1.0.3, Attack Speed Changes, and Hypocrisy

[Jester]

But as we all know, rerolling the whole game to get a boss combo you like can be quite tedious. I think a far more efficient solution would be to introduce a Legendary Blacksmith Plan that rerolls monster stats, much like crafting a new item. And in case game balance becomes an issue, Blizzard could make the plans available only through the RMAH.

So, literally, pay money for easy mode?

I don't get it.

-Jester

[Kurosu]

There's a difference between saying "that's an unfair affix combo" and "I can't beat this affix combo" (yet). Certain affix packs will be harder than others. The variance in randomness and in the difficulty of the packs is completely intentional and we're happy with where things are right now.

Having to restart a game or skipping packs altogether is also totally fine.

But isn't the point that most people frustrated with the elite packs that they are in fact "unfair" or "unbeatable" even with very good gear/player skills?
Imagine a combo such as Illusionist, Frozen, Invulnerable Minions, Arcane Enchanted on a tough base monster type, you're simply not going to beat that no matter how good or rich you are.

From that person's statement, he makes it seem as if people will be able to overcome such challenges eventually once they get better (skills/items), but I can hardly believe that.
I would not mind restarting once in awhile if an "unbeatable" combo spawns, but currently there are far too many of such packs in Inferno A3-4 still.
Statements like that always make me wonder whether their representatives have played the game in those situations themselves, since it just seems like armchair quarterback talk to me.


As for the patch, I like the change that people can now farm in A1 and still have a chance at getting good items, I think Blizz made the right decision on this.
A1 is still relatively easy, so even people with average gear/skills should be able to get a taste of ilvl 60+ items without getting slapped by huge repair costs.

[RogueMage]

So, literally, pay money for easy mode?

Sorry if I was too coy, that suggestion was made only for its snark appeal.

[Chesspiece_face]

But isn't the point that most people frustrated with the elite packs that they are in fact "unfair" or "unbeatable" even with very good gear/player skills?
Imagine a combo such as Illusionist, Frozen, Invulnerable Minions, Arcane Enchanted on a tough base monster type, you're simply not going to beat that no matter how good or rich you are.

And yet, take out Invulnerable Minions and suddenly that pack becomes doable. IM by itself is manageable. The reason it needs to go is that it breaks nearly every other possible mod on a pack. The more difficult mods you stack on it the worse it gets.

In my experience (Barring IM) there is no combination of mods that can't be overcome with good gearing and skill. It's only when you put the worst mods for your character on the worst enemies for your character that things fall apart. At the moment my Monk's most hated mods are Molten, Waller, and Arcane Enchanted. Put those mods on a Fallen champ pack and I could care less. Put those mods on a Dune Dervish pack and it is impossible for me to win the fight. I just can't stay in long enough to deal damage when you combine the kiting needed to avoid Molten and Arcane Sentries along with the short peroid of time damage can be put on them while they don't Spin to Win me to death.

[Kurosu]

Dunno, I usually ended up dying and leaving when faced with Illusion + Frozen or some other combo that immobilizes you or casts pools.
Since the illusions seem to gain the same abilities, you just can't use your snare breaker often enough to counteract the effects, and because there are so many, they can often end up trapping you so you have no room to reposition yourself, acting like a semi Waller/Jailer effect as well.

So that's another area that needs to be looked at IMO.

[Archon_Wing]

That's what bugs me about Inferno the most. There are some champ/rare affix combos that are literally unbeatable, no matter what I do. The only answer to this is "Well, don't fight them" - but that goes against everything Diablo games have taught me. Running from a fight, or deliberately avoiding one, is outright failure.

Response to player complaints about unbalanced champion affix combinations, by Blizzard rep Lylirra:

There's a difference between saying "that's an unfair affix combo" and "I can't beat this affix combo" (yet). Certain affix packs will be harder than others. The variance in randomness and in the difficulty of the packs is completely intentional and we're happy with where things are right now.

Having to restart a game or skipping packs altogether is also totally fine.

