Diablo 3 is fundamentally broken

[Roland]

Patch isn't up in Europe yet, so I can't comment on whether or not the new costs are too high for me, but the previous cost barely amounted to a speed bump, let alone a "harsh" penalty.

I lost 20k in 10 minutes trying to advance my character in Act II. Got a piss-poor Champ pack (Jailer & Waller, forget the rest) on snakes. Died 3 times - 12k repairs. Rerolled area, next try got an Elite snake pack (Extra Health / Reflects Damage / Molten / ???). Died a couple more times. Another 8k down the drain. Gave up and went back to Act I.

'Course, it doesn't help that the elites are about 100 feet from the WP, and there's literally no room to maneuver. Oh, and Moonseeds are still bullshit overpowered. They alone used to one-shot me from full health. Haven't tested them now, but they hurt like a bitch when you get Jailed next to one (died from about 20% health).

[DeeBye]

*snip*

Thank you Bolty.

[LavCat]

*snip*

Thank you Bolty.

Bolty forgot to say anything about Care Bears. (This brought up only as an attempt at humor.)

[Trevan]

'Course, it doesn't help that the elites are about 100 feet from the WP, and there's literally no room to maneuver. Oh, and Moonseeds are still bullshit overpowered. They alone used to one-shot me from full health. Haven't tested them now, but they hurt like a bitch when you get Jailed next to one (died from about 20% health).

I love moonseeds! I killed a snake from a champ pack with them. They are fairly effective mob killers if you can position them right.

[FireIceTalon]

What are moonseeds? Are those the little "suicide bomber" demons that run at you and blow themselves up to kill you?

[Chesspiece_face]

What are moonseeds? Are those the little "suicide bomber" demons that run at you and blow themselves up to kill you?

A2 Plants that shake and blow up when you step near them.

[Mavfin]

What are moonseeds? Are those the little "suicide bomber" demons that run at you and blow themselves up to kill you?

A2 Plants that shake and blow up when you step near them.

In Dahlgur's Oasis, if I'm not mistaken.

[BellaStrega]

I use moonseeds in lower difficulties to get those circling vultures to attack.

[TheDragoon]

I had played just a bit in Act 2 Inferno prior to the patch and I chose to spend my time on alts, instead, because it was pretty frustrating. With the patch, I hopped on my monk and headed straight to Inferno Act 2 and made some solid progress. I felt that even though I'm decked out in pretty decent ilvl 60 to 63 gear I couldn't get lazy. I was using my healing abilities and shield against trash mobs, occasionally, and bosses were definitely long, drawn-out fights. Overall, I was pretty happy with the difficulty level that I saw as I could progress but it was still a definite step up from Act 1.

So far this patch has my seal of approval.

[Archon_Wing]

>.> The patch is a step in the right direction by making mobs more manageable. However,the core problem-- Overpowered elites-- remain, and it just got a lot more expensive fighting them. Enrage timer on Belial, an already hard fight is plain terrible.

On the other hand my sword suffers no durability loss. :p

[Bolty]

The Belial enrage is a nasty one. Was in a game with Quark and Lissa last night, and we ran into it. Quark had to go respec more glass cannon on his Wizard for us to put him down. It doesn't help that my Barb's DPS is horrible due to the pure defensive gearing/skilling (only 11k post-patch). I'd bet I couldn't solo Belial now, but haven't tried. In group games, I'm completely dependent on my teammates to actually kill things, and I'm not sure how to fix that while also maintaining my current survivability, other than getting better gear, of course (but that's always the answer).

Regarding moonseeds - once I found I could one-shot other players with them, I admit to seeing if my groupmates are paying attention to them on more than one occasion... It helps to be the melee tank who naturally runs out in front for pulling.

[Lissa]

The Belial enrage is a nasty one. Was in a game with Quark and Lissa last night, and we ran into it. Quark had to go respec more glass cannon on his Wizard for us to put him down. It doesn't help that my Barb's DPS is horrible due to the pure defensive gearing/skilling (only 11k post-patch). I'd bet I couldn't solo Belial now, but haven't tried. In group games, I'm completely dependent on my teammates to actually kill things, and I'm not sure how to fix that while also maintaining my current survivability, other than getting better gear, of course (but that's always the answer).

Didn't help that the IAS change hammered my DPS either (from 27k DPS to 20k DPS, pretty solid 25% loss while still hitting as hard, just not as fast).

[DeeBye]

Didn't help that the IAS change hammered my DPS either (from 27k DPS to 20k DPS, pretty solid 25% loss while still hitting as hard, just not as fast).

I went from 25k dps to 16k. Ugh.

[Trevan]

Didn't help that the IAS change hammered my DPS either (from 27k DPS to 20k DPS, pretty solid 25% loss while still hitting as hard, just not as fast).

