I don't quite agree here. Just because something is there doesn't mean you have to use it and I think if some is really a hardcore gamer they will avoid what makes it 'too easy'. For example, if you pick up a game that's a pure action game. The game will let you play through the whole thing on 'easy'. The game also lets you choose 'ultra hard' but doesn't offer any bonuses for doing so. As a hardcore gamer, which do you choose? Those are built into the game just like the D3 Auction House.
I don't think choosing a difficulty is the same kind of self imposed restriction.
Here's my take on playing ANY game:
1) The player sees the rules to the game
2) The player agrees to follow them.
3) Under the constraints of the rules every player can then use any methods possible to win or succeed. That's what makes it a game. The challenge comes from figuring out what you can do AFTER the rules have been set.
Choosing a difficulty is the action of seeing the rules and agreeing to follow them. You choose the difficulty before the game starts, right? Luckily, video games can enforce rules absolutely (besides exploits and hacks) without either 1) self enforcement from players or 2) referees.
What I personally don't enjoy (again, a personal problem) is agreeing to the rules, playing my best, and coming up with an experience that is mind numbingly easy from lvl 1-60. I'm not particularly rich or skilled, but because of the rules (looking at you RLR) it has become far too simple. RLR is just way too strong.
All right, I'll admit that part of my problem is a personal problem. Yup, I'm overly competitive. When faced with a challenge I turn to making my character better using the AH, and I expect (and prefer) the game to challenge me rather than me challenge myself. I SHOULD just avoid the AH, but that doesn't take away from the fact that Blizzard's design is being screwed by infinite cheap stupidly powerful gear.
My main issue that is being overshadowed by my personal faults is that the reduced level requirement modifier is WAY WAY WAY too strong. I can buy a single piece of gear on the AH that is 18 levels above my character, and it will make every mob feel laughably, stupidly, mind numbingly easy, even on Hell difficulty. Unless Blizzard intended for NM and Hell to only be difficult for first playthroughs (which I doubt) the prevalence of cheap RLR gear is screwing their design.
A rich player will always be able to upgrade his character to a point of overpoweredness, but I'm more concerned with the scope of the issue: how CHEAP it is, and how POWERFUL those items can be. Right now with the purchase of a single item costing less than 100k, Act 1 Hell feels no different than Act 1 Normal. To me this represents a design flaw in the game that players shouldn't have to self-compensate for.
So I have been running in to an issue while trying to play alts. I leveled up a Wizard to 60, progressed to Act 3 inferno through a lot of farming and working up a decent bankroll. A few weeks ago I began to get bored and decided to try leveling an alt (this time a Barbarian.)
I progressed through Normal without much difficulty (as expected) but ran in to the eagerly awaited jump in difficulty once I got to Nightmare. Being a gamer and wanting to improve my character, naturally I went to the Auction House. There I was presented with such an incredible selection of low priced gear that purchasing just TWO weapons with reduced level requirement was enough of a boost to make Nightmare BORINGLY easy once again, just the same way Normal was before it.
Fine, okay. Now I just have to push through to Hell where a real challenge will start. Sadly, once again, I found myself making a single item purchase (this time a level 62 one-hander) that made Hell laughably easy for a very low price. Talk about a first world problem! The modest bankroll from my Inferno progressed Wizard was making my Barbarian playthrough a boring, easy, repetitive cycle of buying a cheap but awesome weapon and then smashing through an entire difficulty without any challenge whatsoever.
So my question is: Does the existence of an Auction House ruin replayability, specifically for alt characters after your Inferno progression? I'm curious if other people ran in to this same problem as I have.
In particular I want to point out the "Reduced Level Requirement" stat that makes AH-gear unreasonably good for low level characters. Right now my level 52 Barb is using a level 62 one hander. Does that seem reasonable? How would you feel about removing Reduced Lvl Req alltogether?
Now before you use the argument of "Well just don't use the Auction House" let me address that real quick. The AH is built in to the game. It is part of the game. Sure, I can make the choice whether to use it or not, but it's not like I am choosing to go to a third party site and buy new gear. The AH button is right below the button I push to start playing! It's practically unavoidable! And as a gamer, I am going to use all in-game resources available to play as well as possible. So for me, choosing to just "not use the AH" is putting up an artificial barrier in front of myself that isn't any different than saying "don't use a follower" or "stop using two skill slots." The competitive GAMER in me doesn't enjoy putting artificial constraints on myself to make the game more difficult. I want to be pushed to my limits as a gamer, not limit myself.