But as we all know, rerolling the whole game to get a boss combo you like can be quite tedious. I think a far more efficient solution would be to introduce a Legendary Blacksmith Plan that rerolls monster stats, much like crafting a new item. And in case game balance becomes an issue, Blizzard could make the plans available only through the RMAH.

Oy, as I've said before, it's that kind of attitude I see in blue/Blizzard posts that frustrate me the most. They go off about intended gameplay, when it's fairly evident they don't understand the gameplay themselves. I think they should be forced to play through inferno with a 1 million gold budget with each character before they should talk or make sweeping changes.

The problem with that kind of intention is that it reminds me of really bad or frustrating games that have unwinnable scenarios that aren't necessarily the player's fault. One infamous example in my head is Mega Man X6. Just read the scenarios that are really just there to get new players! Though in Diablo 3, it's not as bad as there's some non-zero chance you could do it. Maybe.

[MongoJerry]

The other solution they could use is creating barriers to Acts as in "If you don't have X amount of dps and Y amount of effective health, then you may not enter." And, it turns out that X and Y are tuned for an average player being able to kill the most difficult boss mod combinations so that anyone with those numbers will easily be able to clear the whole act. But I think most people would balk at that idea. Many people, if not most people, will want to take on a challenge of the next Act from time to time. Thus, you will get combinations that seem impossible at the moment.

[Archon_Wing]

Well, I guess OP nailed it, since the IAS nerf went through this patch, yet the IAS BUG where the items were not working properly is still not fixed. You'd think making it actually work would be more important than balance, but right...

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5...563?page=3

[Mavfin]

Well, I guess OP nailed it, since the IAS nerf went through this patch, yet the IAS BUG where the items were not working properly is still not fixed. You'd think making it actually work would be more important than balance, but right...

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5...563?page=3

That's already been covered. They have to actually remove/replace the 'wrong' affix on the old legendaries to fix it, and it's just certain legendaries that are affected. Not something they can fix as easily as they could redo one stat across the board. They'll fix it when they fix the legendaries in another patch.

It was known since before the patch hit that this particular thing wasn't being fixed with 1.0.3.

[Archon_Wing]

Well, I guess OP nailed it, since the IAS nerf went through this patch, yet the IAS BUG where the items were not working properly is still not fixed. You'd think making it actually work would be more important than balance, but right...

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5...563?page=3

That's already been covered. They have to actually remove/replace the 'wrong' affix on the old legendaries to fix it, and it's just certain legendaries that are affected. Not something they can fix as easily as they could redo one stat across the board. They'll fix it when they fix the legendaries in another patch.

It was known since before the patch hit that this particular thing wasn't being fixed with 1.0.3.

I don't really think convenience should be what influenced what gets patched or not. The IAS nerf was towards something that wasn't really critical. (functionality > balance)They could have made inferno a bit harder than it is now. The result now is pretty jarring with IAS broken on some items and heavily nerfed. I wouldn't mind a later patch fix that covers more rather than what we have now.

Regardless, while this patch has taken steps in the right direction, I actually feel that it was a bit hasty and the priorities are messed up. I'll be honest and say that this patch has made the game less fun. But whatever. All in due time.

[Elric of Grans]

Has anyone else noticed that there are a lot of new spawn points after the patch. I have seen every zone enough times now that I pretty well memorised them, so this stands out to me. Mostly extra whites too. The players have said they want to feel powerful more often, so I guess that was a change to appeal to this.

[RiotInferno]

It does appear, at least to me, that I'm running into more monsters. On top of that, I'm getting the unique spawn in the A1 Graveyard almost 75% of the time, which is up from 1.0.2

[Mavfin]

It does appear, at least to me, that I'm running into more monsters. On top of that, I'm getting the unique spawn in the A1 Graveyard almost 75% of the time, which is up from 1.0.2

I think they reworked random vs static spawns. They made most static/known easy-to-get-to spawns Uniques for the farmers to gnash their teeth at, and added more random spawn spots, imo.

I've been seeing more random goblins, or at least it seems that way, as well as more random Resplendent Chests in places you won't see unless you're actually clearing, not just cherry-picking from waypoints.

Of course, it's all anecdotal, and I can't prove anything. Just seems logical.

