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[Diablo 3] Reports of the Economy's death were greatly exaggerated
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Seriously, Ghom absolutely melted me when I went in. I did decently enough against Skelly king and Maghda, but Ghom and Whatsisface was hands-down impossible. Forget what the third one was, I know Siegebreaker is in it, but forget the other guy, I did decently well against them. Slow and steady damage. Granted, buddy did 90% of the work while I did nothing, but I still did it!
Right now I'm sitting at 1mil gold and wondering what I'm going to do with it, probably craft!
WiiU Username: MordaRazgrom
Steam Username: MordaRazgrom
WoW/Diablo 3 Battlenet Battletag: MordaRazgrom#1755
Me and my wife have a gamer YouTube page if interested www.youtube.com/TeamMarriage
The problem with that WoW precedent when applied to D3 is that the item economy per player in WoW is fixed. 99% of the best items that you want for your toon in WoW drop from a known source within a certain percentage chance of appearing. On top of that, those items are BoE. D3 does not fit this pattern in the least bit.
With the item economy as it is, the AH as a whole will always be a more efficient path to gearing your toon. The reason that this kills the player base as a whole goes back to the old idiom of "self-improvement is masturbation". Trading has been a part of all three Diablo games, the difference here is that the AH was a safer, easier option to start the trading process than in the past, and as such created a player economy much quicker. When the player economy hit D1 and D2, there were a lot of people that left the game... the same's happening here, just a hell of a lot faster due to the speed of having a stable player economy.
_J_ is right though, the problem is in not actualizing desires as that fights against the human drive toward efficiency in this case. The AH isn't inherently bad, there is just observation and want bias associated with it.
You forget that the MP difficulties were conceived in a post-AH world. Even if gear was the same without the AH, the standards of character power would be very different, meaning easier MPs and thus more viable self-found progression.
This is a better argument than what most people come up with, I'll give you that though.
So, as Blizzard stated during development, the AH was meant to be a safe alternative to the gold-buying black market websites of Diablo 2 loot that some people used. Enough people used it that Blizzard thought the AH would have a good demand and would be worth the additional capital investment.
The AH was meant for those people, the super-hardcore guys who would go onto black-market sites to get their gear and then trade it with each other (I'm guessing that was less than 10% of the Diablo 2 gamer population as a whole). When the AH was introduced, however, it wasn't just the 10% that used it. It was meant for end-game hole-filling, rather than hutning for the last piece of Tal Rasha's, you could go in and plug that hole up with a few million gold. That was the intent. The intent proved to be completely divorced from the truth. Once the AH came about, a vast majority of the playerbase of Diablo 3 used it. People that would have never even considered a black market site were strolling through the AH like it was what the game was all about.
This isn't something that's unexpected, given gamer natures and all that. I just don't think that Blizzard really thought that the Auction House would have been that much of a focus for such a large percentage of the population. Now that the cat's out of the bag you can't really put it back in, so we're stuck with patchwork fixes to try to control the crazy flood.
I'm playing Diablo 3 exactly the way that I played Diablo 2, and I'm getting pretty much the same amount of enjoyment out of it, probably more because, to me, it's equivalent to D2, but with better graphics, better mechanics, and better balancing. I'm in a minority, though, I think. People don't play D3 like they played D2 and then wonder why D3 doesn't play like D2. :rotate:
WiiU Username: MordaRazgrom
Steam Username: MordaRazgrom
WoW/Diablo 3 Battlenet Battletag: MordaRazgrom#1755
Me and my wife have a gamer YouTube page if interested www.youtube.com/TeamMarriage
Well, like I alluded to before, Blizzard would never allow third party trading and trade chat spam to flourish again. If they decided to remove the AH because open trading hurts the game, they would also have neutered other means of trading. Probably make gear become account bound outside the game you found it in or something. I can say with certainty that the game would be more fun for me had they done that, in conjunction with other itemization improvements, more crafting options, etc.
What is Ubers?
I ran Inferno Act IV last night with my wizard, to see how I like the changes, and I like it. I also met my first Keywarden, who dropped the plans for the Infernal Machine, which I promptly taught to my blacksmith. Now I need keys...
Still couldn't beat Diablo, though.
I find it stupid that the same legendary can range in price from 50k to 2b... but that's not the fault of the AH. That's overemphasis on very specific stats and the incredibly wide range of random values.
Thankfully, these issues are next in line. The next patch can't come soon enough.
I don't think better items being cheaper is what they want at all. They can't remove the AH now, but they've said that they want to marginalize its impact on the game any way they can. If buffing loot makes gear even cheaper on the AH(as it has up until now), then nothing has changed at all except the starting MP you can play at for a million gold. Ideally what they want is for the AH to stay where it is at best, while finding gear becomes far more viable. This can only be done by making some big systemic nerfs, like BoE gear.
