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On August 30 2013 06:46 TheRabidDeer wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2013 06:41 cLutZ wrote:On August 30 2013 05:55 TheRabidDeer wrote:On August 30 2013 00:33 fearus wrote:On August 29 2013 20:40 dmfg wrote:On August 29 2013 20:36 dmfg wrote:On August 29 2013 18:14 SixStrings wrote:On August 29 2013 06:55 dmfg wrote:On August 29 2013 00:50 crms wrote:
i like a lot of these suggestions but itemization and character development are by far the most important issues. paragon system 2.0 is a nice baby step but the items and character interaction needs an overhaul.
while the writing is harsh and I wish better written and a bit more comprehensive, this 'info-graph' highlights the major issue with D2 vs D3 loot itemization. While doing my re-play of Diablo 2 this week, I've run Nightmare Meph about 10-15 times and found ~12 uniques (legendaries). Including some nice niche uniques that are great for certain builds on other classes. Stuff like that just doesn't happen in D3. It won't happen because you'll never spend 15-20m doing quick boss runs to obtain ~12 legendaries, and the legendaries you would find in ACT3NM wouldn't be worth IDing. When characters have no depth of customization, the items are boring and undesirable.
I think there are 2 separate issues that this infographic is trying to pass off as one. The stat allocation issue is completely separate to the diversity of gear issue. If you couldn't allocate stats in D2, the exact same gear would still be desirable to the exact same builds (the only difference being the number of str/dex charms required to equip it). Character stat allocation did absolutely nothing for gear diversity; having unusual and gamechanging affixes is what did it. As for what makes gear "interesting", every single item from D2 that I would call "interesting" has one thing in common: they grant unique spells that are normally locked to one class. Whether that be Enigma, Andy's visage, Insight, Passion, Chaos, Atma's scarab, Demon Limb, Wolfhowl, etc. Yes, there are other powerful items like BotD, but there is nothing interesting about BotD other than it being really really powerful. These items were interesting because they let you make (effectively) cross-class hybrids. They did nothing for itemisation - maybe you aimed for a different IAS breakpoint but that was really it. Some of them changed nothing at all about how you build or played your char (2x CTA in alt weapons anyone?). I don't think these are an answer to "the loot problem" - you get a few interesting items, but you won't really add any depth to gearing. And I think that is my problem with analyses like the one in that image. D2 had a lot of pieces of gear which were interesting in isolation (all of them added after LoD, and almost all of those added in 1.10 or beyond when LoD had already been out for years). But they didn't make building a gear set interesting, because by and large it wasn't. What it came down to was meeting some caps (resist all and IAS, and IAS was almost entirely based on weapon IAS so the rest of your gear hardly mattered) and calling it a day. Yes you could stack different things, like going for pure weapon speed (enchantress, firebear, tesladin), stacking CB, stacking DS, whatever. But none of those things really changed anything about how you played the char, or how combat felt. They were just generic DPS increasing affixes that happened to use different mechanics. They were (to use the phrase in the infographic) toast. I think Blizz needs to be very careful, because if they give in and just give D2 patch 1.10-style loot in D3, we might have fun initially until the clear cookie cutter builds come out, and then we will be in the exact same situation as we are now, where after you decide you are going Monk + claw that lets you use whirlwind, the gearing is just as uninteresting as it is today (and as it was in D2). I'm sorry, but I disagree with this. Creating your build in D2 was more than a matter of just meeting a cap or two and call it a day. You had actual choices and liberties, and having the legendaries as know entities helped planning greatly. I spend much more time planning any character, figuring out how much defence I could trade in for offence, if I could justify squeezing in quality of life items, such as the ones that greatly increase run speed, and when I finally build my Enigma, I had a blast trying to fit it on as many characters as I could manage. This sort of planning doesn't come into D3, where your next goal is always more of X. It's fine to say "actual choices and liberties" and "how much defence I could trade in for offence", but it would be nice to list specific examples rather than general sweeping statements. Then we could see if these were actually interesting choices, and more importantly if it's something that could be brought into D3. I doubt you mean stats as (excluding some specific BvB builds) no one would sac 450 vitality for a 5% increase in damage or whatever it worked out to. Enigma wasn't hard to "fit on" any character. Anyone who isn't already a sorc is massively improved by the addition of teleport, regardless of the class. fearus, all the stuff you listed is PvP stuff designed for specific opponents. Isn't this more a symptom of the (lack of) PvP situation in D3 rather than/in addition to itemisation? If PvP was more popular, with a smaller number of popular and powerful builds, might we see people building specific sets as a result (e.g. resist X)? EDIT: Oops, meant to edit my previous post PvP was the end game and the apex of D2 game and item design. I bring this up because looking at D2 from a PvM perspective, would be like a casual player who plays Starcraft single player campaign and think that was all to game. The most in-depth analysis of the game and itemisation was for PvP - before frame rates became public knowledge, the PvPers was already recording animations on video and counting the actual frames to figure out the ias/fcr/fhr breakpoints. Not to mention the top-tier D2 players were the PvPer - in terms of time spend, item wealth and knowledge of the game. When Windforces were selling for 500$ on ebay - it wasn't for PvM. Itemisation for D2 in PvM is trivial. Necromancers could finish hell 8 player completely naked and Hammerdins were hands down the best PvM build. PvP characters was where items, stats points, skill points - reached for perfection. I didnt know of any single person that thought PvP was the end game. Everybody I knew farmed for gear to trade with and to make/improve their characters. PvP was like something to do on the side. The only PvP I ever saw was mostly people trolling hostility on baal runs or something (go tppk on hardcore removing the ability to play public games! yay pvp!) because their char was high level with godly gear. US East ladder had organized 4v4 games where the average player's itemset probably cost in excess of 60 highrunes. I went to one with an Enigma/Eth-Zoded Deathcleaver etc barb and felt like a pauper. It was inarguably the peak of D2. Where was it organized and how many people did this in comparison to every other part of the game? And it was the peak of D2 for YOU.