[ViralSpiral]

Just seems logical.

Well then we know that can't be it. (I keed, I keed.)

[MongoJerry]

No one's mentioned it, yet, so I will: It appears that experience and gold rewards for quests have been significantly reduced across the board. For example, the Road to Alcarnus quest (Kasim Outpost), a favorite self-power leveling area, went from being a roughly 50k exp quest to an 18k quest. But it wasn't just favorite power leveling spots (Zoltan Kuhl, Kasim Outpost, Wortham, Belial). It appears that all quests everywhere got their rewards slashed. I guess Blizzard wants people to gain experience by killing things. The nerve of them.

[Mavfin]

It appears that all quests everywhere got their rewards slashed. I guess Blizzard wants people to gain experience by killing things. The nerve of them.

Yeah, this went hand-in-hand with the reduction of static spawns.

Next to go, imo, will be the 'free gold' from the chest in the Act 3 town, and the books in the Act 2 inn. There are people creating games sitting there all day just to go hit those, then create another. That sounds fine, but, creating a new game every 30 sec creates server stress and lag for people trying to kill mobs when thousands do it all the time.

Remember the night they tried the game limit, when you ran the Wortham quest 10 times in a row to powerlevel? Remember the response to it? Lowering all the quest xp and removing most of the high-reward static spawns is what they did instead of putting up the limit again; i.e. they removed most of the reasons to create games over and over to hit a specific spot quickly. Now achievement hunters and people farming for Liquid Rainbows and/or Gibbering Gemstones can still make games for what they need, but a lot of the other people no longer really have an incentive to do so.

For the most part, if you want to goblin-farm or Resplendent-chest farm, you have to go out in the world anyway, because they're mostly random spawns, or, if known chests, down at the bottom of a cave.

[Lissa]

It appears that all quests everywhere got their rewards slashed. I guess Blizzard wants people to gain experience by killing things. The nerve of them.

Yeah, this went hand-in-hand with the reduction of static spawns.

Next to go, imo, will be the 'free gold' from the chest in the Act 3 town, and the books in the Act 2 inn. There are people creating games sitting there all day just to go hit those, then create another. That sounds fine, but, creating a new game every 30 sec creates server stress and lag for people trying to kill mobs when thousands do it all the time.

Remember the night they tried the game limit, when you ran the Wortham quest 10 times in a row to powerlevel? Remember the response to it? Lowering all the quest xp and removing most of the high-reward static spawns is what they did instead of putting up the limit again; i.e. they removed most of the reasons to create games over and over to hit a specific spot quickly. Now achievement hunters and people farming for Liquid Rainbows and/or Gibbering Gemstones can still make games for what they need, but a lot of the other people no longer really have an incentive to do so.

For the most part, if you want to goblin-farm or Resplendent-chest farm, you have to go out in the world anyway, because they're mostly random spawns, or, if known chests, down at the bottom of a cave.

Can't farm replendents like you could before. They use to be affected by MF and NV, but aren't since 1.03 (which I don't see why NV doesn't work on them since you actually have to go out and kill champ/boss packs to get NV which means you are taking some risk and they can detect if you have NV stacks or not as noted by the patch notes saying that the 4 stack of NV wasn't causing a second rare to drop from static bosses like Kulle, Asmodan, and Jailer -- I haven't seen one static boss drop more than a single rare with 5 stacks of NV since 1.03 where before it was typically 3 to 4).

[Roland]

Chock one more broken thing up for 1.0.3:

[Chesspiece_face]

Chock one more broken thing up for 1.0.3:

What is your off-hand? I'm assuming this is a bug with the introduction of the ability to compare 2 handers with Dual Wield. May erroneously be comparing your current Bow+Off-Hand to the new Bow by itself.

[Mavfin]

Chock one more broken thing up for 1.0.3:

What is your off-hand? I'm assuming this is a bug with the introduction of the ability to compare 2 handers with Dual Wield. May erroneously be comparing your current Bow+Off-Hand to the new Bow by itself.

Yeah, take off the quiver, and it compares right. They tried to fix one bug and introduced another. It happens. They'll test better next time, we hope.