In groups on high MP (or don't waste your machines :P).
Fire Bats build?
I had a decent Sankis drop the other day and considering the changes to FB I thought I'd theory up a build. I don't play WD though, so school me in your voodoo ways.
WiiU Username: MordaRazgrom
Steam Username: MordaRazgrom
WoW/Diablo 3 Battlenet Battletag: MordaRazgrom#1755
Me and my wife have a gamer YouTube page if interested www.youtube.com/TeamMarriage
Inferno without MP, and MP1, ought to be manageable without AH gear. This was a problem they addressed last summer, when persons complained that Inferno Act 2 could only be completed with Act 2 gear. They significantly lowered the difficulty levels so that more people could access them.
Your counter-factual claim seems reasonable, that without an AH gear standards would be lower and so MP difficulties would be lower, but why does that matter? Persons can do MP1 without using the AH. Why is an inability to do MP10 without the AH a bad thing, especially given the fact that MP10 is not unique content.
This is not like WoW where persons could not do particular raids without being in a raiding guild and farming gear. All content is accessible to players without the AH. The difference is that relative power levels will be lower for persons who farm their own gear. That difference is not necessarily problematic, once we get people's desires to stop being contradictory.
Also as a female monk.
rawr.
Bleh.
I guess I'll just go dick around gemless and hope some drop.
I'm looking forward to eventually being able to progress past MP0, but this game is effectively single-player as far as I'm concerned. I haven't played in a group since a week or two after it came out.
Lose: The opposite of win
Loose: Your mum
I'd use a dog rune that ups your survivability instead of burning dogs, you don't need that tickle of damage with cloud of bats. I like the vengeful spirit rune on soul harvest since it combos nicely with cloud and I use a skorn (run in to a big group and smack them with both the harvest and the bats at once), but that one can easily be a matter of choice. I don't think spiritual attunement fits very well, since you probably won't have major mana issues unless you have to start and stop the bat cloud a lot, and there are more dual purpose mana passives. I think it would be better to use gruesome feast or blood ritual in that spot. I really like spirit vessel for the defensive passive instead, because a lot of times I won't take too much damage when running in with good use of spirit walk, but occasionally just get gibbed by something like an inopportunely timed reflect damage or charge.
I'm not sure about locust swarm, but you do want something to do damage when you can't afford to run in and use your bat mulcher, so maybe that's fine.
Well, my problem is, I was already weak before I started. I stalled entirely at 55 on my hell playthrough on my WD (pre pets revamp) and my Wizard was running out of steam at 50 on Nightmare; and I was too poor to really upgrade much at the time when 50+ gear in the AH was going for millions and I don't think I even had a few hundred thousand gold total. This was all ages ago, 1.0.2 was the last time I played.
Gems were keeping me afloat and I got greedy Tuesday and sold them all.
EDIT: I'll admit I didn't even try playing since I sold all my gems. It might be managable at this point. I'm not sure if anything other than Inferno got a difficulty adjustment.
Why do people who use the AH want to reach MP10? Because progressing is fun, and efficiency is fun. Currently AH users have much easier access to that fun than non-AH users. Do you think all these complaints are just imaginary? Amish players are second class citizens and you know that - it doesn't bother you because you're not one of them.
Oh yeah, thoughts on why might have been helpful.
Like I said, the idea is to use that Sankis I found (964 dps, +25% fire skills, 2.4 LS, 594 LoH). Couple that with a Magefist w/ CC and CHD and all three dogs are doing 47% weapon damage as an aura. Combined, that's the equivalent of Corpse Spiders per second to possibly many targets outside of main casting.
Jaunt for survival, Jinx the same, and Siphon yet again the same (mostly against the idea of Reflect Damage). Pestilence is so that I can get a lot of attention. That was the idea I had with it, I'd go around throwing out Locusts at packs and get a train following me, then I'd Cloud and stand still as everything walked toward me and melted.
Attunement is there because I figured I'm already over the norm on AS, and I'm getting a little bump from Magefist anyway... that's going to cost a lot more mana for channeling than a Skorn if my experience with Sleet Storm is any indication. Get a Visage with -Bats cost, SoJ with -Bats cost, Zuni's Boots/Armor/Ring/Mojo, and whatever for the rest and I'll be making mana while channeling... barely, if I got the math right.
Note that, like I said, I'm applying my Sleet Storm experience a lot here since I don't have barely any experience with a WD. So, with that in mind, am I just outright wrong about anything in the above? Is survivability going to be that much of an issue? Can Soul Harvest be cast without interrupting channeling?
Seriously, I feel like I'm the only one doing damage in the games I've been joining. It feels dumb to use anything else.