You know, the official D2 US East ladder forums. Where people would make anni trades based on reputation alone, or people like me would moderate those trades for people without wealth/reputation. Where guys like bterril would search for a perfect Tyreals and offer like $1k+ in ingame items for it and be accused of lowballing. The community did fall off significantly with the release of WOW though...
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On August 30 2013 06:46 TheRabidDeer wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2013 06:41 cLutZ wrote:On August 30 2013 05:55 TheRabidDeer wrote:On August 30 2013 00:33 fearus wrote:On August 29 2013 20:40 dmfg wrote:On August 29 2013 20:36 dmfg wrote:On August 29 2013 18:14 SixStrings wrote:On August 29 2013 06:55 dmfg wrote:On August 29 2013 00:50 crms wrote:
i like a lot of these suggestions but itemization and character development are by far the most important issues. paragon system 2.0 is a nice baby step but the items and character interaction needs an overhaul.
while the writing is harsh and I wish better written and a bit more comprehensive, this 'info-graph' highlights the major issue with D2 vs D3 loot itemization. While doing my re-play of Diablo 2 this week, I've run Nightmare Meph about 10-15 times and found ~12 uniques (legendaries). Including some nice niche uniques that are great for certain builds on other classes. Stuff like that just doesn't happen in D3. It won't happen because you'll never spend 15-20m doing quick boss runs to obtain ~12 legendaries, and the legendaries you would find in ACT3NM wouldn't be worth IDing. When characters have no depth of customization, the items are boring and undesirable.
I think there are 2 separate issues that this infographic is trying to pass off as one. The stat allocation issue is completely separate to the diversity of gear issue. If you couldn't allocate stats in D2, the exact same gear would still be desirable to the exact same builds (the only difference being the number of str/dex charms required to equip it). Character stat allocation did absolutely nothing for gear diversity; having unusual and gamechanging affixes is what did it. As for what makes gear "interesting", every single item from D2 that I would call "interesting" has one thing in common: they grant unique spells that are normally locked to one class. Whether that be Enigma, Andy's visage, Insight, Passion, Chaos, Atma's scarab, Demon Limb, Wolfhowl, etc. Yes, there are other powerful items like BotD, but there is nothing interesting about BotD other than it being really really powerful. These items were interesting because they let you make (effectively) cross-class hybrids. They did nothing for itemisation - maybe you aimed for a different IAS breakpoint but that was really it. Some of them changed nothing at all about how you build or played your char (2x CTA in alt weapons anyone?). I don't think these are an answer to "the loot problem" - you get a few interesting items, but you won't really add any depth to gearing. And I think that is my problem with analyses like the one in that image. D2 had a lot of pieces of gear which were interesting in isolation (all of them added after LoD, and almost all of those added in 1.10 or beyond when LoD had already been out for years). But they didn't make building a gear set interesting, because by and large it wasn't. What it came down to was meeting some caps (resist all and IAS, and IAS was almost entirely based on weapon IAS so the rest of your gear hardly mattered) and calling it a day. Yes you could stack different things, like going for pure weapon speed (enchantress, firebear, tesladin), stacking CB, stacking DS, whatever. But none of those things really changed anything about how you played the char, or how combat felt. They were just generic DPS increasing affixes that happened to use different mechanics. They were (to use the phrase in the infographic) toast. I think Blizz needs to be very careful, because if they give in and just give D2 patch 1.10-style loot in D3, we might have fun initially until the clear cookie cutter builds come out, and then we will be in the exact same situation as we are now, where after you decide you are going Monk + claw that lets you use whirlwind, the gearing is just as uninteresting as it is today (and as it was in D2). I'm sorry, but I disagree with this. Creating your build in D2 was more than a matter of just meeting a cap or two and call it a day. You had actual choices and liberties, and having the legendaries as know entities helped planning greatly. I spend much more time planning any character, figuring out how much defence I could trade in for offence, if I could justify squeezing in quality of life items, such as the ones that greatly increase run speed, and when I finally build my Enigma, I had a blast trying to fit it on as many characters as I could manage. This sort of planning doesn't come into D3, where your next goal is always more of X. It's fine to say "actual choices and liberties" and "how much defence I could trade in for offence", but it would be nice to list specific examples rather than general sweeping statements. Then we could see if these were actually interesting choices, and more importantly if it's something that could be brought into D3. I doubt you mean stats as (excluding some specific BvB builds) no one would sac 450 vitality for a 5% increase in damage or whatever it worked out to. Enigma wasn't hard to "fit on" any character. Anyone who isn't already a sorc is massively improved by the addition of teleport, regardless of the class. fearus, all the stuff you listed is PvP stuff designed for specific opponents. Isn't this more a symptom of the (lack of) PvP situation in D3 rather than/in addition to itemisation? If PvP was more popular, with a smaller number of popular and powerful builds, might we see people building specific sets as a result (e.g. resist X)? EDIT: Oops, meant to edit my previous post PvP was the end game and the apex of D2 game and item design. I bring this up because looking at D2 from a PvM perspective, would be like a casual player who plays Starcraft single player campaign and think that was all to game. The most in-depth analysis of the game and itemisation was for PvP - before frame rates became public knowledge, the PvPers was already recording animations on video and counting the actual frames to figure out the ias/fcr/fhr breakpoints. Not to mention the top-tier D2 players were the PvPer - in terms of time spend, item wealth and knowledge of the game. When Windforces were selling for 500$ on ebay - it wasn't for PvM. Itemisation for D2 in PvM is trivial. Necromancers could finish hell 8 player completely naked and Hammerdins were hands down the best PvM build. PvP characters was where items, stats points, skill points - reached for perfection. I didnt know of any single person that thought PvP was the end game. Everybody I knew farmed for gear to trade with and to make/improve their characters. PvP was like something to do on the side. The only PvP I ever saw was mostly people trolling hostility on baal runs or something (go tppk on hardcore removing the ability to play public games! yay pvp!) because their char was high level with godly gear. US East ladder had organized 4v4 games where the average player's itemset probably cost in excess of 60 highrunes. I went to one with an Enigma/Eth-Zoded Deathcleaver etc barb and felt like a pauper. It was inarguably the peak of D2. Where was it organized and how many people did this in comparison to every other part of the game? And it was the peak of D2 for YOU.
