M6 is fine the way it is. Its not like equip M6, find Bombardier´s and grab a decent 2h X-Bow from stash -> Auto finish GR35+ in time. The real issue is how bad blizzard designed greater rifts.
Mara 6 is NOT fine the way it is. It's SUPER OP, here is the break down;
You're going to use, Cluster Arrow/MultiShot/Elemental Arrow/Wolf Companion/Ballistics/Cull of the Weak/Custom Engineering.
With Mara 6 and a RuckSack, you get 5 turrets, that shoot all three spenders at the same time, with no cooldown or resource limit.
So what's that mean in terms of raw numbers?
Maelstrom is 550% weapon damage plus the 5 rockets per volley, each rocket dealing 450% weapon damage + 100% Weapon damage from Ballistics.
That's 1,100% weapon damage, and maestrom procs Cull of the Weak for an additional 20% damage, and then you have Wolf companion that gives you 30% more damage ontop of the cull of the weak.
x 5, since you have five sentries, and that's 5,500% weapon damage x 20% x 30% = 8,580% weapon damage PER VOLLEY and this is just using ONE spender, the turrets use all 3 and they don't alternate, they fire all three every volley.
Then we have Frost Arrow, which does 330 x up to 10 [since it hits up to ten targets each] for 3,300% weapon damage per shot, x 20% x 30% = 5,148% weapon damage, x 5 for each turret = potentially 25,740% weapon damage per volley, ON TOP of the 8,580% weapon damage from maelstrom.
So JUST using frost arrow and Maelstrom with Mara 6 and a rucksack, we're already outputting 34,320% weapon damage PER SHOT.
Now add multi shot which can hit everyone on the screen for 360% weapon damage + 300% weapon damage + 100% weapon damage from ballistics * 3 since it shoots 3 rockets. This is 1560% weapon damage x 20% x 30% = 2433.6% weapon damage per volley.
This takes Mara 6 + Rucksack up to 36,753.6% weapon damage PER VOLLEY, NOT counting +% to sentry damage, +% to cold damage, or +% to fire damage, not counting +% damage against elites, or the +% pet damage you get from enforcer, or the +% attack speed you get from Tasker and Theos.
By the time you add all that in, you're in the realm of ~45,000% - 60,000% weapon damage PER VOLLEY. This doesn't even count ANY of the damage that the actual army of 8 pets is doing. So you have the ~45,000% - 60,000% weapon damage x almost 2 a second + actual companion damage, and we all know they hit for millions too.
So the problem is 100% the 6 piece bonus on Mara combined with the fact that the demon hunter has piss poor hatred regen and all their good spenders are inefficient. Without Mara 6, you can't shoot more than 3 cluster arrows in succession without being empty. With mara 6, you can shoot 5 at once without spending any resource.
Is the discrepancy getting clear yet? The Demon Hunter is in the WORST place of all the classes, because without the over powered Mara set, it's useless piss poor weak. They made the Demon Hunter viable through one set of gear, they didn't do any skill tuning. What they need to do, is disable Mara 6, buff the DH skills until it can do GR 40 and then come up with a new 6 piece that is supplementary and not OP. Or just remove the Turrets cast your spenders out right, move the "you gain all companions" to 6, and add something less powerful for the 4 piece.
As it stands now, nothing can even come close to Mara 6, nothing will ever come close to Mara 6 unless they are even more ridiculous than Mara 6, because if you take the turrets away [say for the new multishot set they are working on] then multi shot has to do triple output x 5, in order to compete, so the 6 piece would have to say "Increase Multishot Damage by 72,000% weapon damage."
That's absurd, we all know it, the problem is -- that's how much damage people with Mara 6 are doing in ONE volley.
