I have always been interested in the melee sorc. Too bad I cant make since I uninstalled LOD and lost my Diablo 2 (Original) cds. I have the Expansion disc just dont have D2. I have always been on a quest to make every single build and make them gfg. I think I still have 15 gfg builds.
Why is your dexterity so high for a sorc? Strength is for the shield I know, but dexterity is pointless. Show your gear.
Oh ya, i forgot to mention... i'm melee (zeal). That's why dex is high. I'm also a ES sorc (somewhat), that's why life is low and mana is high(er).
It's hard to boost mana up when you have to sacrifice so much equip for IAS/FHR/DEX, etc. A normal ES sorc would have like 4k mana and she would be almost invincible as long as the energy shield was up. Even so, i tank very well in all PVM except when i get iron maiden, or large groups of Black Souls.
doing 103k now. yes, that's another sorc i made specially for enchant prebuff. i took off all fire gear from melee sorc b/c it was just taking up too much room. enchant sorc has lvl 56 or 57 enchant with BC & skill shrine.
--------- UPDATE #2 ---------
93k now (without skill shrine). The reason is, I was able to obtain 3 moar light GCs. Now I only need a +3 chant fire ormus, and a +6 chant orb (+3 fire, +3 chant). That will add 4 additional enchant points. The orb will be 2 socketed and I can add 2 fire facets. Ormus will also be socketed with a fire facet. Then I will also add 2 fire facets to my volcanic (+3 fire) circlet. Then, I will remove the current fire facet from my Escutch and replace with a light facet. This should give me well over 100k damage, especially with skill shrine and a barb's BattleCommands.
--------- UPDATE #1---------
88k now. Still working. Breaking 90k will not be a problem. 100k is looking possible at this point! I'll keep you informed.
--------- ORIGINAL POST ---------
I still have room for 3 more light GCs. This is obviously without a skill shrine. I might be able to hit 90k with everything and if i'm BC'd properly.
by the way, i wouldn't fight like this. I'd normally do less damage but have way more IAS, dex/AR, etc. Fighting damage is about 61 to 65k depending on how thoroughly i want to prebuff my enchant.
===========================
FIGHTING EQUIPMENT
The focus is on items that increase your IAS and AR, while still providing other useful mods like +skills, +life, +mana, & %DR.
Wep: Passion PB for the +1 Zeal
Helm: Dream Bone Visage for the +15 Holy shock
Shield: Dream Troll Nest for another +15 Holy Shock
Armor: CoH AP (NOTE: FORTITUDE DOES NOT HELP YOUR DAMAGE. The 2 points from CoH help your damage. Every point to Lightning Mastry adds like 1k at the low slvls, and 2k at high slvls)
Gloves: Magnus Skin for IAS and AR
Boots: Waterwalk for 15 Dex
Belt: Verdungo's for FHR, %DR, & +life
Rings: 2x Angelics for AR, Dex, & +mana
Ammy: Angelics
Charms: 9 Lightning GCs of "Balance" (FHR) and/or of "Dexterity" (DEX); Lifer & +AR SCs; SorcTorch + Anni
NOTE: Remember to have other equipment depending on the situation. In PvM, and in some PvP where you need sorb, you don't need to wear Angelics all the time, so you can pop on Highlard's Ammy & Raven Frosts / Wisp Projectors / Dwarf Stars. Also, carry an Arach's belt for prebuff, a Tgod's for sorb, and a Nos Coil for those special situations lol.
PREBUFF EQUIPMENT
The focus is on anything that will raise your fire skill lvl, no matter how slow or bad it is for fighting.
Wep 1: Call to Arms. The purpose of this wep is for the Battle Command, which increase your skills by 1 point.
Wep 2: 6 chant orb (+3 chant / +3 fire skills) blue orb, socketed with 2 Fire Facets, OR Eschuta's Temper (with 20% enhanced Fire damage & +3 sorc skills) socketed with 1 Fire Facet
Helm: A plain blue +3 to fire skills circlet ("volcanic circlet"), socketed with two Fire Facets
Shield: Lidless Wall or Spirit Monarch
Armor: The same CoH
Gloves: Magefists of course, for the +1 to fire skills
Boots: The same Waterwalks
Belt: Arachs for +1 to skills
Rings: 2x Bul-Kathos or SOJs for the +1 skills
Ammy: A plain blue +3 to fire skills ammy ("volcanic amulet")
GCs: Burning Grand Charms (+1 to fire skills). You do not need any secondary mods (they can be plain)
This list changes slightly if you have a dedicated chanter prebuff sorc. Then you don't need to have these fire things. Use + to all skills items instead.