I'm not sure when you played but you must have been pretty sheltered in your own group of friends to not notice how massive the PVP scene was on bnet. I mean it dominated public games from .08-1.11(last i really played a lot). There were pvp rooms from 1-100, pk rooms from 1-100, pkpk rooms from 1-100. You would have to spam just to get into one. PvP was a BIG deal in the greater d2 community.
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On August 30 2013 06:56 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2013 06:46 TheRabidDeer wrote:On August 30 2013 06:41 cLutZ wrote:On August 30 2013 05:55 TheRabidDeer wrote:On August 30 2013 00:33 fearus wrote:On August 29 2013 20:40 dmfg wrote:On August 29 2013 20:36 dmfg wrote:On August 29 2013 18:14 SixStrings wrote:On August 29 2013 06:55 dmfg wrote:On August 29 2013 00:50 crms wrote:
i like a lot of these suggestions but itemization and character development are by far the most important issues. paragon system 2.0 is a nice baby step but the items and character interaction needs an overhaul.
while the writing is harsh and I wish better written and a bit more comprehensive, this 'info-graph' highlights the major issue with D2 vs D3 loot itemization. While doing my re-play of Diablo 2 this week, I've run Nightmare Meph about 10-15 times and found ~12 uniques (legendaries). Including some nice niche uniques that are great for certain builds on other classes. Stuff like that just doesn't happen in D3. It won't happen because you'll never spend 15-20m doing quick boss runs to obtain ~12 legendaries, and the legendaries you would find in ACT3NM wouldn't be worth IDing. When characters have no depth of customization, the items are boring and undesirable.
I think there are 2 separate issues that this infographic is trying to pass off as one. The stat allocation issue is completely separate to the diversity of gear issue. If you couldn't allocate stats in D2, the exact same gear would still be desirable to the exact same builds (the only difference being the number of str/dex charms required to equip it). Character stat allocation did absolutely nothing for gear diversity; having unusual and gamechanging affixes is what did it. As for what makes gear "interesting", every single item from D2 that I would call "interesting" has one thing in common: they grant unique spells that are normally locked to one class. Whether that be Enigma, Andy's visage, Insight, Passion, Chaos, Atma's scarab, Demon Limb, Wolfhowl, etc. Yes, there are other powerful items like BotD, but there is nothing interesting about BotD other than it being really really powerful. These items were interesting because they let you make (effectively) cross-class hybrids. They did nothing for itemisation - maybe you aimed for a different IAS breakpoint but that was really it. Some of them changed nothing at all about how you build or played your char (2x CTA in alt weapons anyone?). I don't think these are an answer to "the loot problem" - you get a few interesting items, but you won't really add any depth to gearing. And I think that is my problem with analyses like the one in that image. D2 had a lot of pieces of gear which were interesting in isolation (all of them added after LoD, and almost all of those added in 1.10 or beyond when LoD had already been out for years). But they didn't make building a gear set interesting, because by and large it wasn't. What it came down to was meeting some caps (resist all and IAS, and IAS was almost entirely based on weapon IAS so the rest of your gear hardly mattered) and calling it a day. Yes you could stack different things, like going for pure weapon speed (enchantress, firebear, tesladin), stacking CB, stacking DS, whatever. But none of those things really changed anything about how you played the char, or how combat felt. They were just generic DPS increasing affixes that happened to use different mechanics. They were (to use the phrase in the infographic) toast. I think Blizz needs to be very careful, because if they give in and just give D2 patch 1.10-style loot in D3, we might have fun initially until the clear cookie cutter builds come out, and then we will be in the exact same situation as we are now, where after you decide you are going Monk + claw that lets you use whirlwind, the gearing is just as uninteresting as it is today (and as it was in D2). I'm sorry, but I disagree with this. Creating your build in D2 was more than a matter of just meeting a cap or two and call it a day. You had actual choices and liberties, and having the legendaries as know entities helped planning greatly. I spend much more time planning any character, figuring out how much defence I could trade in for offence, if I could justify squeezing in quality of life items, such as the ones that greatly increase run speed, and when I finally build my Enigma, I had a blast trying to fit it on as many characters as I could manage. This sort of planning doesn't come into D3, where your next goal is always more of X. It's fine to say "actual choices and liberties" and "how much defence I could trade in for offence", but it would be nice to list specific examples rather than general sweeping statements. Then we could see if these were actually interesting choices, and more importantly if it's something that could be brought into D3. I doubt you mean stats as (excluding some specific BvB builds) no one would sac 450 vitality for a 5% increase in damage or whatever it worked out to. Enigma wasn't hard to "fit on" any character. Anyone who isn't already a sorc is massively improved by the addition of teleport, regardless of the class. fearus, all the stuff you listed is PvP stuff designed for specific opponents. Isn't this more a symptom of the (lack of) PvP situation in D3 rather than/in addition to itemisation? If PvP was more popular, with a smaller number of popular and powerful builds, might we see people building specific sets as a result (e.g. resist X)? EDIT: Oops, meant to edit my previous post PvP was the end game and the apex of D2 game and item design. I bring this up because looking at D2 from a PvM perspective, would be like a casual player who plays Starcraft single player campaign and think that was all to game. The most in-depth analysis of the game and itemisation was for PvP - before frame rates became public knowledge, the PvPers was already recording animations on video and counting the actual frames to figure out the ias/fcr/fhr breakpoints. Not to mention the top-tier D2 players were the PvPer - in terms of time spend, item wealth and knowledge of the game. When Windforces were selling for 500$ on ebay - it wasn't for PvM. Itemisation for D2 in PvM is trivial. Necromancers could finish hell 8 player completely naked and Hammerdins were hands down the best PvM build. PvP characters was where items, stats points, skill points - reached for perfection. I didnt know of any single person that thought PvP was the end game. Everybody I knew farmed for gear to trade with and to make/improve their characters. PvP was like something to do on the side. The only PvP I ever saw was mostly people trolling hostility on baal runs or something (go tppk on hardcore removing the ability to play public games! yay pvp!) because their char was high level with godly gear. US East ladder had organized 4v4 games where the average player's itemset probably cost in excess of 60 highrunes. I went to one with an Enigma/Eth-Zoded Deathcleaver etc barb and felt like a pauper. It was inarguably the peak of D2. Where was it organized and how many people did this in comparison to every other part of the game? And it was the peak of D2 for YOU. You know, the official D2 US East ladder forums. Where people would make anni trades based on reputation alone, or people like me would moderate those trades for people without wealth/reputation. Where guys like bterril would search for a perfect Tyreals and offer like $1k+ in ingame items for it and be accused of lowballing. The community did fall off significantly with the release of WOW though...