I went from 25k dps to 16k. Ugh.

Holy crap, that's crazy. I only went from 32k to 30k.

[Bolty]

Ultimately, the new dynamic of Inferno mode with this patch is:

1) Trying to push the envelope on a very difficult champ pack can cost a lot of money in repairs, along with a large time expenditure, so

2) It's just smarter to always play in a previous Act where you can farm quickly, efficiently, and with almost zero chance of dying (and fall asleep).

Previously, you were forced to play in Act 2 if you wanted gear that could advance you in Act 2. Not so anymore - you can farm Act 1 all you like, and have just a somewhat less chance to get that gear. However, since you kill things much faster and much more safely, it's the better option. Just...less fun.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't, I guess.

[TheDragoon]

One thing that I've been mulling over the last couple days is that Blizzard originally advertised Diablo 3 as a game that you can jump on, play for a few minutes, have fun, and then bail off. Most of the game systems seem designed to support that (join a friend's game, use their banner to teleport to them, waypoints, frequent checkpoints that let you start right into the action in some cases), but the most important one for the end-game advancement, the Nephalim Valor buff, is entirely counter to it. I continued playing through Act 2 Inferno, last night, where it takes me over half an hour to get the full 5-stack of the buff, at which point I can finally start regularly finding rare items. If I just hopped on and played a half hour, I'd finally get the buff stacked (maybe, if you're fast enough) and then log off without really taking advantage of it.

I understand that Blizzard didn't want people to just keep playing the same areas over and over again, but I think it's somewhat unfortunate that they've sacrificed the ease of access to the game in order to achieve that goal. I guess kind of like Bolty said, damned if they do, damned if they don't...

[LochnarITB]

If I just hopped on and played a half hour, I'd finally get the buff stacked (maybe, if you're fast enough) and then log off without really taking advantage of it.

This could be fixed by Blizzard saving game state on solo games. This would also fix my biggest issue, timing out solo games for inactivity. I have several levels on my toon for re-clearing areas when I had to tend to something that took longer than the chunk of time they've allotted me. When I tested it previously, it was 30 minutes. I believe they have reduced that now, as well, possibly 15 minutes. I also think there might be a dynamic component to it based on numbers online.


[edit] Just tested it again and it does appear to still be 30 minutes max inactivity. I am sure that I have been timed out in 15 or 20 minutes during prime game time though, probably being shortened during busy server times just as it is in WoW.

[Jester]

Damned if they do, damned if they don't, I guess.

This is the eternal RPG conundrum, no? You have a challenge at a certain difficulty, and you can diminish that challenge by doing other, lesser challenges. (Usually, "non-challenges," AKA grinding.)

You can specify what kinds of grinding yields benefits, but if you get rid of the entire grind-to-make-it-easier system, then you've basically removed progress entirely, and might as well just put character progression on rails, like a metroidvania, where you get the tools to do the next part as a consequence of finishing the last part.

I do get that people will farm the best items wherever it's easiest to do so, which is a problem. Perhaps they should put uber-gear in acts 3 and 4? It'll break the gear curve, but at least you'll feel like you got something out of it.

-Jester

[Chesspiece_face]

One thing that I've been mulling over the last couple days is that Blizzard originally advertised Diablo 3 as a game that you can jump on, play for a few minutes, have fun, and then bail off. Most of the game systems seem designed to support that (join a friend's game, use their banner to teleport to them, waypoints, frequent checkpoints that let you start right into the action in some cases), but the most important one for the end-game advancement, the Nephalim Valor buff, is entirely counter to it. I continued playing through Act 2 Inferno, last night, where it takes me over half an hour to get the full 5-stack of the buff, at which point I can finally start regularly finding rare items. If I just hopped on and played a half hour, I'd finally get the buff stacked (maybe, if you're fast enough) and then log off without really taking advantage of it.

I understand that Blizzard didn't want people to just keep playing the same areas over and over again, but I think it's somewhat unfortunate that they've sacrificed the ease of access to the game in order to achieve that goal. I guess kind of like Bolty said, damned if they do, damned if they don't...

This seems like more of a psychological issue than a gameplay or time limitation issue. If you have 30 minutes to play and you are looking to maximize your gear gain then playing A2, where the difficulty level for your character is high, is probably not the best use of your time.

If you went back to A1 with that 30 minutes of play time I'm willing to bet that you could get 5 stacks and then clear from the cursed hold to the Butcher in under 30 minutes easily.

[smegged]

Well I had my first completely unkillable pack tonight. Mortar + invulnerable minions + plagued spiderling boss pack. There was nothing my character could do to kill the pack. The spiderlings were just far to quick and dished out far too much damage for my character to deal with.