SKILLS
Lightning Mastery: 20
Warmth: 20
Enchant: 20
Fire Mastery: 20
Telekinesis: 20
Energy Shield: 1
Thunder-Storm: 1 (night as well, since u have lightning mastry maxed already)
Teleport: 1
A cold armor if you wish: 1
And pre-reqs: I don't feel like taking all my gear off and counting at the moment
HOWEVER: Now that I have made a separate buffer sorc to chant me, I think I'm going to rebuild and not put any points in Enchant. Instead, I can re-allocate them to Energy Shield and/or a higher-level cold armor. But, I believe 20 in Fire Mastery will still be required, otherwise the enchant given from the buffer sorc will not be nearly as high for you--it will only add like maybe 7 or 8 k, instead of 30ish k.
STATS
STR: As little as possible. Only enough to wear your equip. Take into account your Torch, Anni, & other gear so you don't have to put so many in. I went for Spirit shield in this build. That made me have to get up to 156 STR. I think, next re-build, I will only use Lidless... it's only a prebuff shield anyway. One less point will be okay i think.
DEX: Max block is VERY hard to get with a dream shield, but i'm sure it would be very useful. I think my next rebuild of this sorc will have max block. You need very high dex (for a sorc anyway) b/c you want high AR.
ENR/VIT: If you're going with an E-shield build, you will want to put more in ENR than VIT. For each level after I got my STR & DEX taken care of, I put 3 stats in ENR and 2 in VIT. I don't know if that was the best idea, but that's just what I did personally.
Skill combinations mean that every class can access another class, and usually this results in people playing a lot of non-pure classes. What does it mean? We have to balance all those hybrid classes with other hybrid classes and all the possibilities that can possibly end up happening. We have 7 classes in D2, that means all 7 classes need to be balanced compared to monsters and compared to each other. If we make them public, that means, some necro may get paladin skills so now we have a necro with, oh, I don't know, healing aura. If his healing aura is as good as paladin's we have a problem because that necro becomes imbalanced. You may say, well, let's give him a worse aura then. That means we have to specifically program each skill to have different levels of effects for each class. So we have this aura skill that has to be configured for seven classes. And then we have 20 more paladin skills, which need all to be configured. Then we have all the other 120 skills or so which also need to be configured. Or maybe we will have some strength modifiers or w/e that will make it disadvantageous for classes to wonder off in different directions.
Not really. A hybrid class' skills will not be as good as a pure class simply due to the fact that they will not have many points into it. You don't have to modify the damage for each different type of opponent.
Quote from "AlphaX" »
This would outbalance the boing.
This is a good example. It WON'T outbalance anything because a non-pure class's BO will not be as good as a Barb's BO simply because they will only have a handfull of points into it. Same with paly auras, etc.
I don't know if you guys have played D2 since patch 1.10, but there ARE already non-class skills, such as:
Call To Arms, which lets any character do BO and BC
Passion, which lets any character zeal
Infinity, which lets any character or their Merc use the paladin's Conviction aura to remove Hell immunities (especially lightning immunes)
Insight, which lets any character or their Merc use the paladin's Meditation aura to increase mana regeneration rates
Chaos, which lets assassins use the barbarian attack Whirlwind
The list goes on and on, and there is no problems balancing the game because impure characters never have as many points into the non-class skill as the pure characters do. As you can see, there doesn't need to be any fancy algorithms to adjust the damages or anything.
PvP should be entirely different there should be an arena or something where there are teams or 1v1 and have lvl restrictions. Hopefully they have more than 8 per game.
When creating a game, you will have the option of creating
PvM game
PvP game
Important: you can still duel in PvM games if you want.
The PvP game puts you in a different world from the normal PvM acts, etc. There is only 1 town (no other acts or areas) and everyone starts out in "town", but town is arranged in a special design. It is an octagon shape that wraps around a central killing field. There are 8 entrances, and a WP next to each one, so you can quickly get around to the other entrances. The stash and a healer NPC is also VERY close to each WP/entrance.
Also when you die, your body does not stay where you died. It's on the ground right next to you in town when you press Esc, so you don't have to run out and get it and get NK'ed. Another thing, is that you CAN put on your BC/BO, etc inside town. And one final thing: potions do not work in PvP games. They don't drop. They stay on your body, so you don't lose them when you die. But you can't drink them b/c it's BM. You CAN, however, run back to town and talk to the healer NPC which is standing close by the stash/WP.