That is fine and dandy, but how many people participated in these games (I really dont understand why you are name dropping or trying to prop your reputation up)? And you are aware that forums (especially back in those days) were a vast minority compared to how many people played ingame? Even today forums are a minority, but back then it was even worse.
If there was only ever a community of 50-100 people playing, that is kind of dwarfed by the hundreds of thousands of people that didnt participate.
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On August 30 2013 06:59 crms wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2013 06:46 TheRabidDeer wrote:On August 30 2013 06:41 cLutZ wrote:On August 30 2013 05:55 TheRabidDeer wrote:On August 30 2013 00:33 fearus wrote:On August 29 2013 20:40 dmfg wrote:On August 29 2013 20:36 dmfg wrote:On August 29 2013 18:14 SixStrings wrote:On August 29 2013 06:55 dmfg wrote:On August 29 2013 00:50 crms wrote:
i like a lot of these suggestions but itemization and character development are by far the most important issues. paragon system 2.0 is a nice baby step but the items and character interaction needs an overhaul.
while the writing is harsh and I wish better written and a bit more comprehensive, this 'info-graph' highlights the major issue with D2 vs D3 loot itemization. While doing my re-play of Diablo 2 this week, I've run Nightmare Meph about 10-15 times and found ~12 uniques (legendaries). Including some nice niche uniques that are great for certain builds on other classes. Stuff like that just doesn't happen in D3. It won't happen because you'll never spend 15-20m doing quick boss runs to obtain ~12 legendaries, and the legendaries you would find in ACT3NM wouldn't be worth IDing. When characters have no depth of customization, the items are boring and undesirable.
I think there are 2 separate issues that this infographic is trying to pass off as one. The stat allocation issue is completely separate to the diversity of gear issue. If you couldn't allocate stats in D2, the exact same gear would still be desirable to the exact same builds (the only difference being the number of str/dex charms required to equip it). Character stat allocation did absolutely nothing for gear diversity; having unusual and gamechanging affixes is what did it. As for what makes gear "interesting", every single item from D2 that I would call "interesting" has one thing in common: they grant unique spells that are normally locked to one class. Whether that be Enigma, Andy's visage, Insight, Passion, Chaos, Atma's scarab, Demon Limb, Wolfhowl, etc. Yes, there are other powerful items like BotD, but there is nothing interesting about BotD other than it being really really powerful. These items were interesting because they let you make (effectively) cross-class hybrids. They did nothing for itemisation - maybe you aimed for a different IAS breakpoint but that was really it. Some of them changed nothing at all about how you build or played your char (2x CTA in alt weapons anyone?). I don't think these are an answer to "the loot problem" - you get a few interesting items, but you won't really add any depth to gearing. And I think that is my problem with analyses like the one in that image. D2 had a lot of pieces of gear which were interesting in isolation (all of them added after LoD, and almost all of those added in 1.10 or beyond when LoD had already been out for years). But they didn't make building a gear set interesting, because by and large it wasn't. What it came down to was meeting some caps (resist all and IAS, and IAS was almost entirely based on weapon IAS so the rest of your gear hardly mattered) and calling it a day. Yes you could stack different things, like going for pure weapon speed (enchantress, firebear, tesladin), stacking CB, stacking DS, whatever. But none of those things really changed anything about how you played the char, or how combat felt. They were just generic DPS increasing affixes that happened to use different mechanics. They were (to use the phrase in the infographic) toast. I think Blizz needs to be very careful, because if they give in and just give D2 patch 1.10-style loot in D3, we might have fun initially until the clear cookie cutter builds come out, and then we will be in the exact same situation as we are now, where after you decide you are going Monk + claw that lets you use whirlwind, the gearing is just as uninteresting as it is today (and as it was in D2). I'm sorry, but I disagree with this. Creating your build in D2 was more than a matter of just meeting a cap or two and call it a day. You had actual choices and liberties, and having the legendaries as know entities helped planning greatly. I spend much more time planning any character, figuring out how much defence I could trade in for offence, if I could justify squeezing in quality of life items, such as the ones that greatly increase run speed, and when I finally build my Enigma, I had a blast trying to fit it on as many characters as I could manage. This sort of planning doesn't come into D3, where your next goal is always more of X. It's fine to say "actual choices and liberties" and "how much defence I could trade in for offence", but it would be nice to list specific examples rather than general sweeping statements. Then we could see if these were actually interesting choices, and more importantly if it's something that could be brought into D3. I doubt you mean stats as (excluding some specific BvB builds) no one would sac 450 vitality for a 5% increase in damage or whatever it worked out to. Enigma wasn't hard to "fit on" any character. Anyone who isn't already a sorc is massively improved by the addition of teleport, regardless of the