Another fix for it, is to make the Sentries cast your spenders with reduced damage, like 60% less damage this doesn't for instance just subtract 60 from 330, we take frost arrow at 330% and deduct 60%, we don't just do 330 - 60 = 270% from the sentry, we do 330 x 60% = 198, 330 - 198 = 132% weapon damage. And to cap it at 2 spenders instead of 3. This would force people to actually play the game, rather than drop turrets and hide in the other room, it would also allow other builds to be viable provided they had support pieces for those builds. So going forward, this gives the devs the room to create new sets and Legendary items that would allow other builds to compete, but until there are new items in the game, if you applied my "massive" nerf to Mara 6, it'd STILL be hands down leagues and ladders better than any other build in the game, simply because you have 5 extra demon hunters in your pocket at all times [sic; turrets].
It's clear that the spenders AND generators on DH hit for too little, so the only way for them to output enough damage to climb greater rifts, is to give them all of that on unlimited resource x 5. The solution should be to make it so you can do that much damage out of just the DH without 5 turrets.
Mara 6 is lazy design. Run Mara 6 next to Natalya's w/ shadows grasp -- now this is an ideal combination, because nats is 4 piece and Shadows is 4 piece, which lets you wear them both, which gives the natalya's setup better toughness [that it would need if it didn't have the companion army] but the damage output is TENS OF THOUSANDS of percent lower, and it shouldn't be.
Natalya's + Shadows should = Grift 40, but it doesn't, you'd be lucky to hit 26, and Torment 6 is = to Grift 25.
Blizzard thinks the way to solve this problem is to make Nat's have a 6 piece bonus that is also ridiculously strong, but the problem with that is, it renders the shadows grasp set useless[since you can't wear 5/3] which is required to get the toughness to survive at the higher grift levels when you don't have companion tanks and turrets that do damage WHILE you kite. You will have to stop and DPS which is going to garauntee enemies will DPS you, so without the extra toughness [35% damage reduction] and LoH [32,185] and the Slow [80%] + Movespeed [30%] and with the Discipline reduction + Nightstalker you get 100% uptime on Shadow power, you get from shadows grasp, you're going to be dead in the water.
Mara 6 needs to be redesigned, the DH needs it's resource per damage ratios balanced, needs it's generators to deal adequate damage and then Natalya's 4 piece needs to be buffed, rather than JUST reduce the cool down, it should increase the damage output or give you access to all the runes for every cast, like Rasha's meteors.
The way the game is balanced now is T6 can be done in Legendary Gear, but Grifts and T6 on Farm status requires Sets. I'm cool with this curve, but that means there needs to be many, many, many, more sets for each class to support build diversity, but if the set is = to 70,000% stronger, the gap is WAY too large, it just means the character class itself is weak.
The crusaders have a similar problem right now, Ak's vs Roland's, Roland's sucks right now, because having Perma Akarat's Champion = such a huge EDPS boost + a super Etoughness boost [running prophet takes me from 11m toughness to 24 million add a monk to the party and I'm at 42 million] that the measly double attack speed from rolands set can't even come close to competing. Blizzard has acknowledged this and said that their probably will be a support piece added for Rolands, but they already have 2, they have the Piru Mirella and the Golden Flense + rolands is a 6 piece. If Rolands was a 4 piece, they could get away with adding more support pieces -- but as it stands, not really sure where they think people can equip this "Support" piece.
P.S.
Combine the insane damage output of Mara 6 x 2 with 2 other support characters and we're full circle back to "Support Monks with 0 damage and explosive palm that did 92% of the enemies health in damage on kill." Because nobody else has even close to the damage output of Mara 6, this is why every 4 player group has 2 DH's and 2 Supports, because the supports can add even more flat damage buffs to those demon hunters,
I.E. Monks with Overawe + 16% more damage taken from all sources, or Crusaders with Shield Glare for +20% more damage taken from all sources, which is WAY MORE than +16% damage, since the damage they take is based on your actual damage hits at the END of the calculation, instead of at the beginning.
So, if you have a crusader, run it with some people running Mara 6 who can grift at 35+, don't even fight, just run around and shield glare. When you shield glare, you'll notice that everything almost instantly explodes with the exception of guardians, but since they have so much life, you get to see how much damage stacking the glare does for them, as the life bar will drain at a much Accelerated rate.