This is of course, not to scale. The killing field in the center would be larger. Each ( x ) represents a WP. Each ( . ) represents a healer NPC. Each ( ` ) represents a stash. When each of the 8 players enters the game, they will go to their own WP automatically. However, you don't have to stay there. You can easily go to any other WP and team up, etc.
Okay and also, these PvP games, can have like 56 spectators. AND they are recorded, and when you leave, you can opt to "save replay" which will be in a mpg or avi format that you can upload to youtube or whatever lol.
Thats a good suggestion, I like it. The concept I think is simple enough, I think it would be a bitch though to calculate and balance all the skills and stuff. But they are Blizzard, so I have faith. Whatever they do I'm pretty sure we will eat it with a spoon. After all, they have a streakless record, it has no blemishes in all its history. Well, the only infamy they still hold on to is not giving Diablo enough attention but I'm sure they will do away with that soon.
Thanks
But how about this instead...
You know the skills granted by items?
Like for instance, some items have: +2 to Holy Shield (Paladin Only)
or +3 to Energy Shield (Sorceress Only)
Well if you have a torch for that class in your inventory, it will unlock all those "class only" skills for any character that you are.
So if I'm a barb with a S torch, I can have the runeword item Memory on my back weapons switch, put up a slvl 9 Energy Shield, and then switch back to my weps.
There will obviously be a trade-off because you don't get +3 barb skills you would normally get if you just had your own barb torch.
Not really, you just said D3 could be pay to play because WoW is and times have changed. There wasn't much of a technical nature other than playing on online servers requires expense vs playing linked games hosted on the players machines.
Aside from the fact that the Battle.net model has worked for over 10 years and been replicated in Guildwars, there isn't really much to your argument other than Blizzard could charge you because they want more money.
Running hundreds of servers continuously costs money. In 5 or 10 years, do you really expect Blizzard to want to keep D2 servers up and running?
How will they pay for the server maintenance and operation? Nobody will be buying the boxes any more. At least not in enough numbers to sustain such a costly operation.
If there was a subscription fee, however, the pool of active players could float the cost of the operation, even if the pool is small. The smaller the pool, the less money Blizzard gets in subscription fees, but the less servers they need to keep operating to sustain the small pool.
Service business models are typically better at supporting themselves in the long-run. The product business model is to sell and forget. And you obviously can't "forget" D2 once you sell the boxes because you have hundreds of costly servers to operate.
None of you know what an MMO is don't make that the title if thats not what you want to talk about you stupid ignorant douche.
1st of all: I will make the title whatever I want to, and I'd like to see you try to stop me.
And 2nd: The title actually is relevant to the topic at hand because it implies that you do not know what an MMO is on the technical hardware side. Having a general idea about what it is, and what it looks like is not what this topic is about.
Quote from "Blades11" »
read the whole thread and when I proved you wrong you didn't answer my post back so still...... your an ass who thinks he knows everything and knows very little please use your puny brain and at least try to think about what you say before you say it
What question did you ask that you feel I owe you an answer to?
Quote from "Blades11" »
, and yes MMO's take more servers to run.
Only if they have more people. Same amount of people = same hardware load. MMO games and closed-realm games are BOTH hosted and therefore require expensive hardware that is expensive to maintain and keep running over time.
Maybe if you have a paladin torch you can use paladin skills, even if you are a sorc. (example) It's a trade off, since you can only have 1 per inventory.
This thread is shit..... "None of you know what an MMO is" just the fact that was the title of the thread makes it completely retarded and the topic has been change immensely an MMO is an online game where there is one main world where the entire community of the game can be seen and interacted with. This type of game is usually p2p and will require more servers to support the massive amount of players and they massive amount of data transfer between each visible item (player, monster, building etc.) on ones screen.
Maybe if you read the first post, you would understand that I am not talking about what and MMO is. I'm talking about how a MMO works, on the technical hardware level.
I am quite sure most people realize what an MMO is. The thread was titled as such to attract more viewers.
Quote from "Blades11" »
The fact is the thread maker doesn't know what an MMO is....
Please close the thread.....
If you think I don't know what an MMO is, you are sadly mistaken and it's quite apparent that you haven't been reading the thread very well.
Why can't you understand that you need faster and more reliable servers to handle 100 players, while you can use any cheap server to handle 8 ?
And why can't you understand that one single D2 server handles a lot more than 8 players? You just pwned your whole argument.