class. fearus, all the stuff you listed is PvP stuff designed for specific opponents. Isn't this more a symptom of the (lack of) PvP situation in D3 rather than/in addition to itemisation? If PvP was more popular, with a smaller number of popular and powerful builds, might we see people building specific sets as a result (e.g. resist X)? EDIT: Oops, meant to edit my previous post PvP was the end game and the apex of D2 game and item design. I bring this up because looking at D2 from a PvM perspective, would be like a casual player who plays Starcraft single player campaign and think that was all to game. The most in-depth analysis of the game and itemisation was for PvP - before frame rates became public knowledge, the PvPers was already recording animations on video and counting the actual frames to figure out the ias/fcr/fhr breakpoints. Not to mention the top-tier D2 players were the PvPer - in terms of time spend, item wealth and knowledge of the game. When Windforces were selling for 500$ on ebay - it wasn't for PvM. Itemisation for D2 in PvM is trivial. Necromancers could finish hell 8 player completely naked and Hammerdins were hands down the best PvM build. PvP characters was where items, stats points, skill points - reached for perfection. I didnt know of any single person that thought PvP was the end game. Everybody I knew farmed for gear to trade with and to make/improve their characters. PvP was like something to do on the side. The only PvP I ever saw was mostly people trolling hostility on baal runs or something (go tppk on hardcore removing the ability to play public games! yay pvp!) because their char was high level with godly gear. US East ladder had organized 4v4 games where the average player's itemset probably cost in excess of 60 highrunes. I went to one with an Enigma/Eth-Zoded Deathcleaver etc barb and felt like a pauper. It was inarguably the peak of D2. Where was it organized and how many people did this in comparison to every other part of the game? And it was the peak of D2 for YOU. I'm not sure when you played but you must have been pretty sheltered in your own group of friends to not notice how massive the PVP scene was on bnet. I mean it dominated public games from .08-1.11(last i really played a lot). There were pvp rooms from 1-100, pk rooms from 1-100, pkpk rooms from 1-100. You would have to spam just to get into one. PvP was a BIG deal in the greater d2 community.
I played a lot until like 2003ish I think? Perhaps I dont remember clearly if it was as prevalent as you claim. Most pub games that I saw werent for PvP. And I dont get why you would PvP in D2 with chargeadins, stupid hammerdins, guiding arrow, full rejuv abusers among other things.
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Why don't we put this to a non-scientific poll? By endgame, I'm assuming it means what to do with your time once you beat the game.
Poll: PvP is the endgame for D2?No (36) 77% Yes (11) 23% 47 total votes Your vote: PvP is the endgame for D2? (Vote): Yes
(Vote): No
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On August 30 2013 07:06 TheRabidDeer wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2013 06:59 crms wrote:On August 30 2013 06:46 TheRabidDeer wrote:On August 30 2013 06:41 cLutZ wrote:On August 30 2013 05:55 TheRabidDeer wrote:On August 30 2013 00:33 fearus wrote:On August 29 2013 20:40 dmfg wrote:On August 29 2013 20:36 dmfg wrote:On August 29 2013 18:14 SixStrings wrote:On August 29 2013 06:55 dmfg wrote:
[quote]
I think there are 2 separate issues that this infographic is trying to pass off as one.
The stat allocation issue is completely separate to the diversity of gear issue. If you couldn't allocate stats in D2, the exact same gear would still be desirable to the exact same builds (the only difference being the number of str/dex charms required to equip it). Character stat allocation did absolutely nothing for gear diversity; having unusual and gamechanging affixes is what did it.
As for what makes gear "interesting", every single item from D2 that I would call "interesting" has one thing in common: they grant unique spells that are normally locked to one class. Whether that be Enigma, Andy's visage, Insight, Passion, Chaos, Atma's scarab, Demon Limb, Wolfhowl, etc. Yes, there are other powerful items like BotD, but there is nothing interesting about BotD other than it being really really powerful.
These items were interesting because they let you make (effectively) cross-class hybrids. They did nothing for itemisation - maybe you aimed for a different IAS breakpoint but that was really it. Some of them changed nothing at all about how you build or played your char (2x CTA in alt weapons anyone?). I don't think these are an answer to "the loot problem" - you get a few interesting items, but you won't really add any depth to gearing.
And I think that is my problem with analyses like the one in that image. D2 had a lot of pieces of gear which were interesting in isolation (all of them added after LoD, and almost all of those added in 1.10 or beyond when LoD had already been out for years). But they didn't make building a gear set interesting, because by and large it wasn't. What it came down to was meeting some caps (resist all and IAS, and IAS was almost entirely based on weapon IAS so the rest of your gear hardly mattered) and calling it a day.
Yes you could stack different things, like going for pure weapon speed (enchantress, firebear, tesladin), stacking CB, stacking DS, whatever. But none of those things really changed anything about how you played the char, or how combat felt. They were just generic DPS increasing affixes that happened to use different mechanics. They were (to use the phrase in the infographic) toast.