Anyways, this has been on my mind recently as I find myself losing the will to play, and I wondered what you guys thought about the subject. My thoughts are further expanded upon in this commentary, which I hope you'll listen to:
Several things:
1) 1.0.3 drop rates and hotfixed drop rates are vastly increasing the number of high quality items on the AH. The sad truth is that the longer Diablo 3 has been out, the more selective buyers have become. Thus, the "pretty good" items from two weeks ago are now vendor trash, and the "super elite" items from two weeks ago are now "pretty good."
2) Split between RMAH and Gold AH
3) Playerbase has become MUCH higher level on average. As the casual crowd fizzles out and we are left with the Hardcore, people don't bother gearing up for Act 4 Hell, or Act 1 Inferno...they buy items for Act 4, or nothing.
Just my theories. There's a lot going on, and I suspect the new drop rates will drive prices of low and mid tier items even further. Super elite items, I'm not sure. Maybe they will stay the same or continue to increase.
Rather than spend countless hours farming items that probably won't be good, you can just watch me identify a stash full of rares.
Also, I take no responsibility for making this video. I swear I blacked out for a few hours and found this uploaded to my channel....I'm not sure what happened....
I have always found it difficult to tell exactly what the skills for each of the followers were actually doing. Sure, you can read the description, but I found it tough to pick out each ability in the madness that is Diablo 3.
For that reason, I made some videos showing each of the follower skills as clearly as possible. If you've ever been curious EXACTLY how the follower skills work, you should check these out
Well this is quite funny. I had made a build around Images and Fracture before D3 came out and a lot of people said Mirror Images will be useless because they'll get one shot.
What I think they missed is that the images have a % of your own health, so they scale, and if they're getting one shot, then you're not.
Exactly, and I don't think any of us were expecting that the further we get in Inferno the LESS Vitality actually matters! Good theorycrafting
I have to say, this is a pretty creative build and I'm excited to try it out when I get home from work! I'll be making a few changes though. I feel that Evocation doesn't help in the slightest when paired with Illusionist because in Inferno, every hit wether from monster or champion will likely do more than 15% damage, meaning the reduction in cooldown time is pointless because your cooldowns are always available when you need them. I haven't decided wether I'll switch it out for Astral Presence or Blur, depending on wether things still hit me for more than 15% with Blur active or not, so I'll have to experiment with these two to see which one I like most over Evocation.
Also, with any build involving kiting + Magic Missile, Seeker is an amazing rune! It works around corrners and requires no accuracy when running for your life, I think I'll definitely be using Seeker as the rune for Magic Missile.
And finally, Venom Weapon works amazingly well with Venom Hydra. The dots from Venom Magic Weapon stack very quickly when using Venom Hydra, and stack ON TOP of the stacking damage from the Venom Hydra's poison pools. The two pair extremely well, and I'd suggest trying it out if you havn't, it helps a ton.
As a side note, with this build you will still absolutly have to stack vitality. Though you can do it in a more controlled fasion than just making it a primary stat, beceause as long as you arent getting one shot, you can get away. You want your vitality to allow for you to take, on averate, two to three hits from champion packs, this will allow the first hit to reset your cooldowns, allowing you to teleport then mirror image and DPS again.
Really good point about Evocation...I'm going to try swapping it out with Astral Presence and see if it makes a difference. I'll also give Seeker a try. I've actually NEVER used that skill before but I've seen it pop up in other people's builds, so it's time to experiment I like that it still has a damage bonus from the base damage.
The problem is that you will be one-shot in Act 2 without Energy Armor (and either Prismatic or Force). My current build is similar though.
Hydra - Venom Hydra (OR Hydra - Arcane Hydra)
Blizzard - Snowbound (OR Arcane Orb - Tap the Source)
Energy Armor - Prismatic Armor (use Force Armor when you are regularly taking hits over 1/3 of your HP)
Diamond Skin - Crystal Shell
Mirror Image - Duplicates
Teleport - Wormhole (you will need this versus Fast packs usually instead of Fracture)
I'm right before Belial in Act 2 Inferno. I'm toying around between the two specs (Hydra/Blizzard vs Temporal Flux) and probably will switch to Force Armor now since things are doing over 1/3 of my HP quite often now.
The Arcane Orb-based build can do absurdly more damage, but the Hydra/Blizzard build can kite so much better that it is hard to pick between the two.