This probably explains the 8 player limit, lag, games crashing, disconnects, game creation queues...
That's caused by the fact that Blizzard are taking down D2 servers so they can put up WoW servers. It's just overpopulation, and has nothing to do with the fact that a single D2 server hosts many hundreds of separate 8-player games simultaneously. That's how it's supposed to work. Only a moron would expect a single dedicated server should host each individual game.
Quote from "Kenelm" »
YOU don't know what a MMO is. You don't even know how a game is supposed to work, what a server is, how the server handles clients... It's not as easy as it seems. Games are complex structures, and it gets more and more complex as the number of players increase. Also, it gets more and more complex to host these, because a server doesn't only track the position of each player, it does much more...
Thanks for this generic overview of what a "game" is. I'm glad I know now that they are "complex structures". Apparently too complex for you to understand.
Quote from "Kenelm" »
But as each zone can host a greater number of players than a D2 game does, then you can't just have a cheap server to handle a zone because it's rarely visited, it has to be as fast as every other one, because technically, hundreds of player can meet there.
And you think the D2 servers aren't under the same load? Each one is maxed to capacity, as each one is hosting hundreds of individual game instances at any given time. Just because the players in one game instance are completely separated from players in other instances, doesn't mean that they are not supported by the same hardware and internet connection. All resources are shared--Just as with an MMO.
it should fill your life to same percentage after the BO, most people will noticed that they are or aren't BO'ed and usually whine if they aren't and give thanks when they are most people would probably just think they got hit when BO'ed because it would appear as reduced health. No need to change they way life is added but the highest buff should not be overwritten.
Hmm, maybe you are right, but it would still be nice to "see" the BO level. Maybe have it fill up, but put a dotted line in your orb to show where your normal health would be?
well if it doesnt fill it up automatically it better do it fairly quikly.
Why though? I never understood why they changed it? It's not like you have any less health. You have the same... just more room to increase it, if you don't mind using a rejuve or a few cheep health pots.
By not automatically filling it, people can notice the difference and change their play tactics accordingly. If they get BO'ed and it only increases their life by a small amount, they should be aware of it so they don't do anything risky.
In contrast, if they get a HUGE BO, they might be inclined to play a bit more aggressively because they can SEE that they have a lot of health.
And finally, many people don't notice and don't even check their stats when they get BO'ed. Changing it back so people can SEE the significant change will cause party members to give their appreciation and recognition to the Barb who helped them out so much with such a great BO. After all, a good BO barb takes a lot of expense and the sacrifice of other combat skills, so in my opinion, a little bit of recognition and thanks for the player would not be uncalled for.
I still dont see this mistake, the games are more than supporting themselves, think about it, if they wasn't making money would you still have b.net?? Doubt it.
It's simple economics. There are 2 things a company is interested in:
Your money
Your customer loyalty
You have to also realize the differences between product and service business models.
A product model is typically more economically beneficial to the customer. True, the company gets an initial payment for the product, but once the transaction is complete, the company does not get ANY more money from the customer. In this business model, the only source of funding for the company is from the initial sales profit, and any post-sale support, repair, or work of any kind that has to be done by the company to improve or fix the product is simply a drain on the companies profit. The company's greatest desire is to sell the product and forget about it.
A service model is typically more economically beneficial to the company. For as long as the customer is using the service, the company gets paid. In this way, the customer supports the cost of the service entirely, and the company does not have to rely on any product sale profits to provide the service out of pocket. Once the customer no longer needs the service, it no longer needs to be supported, and the company can reallocate those resources elsewhere. It's an efficient model, where the company's money is not wasted sustaining an operation that the customer is not using, but the downside for the customer is that cost over time really adds up, and it's usually more expensive in the big picture.
Diablo 2 is an oddball, and due to a lack of foresight, it's likely now viewed by the company as a large error in planning. It's a product-oriented business model, that requires the continued service normally associated with a service. But who can blame them for making this mistake? When D2 was first released, it already had a large following from the very successful D1 franchise. Therefore, Blizzard decided to limit cheating by designing it to function primarily in a closed-realm, controlled multilayer environment (which required the constant dedication of a large number of servers, maintenance, and bandwidth costs). Who could have foreseen that one day in the future, sales would be slowing, yet the customers would still be using the product?
As you can see, there are some obvious key points here:
D2 is not pay-to-play, so the ONLY source of funding to the company comes from the initial sale of the product.