I think Blizz needs to be very careful, because if they give in and just give D2 patch 1.10-style loot in D3, we might have fun initially until the clear cookie cutter builds come out, and then we will be in the exact same situation as we are now, where after you decide you are going Monk + claw that lets you use whirlwind, the gearing is just as uninteresting as it is today (and as it was in D2). I'm sorry, but I disagree with this. Creating your build in D2 was more than a matter of just meeting a cap or two and call it a day. You had actual choices and liberties, and having the legendaries as know entities helped planning greatly. I spend much more time planning any character, figuring out how much defence I could trade in for offence, if I could justify squeezing in quality of life items, such as the ones that greatly increase run speed, and when I finally build my Enigma, I had a blast trying to fit it on as many characters as I could manage. This sort of planning doesn't come into D3, where your next goal is always more of X. It's fine to say "actual choices and liberties" and "how much defence I could trade in for offence", but it would be nice to list specific examples rather than general sweeping statements. Then we could see if these were actually interesting choices, and more importantly if it's something that could be brought into D3. I doubt you mean stats as (excluding some specific BvB builds) no one would sac 450 vitality for a 5% increase in damage or whatever it worked out to. Enigma wasn't hard to "fit on" any character. Anyone who isn't already a sorc is massively improved by the addition of teleport, regardless of the class. fearus, all the stuff you listed is PvP stuff designed for specific opponents. Isn't this more a symptom of the (lack of) PvP situation in D3 rather than/in addition to itemisation? If PvP was more popular, with a smaller number of popular and powerful builds, might we see people building specific sets as a result (e.g. resist X)? EDIT: Oops, meant to edit my previous post PvP was the end game and the apex of D2 game and item design. I bring this up because looking at D2 from a PvM perspective, would be like a casual player who plays Starcraft single player campaign and think that was all to game. The most in-depth analysis of the game and itemisation was for PvP - before frame rates became public knowledge, the PvPers was already recording animations on video and counting the actual frames to figure out the ias/fcr/fhr breakpoints. Not to mention the top-tier D2 players were the PvPer - in terms of time spend, item wealth and knowledge of the game. When Windforces were selling for 500$ on ebay - it wasn't for PvM. Itemisation for D2 in PvM is trivial. Necromancers could finish hell 8 player completely naked and Hammerdins were hands down the best PvM build. PvP characters was where items, stats points, skill points - reached for perfection. I didnt know of any single person that thought PvP was the end game. Everybody I knew farmed for gear to trade with and to make/improve their characters. PvP was like something to do on the side. The only PvP I ever saw was mostly people trolling hostility on baal runs or something (go tppk on hardcore removing the ability to play public games! yay pvp!) because their char was high level with godly gear. US East ladder had organized 4v4 games where the average player's itemset probably cost in excess of 60 highrunes. I went to one with an Enigma/Eth-Zoded Deathcleaver etc barb and felt like a pauper. It was inarguably the peak of D2. Where was it organized and how many people did this in comparison to every other part of the game? And it was the peak of D2 for YOU. I'm not sure when you played but you must have been pretty sheltered in your own group of friends to not notice how massive the PVP scene was on bnet. I mean it dominated public games from .08-1.11(last i really played a lot). There were pvp rooms from 1-100, pk rooms from 1-100, pkpk rooms from 1-100. You would have to spam just to get into one. PvP was a BIG deal in the greater d2 community. I played a lot until like 2003ish I think? Perhaps I dont remember clearly if it was as prevalent as you claim. Most pub games that I saw werent for PvP. And I dont get why you would PvP in D2 with chargeadins, stupid hammerdins, guiding arrow, full rejuv abusers among other things.
Yea...thats why you play in organized games in a 4v4 format so you dont face a full topaz shield...
Of course a lot of the pub games were trash. That is why they were pub games.
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debating whether PvP is endgame in d2 in a D3 thread, and setting a poll of, mostly, d3 players about d2 issues....
that sounds like a good use of time.
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there is really two end games for D2, beating the uber bosses and just getting the perfect character PvM. Then there is the PvP (wich I never cared about) that alot of people did play
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On August 30 2013 06:15 crms wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2013 04:49 thezanursic wrote:
Will people be able to purchase gold in SC?
Yes - Gonna stay the fuck away
No - Will most likely buy it. It's no secret I hated diablo 3 but I never understood the complaints about the auction house. The Auction house or RMAH were only bad for Diablo3 because of the implications on other design elements. If d2 had an AH and RMAH but same itemization and drop rates, it would be a welcome feature. The problem is when you make items so ass, and drop rates so astronomically low that you're basically forced to use the AH it becomes a bad un-fun game. I think it'd be awesome in d2 if instead of gold currency since gold was mostly meaningless if there was a 'trading post' type thing where you could place items, and people could offer item bids similar to Dota2Lounge and you could accept their item offers or decline etc. Good items and appropriate drop rates matter, how you trade your items matters very little. An AH system streamlines trading and is a good feature, manipulating drop rates to account for AH usage or having bad items, is bad.
I recently found out that they started selling GOLD 1 25 cents for a couple million. That's completely different since it inflates the economy. If people are stupid enough to sell their shit on the RMAH let them do it. The items go out of the economy and don't do much dmg, but ever since they started selling gold the prices went up so much that you can't play the game without buying gold.
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On August 30 2013 07:16 DODswe4 wrote:
there is really two end games for D2, beating the uber bosses and just getting the perfect character PvM. Then there is the PvP (wich I never cared about) that alot of people did play
Uber bosses were actually a great PVM addition. The problem with those, in my opinion, is that they are a little D3-ish in that basically you pick the correct class (Smite Paladin or Kick assassin) get the right items (decent resistances + crushing blow + prevent heal/open wounds), and then you succeed, whereas if you pick a sorc, good luck.
That is the real D3 problem, when I basically struggled to get to Phase 2 of Inferno Belial, but then wiped the floor with the "hard" part (because you can actually outplay that part) there is something wrong with the game.
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On August 30 2013 07:41 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2013 07:16 DODswe4 wrote:
there is really two end games for D2, beating the uber bosses and just getting the perfect character PvM. Then there is the PvP (wich I never cared about) that alot of people did play Uber bosses were actually a great PVM addition. The problem with those, in my opinion, is that they are a little D3-ish in that basically you pick the correct class (Smite Paladin or Kick assassin) get the right items (decent resistances + crushing blow + prevent heal/open wounds), and then you succeed, whereas if you pick a sorc, good luck. That is the real D3 problem, when I basically struggled to get to Phase 2 of Inferno Belial, but then wiped the floor with the "hard" part (because you can actually outplay that part) there is something wrong with the game.