In the few hours I've spent the past two nights I got three paragon levels (31 woo), a buttload of gold, but no legendaries.
I'm liking the patch so far, but it's easy to see that they just shot their own Paragon system in the foot by speeding up the leveling so drastically. They're going to have to implement that secondary passive system they were teasing that would unlock along with P-levels, and also create new challenges, as people are already farming MP10.
And that leads to another thing, a lot of the games I've been in have been with really undergeared people, and this problem only gets worse as you go up in MP. There's nothing stopping me from joining MP10 games and "contributing", but I'd rather be helpful in MP4-5 with similarly geared players. So they need to readdress their matchmaking system, which also sucks because most Keywarden farming games I join, the Keywarden is already dead.
Burning Dogs deals 2% Weapon Damage as fire to nearby enemies. Normaly this is ignorable, but with the +25% to Fire Skills damage from the Axe of Sankis, and +20% from Magefist, that's 47% damage to all monsters surrounding the dog... as well as the 9% weapon damage from the dog's bites.
EDIT: I don't know what the range of the fire aura that Burning Dogs has is though, so I might be overestimating it's reach. I would figure it's about 8-12 yards, similar to Cloud of Bats or Sleet Storm.
Couple of things. I find in MP8+ games that most people are pretty well geared. Perhaps the higher MP scares off a lot of undergeared people? The other thing is that I don't usually join a Keywarden game (just a monster slaying game) and we almost always hit the key warden anyway. The fields is a good place to farm. Also you can just start a game yourself and then open it up to the public. Solves the problem of the KW being dead...
Lose: The opposite of win
Loose: Your mum
I do think there should be a simple DPS check for matching into higher MPs - nothing too strict, just enough to filter out the leechers. If you don't have respectable DPS you can't join except through the friends list. There's simply no valid reason to play at an MP you're not geared for.
I think spirit walk and soul harvest can be cast without interrupting channeling, at least it seemed like that when I tried.
The mana for cloud of bats is a really heavy hit when you first start the cast, but the mana usage over time standing still is really small. I have a bit of attack speed on my skorn and hellfire ring, and starting the cast takes a big chunk of my mana pool, but it only very very slowly goes down after that and I could keep the channeling going for a really long time. Slowly enough that I was thinking picking up attack speed gear would actually be worth it, and that surprises me. With a onehanded it'll be a faster drain, but even then the main issue you'll have to worry about is starting and stopping, like if the pack is dead or runs off some other direction or forces you to move with a knockback or deadliness. So I'd recommend trying a dual purpose mana passive, like gruesome feast or blood ritual.
With cloud of bats, it's probably not worth it to wait for enemies to come to you, but instead you run right in, get in their face and blow them up, and depend upon spirit walk and distractions to keep you alive. Those distractions, like the dogs or other players, mean that you can't rely on everything walking right up to the really short range of the cloud. Locust swarm is also a lot more tuned towards using a big fat 2hander, so I'd recommend something else to put in the "not cloud of bats damage spell" slot. Since you are going all in on fire skills, I'd say use firebomb or one of the fire runes on the other primary skills, just as a backup so you aren't sitting around twiddling your thumbs when the situation prevents you from using cloud of bats, which it will sometimes.
Survivability is the big issue with this build, not damage output. I have a ton of resists and good armor, but not that much HP, and most of the time I was fine due to spirit walk or killing the enemies so fast, but occasionally something would just wreck me, like those damn chargers or a nasty elite pack. That's why I like the extra life passive, because this is a build where you are basically at berzerker level aggressiveness and getting right up in everything's face. So you want outs to keep you alive and help you deal with the times where the game decides to smack you right back in the face. Unless you don't mind repair bills and running back a lot.
_J_ I can't tell if you like this game or not, with quotes like this: "It's just gear acquisition, and learning to smash your six buttons in the correct order. If you want a badass character you could just drop $200 over a weekend and be fairly well off for gear. Then it's just a matter of grinding out Paragon Levels for the sake of...having a neat character portrait." That sounds not great to me. But you've always been in the thread, so I assume there must be something there for you. I'm curious what the old-time veterans "get" out of the game these days. I guess I also may have misrepresented my goal of "having" a fun, badass character; the part that I enjoy is the journey to that, and being able to feel the difference as my character gets better. I don't want to OWN a badass character, I want to build one up through hours and hours of monster smashing. I'm not opposed to using the auction house, but what I want to get out of the game is the feeling of progression, so the idea of just buying my way past the whole thing with real money is really off-putting.
Then again, if gold is really as cheap as I've heard, maybe I'll get to the point where it does seem worth it. Not yet though!
I'd be happy with that.
Lose: The opposite of win
Loose: Your mum