DiabloFans

All of you arguing about relative PvM vs PvP player numbers: Blizzard *knows* the numbers. They own the service, and can look at logs for any time period they want for how many dueled, how many ran X boss, etc.

If PvP (real PvP, not griefers forcing it on people who didn't want PvP) was as important to D2 as some of you think, Blizzard would have come up with a different plan than they have. Your importance to D3 is not nearly as high as you seem to think, with the plan Blizzard is using now.

Having said that, I'm fine with them adding the arenas for you, but I'm not in favor of hostility in the open world.. You can have a hostile area to play in, and I'm sure the PvP patch will have that.

Going back to D2's forced hostility model would mean the end of D3, imo.

Quote from Malthus

I came from Diablo 2 and i am now 23.

I was past 23 when I played Diablo I. I'm 42 now, with an 18 year old daughter who likes to play as much as I do.

Quote from Twoflower » IMO the main problem in the diablo series ( and most other arpg ) is that you have no real endgame.

This argument has always made me want to get violent.

If you want raiding, or super-competitive high-end PvP then you're in the WRONG FUCKING GENRE and that's not a flaw of the genre. ARPGs are supposed to be simple games where you gain pleasure from smashing a skeleton with a huge mace and seeing loot pop out. It's, literally, supposed to be a simplified RPG with a focus on combat (the ACTION in Action RPG) and less focus on stats and pre-fight preparations.

Diablo doesn't need "endgame." It needs a good, fun, item hunt. And while I still loathe BoA and I think Smart Drops are too often, there's absolutely no denying that Loot 2.x is far better than Loot 1.x for the following reasons:

1) No more items with multiple primary stats. Remember that Skorn you got that had str, dex, and int on it and, which was basically ruined as a result? That doesn't happen anymore, and that alone has *severely* reduced the chance you're getting something that is pointless/useless.

2) No more class-specific items with the wrong primary stat. Again, this goes a long way to eliminating items that were just outright bad. No one really wanted a Dead Man's Legacy with strength on it. Now that's an impossibility and helps you know that any item has a worthwhile chance of being useful by reducing the chance that it will be decidedly *not* useful.

3) No pointless stat combinations (int plus Bash damage, etc.). Again, they're reducing the volume of outright terrible items that drop. No more WD skills paired with strength or dex. 1, 2, and 3 combined have a SIGNIFICANT impact on what is dropping. You rarely find something and think "this is total garbage" - although that does still happen with weapons, gloves, and jewelry because of the 1.x rolling rules making most of them superior to their level 60 2.x counterparts. This won't remain true at 70, though, so it's just a temporary issue.

4) Split stats are completely gone which drastically reduces the number of shitty properties that can appear on an item. There were six split stats (int-str, int-dex, int-vit, str-dex, str-vit, dex-vit) of which only ONE was actually useful for your character (proper primary + vit). That means every character now has five less bad potential properties to appear on an item. Massive change.

4) Tightened up stat ranges. When you ctrl-click a link, or ctrl-mouseover an item and you see the ranges you realize that most of them are roughly 50% smaller than they were in 1.x. This makes it such that you're not finding level 60 items with 25 resist all on them. It helps keep all the drops at least semi-relevant to the level on which they're being found.

5) Primary/Secondary split. This is more controversial, but disallowing items to roll EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE OFFENSIVE PROPERTY means that, as players, we do actually have to choose. It also increases the relevance of the Mystic in RoS. Now, instead of having to find a quintfecta item, you have to find an item with three correct primary stats and two acceptable secondary stats, then simply enchant it until you have the fourth primary stat you desire. Items should have rolled like this from the get-go. It never, ever, should have been possible to just stack primary + crit chance + crit damage + IAS on every slot they could roll on, and then get your EHP elsewhere. That was fundamentally-shortsighted and I'm glad it's (mostly) gone.

Is Loot 2.x perfect? Fuck no. But nothing, ever, is perfect. I've played a lot of games in my lifetime and I've never, ever, played a perfect game. Flaws exist and we, as human beings, have to acknowledge that and deal with it.