D2's primary multiplayer component requires the continuous service of costly server and internet bandwidth (since it's a controlled "closed-realm" environment where everything is done through the server)
D2 is an old game, and sales are definitely not what they once were. Therefore monetary income to support the continued service provided by Blizzard is dwindling.
Soon will come the time, when sales are almost non-existent, and no money will be made to support the continued service.
So what will Blizzard do when there is no longer enough money to support the operating costs associated with D2? They have two options:
Divert profit from other product/services to continue it's operation.
Discontinue the operation.
It may seem to you that the choice is obvious; they will discontinue the service, and Battle.net will be shut down. However, you would be incorrect. The choice is definitely not that straight-forward.
Look up a few paragraphs and remember what the 2nd thing is that a company is interested in: customer loyalty. If Blizzard shuts down Battle.net services, you will have one result: hundreds of thousands of pissed off customers. These customers have spent significant time, effort (and in some cases money) playing on Battle.net, and they will not appreciate all their work going to waste. And one thing is for certain... most of them will not re-invest any more time/effort/money in Blizzard; they will realize that Blizzard may do it again.
So Blizzard will be extremely wary about shutting down Battle.net, even if it is a drain on their profit because they do not want to alienate and permanently lose so many customers. Eventually, yes, it will shut down, but they will try to keep it open as long as possible, even if they are losing a certain amount of money to sustain it. This is why not charging a pay-to-play subscription for D2 was a "mistake", and this is why you might see D3 becoming pay-to-play as well, even if it's not an MMO.
Quote from "darkjay" »
So if WoW wasn't P2P you still think they would have ~500 people answering phones helping out technical issues?? That seems like quite a money drain on a non P2P game
They would have ~500 people answering phones as long as it was profitable enough to do that. As I've explained above, customer loyalty is VERY important to a company (because it helps to ensure future money), so they will do whatever it takes to keep the customers happy. Being P2P doesn't particularly matter in this case, but the popularity of the game does. As long as money is coming in to the company (whether it is due to the service business model (subscription) or the product business model (initial sales), they company will strive to provide the best level support it can afford.
-----------------------------
Bottom line: I'm not saying that for all cases, a service-oriented business model is better than a product-oriented one. But for games like D2, WoW, and (presumably) D3, which (due to their controlled, "closed-realm" natures) will require significant operating cost over their entire life cycle, a pay-to-play subscription fee is ideal in the eyes of the company.
Therefore, a monthly fee should not be unexpected. The only thing holding them back from demanding a monthly fee for a non-MMO game is precedence--there has not yet been a game that does it. It will be a precarious first step, and they are afraid that the market may respond negatively. Let's wait and see if they try it.
-----------------------------
Quote from "AlphaX" »
My Counter:Strike Source clan hosts a 400 member Halo 2 clan for PC.
No offense, but that just means you have 400 noob fanboys who are willing to spend good money to buy a 3-year old, mediocre game for $60 USD, and not only that, but ALSO pay a monthly subscription so they can play multiplayer online. Oh yeah, and you also need to get Vista!
Do they not realize that there are so many alternative FPS multiplayer games that are much newer, better, AND free to play online.
I'm sorry, but look at the Halo 2 PC sales. They are quite pitiful in comparison to other leading game titles, and that's rightfully so.
0
lol, you would still win.
Gotsta find that cd key!
0
Oh ya, i forgot to mention... i'm melee (zeal). That's why dex is high. I'm also a ES sorc (somewhat), that's why life is low and mana is high(er).
It's hard to boost mana up when you have to sacrifice so much equip for IAS/FHR/DEX, etc. A normal ES sorc would have like 4k mana and she would be almost invincible as long as the energy shield was up. Even so, i tank very well in all PVM except when i get iron maiden, or large groups of Black Souls.
Gear as requested:
0
doing 103k now. yes, that's another sorc i made specially for enchant prebuff. i took off all fire gear from melee sorc b/c it was just taking up too much room. enchant sorc has lvl 56 or 57 enchant with BC & skill shrine.
--------- UPDATE #2 ---------
93k now (without skill shrine). The reason is, I was able to obtain 3 moar light GCs. Now I only need a +3 chant fire ormus, and a +6 chant orb (+3 fire, +3 chant). That will add 4 additional enchant points. The orb will be 2 socketed and I can add 2 fire facets. Ormus will also be socketed with a fire facet. Then I will also add 2 fire facets to my volcanic (+3 fire) circlet. Then, I will remove the current fire facet from my Escutch and replace with a light facet. This should give me well over 100k damage, especially with skill shrine and a barb's BattleCommands.