This is why all 4 party that get 42+ have monks or crusaders, because they provide raw toughness bonuses + damage through enemy debuffs. It isn't because they are also doing "Sick" damage. There is just nothing that can compete with that composition... why? Because DH are WAAAAAY over powered, but ONLY because of Mara 6, take that away and they are DRASTICALLY under powered, and that's the real problem in a nut shell.
Demon Hunters are super weak and cannot do damage or stay alive without Mara 6. Without Mara 6, they are the worst class in the game, with Mara 6 they are the best class in the game, there is too much swing from one set of gear, this is broken.
You can't fix it without nerfing the set. If you buff the skill damage and leave the set alone, it'll do exponentially more damage in curve. If you don't buff the skills, Mara's will ALWAYS be the only option. So this isn't a case of "Buff everyone else don't nerf us!" because buffing demonhunter builds that don't use maras will only make maras better than it is now, buffing other classes would then just create this problem on 4 other classes making the game essentially boil down to "Get x Set, win the game, use any other set, lose the game."
If you buff all the sets in the game to Mara levels, then you just end up with gear explosion at 70 -- My character is "Broken" until I get "X" set, and then my character is godly. There is no smooth progression of power this way unless they made these sets extremely, extremely rare, but then what happens is -- players get frustrated because they played for 300 hours and didn't get it, and homeboy rolled a new character and has only played him for 60 hours and he's winning the ladder.
So they all have to be common enough, which means that the classes themselves have to all be strong, and the sets have to amplify certain builds a small amount, rather than a massive amount, this way the stats on the gear matter more rather than the set bonus automatically added superficial power that is magnitudes stronger than the stats on your gear in value.
In other words, the absolutely only way to fix this problem is to Nerf Mara 6, and buff the DH to compensate. This will change how it's played but not actually "Nerf" anybody. You'll be achieving the same power, but most of it will be from your skills and gear stats, rather than most of it being from the set bonus. Set bonus is supposed to be a bonus, not the base. Right now Mara 6 is more than a bonus.
I fully recognize I failed to see the two points being considered as one whole when I originally talked about it. I understand, however I still wanted to provide my rebuttal to that argument. It causes too many problems to be a workable solution. I think there are ways that can resolve the issue that won't resort to player base segregation.
It's a big topic and I rather enjoy the debate it brings. Personally I don't hate nor love the AH. It could be removed today (without item drop changes) and I'd be fine. I do think that some item drop changes need to happen either way.
You don't have to segregate players at all. Diablo III is built in such a way that a "No Auction House" character can play with auction house players just fine.
Why?
Everyone gets their own loot.
Simple.
So why do we have to play in different games because my loot table is different than yours? You can't see what drops for me anyway.
The simple solution is to BRING BACK LADDERS.
While in an active ladder NO A/H is enabled. When you fail the ladder or it expires you get bumped into the normal game.
You solve the segregation problem easily, items found by ladder characters will be "Bound to ladder characters." Ladder characters can only use ladder bound equipment. That way someone who is currently playing in a ladder, can play with characters outside the ladder without trashing the ladder. [Since he can't equip any items found from non-ladder players.] If you get knocked out of the ladder, or it's reset, all the loot you currently have is no longer ladder bound. (This way you can still equip it, even though you are no longer ladder licensed.)
Then add a new chat channel called [Ladder - Trade]. Problemo solved.
This would also add replayability to those that have exhausted the games content, too -- a nifty side bonus.
This also solves discern with the PS3 version being the "better" version of the game, since it has NO A/H of any kind.
[Blizzard knows the A/H was a bad idea NOW [hence it not being in the PS3/4 versions], it's just an undoable problem. People are used to it, so take it away and people will miss it. PS3/4 players will most probably be first time players, so they don't have a crutch to miss. Introducing ladders gives all players options to both.]
This is basically a "Soft Reset." Diablo III needs to be reset, Diablo II needed to be reset from time to time, that's why the ladder system existed.
Everyone gets to start all over, with all the changes and improvements that made it a better game, without losing their old characters, whilst still being able to play with their old characters with new ladder players.
