05-16-2012, 11:07 PM
Day Two
Finish Act 1 on solo toon. Arrive in Act 2. Check out the starting area. Step outside the gate-- wife wakes up early. "Let's play together!"
Arrive back in Act 1 on coop toon.
.
.
.
I have ended up trying out the new skills as they appear, despite my affection for the existing skills. I've pretty much ended up moving to Frenzy for the barb. Loving the AoE stun with pull-them-to-me glyph. Combine with the 2min cooldown AoE fire spell and serious deeps emerges. Also forgoing WW (so far) in favor of the shockwave with stun glyph. ... Likey dat stunny, honey.
Monk also moved to the sweeping AoE skill. The frenzy-style skill at the end of the mouse-main-button group looks like a better boss killer, but sweep for everything else maybe. Not sure yet. Locked glyphs may change my mind. We'll see. Monk's charge skill good for moving THROUGH mobs in some cases (potential uses for escape as well as back-line-target pinning). Also handy in some cases for extending streaks.
Speaking of streaks... simple little mechanic, but tactically quite fun. Not sure if I will still be enamored with it in two months, but at least for now, loving it. More so solo, as coop you "compete" for streaks instead of combining, so it's not as immersive (or easy) there.
.
.
Died again. Again from dopey something.
So it went like this. Played through a good bit of Act 2 coop. Broke for family chiropractic appointment and lunch out. Returned home, fire up game, start with Entering the Palace event... MAJOR "load lag" for both my wife and I, dead (both of us) without even being able to defend ourselves at all.
Ridiculous. I would have thought they'd have avoided this problem, since it existed in Diablo 1. But no. MAJOR threat to anybody's hardcore characters.
Mind you, my hard drive is defragmented. 0%. It's not a slow, lumbering thing. My machine is my work machine (as a game dev), and it's loaded up with 12GB of fast RAM. Runs World of Warcraft on Ultra max at high framerates. It's no slouch. Yet I get enough hard drive graphics load lag to KILL ME OUTRIGHT? ... Blizz gets an F grade in this area. FAIL. Wiped on the lag boss. Terrible performance. This simply should not happen.
Moral of the story: Never, ever engage a boss fight as the first act of a new gaming session. Ever. Go out and fight some mobs. Use all your abilities. Get the game to load up all its graphics, or as many of them as you can. Because, you know, hey. Once they are loaded, it runs fine. You just don't want it lagging you in the worst way at the most lethal moments.
Lethal hard drive load lag on a powerhouse PC? Bad Blizz. BAD!
Oh and today something else noteworthy happened. "EEK A MOB, Part Two: Revenge of Sirian's Wife" hit theaters. Starring yours truly in the lead role. Opening scene, inconspiculous pit in the middle of a musty cellar. Out pops huge @$$ worm and swallows barbarian whole. Player goes EEK and is startled. Wife rolls on floor laughing at the irony of it. Credits roll.
- Sirian
Finish Act 1 on solo toon. Arrive in Act 2. Check out the starting area. Step outside the gate-- wife wakes up early. "Let's play together!"
Arrive back in Act 1 on coop toon.
.
.
.
I have ended up trying out the new skills as they appear, despite my affection for the existing skills. I've pretty much ended up moving to Frenzy for the barb. Loving the AoE stun with pull-them-to-me glyph. Combine with the 2min cooldown AoE fire spell and serious deeps emerges. Also forgoing WW (so far) in favor of the shockwave with stun glyph. ... Likey dat stunny, honey.
Monk also moved to the sweeping AoE skill. The frenzy-style skill at the end of the mouse-main-button group looks like a better boss killer, but sweep for everything else maybe. Not sure yet. Locked glyphs may change my mind. We'll see. Monk's charge skill good for moving THROUGH mobs in some cases (potential uses for escape as well as back-line-target pinning). Also handy in some cases for extending streaks.
Speaking of streaks... simple little mechanic, but tactically quite fun. Not sure if I will still be enamored with it in two months, but at least for now, loving it. More so solo, as coop you "compete" for streaks instead of combining, so it's not as immersive (or easy) there.
.
.
Died again. Again from dopey something.
So it went like this. Played through a good bit of Act 2 coop. Broke for family chiropractic appointment and lunch out. Returned home, fire up game, start with Entering the Palace event... MAJOR "load lag" for both my wife and I, dead (both of us) without even being able to defend ourselves at all.
Ridiculous. I would have thought they'd have avoided this problem, since it existed in Diablo 1. But no. MAJOR threat to anybody's hardcore characters.
Mind you, my hard drive is defragmented. 0%. It's not a slow, lumbering thing. My machine is my work machine (as a game dev), and it's loaded up with 12GB of fast RAM. Runs World of Warcraft on Ultra max at high framerates. It's no slouch. Yet I get enough hard drive graphics load lag to KILL ME OUTRIGHT? ... Blizz gets an F grade in this area. FAIL. Wiped on the lag boss. Terrible performance. This simply should not happen.
Moral of the story: Never, ever engage a boss fight as the first act of a new gaming session. Ever. Go out and fight some mobs. Use all your abilities. Get the game to load up all its graphics, or as many of them as you can. Because, you know, hey. Once they are loaded, it runs fine. You just don't want it lagging you in the worst way at the most lethal moments.
Lethal hard drive load lag on a powerhouse PC? Bad Blizz. BAD!
Oh and today something else noteworthy happened. "EEK A MOB, Part Two: Revenge of Sirian's Wife" hit theaters. Starring yours truly in the lead role. Opening scene, inconspiculous pit in the middle of a musty cellar. Out pops huge @$$ worm and swallows barbarian whole. Player goes EEK and is startled. Wife rolls on floor laughing at the irony of it. Credits roll.
- Sirian