I have killed the uber bosses with all characters I played sorc the most however and I have killed them alone with 1sorc, I needed a very special build that I planned for just that purpose, that is the beauty with D3s system in my eyes thou, you can change your build if you need to, without rerolling
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On August 30 2013 07:41 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2013 07:16 DODswe4 wrote:
there is really two end games for D2, beating the uber bosses and just getting the perfect character PvM. Then there is the PvP (wich I never cared about) that alot of people did play Uber bosses were actually a great PVM addition. The problem with those, in my opinion, is that they are a little D3-ish in that basically you pick the correct class (Smite Paladin or Kick assassin) get the right items (decent resistances + crushing blow + prevent heal/open wounds), and then you succeed, whereas if you pick a sorc, good luck. That is the real D3 problem, when I basically struggled to get to Phase 2 of Inferno Belial, but then wiped the floor with the "hard" part (because you can actually outplay that part) there is something wrong with the game.
have you played the game since the inferno nerf? because snakes being harder than belial sounds a lot like the early months where people were onehit by everything. ofc d3 sucked ass back then, but its gotten a lot more enjoyable imho.
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On August 30 2013 07:45 DODswe4 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2013 07:41 cLutZ wrote:On August 30 2013 07:16 DODswe4 wrote:
there is really two end games for D2, beating the uber bosses and just getting the perfect character PvM. Then there is the PvP (wich I never cared about) that alot of people did play Uber bosses were actually a great PVM addition. The problem with those, in my opinion, is that they are a little D3-ish in that basically you pick the correct class (Smite Paladin or Kick assassin) get the right items (decent resistances + crushing blow + prevent heal/open wounds), and then you succeed, whereas if you pick a sorc, good luck. That is the real D3 problem, when I basically struggled to get to Phase 2 of Inferno Belial, but then wiped the floor with the "hard" part (because you can actually outplay that part) there is something wrong with the game. I have killed the uber bosses with all characters I played sorc the most however and I have killed them alone with 1sorc, I needed a very special build that I planned for just that purpose, that is the beauty with D3s system in my eyes thou, you can change your build if you need to, without rerolling
I think you can reroll infinitely in D2 now after finding some ingredients although most of us never experienced this feature since it cam rather late in D2's lifetime.
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On August 30 2013 07:49 Black Gun wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2013 07:41 cLutZ wrote:On August 30 2013 07:16 DODswe4 wrote:
there is really two end games for D2, beating the uber bosses and just getting the perfect character PvM. Then there is the PvP (wich I never cared about) that alot of people did play Uber bosses were actually a great PVM addition. The problem with those, in my opinion, is that they are a little D3-ish in that basically you pick the correct class (Smite Paladin or Kick assassin) get the right items (decent resistances + crushing blow + prevent heal/open wounds), and then you succeed, whereas if you pick a sorc, good luck. That is the real D3 problem, when I basically struggled to get to Phase 2 of Inferno Belial, but then wiped the floor with the "hard" part (because you can actually outplay that part) there is something wrong with the game. have you played the game since the inferno nerf? because snakes being harder than belial sounds a lot like the early months where people were onehit by everything. ofc d3 sucked ass back then, but its gotten a lot more enjoyable imho.
Not really that much, and when I have, it still is taxing to play because even when I would do, siege runs they were totally unrewarding. Anyways, the inferno nerf didn't make the game better to play, just easier. Your ability to outplay NPCs is still basically nonexistant.
Edit.
I also finished leveling my monk, and he just steamrolled through Inferno...until he didn't. It was like all too easy until I got to Ghom, who was then not possible. You can't have a dps check boss in a game without guaranteed drops...its just nonsensical.
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On August 30 2013 07:49 Black Gun wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2013 07:41 cLutZ wrote:On August 30 2013 07:16 DODswe4 wrote:
there is really two end games for D2, beating the uber bosses and just getting the perfect character PvM. Then there is the PvP (wich I never cared about) that alot of people did play Uber bosses were actually a great PVM addition. The problem with those, in my opinion, is that they are a little D3-ish in that basically you pick the correct class (Smite Paladin or Kick assassin) get the right items (decent resistances + crushing blow + prevent heal/open wounds), and then you succeed, whereas if you pick a sorc, good luck. That is the real D3 problem, when I basically struggled to get to Phase 2 of Inferno Belial, but then wiped the floor with the "hard" part (because you can actually outplay that part) there is something wrong with the game. have you played the game since the inferno nerf? because snakes being harder than belial sounds a lot like the early months where people were onehit by everything. ofc d3 sucked ass back then, but its gotten a lot more enjoyable imho.
I loaded up D3 a few weeks ago after having stopped before the MP patch. Decided to try an A1 inferno butcher run as I'm still gearing for the second half of A2. Since the blog said that the old Inferno was like MP2-3, I figured I shouldn't have much trouble in MP1.
Boy was I not expecting this.. every boss pack just seemed much harder than before, and then when I reached Butcher his HP just wasn't going down fast enough. I was counting out 7 sided strike uses (before MP, I'd kill him on the 4th at around 1 min 30) and started panicking when I figured 3 mins was up and he was still at 10%. The whole floor covered with fire and in the end I blew every CD and pot and killed him during the enrage with about 20% HP left and NDE procced.
Took me a good 15 mins to calm down after that as I'd put over 200 hours into that monk and it was my main farming char. Maybe inferno feels easier post-MP for people who continuously gained gear, but definitely not for me stepping straight from 1.0.4 to MP1.
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damn, you guys both encountered strange sideeffects.
@clutz: there was a time when ghom was bugged after a patch. the bug made him fart much more than intended, so that his damage output was insane. at that time, even very well-geared chars struggled against ghom, some classes not having any spec with which they could take him down.
since the following patch, which removed the bug, ghom is just fine.
@dmfg: in 1.00 d3, act1 mobs were lvl 61, act2 mobs lvl 62 and act3 and 4 at lvl 63. with the introduction of monster power, the monster level of act1 and 2 were changed to lvl 63 on mp1 or higher. particularly in act1, this made quite a difference in terms of monster hp and damage.
Maybe inferno feels easier post-MP for people who continuously gained gear, but definitely not for me stepping straight from 1.0.4 to MP1.
well, the gold you would pickup from doing 1 hour of hell act3 runs would be sufficient to gear your char for mp1 inferno. but you are right in a different sense: people who took a long break suffer from not knowing anymore which zones or routes and which builds currently are teh shit. just hearing "7 sided strike" and "siegebreaker runs" tells me how much of the "shifts in metagame" you have missed. imho this actually is a bigger problem than the outdated gear.