It's the PERFECT solution.
People will play, they will craft, they will trade -- the old fashioned way, whilst enjoying the ability to find useful items and good drops [like PS3/4 players].
They will also retain limited/unlimited access to the auction house once characters are "retired" from the ladder in the event of a ladder reset or *failure of ladder conditions.
*Path of Exile has really cool ladder options, you can join a "Hardcore Ladder" which means if you die, you are kicked off the ladder [instead of losing your character forever, he just becomes a normal character.]
P.S.
I believe ladders should only be reset with game changing patches [like drastic loot table overhauls] or expansion packs.
I also believe there needs to be something to incentivize players into joining the ladder.
I feel like the new loot table should only apply to new ladder characters. [Once they are retired, they maintain this new loot table.]
Sorry man, but those points you bring up, while valid, are only a drop in the sea comapred to what really makes this game not fun for extended periods of time.
As far as I can tell, the top reason for people quitting is that in order to be efficient they have to sit on the AH a significant portion of your play time, and those who went past that point by either screeching teeth or just liking spending time on the AH, are getting bored of being encouraged to just farm stuff they can kill with extreme ease and repeat over and over, preferably using the top-of-the-line build that involves lots of movement speed boosts (see: sprint/whirlwind barbs, which will remain by far the fastest post 1.0.5 because you will still be encouraged to farm easy stuff and the nerf wasn't severe enough to bring the build in line with other builds).
Lack of build diversity and boring items is a big one too, but not as important as what more directly causes the players to get bored and quit (too much time needed on AH and farming easy stuff repeatedly).
You are entitled to your opinion, but I spend 99.9% of my time playing in game, not the AH and I have 78 million sitting on my character right now, not bought for real money.
Also, the point about farming is a little silly, considering that farming in an ARPG always gets easy if you get strong. DII was even sillier in that reguard.
Diablo is about the loot.
I will give you the fact that it's boring to farm loot when you don't need it anymore, it was the same way in Diablo II, however, farming loot in Diablo II even when you were beast was usable in PvP, and the same will ring true in DIII once PvP is released.
I also don't think the items are that borked. They just need to make it so 7 affixes can roll on a rare instead of 6 and add in a bunch of % chance to cast based on "x".
I.E.
A chest armor with 15% chance to cast frost nova when hit.
Or, a weapon with 18% chance to cast diamond skin on crit.
Or a belt that has 13% chance to cast fan of knives on dodge.
This is the only thing that needs to be added to rares to make it cool, and remember we still have an expansion to come, where we will likely be able to add sockets for a fee [the jeweler could do this in the blizcon builds] and the third artisan that lets you add an affix to an existing item for a fee and crafting materials.
In the blizcon demo, you could add hatred regen to an axe if you wanted.
They have stuff planned for the future, it's just about getting the core game right now, and I think that lies within fixing the free roam, dueling, followers and legendary and set items that still suck. [They don't all suck, but there are a bunch that still are completely useless.]
With those fixes, combined with the new content they have planned for the expansion, I think DIII has a very good chance at surpassing DII as the greatest ARPG of all time, I sincerely mean that.
Especially with the introduction of Monster Power and the Infernal Machine and Paragon levels.
DII had 99 levels. DIII at launch had 60, it now has 160.
DII had ubers. DIII will now have Ubers.
DII had PvP, DIII will have PvP.
DIII's items aren't as bad as people make it sound, I'll admit getting them to roll with all the affixes necessary is a bit broken right now, but just like they are fixing everything else, I'm sure this will get better with time. We can already see an improvement with items rolling from monster level instead of item level.
So you need Mainstat + Vital, other than that, it's pretty much the same as DII, with the exception of + to skills.
In Diablo II, you had +1 to Bash.
In Diablo III you have +10% to bash damage.
They are the same thing, infact, the higher damage you do base, the bigger difference you get out of +10% to Bash damage.
And tbh, if they want to add an equivolent to +to all skills in diablo III, all they have to do is add an affix that adds "+10% weapon damage" "+20% weapon damage" and "+30% to weapon damage" since all skills are based on weapon damage, raising weapon damage raises the skills power. Really simple stuff.