--------- UPDATE #1---------
88k now. Still working. Breaking 90k will not be a problem. 100k is looking possible at this point! I'll keep you informed.
--------- ORIGINAL POST ---------
I still have room for 3 more light GCs. This is obviously without a skill shrine. I might be able to hit 90k with everything and if i'm BC'd properly.
by the way, i wouldn't fight like this. I'd normally do less damage but have way more IAS, dex/AR, etc. Fighting damage is about 61 to 65k depending on how thoroughly i want to prebuff my enchant.
===========================
FIGHTING EQUIPMENT
The focus is on items that increase your IAS and AR, while still providing other useful mods like +skills, +life, +mana, & %DR.
- Wep: Passion PB for the +1 Zeal
- Helm: Dream Bone Visage for the +15 Holy shock
- Shield: Dream Troll Nest for another +15 Holy Shock
- Armor: CoH AP (NOTE: FORTITUDE DOES NOT HELP YOUR DAMAGE. The 2 points from CoH help your damage. Every point to Lightning Mastry adds like 1k at the low slvls, and 2k at high slvls)
- Gloves: Magnus Skin for IAS and AR
- Boots: Waterwalk for 15 Dex
- Belt: Verdungo's for FHR, %DR, & +life
- Rings: 2x Angelics for AR, Dex, & +mana
- Ammy: Angelics
- Charms: 9 Lightning GCs of "Balance" (FHR) and/or of "Dexterity" (DEX); Lifer & +AR SCs; SorcTorch + Anni
NOTE: Remember to have other equipment depending on the situation. In PvM, and in some PvP where you need sorb, you don't need to wear Angelics all the time, so you can pop on Highlard's Ammy & Raven Frosts / Wisp Projectors / Dwarf Stars. Also, carry an Arach's belt for prebuff, a Tgod's for sorb, and a Nos Coil for those special situations lol.PREBUFF EQUIPMENT
The focus is on anything that will raise your fire skill lvl, no matter how slow or bad it is for fighting.
- Wep 1: Call to Arms. The purpose of this wep is for the Battle Command, which increase your skills by 1 point.
- Wep 2: 6 chant orb (+3 chant / +3 fire skills) blue orb, socketed with 2 Fire Facets, OR Eschuta's Temper (with 20% enhanced Fire damage & +3 sorc skills) socketed with 1 Fire Facet
- Helm: A plain blue +3 to fire skills circlet ("volcanic circlet"), socketed with two Fire Facets
- Shield: Lidless Wall or Spirit Monarch
- Armor: The same CoH
- Gloves: Magefists of course, for the +1 to fire skills
- Boots: The same Waterwalks
- Belt: Arachs for +1 to skills
- Rings: 2x Bul-Kathos or SOJs for the +1 skills
- Ammy: A plain blue +3 to fire skills ammy ("volcanic amulet")
- GCs: Burning Grand Charms (+1 to fire skills). You do not need any secondary mods (they can be plain)
This list changes slightly if you have a dedicated chanter prebuff sorc. Then you don't need to have these fire things. Use + to all skills items instead.SKILLS
- Lightning Mastery: 20
- Warmth: 20
- Enchant: 20
- Fire Mastery: 20
- Telekinesis: 20
- Energy Shield: 1
- Thunder-Storm: 1 (night as well, since u have lightning mastry maxed already)
- Teleport: 1
- A cold armor if you wish: 1
- And pre-reqs: I don't feel like taking all my gear off and counting at the moment
HOWEVER: Now that I have made a separate buffer sorc to chant me, I think I'm going to rebuild and not put any points in Enchant. Instead, I can re-allocate them to Energy Shield and/or a higher-level cold armor. But, I believe 20 in Fire Mastery will still be required, otherwise the enchant given from the buffer sorc will not be nearly as high for you--it will only add like maybe 7 or 8 k, instead of 30ish k.STATS
0
Not really. A hybrid class' skills will not be as good as a pure class simply due to the fact that they will not have many points into it. You don't have to modify the damage for each different type of opponent.
This is a good example. It WON'T outbalance anything because a non-pure class's BO will not be as good as a Barb's BO simply because they will only have a handfull of points into it. Same with paly auras, etc.