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On August 30 2013 09:03 dmfg wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2013 07:49 Black Gun wrote:On August 30 2013 07:41 cLutZ wrote:On August 30 2013 07:16 DODswe4 wrote:
there is really two end games for D2, beating the uber bosses and just getting the perfect character PvM. Then there is the PvP (wich I never cared about) that alot of people did play Uber bosses were actually a great PVM addition. The problem with those, in my opinion, is that they are a little D3-ish in that basically you pick the correct class (Smite Paladin or Kick assassin) get the right items (decent resistances + crushing blow + prevent heal/open wounds), and then you succeed, whereas if you pick a sorc, good luck. That is the real D3 problem, when I basically struggled to get to Phase 2 of Inferno Belial, but then wiped the floor with the "hard" part (because you can actually outplay that part) there is something wrong with the game. have you played the game since the inferno nerf? because snakes being harder than belial sounds a lot like the early months where people were onehit by everything. ofc d3 sucked ass back then, but its gotten a lot more enjoyable imho. I loaded up D3 a few weeks ago after having stopped before the MP patch. Decided to try an A1 inferno butcher run as I'm still gearing for the second half of A2. Since the blog said that the old Inferno was like MP2-3, I figured I shouldn't have much trouble in MP1. Boy was I not expecting this.. every boss pack just seemed much harder than before, and then when I reached Butcher his HP just wasn't going down fast enough. I was counting out 7 sided strike uses (before MP, I'd kill him on the 4th at around 1 min 30) and started panicking when I figured 3 mins was up and he was still at 10%. The whole floor covered with fire and in the end I blew every CD and pot and killed him during the enrage with about 20% HP left and NDE procced. Took me a good 15 mins to calm down after that as I'd put over 200 hours into that monk and it was my main farming char. Maybe inferno feels easier post-MP for people who continuously gained gear, but definitely not for me stepping straight from 1.0.4 to MP1.
Don't take this the wrong way but maybe your not very good at the game? I play a self found only and MP1 was fairly easy. I've found enough good gear now that I can do Uber Ghom/Uber Rhak on MP5 now and I've put in maybe 300hours~ish.
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i spent less than 5M on a barb and can clear up to MP5 (though i wouldnt for efficiency) but MP1-3 generally go smoothly so you can definitely do it on a budget.
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On August 30 2013 09:52 Black Gun wrote:damn, you guys both encountered strange sideeffects. @clutz: there was a time when ghom was bugged after a patch. the bug made him fart much more than intended, so that his damage output was insane. at that time, even very well-geared chars struggled against ghom, some classes not having any spec with which they could take him down. since the following patch, which removed the bug, ghom is just fine. @dmfg: in 1.00 d3, act1 mobs were lvl 61, act2 mobs lvl 62 and act3 and 4 at lvl 63. with the introduction of monster power, the monster level of act1 and 2 were changed to lvl 63 on mp1 or higher. particularly in act1, this made quite a difference in terms of monster hp and damage. Show nested quote +
Maybe inferno feels easier post-MP for people who continuously gained gear, but definitely not for me stepping straight from 1.0.4 to MP1.
well, the gold you would pickup from doing 1 hour of hell act3 runs would be sufficient to gear your char for mp1 inferno. but you are right in a different sense: people who took a long break suffer from not knowing anymore which zones or routes and which builds currently are teh shit. just hearing "7 sided strike" and "siegebreaker runs" tells me how much of the "shifts in metagame" you have missed. imho this actually is a bigger problem than the outdated gear.
Maybe I ran into bugged ghom. Oh well. The game still is less fun gameplay wise, and building characters is less fun for me than in D2.
Maybe Ill finish my demonhunter though, cus shes almost 60. Then I can see.
Also, screw browsing the AH, it is really annoying. Honestly its just an unfun thing in a game where basically everything is all random modifiers. AH for the D2 windforce/Crown of ages is fine. AH for a 250 +%ED + 2 Gems + Fools + 40 IAS claw is impossible (d2 reference).
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On August 30 2013 10:07 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2013 09:52 Black Gun wrote:damn, you guys both encountered strange sideeffects. @clutz: there was a time when ghom was bugged after a patch. the bug made him fart much more than intended, so that his damage output was insane. at that time, even very well-geared chars struggled against ghom, some classes not having any spec with which they could take him down. since the following patch, which removed the bug, ghom is just fine. @dmfg: in 1.00 d3, act1 mobs were lvl 61, act2 mobs lvl 62 and act3 and 4 at lvl 63. with the introduction of monster power, the monster level of act1 and 2 were changed to lvl 63 on mp1 or higher. particularly in act1, this made quite a difference in terms of monster hp and damage.
Maybe inferno feels easier post-MP for people who continuously gained gear, but definitely not for me stepping straight from 1.0.4 to MP1.
well, the gold you would pickup from doing 1 hour of hell act3 runs would be sufficient to gear your char for mp1 inferno. but you are right in a different sense: people who took a long break suffer from not knowing anymore which zones or routes and which builds currently are teh shit. just hearing "7 sided strike" and "siegebreaker runs" tells me how much of the "shifts in metagame" you have missed. imho this actually is a bigger problem than the outdated gear. Maybe I ran into bugged ghom. Oh well. The game still is less fun gameplay wise, and building characters is less fun for me than in D2. Maybe Ill finish my demonhunter though, cus shes almost 60. Then I can see. Also, screw browsing the AH, it is really annoying. Honestly its just an unfun thing in a game where basically everything is all random modifiers. AH for the D2 windforce/Crown of ages is fine. AH for a 250 +%ED + 2 Gems + Fools + 40 IAS claw is impossible (d2 reference).
Can always go the old fashioned trade channel route.
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EPT