We need more gems, we need charms, and maybe we could see the return of jewels -- but jewels could have affixes like +% to a skill on them instead of +Mainstat, and the item system is fixed.
P.S.
Diablo II was broken when it came out too. It also lacked runes and jewels and charms until LoD. And half of the cool uniques were added in LoD too, same with set items. Immortal King's was an LoD set, Ral Rasha's was an LoD set.
Do you guys not remember DII's launch? It was rebalanced every patch, and what did that mean in DII, not only did you have to regear, but you had to re-roll and start over, because your build didn't work anymore and there was no respec.
DII didn't get really good until LoD, and even at that, not until 1.09. That's real talk.
2
You're going to use, Cluster Arrow/MultiShot/Elemental Arrow/Wolf Companion/Ballistics/Cull of the Weak/Custom Engineering.
With Mara 6 and a RuckSack, you get 5 turrets, that shoot all three spenders at the same time, with no cooldown or resource limit.
So what's that mean in terms of raw numbers?
Maelstrom is 550% weapon damage plus the 5 rockets per volley, each rocket dealing 450% weapon damage + 100% Weapon damage from Ballistics.
That's 1,100% weapon damage, and maestrom procs Cull of the Weak for an additional 20% damage, and then you have Wolf companion that gives you 30% more damage ontop of the cull of the weak.
x 5, since you have five sentries, and that's 5,500% weapon damage x 20% x 30% = 8,580% weapon damage PER VOLLEY and this is just using ONE spender, the turrets use all 3 and they don't alternate, they fire all three every volley.
Then we have Frost Arrow, which does 330 x up to 10 [since it hits up to ten targets each] for 3,300% weapon damage per shot, x 20% x 30% = 5,148% weapon damage, x 5 for each turret = potentially 25,740% weapon damage per volley, ON TOP of the 8,580% weapon damage from maelstrom.
So JUST using frost arrow and Maelstrom with Mara 6 and a rucksack, we're already outputting 34,320% weapon damage PER SHOT.
Now add multi shot which can hit everyone on the screen for 360% weapon damage + 300% weapon damage + 100% weapon damage from ballistics * 3 since it shoots 3 rockets. This is 1560% weapon damage x 20% x 30% = 2433.6% weapon damage per volley.
This takes Mara 6 + Rucksack up to 36,753.6% weapon damage PER VOLLEY, NOT counting +% to sentry damage, +% to cold damage, or +% to fire damage, not counting +% damage against elites, or the +% pet damage you get from enforcer, or the +% attack speed you get from Tasker and Theos.
By the time you add all that in, you're in the realm of ~45,000% - 60,000% weapon damage PER VOLLEY. This doesn't even count ANY of the damage that the actual army of 8 pets is doing. So you have the ~45,000% - 60,000% weapon damage x almost 2 a second + actual companion damage, and we all know they hit for millions too.
So the problem is 100% the 6 piece bonus on Mara combined with the fact that the demon hunter has piss poor hatred regen and all their good spenders are inefficient. Without Mara 6, you can't shoot more than 3 cluster arrows in succession without being empty. With mara 6, you can shoot 5 at once without spending any resource.
Is the discrepancy getting clear yet? The Demon Hunter is in the WORST place of all the classes, because without the over powered Mara set, it's useless piss poor weak. They made the Demon Hunter viable through one set of gear, they didn't do any skill tuning. What they need to do, is disable Mara 6, buff the DH skills until it can do GR 40 and then come up with a new 6 piece that is supplementary and not OP. Or just remove the Turrets cast your spenders out right, move the "you gain all companions" to 6, and add something less powerful for the 4 piece.
As it stands now, nothing can even come close to Mara 6, nothing will ever come close to Mara 6 unless they are even more ridiculous than Mara 6, because if you take the turrets away [say for the new multishot set they are working on] then multi shot has to do triple output x 5, in order to compete, so the 6 piece would have to say "Increase Multishot Damage by 72,000% weapon damage."