EDIT
Add in the "toughness" statistic and, for the average player, you now have a very handy way to determine if more HPs or more mitigation does more for your survivability. If you have payed attention to the toughness stat, at all, you're quickly realizing that you do not need res all or armor on every piece. In fact, I found an Eternal Union ring yesterday with the following stats:

255 intelligence
300 vitality
+20% life
853 life/sec
83 poison resistance
2003 life on kill

Notice it has no resist all or armor, but with my current gear setup it gives me 251,800 toughness (and 1194 healing) which is roughly 200k (and 1194) more than my previous ring while still being a minor offensive upgrade (I never was able to find very good rings pre-2.x). It does not have a massive amount of offense (255 int is kinda MEH for a ring slot) but the fact of the matter is that it has so much EHP and healing that it allows me to sacrifice EHP in other slots quite easily. And now I'm making CHOICES, which is good.

Quote from Twoflower

Quote from Pietrak

4) You exhibit oracle skills about RoS, while anything that will be bad with RoS will be fixed and patched in due time. The way itemization has been reworked (according to what the devs told us over the last months) it's natural that it's hard to find and upgrade now. The system was not designed for finding lvl 60 instant upgrades, but for providing a good experience for RoS endgame.

Hey, that was a nice one Specially the one about me being an oracle and not seeing how it all will be fixed. It made me grin, thumbs up.



Well maybe my point was kinda hidden in all that spam by people who dont read my posts. The thing is this :

IMO the main problem in the diablo series ( and most other arpg ) is that you have no real endgame. you level up, you gear up, and then there is nothing left to do. My point is that it doesn't matter if you level and gear up by Ah or by playing, you still reach the same end point of nothing to do. That's what I think is the main problem of the game and loot 2.0 doesnt change a thing about that.

What I would have loved to see are more things to do at endgear. Pvp, weekly or monthly competitions, ladders, races. Things that keep you busy after you decked out your char. Blizzard had quite a few new ideas in WoW that they keep working on to keep old players busy. I just dont see that in Diablo.

So really, cut the offensive crap and don't be a douche.

Sorry but there are people here who deserve nothing but offensive crap hurled at them. When I post this :

Quote fromTwoflower» Half of you didnt even read what I wrote and just serenaded your old "he just bought items for money and now is butthurt" shit.

and in the VERY NEXT post some idiot writes :

QuotefromCobearz» because he paid to win and now its no longer good.

then sorry, he is garbage. Dont shoot the messager

The Diablo games and most ARPG's never had end game and should never really have end game. To me End Game means the game is done and is time to move on to another game or to restart with another character.

The thing with DIablo II is that the item hunt did help make the game last longer after defeating Hell and if your character is in the 90's. But that was more for finding some specific gear for a new character build you want to try out or maybe for some PvP if you are into that.

In DIII Vanilla (Pre loot 2.0) Items did not really have that much unique or useful affixes except for the over powered ones and then the Auction House just added extra headaches to it since it was usually just easier and faster to search for the item on the Auction House. So for the loot finders it became kind of a big downer. And when the Auction House was getting too flooded with high end gear than Blizzard had to tone down the item drops or at least the chances for some of the higher end gear so for the self find players it became more of a downer. There was some good changes made over the patches but still not that many that had the impact on the main op affixes.

With loot 2.0 it made it that much more for the self find character and improvements to items since Auction House will no longer be with us in about a few weeks. Tonnes of interesting affixes have been added and they might look weak if just looking at the paper doll but they can be very strong if you use certain skills or other items that complement it. In the PtR I made a Lightning Barb and lost quite a bit of DPS on the paper doll but the character seemed to do more effective and more fun to play. I actually removed most Crit from that character as well as not using Skorn.

Maybe you just need some time to adjust to loot 2.0

People dislike the fact that permanence has been removed from character builds, because now they won't be able to lord their supreme builds over others for quite as long. This seems silly and childish, but for someone who's whole life revolves around the game, it could be a big letdown ^^

I don't think people see how much better the skill system is in Diablo 3. Everyone says that there is no customization. Has no one played Diablo 2? Everyone had the exact character build. Yes okay there were different builds but in the end everyone poured their skill points into the same best skills/synergies. In Diablo 3, skills are based on weapon damage and not based on the level of a skill. So, when you hit level 60, you might feel inclined to use a skill you unlocked at level 6.. and it will still be useful. So yes there will be many more builds in Diablo 3.