Interesting. I had heard of people using Blizzard but didn't see how it worked, but that makes sense.
What kinds of gear are you stacking? I'm assuming +Int....do you still try for +Vit? What about resistanceS?
After getting to Inferno finally and messing around a little bit I have all but decided there is no point in trying to take ANY damage in Inferno. With my old Hell gear I was getting killed in 2-3 shots on average, so upgrading my resistances and armor and stacking defensive abilities would end up with me dying in...what...4-5 hits?
In my opinion the trade off of getting more defense far outweights the benefit of higher DPS, which is how I landed on a Decoy based build. Rather than TAKE hits and try not to die, I would prefer to never get hit in the first place.
Primary: Magic Missile - Penetrating Blast
Secondary: Arcane Orb - Arcane Nova
Action Bar 1: Mirror Image - Duplicates
Action Bar 2: Teleport - Fracture
Action Bar 3: Hydra - Venom Hydra
Action Bar 4: Magic Weapon - Force Weapon
Passives: Evocation, Illusionist, Glass Cannon
My equipment is quite bad, and consists of mostly +Int, +Vit, and +%Crit stats. Not sure where to go with this.
Right now I am using this build effectively in Act 1 Inferno. My gear is rather terrible though and I am wondering if others are using this effectively in Act 2 and beyond, and what types of gear they are using. Is it worth going for Dexterity over Vitality to rely on Dodging?
Anyway, I'm curious who else is using a Decoy build like this and their thoughts on it. Watch my video below to see a longer explanation, as well as the build in action in Act 1.
Step 1) Wait for items to appear on RMAH, and immediately buy them.
Step 2) Win contest
Step 3) Re-sell Alienware computer
Step 4) PROFIT
Assuming each item sells for the maximum value of $250, and the Alienware X51 is worth $700, I'll walk away with a handsome profit of... -$550 FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Back to the drawing board. The evil drawing board.
I'm pretty sure I got a bug smasher M-M-M-M-MONSTER KILL today. With the right music and editing a bug/snake/rat exterminator Machinima video could be hilarious, although I doubt I'll do it myself. Can't wait to see what other people make
Is there any centralized place to track where people have progressed in Inferno? Or does anyone know the farthest known progression as the time of reading this?
Heh, I can honestly say I wouldn't take it. For 50k...maybe. For 100k, definitely. It would make me forever sad, but I could sure use $100,000 right now =P
1
Here's my take on playing ANY game:
1) The player sees the rules to the game
2) The player agrees to follow them.
3) Under the constraints of the rules every player can then use any methods possible to win or succeed. That's what makes it a game. The challenge comes from figuring out what you can do AFTER the rules have been set.
Choosing a difficulty is the action of seeing the rules and agreeing to follow them. You choose the difficulty before the game starts, right? Luckily, video games can enforce rules absolutely (besides exploits and hacks) without either 1) self enforcement from players or 2) referees.
What I personally don't enjoy (again, a personal problem) is agreeing to the rules, playing my best, and coming up with an experience that is mind numbingly easy from lvl 1-60. I'm not particularly rich or skilled, but because of the rules (looking at you RLR) it has become far too simple. RLR is just way too strong.
0
My main issue that is being overshadowed by my personal faults is that the reduced level requirement modifier is WAY WAY WAY too strong. I can buy a single piece of gear on the AH that is 18 levels above my character, and it will make every mob feel laughably, stupidly, mind numbingly easy, even on Hell difficulty. Unless Blizzard intended for NM and Hell to only be difficult for first playthroughs (which I doubt) the prevalence of cheap RLR gear is screwing their design.
A rich player will always be able to upgrade his character to a point of overpoweredness, but I'm more concerned with the scope of the issue: how CHEAP it is, and how POWERFUL those items can be. Right now with the purchase of a single item costing less than 100k, Act 1 Hell feels no different than Act 1 Normal. To me this represents a design flaw in the game that players shouldn't have to self-compensate for.
1
I progressed through Normal without much difficulty (as expected) but ran in to the eagerly awaited jump in difficulty once I got to Nightmare. Being a gamer and wanting to improve my character, naturally I went to the Auction House. There I was presented with such an incredible selection of low priced gear that purchasing just TWO weapons with reduced level requirement was enough of a boost to make Nightmare BORINGLY easy once again, just the same way Normal was before it.