That's absurd, we all know it, the problem is -- that's how much damage people with Mara 6 are doing in ONE volley.
Another fix for it, is to make the Sentries cast your spenders with reduced damage, like 60% less damage this doesn't for instance just subtract 60 from 330, we take frost arrow at 330% and deduct 60%, we don't just do 330 - 60 = 270% from the sentry, we do 330 x 60% = 198, 330 - 198 = 132% weapon damage. And to cap it at 2 spenders instead of 3. This would force people to actually play the game, rather than drop turrets and hide in the other room, it would also allow other builds to be viable provided they had support pieces for those builds. So going forward, this gives the devs the room to create new sets and Legendary items that would allow other builds to compete, but until there are new items in the game, if you applied my "massive" nerf to Mara 6, it'd STILL be hands down leagues and ladders better than any other build in the game, simply because you have 5 extra demon hunters in your pocket at all times [sic; turrets].
It's clear that the spenders AND generators on DH hit for too little, so the only way for them to output enough damage to climb greater rifts, is to give them all of that on unlimited resource x 5. The solution should be to make it so you can do that much damage out of just the DH without 5 turrets.
Mara 6 is lazy design. Run Mara 6 next to Natalya's w/ shadows grasp -- now this is an ideal combination, because nats is 4 piece and Shadows is 4 piece, which lets you wear them both, which gives the natalya's setup better toughness [that it would need if it didn't have the companion army] but the damage output is TENS OF THOUSANDS of percent lower, and it shouldn't be.
Natalya's + Shadows should = Grift 40, but it doesn't, you'd be lucky to hit 26, and Torment 6 is = to Grift 25.
Blizzard thinks the way to solve this problem is to make Nat's have a 6 piece bonus that is also ridiculously strong, but the problem with that is, it renders the shadows grasp set useless[since you can't wear 5/3] which is required to get the toughness to survive at the higher grift levels when you don't have companion tanks and turrets that do damage WHILE you kite. You will have to stop and DPS which is going to garauntee enemies will DPS you, so without the extra toughness [35% damage reduction] and LoH [32,185] and the Slow [80%] + Movespeed [30%] and with the Discipline reduction + Nightstalker you get 100% uptime on Shadow power, you get from shadows grasp, you're going to be dead in the water.
Mara 6 needs to be redesigned, the DH needs it's resource per damage ratios balanced, needs it's generators to deal adequate damage and then Natalya's 4 piece needs to be buffed, rather than JUST reduce the cool down, it should increase the damage output or give you access to all the runes for every cast, like Rasha's meteors.
The way the game is balanced now is T6 can be done in Legendary Gear, but Grifts and T6 on Farm status requires Sets. I'm cool with this curve, but that means there needs to be many, many, many, more sets for each class to support build diversity, but if the set is = to 70,000% stronger, the gap is WAY too large, it just means the character class itself is weak.
The crusaders have a similar problem right now, Ak's vs Roland's, Roland's sucks right now, because having Perma Akarat's Champion = such a huge EDPS boost + a super Etoughness boost [running prophet takes me from 11m toughness to 24 million add a monk to the party and I'm at 42 million] that the measly double attack speed from rolands set can't even come close to competing. Blizzard has acknowledged this and said that their probably will be a support piece added for Rolands, but they already have 2, they have the Piru Mirella and the Golden Flense + rolands is a 6 piece. If Rolands was a 4 piece, they could get away with adding more support pieces -- but as it stands, not really sure where they think people can equip this "Support" piece.
P.S.
Combine the insane damage output of Mara 6 x 2 with 2 other support characters and we're full circle back to "Support Monks with 0 damage and explosive palm that did 92% of the enemies health in damage on kill." Because nobody else has even close to the damage output of Mara 6, this is why every 4 player group has 2 DH's and 2 Supports, because the supports can add even more flat damage buffs to those demon hunters,
I.E. Monks with Overawe + 16% more damage taken from all sources, or Crusaders with Shield Glare for +20% more damage taken from all sources, which is WAY MORE than +16% damage, since the damage they take is based on your actual damage hits at the END of the calculation, instead of at the beginning.