I don't know if you guys have played D2 since patch 1.10, but there ARE already non-class skills, such as:
- Call To Arms, which lets any character do BO and BC
- Passion, which lets any character zeal
- Infinity, which lets any character or their Merc use the paladin's Conviction aura to remove Hell immunities (especially lightning immunes)
- Insight, which lets any character or their Merc use the paladin's Meditation aura to increase mana regeneration rates
- Chaos, which lets assassins use the barbarian attack Whirlwind
The list goes on and on, and there is no problems balancing the game because impure characters never have as many points into the non-class skill as the pure characters do. As you can see, there doesn't need to be any fancy algorithms to adjust the damages or anything.0
This is my idea too. What do u think:
0
Thanks
But how about this instead...
You know the skills granted by items?
Like for instance, some items have:
+2 to Holy Shield (Paladin Only)
or
+3 to Energy Shield (Sorceress Only)
Well if you have a torch for that class in your inventory, it will unlock all those "class only" skills for any character that you are.
So if I'm a barb with a S torch, I can have the runeword item Memory on my back weapons switch, put up a slvl 9 Energy Shield, and then switch back to my weps.
There will obviously be a trade-off because you don't get +3 barb skills you would normally get if you just had your own barb torch.
What u think?
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Read this. That's one.
http://www.diablo3.com/forums/showpost.php?p=107699&postcount=23
Running hundreds of servers continuously costs money. In 5 or 10 years, do you really expect Blizzard to want to keep D2 servers up and running?
How will they pay for the server maintenance and operation? Nobody will be buying the boxes any more. At least not in enough numbers to sustain such a costly operation.
If there was a subscription fee, however, the pool of active players could float the cost of the operation, even if the pool is small. The smaller the pool, the less money Blizzard gets in subscription fees, but the less servers they need to keep operating to sustain the small pool.
Service business models are typically better at supporting themselves in the long-run. The product business model is to sell and forget. And you obviously can't "forget" D2 once you sell the boxes because you have hundreds of costly servers to operate.
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1st of all: I will make the title whatever I want to, and I'd like to see you try to stop me.
And 2nd: The title actually is relevant to the topic at hand because it implies that you do not know what an MMO is on the technical hardware side. Having a general idea about what it is, and what it looks like is not what this topic is about.
What question did you ask that you feel I owe you an answer to?
Only if they have more people. Same amount of people = same hardware load. MMO games and closed-realm games are BOTH hosted and therefore require expensive hardware that is expensive to maintain and keep running over time.
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Maybe if you read the first post, you would understand that I am not talking about what and MMO is. I'm talking about how a MMO works, on the technical hardware level.
I am quite sure most people realize what an MMO is. The thread was titled as such to attract more viewers.
If you think I don't know what an MMO is, you are sadly mistaken and it's quite apparent that you haven't been reading the thread very well.
Thank you and have a nice day.
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That's caused by the fact that Blizzard are taking down D2 servers so they can put up WoW servers. It's just overpopulation, and has nothing to do with the fact that a single D2 server hosts many hundreds of separate 8-player games simultaneously. That's how it's supposed to work. Only a moron would expect a single dedicated server should host each individual game.
Thanks for this generic overview of what a "game" is. I'm glad I know now that they are "complex structures". Apparently too complex for you to understand.
And you think the D2 servers aren't under the same load? Each one is maxed to capacity, as each one is hosting hundreds of individual game instances at any given time. Just because the players in one game instance are completely separated from players in other instances, doesn't mean that they are not supported by the same hardware and internet connection. All resources are shared--Just as with an MMO.
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Hmm, maybe you are right, but it would still be nice to "see" the BO level. Maybe have it fill up, but put a dotted line in your orb to show where your normal health would be?
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Why though? I never understood why they changed it? It's not like you have any less health. You have the same... just more room to increase it, if you don't mind using a rejuve or a few cheep health pots.
By not automatically filling it, people can notice the difference and change their play tactics accordingly. If they get BO'ed and it only increases their life by a small amount, they should be aware of it so they don't do anything risky.
In contrast, if they get a HUGE BO, they might be inclined to play a bit more aggressively because they can SEE that they have a lot of health.
And finally, many people don't notice and don't even check their stats when they get BO'ed. Changing it back so people can SEE the significant change will cause party members to give their appreciation and recognition to the Barb who helped them out so much with such a great BO. After all, a good BO barb takes a lot of expense and the sacrifice of other combat skills, so in my opinion, a little bit of recognition and thanks for the player would not be uncalled for.
