stash has been confirmed by Jay Wilson in this years Blizzcon. The Shared Stash, will allow characters of the same account to safely and easily transfer items from one character to another.
*update*
It is confirmed that we'll get 2 stashes. One for the current character and the second for the whole account (shared stash).
Interesting article about it here.
Acts
It’s been confirmed that Diablo III will be about as big as Diablo II without its expansion, so it’s going to be 4 Acts. The adventure will begin near New Tristram, so the first act will remind a bit of the first game. Same for the second act that (at least mostly) will be in the desert near Caldeum. As for the third and fourth act, there hasn’t been official word yet. But if we take a look at the art section of the official site we can see an image of a harbor in Skovos Isles (the isles of the Amazons) and a monster called “Crater Assault Troops” (concept goes back to 2004 but it was in the teaser trailer with the announcement) that could make us assume that the third Act might play in the amazon jungles and the fourth in the Dreadlands, where Mount Arreat used to be (hopefully we’ll get to see footage of act 3 in the next Blizzcon).
Latest posts from Bashiok mention that the game will be longer than Diablo II, even though they'll immitate the Act length to make it more dramatic and not to delay the end-fight too much.
*update*
@Diablo recently mentioned that we have seen bits and pieces of Act 3. Only new thing (as in environments) that we've seen so far was Bastion's Keep. It should be relatively safe to assume it's act 3.
Player versus Player (PvP)
Everyone's waited for info on it and this year's Blizzcon was quite generous. Duels and Hostilities as we knew them in Diablo II are off the game. The new Battle Arenas are implemented to make sure that those who want to kill people get to kill them, while those that want to kill monsters don't have to worry about being killed by anything else but monsters! PvP balance won't be an issue, though, according to the developers since PvE is the primary focus and "nerfing PvE abilities because they're too strong on PvP" won't happen.
As a hardcore player... if you step into the Arena there's no going back. Either you die, or your opponent.
The Diablo III PvP - Battle Arenas thread offers more information on the PvP feature of Diablo III.
Achievements
Just like Starcraft 2, Diablo III will also have achievements to unlock. They won’t be pure “grinding” achievements, though (killing things is still encouraged). Instead the achievements will be rewarded for killing unique monsters, crafting and/or fully exploring the regions.
Expansions
Lead Designer Jay Wilson talked about it in an interview. Blizzard is already thinking about expansions for Diablo III. This should mean that Diablo III will be pretty open ended. Also in Gamescom he answered a question about DLCs (downloadable content as paid mini “expansions”): “I love DLCs”. We can expect some DLCs for Diablo III it seems.
Online Activation
After the launch of Starcraft II we know how it's going to be. The game will have to be attached to a battle.net account and be activated this way. Achievements will only be awarded if you play through battle.net (even for single-player, very much like the campaign achievements for Starcraft II). There will be an offline/guest play option that will require to log to a battle.net account once too.
ESRB Rating
According to a recent Bashiok post Blizzard aims for a rating of M (for mature). So we're guaranteed to see alot blood spraying during the fights.
The Story
Diablo III begins 20 years after the previous game. 20 years after the Prime Evils were defeated and the Worldstone was destroyed by the Archangel Tyrael. After a long time of peace a meteor hit the cathedral of Tristram and Evil stirs again. Heroes rise to fight against the Evil that's taking the world of Sanctuary once again... we still got nothing more...
*Update* While it's not much, what they told us was that this time, it's not just the presence of certain demons that will corrupt Sanctuary, but a full scale invasion from the Burning Hells. According to Jay Wilson, the Burning Hells decided to destroy Sanctuary since the humans are becoming a great threat should they take Heaven's side on the Great Conflict. They were strong enough to destroy the Three after all.
Beta Test
The Blizzcon closing ceremony had a surprise for all of us. 1000 attendees will be randomly selected to be given beta keys for the upcoming Diablo III beta test. What's missing is word on "when" the beta will start. At least now it's confirmed that there's going to be one.
*Update*
While Blizzard hasn't said anything about the timing of the beta start, they did talk about how much of the game it will contain. More or less they don't want many spoilers and we're going to see a full PvP mode and probably a couple Acts at maximum.
There's more about it in the article: Where's Beta?
*Update*
In the recent May 9th Conference Call there's been some info about the Beta. It's supposed to start sometime in Q3 2011. Meaning from July 1st to September 31st.
Release Date
So far there's no official word about it, other than Blizzard's usual "When it's Done™". - Wilson said that the game would be released approximately 6 months after the beta starts.
*Update*
After the last financial conference in February, Mike Morhaime said that the team aims for a 2011 release, but it's not set in stone just yet and it may have to be pushed to 2012. So it's probably going to be Q4 2011-Q1 2012.
*Post updated with news as of 5/26/2011*
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Reminds me of the Aiel in "The Wheel of Time"