So, if you have a crusader, run it with some people running Mara 6 who can grift at 35+, don't even fight, just run around and shield glare. When you shield glare, you'll notice that everything almost instantly explodes with the exception of guardians, but since they have so much life, you get to see how much damage stacking the glare does for them, as the life bar will drain at a much Accelerated rate.
This is why all 4 party that get 42+ have monks or crusaders, because they provide raw toughness bonuses + damage through enemy debuffs. It isn't because they are also doing "Sick" damage. There is just nothing that can compete with that composition... why? Because DH are WAAAAAY over powered, but ONLY because of Mara 6, take that away and they are DRASTICALLY under powered, and that's the real problem in a nut shell.
Demon Hunters are super weak and cannot do damage or stay alive without Mara 6. Without Mara 6, they are the worst class in the game, with Mara 6 they are the best class in the game, there is too much swing from one set of gear, this is broken.
You can't fix it without nerfing the set. If you buff the skill damage and leave the set alone, it'll do exponentially more damage in curve. If you don't buff the skills, Mara's will ALWAYS be the only option. So this isn't a case of "Buff everyone else don't nerf us!" because buffing demonhunter builds that don't use maras will only make maras better than it is now, buffing other classes would then just create this problem on 4 other classes making the game essentially boil down to "Get x Set, win the game, use any other set, lose the game."
If you buff all the sets in the game to Mara levels, then you just end up with gear explosion at 70 -- My character is "Broken" until I get "X" set, and then my character is godly. There is no smooth progression of power this way unless they made these sets extremely, extremely rare, but then what happens is -- players get frustrated because they played for 300 hours and didn't get it, and homeboy rolled a new character and has only played him for 60 hours and he's winning the ladder.
So they all have to be common enough, which means that the classes themselves have to all be strong, and the sets have to amplify certain builds a small amount, rather than a massive amount, this way the stats on the gear matter more rather than the set bonus automatically added superficial power that is magnitudes stronger than the stats on your gear in value.
In other words, the absolutely only way to fix this problem is to Nerf Mara 6, and buff the DH to compensate. This will change how it's played but not actually "Nerf" anybody. You'll be achieving the same power, but most of it will be from your skills and gear stats, rather than most of it being from the set bonus. Set bonus is supposed to be a bonus, not the base. Right now Mara 6 is more than a bonus.
1
You don't have to segregate players at all. Diablo III is built in such a way that a "No Auction House" character can play with auction house players just fine.
Why?
Everyone gets their own loot.
Simple.
So why do we have to play in different games because my loot table is different than yours? You can't see what drops for me anyway.
The simple solution is to BRING BACK LADDERS.
While in an active ladder NO A/H is enabled. When you fail the ladder or it expires you get bumped into the normal game.
You solve the segregation problem easily, items found by ladder characters will be "Bound to ladder characters." Ladder characters can only use ladder bound equipment. That way someone who is currently playing in a ladder, can play with characters outside the ladder without trashing the ladder. [Since he can't equip any items found from non-ladder players.] If you get knocked out of the ladder, or it's reset, all the loot you currently have is no longer ladder bound. (This way you can still equip it, even though you are no longer ladder licensed.)
Then add a new chat channel called [Ladder - Trade]. Problemo solved.
This would also add replayability to those that have exhausted the games content, too -- a nifty side bonus.
This also solves discern with the PS3 version being the "better" version of the game, since it has NO A/H of any kind.
[Blizzard knows the A/H was a bad idea NOW [hence it not being in the PS3/4 versions], it's just an undoable problem. People are used to it, so take it away and people will miss it. PS3/4 players will most probably be first time players, so they don't have a crutch to miss. Introducing ladders gives all players options to both.]
This is basically a "Soft Reset." Diablo III needs to be reset, Diablo II needed to be reset from time to time, that's why the ladder system existed.
Everyone gets to start all over, with all the changes and improvements that made it a better game, without losing their old characters, whilst still being able to play with their old characters with new ladder players.