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- Your money
- Your customer loyalty
You have to also realize the differences between product and service business models.A product model is typically more economically beneficial to the customer. True, the company gets an initial payment for the product, but once the transaction is complete, the company does not get ANY more money from the customer. In this business model, the only source of funding for the company is from the initial sales profit, and any post-sale support, repair, or work of any kind that has to be done by the company to improve or fix the product is simply a drain on the companies profit. The company's greatest desire is to sell the product and forget about it.
A service model is typically more economically beneficial to the company. For as long as the customer is using the service, the company gets paid. In this way, the customer supports the cost of the service entirely, and the company does not have to rely on any product sale profits to provide the service out of pocket. Once the customer no longer needs the service, it no longer needs to be supported, and the company can reallocate those resources elsewhere. It's an efficient model, where the company's money is not wasted sustaining an operation that the customer is not using, but the downside for the customer is that cost over time really adds up, and it's usually more expensive in the big picture.
Diablo 2 is an oddball, and due to a lack of foresight, it's likely now viewed by the company as a large error in planning. It's a product-oriented business model, that requires the continued service normally associated with a service. But who can blame them for making this mistake? When D2 was first released, it already had a large following from the very successful D1 franchise. Therefore, Blizzard decided to limit cheating by designing it to function primarily in a closed-realm, controlled multilayer environment (which required the constant dedication of a large number of servers, maintenance, and bandwidth costs). Who could have foreseen that one day in the future, sales would be slowing, yet the customers would still be using the product?
As you can see, there are some obvious key points here:
- D2 is not pay-to-play, so the ONLY source of funding to the company comes from the initial sale of the product.
- D2's primary multiplayer component requires the continuous service of costly server and internet bandwidth (since it's a controlled "closed-realm" environment where everything is done through the server)
- D2 is an old game, and sales are definitely not what they once were. Therefore monetary income to support the continued service provided by Blizzard is dwindling.
- Soon will come the time, when sales are almost non-existent, and no money will be made to support the continued service.
So what will Blizzard do when there is no longer enough money to support the operating costs associated with D2? They have two options:- Divert profit from other product/services to continue it's operation.
- Discontinue the operation.
It may seem to you that the choice is obvious; they will discontinue the service, and Battle.net will be shut down. However, you would be incorrect. The choice is definitely not that straight-forward.Look up a few paragraphs and remember what the 2nd thing is that a company is interested in: customer loyalty. If Blizzard shuts down Battle.net services, you will have one result: hundreds of thousands of pissed off customers. These customers have spent significant time, effort (and in some cases money) playing on Battle.net, and they will not appreciate all their work going to waste. And one thing is for certain... most of them will not re-invest any more time/effort/money in Blizzard; they will realize that Blizzard may do it again.
So Blizzard will be extremely wary about shutting down Battle.net, even if it is a drain on their profit because they do not want to alienate and permanently lose so many customers. Eventually, yes, it will shut down, but they will try to keep it open as long as possible, even if they are losing a certain amount of money to sustain it. This is why not charging a pay-to-play subscription for D2 was a "mistake", and this is why you might see D3 becoming pay-to-play as well, even if it's not an MMO.
They would have ~500 people answering phones as long as it was profitable enough to do that. As I've explained above, customer loyalty is VERY important to a company (because it helps to ensure future money), so they will do whatever it takes to keep the customers happy. Being P2P doesn't particularly matter in this case, but the popularity of the game does. As long as money is coming in to the company (whether it is due to the service business model (subscription) or the product business model (initial sales), they company will strive to provide the best level support it can afford.
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Bottom line: I'm not saying that for all cases, a service-oriented business model is better than a product-oriented one. But for games like D2, WoW, and (presumably) D3, which (due to their controlled, "closed-realm" natures) will require significant operating cost over their entire life cycle, a pay-to-play subscription fee is ideal in the eyes of the company.
Therefore, a monthly fee should not be unexpected. The only thing holding them back from demanding a monthly fee for a non-MMO game is precedence--there has not yet been a game that does it. It will be a precarious first step, and they are afraid that the market may respond negatively. Let's wait and see if they try it.
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No offense, but that just means you have 400 noob fanboys who are willing to spend good money to buy a 3-year old, mediocre game for $60 USD, and not only that, but ALSO pay a monthly subscription so they can play multiplayer online. Oh yeah, and you also need to get Vista!
Do they not realize that there are so many alternative FPS multiplayer games that are much newer, better, AND free to play online.
I'm sorry, but look at the Halo 2 PC sales. They are quite pitiful in comparison to other leading game titles, and that's rightfully so.