Fine, okay. Now I just have to push through to Hell where a real challenge will start. Sadly, once again, I found myself making a single item purchase (this time a level 62 one-hander) that made Hell laughably easy for a very low price. Talk about a first world problem! The modest bankroll from my Inferno progressed Wizard was making my Barbarian playthrough a boring, easy, repetitive cycle of buying a cheap but awesome weapon and then smashing through an entire difficulty without any challenge whatsoever.
So my question is: Does the existence of an Auction House ruin replayability, specifically for alt characters after your Inferno progression? I'm curious if other people ran in to this same problem as I have.
In particular I want to point out the "Reduced Level Requirement" stat that makes AH-gear unreasonably good for low level characters. Right now my level 52 Barb is using a level 62 one hander. Does that seem reasonable? How would you feel about removing Reduced Lvl Req alltogether?
Now before you use the argument of "Well just don't use the Auction House" let me address that real quick. The AH is built in to the game. It is part of the game. Sure, I can make the choice whether to use it or not, but it's not like I am choosing to go to a third party site and buy new gear. The AH button is right below the button I push to start playing! It's practically unavoidable! And as a gamer, I am going to use all in-game resources available to play as well as possible. So for me, choosing to just "not use the AH" is putting up an artificial barrier in front of myself that isn't any different than saying "don't use a follower" or "stop using two skill slots." The competitive GAMER in me doesn't enjoy putting artificial constraints on myself to make the game more difficult. I want to be pushed to my limits as a gamer, not limit myself.
Anyways, this has been on my mind recently as I find myself losing the will to play, and I wondered what you guys thought about the subject. My thoughts are further expanded upon in this commentary, which I hope you'll listen to:
0
1) 1.0.3 drop rates and hotfixed drop rates are vastly increasing the number of high quality items on the AH. The sad truth is that the longer Diablo 3 has been out, the more selective buyers have become. Thus, the "pretty good" items from two weeks ago are now vendor trash, and the "super elite" items from two weeks ago are now "pretty good."
2) Split between RMAH and Gold AH
3) Playerbase has become MUCH higher level on average. As the casual crowd fizzles out and we are left with the Hardcore, people don't bother gearing up for Act 4 Hell, or Act 1 Inferno...they buy items for Act 4, or nothing.
Just my theories. There's a lot going on, and I suspect the new drop rates will drive prices of low and mid tier items even further. Super elite items, I'm not sure. Maybe they will stay the same or continue to increase.
2
Also, I take no responsibility for making this video. I swear I blacked out for a few hours and found this uploaded to my channel....I'm not sure what happened....
0
For that reason, I made some videos showing each of the follower skills as clearly as possible. If you've ever been curious EXACTLY how the follower skills work, you should check these out
Templar:
Scoundrel:
Enchantress:
0
0
0
Interesting. I had heard of people using Blizzard but didn't see how it worked, but that makes sense.
What kinds of gear are you stacking? I'm assuming +Int....do you still try for +Vit? What about resistanceS?
1
In my opinion the trade off of getting more defense far outweights the benefit of higher DPS, which is how I landed on a Decoy based build. Rather than TAKE hits and try not to die, I would prefer to never get hit in the first place.
Here is my skill setup:
http://us.battle.net...PQRS!bdY!abZYbZ
Primary: Magic Missile - Penetrating Blast
Secondary: Arcane Orb - Arcane Nova
Action Bar 1: Mirror Image - Duplicates
Action Bar 2: Teleport - Fracture
Action Bar 3: Hydra - Venom Hydra
Action Bar 4: Magic Weapon - Force Weapon
Passives: Evocation, Illusionist, Glass Cannon
My equipment is quite bad, and consists of mostly +Int, +Vit, and +%Crit stats. Not sure where to go with this.
Right now I am using this build effectively in Act 1 Inferno. My gear is rather terrible though and I am wondering if others are using this effectively in Act 2 and beyond, and what types of gear they are using. Is it worth going for Dexterity over Vitality to rely on Dodging?
Anyway, I'm curious who else is using a Decoy build like this and their thoughts on it. Watch my video below to see a longer explanation, as well as the build in action in Act 1.
0
1
Step 1) Wait for items to appear on RMAH, and immediately buy them.
Step 2) Win contest
Step 3) Re-sell Alienware computer
Step 4) PROFIT
Assuming each item sells for the maximum value of $250, and the Alienware X51 is worth $700, I'll walk away with a handsome profit of... -$550 FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Back to the drawing board. The evil drawing board.
0
0
0