It's the PERFECT solution.
People will play, they will craft, they will trade -- the old fashioned way, whilst enjoying the ability to find useful items and good drops [like PS3/4 players].
They will also retain limited/unlimited access to the auction house once characters are "retired" from the ladder in the event of a ladder reset or *failure of ladder conditions.
*Path of Exile has really cool ladder options, you can join a "Hardcore Ladder" which means if you die, you are kicked off the ladder [instead of losing your character forever, he just becomes a normal character.]
P.S.
I believe ladders should only be reset with game changing patches [like drastic loot table overhauls] or expansion packs.
I also believe there needs to be something to incentivize players into joining the ladder.
I feel like the new loot table should only apply to new ladder characters. [Once they are retired, they maintain this new loot table.]
4
You are entitled to your opinion, but I spend 99.9% of my time playing in game, not the AH and I have 78 million sitting on my character right now, not bought for real money.
Also, the point about farming is a little silly, considering that farming in an ARPG always gets easy if you get strong. DII was even sillier in that reguard.
Diablo is about the loot.
I will give you the fact that it's boring to farm loot when you don't need it anymore, it was the same way in Diablo II, however, farming loot in Diablo II even when you were beast was usable in PvP, and the same will ring true in DIII once PvP is released.
I also don't think the items are that borked. They just need to make it so 7 affixes can roll on a rare instead of 6 and add in a bunch of % chance to cast based on "x".
I.E.
A chest armor with 15% chance to cast frost nova when hit.
Or, a weapon with 18% chance to cast diamond skin on crit.
Or a belt that has 13% chance to cast fan of knives on dodge.
This is the only thing that needs to be added to rares to make it cool, and remember we still have an expansion to come, where we will likely be able to add sockets for a fee [the jeweler could do this in the blizcon builds] and the third artisan that lets you add an affix to an existing item for a fee and crafting materials.
In the blizcon demo, you could add hatred regen to an axe if you wanted.
They have stuff planned for the future, it's just about getting the core game right now, and I think that lies within fixing the free roam, dueling, followers and legendary and set items that still suck. [They don't all suck, but there are a bunch that still are completely useless.]
With those fixes, combined with the new content they have planned for the expansion, I think DIII has a very good chance at surpassing DII as the greatest ARPG of all time, I sincerely mean that.
Especially with the introduction of Monster Power and the Infernal Machine and Paragon levels.
DII had 99 levels. DIII at launch had 60, it now has 160.
DII had ubers. DIII will now have Ubers.
DII had PvP, DIII will have PvP.
DIII's items aren't as bad as people make it sound, I'll admit getting them to roll with all the affixes necessary is a bit broken right now, but just like they are fixing everything else, I'm sure this will get better with time. We can already see an improvement with items rolling from monster level instead of item level.
So you need Mainstat + Vital, other than that, it's pretty much the same as DII, with the exception of + to skills.
In Diablo II, you had +1 to Bash.
In Diablo III you have +10% to bash damage.
They are the same thing, infact, the higher damage you do base, the bigger difference you get out of +10% to Bash damage.
And tbh, if they want to add an equivolent to +to all skills in diablo III, all they have to do is add an affix that adds "+10% weapon damage" "+20% weapon damage" and "+30% to weapon damage" since all skills are based on weapon damage, raising weapon damage raises the skills power. Really simple stuff.
We need more gems, we need charms, and maybe we could see the return of jewels -- but jewels could have affixes like +% to a skill on them instead of +Mainstat, and the item system is fixed.
P.S.
Diablo II was broken when it came out too. It also lacked runes and jewels and charms until LoD. And half of the cool uniques were added in LoD too, same with set items. Immortal King's was an LoD set, Ral Rasha's was an LoD set.
Do you guys not remember DII's launch? It was rebalanced every patch, and what did that mean in DII, not only did you have to regear, but you had to re-roll and start over, because your build didn't work anymore and there was no respec.
DII didn't get really good until LoD, and even at that, not until 1.09. That's real talk.