f13.net

His Twitter feed is not personal, but professional. Unless his real name is Bashiok.

I think men shouldn't be allowed to do community relations. They just don't have what it takes to survive in such a rugged environment.  :why_so_serious: :why_so_serious:

He's been slowly sliding into madness over the last two years. I can't wait for the moment when he finally cracks on the forums and ragequits. It'll be really funny.

He is destined to be the next Tseric, but I don't really have a problem with him. I prefer him to most CMs who usually just seem to repeat "thank you for the feedback, we're listening" ad infinitum.

He melted down in a series of increasingly rambly self-hating posts (http://www.wowwiki.com/Tseric) and was fired.

But the "2 legit" AND webcam bits go back to Diablo 1.

Oh, that douchbag! I stopped following blizz forums after quitting wow...do you know what happend to him?

This is how you show your customers you care about them.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5889089807

Speaking of that, does anyone know how to get ahold of a Guest Pass nowadays?
Apparently, that is still the only way to get a Starter Edition going. That is, without paying for the game first.

This is how you show your customers you care about them.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5889089807

This is a reminder that we take threats made against other players, against our employees, and of self-harm extremely seriously.

We realize that there can be stressful and trying moments in the game or when interacting with others, but there is no acceptable time to go beyond the boundaries of the game and threaten others with real-life harm.

If someone is found to be making a real-life threat, we will report it to the authorities, which could result in real repercussions. To report threatening in-game chat, use the right-click Report > Real-Life Threat option, or for forum posts, use the thumbs-down button and choose "Real-Life Threats."

Gaming forums - you all know this - can be enough to send even the most grounded CMs or players right over the freaking edge of sanity.

The problem with CMs being human and using sarcasm is that it's akin to using lighter fluid to put out a fire. It  not only does nothing to advance civilized behavior on the forums, it just encourages even worse behavior.

If a CM feels it necessary to be snarky and sarcastic in their position as CM, they need to find a new profession; they're burned out. Completely understandable, but snark and sarcasm do nothing positive for the forums, and particularly not from CMs.

Forums can be useful or they can be toxic puddles of hostile goo. It seems to me that Blizzard's forums used to be quite a bit more useful than toxic (back when WoW launched); I could be misremembering, but it seems to me they used a much heavier hand in deleting posts.

Since ActiviBlizzard, it's gotten magnitudes worse.

I really don't think you do understand.

When the creative process isn't fun, the end result isn't either.

That's sort of the issue for why they are struggling. They don't do anything creative and haven't for a long time. Look around the video game industry and see that people are trying to do the same thing as Blizzard, when it was Blizzard that built the formula of doing what other people were doing only better. Now, with no innovation on any level, Blizzard has nobody to copy but itself.

In fact, I think the only successful thing Blizzard could copy right now would be Minecraft or an upgraded Blizz-version of Dwarf Fortress. I don't think they've dabbled in the TBS series, or maybe they could unfuck the Total War stuff. Or perhaps they'd like to have a try at Mount and Blade done bigtime.

Blizzard basically only got this reputation with WoW, lets not act like they did nothing.  Warcraft 3 was hugely innovative in the RTS genre, for example.  Starcraft 2 is arguably the best RTS ever made.  Diablo 3 is, despite the crying around here, probably going to be considered the best ARPG available over the next decade.  Diablo 2 had years of refining before it became the game people are remembering so fondly, Diablo 3 will get there, and it is already plenty fun.

As Diablo 3 - I'm about 100% sure if they tried to "innovate" with it, you'd all be way more upset that the game isn't really "Diablo" than you are with Inferno loot tables that need to be ironed out.

<innovation from Blizzard>

The word you used that I would pick out to argue about is "struggling."  :-P

How was War3 innovative? The customised mapmaker for Starcraft1/War3 was amazing but I rate Starcraft:Broodwar much higher than Starcraft2 considering it's impact on the RTS scene

Still, at it's core we're arguing a word. At the very least we can agree that Blizzard has not produced an original IP since 1998 with Starcraft. That's a problem for any gaming company that wants to remain relevant.

Diablo 3 is, despite the crying around here, probably going to be considered the best ARPG available over the next decade. 

D2 > D3
and I have a feeling Torchlight 2 is going to be the better game than D3 - because they didn't forget the fun factor (and for no other reason).

Played D2 tonight - shitty graphics, played it to death more times than I can think since release.


... still enjoyed it more tonight than D3.

If only D23 was the exact clone of D2 but with better graphics... I'd play that :)

Played D2 tonight - shitty graphics, played it to death more times than I can think since release.


... still enjoyed it more tonight than D3.

If only D2 was the exact clone of D2 but with better graphics... I'd play that :)

Pretty much this. Every change they made in D3 that deviates from D2 has been for the worse, graphics aside.

The two major issues are just crappy depth of itemization -- the lack of unique affixes and suffixes in general, everything being focused around some very obvious stats, the terrible decision to try and have the item-game 'start' at 60 -- and a very superficial-feeling skill system. Like, many of the skills are fun to use and runes are neat, but the lack of a 'skill point equivalent' makes it feel like there's no way to 'commit' a build, or take any sort of risk, or really push a synergy. Also because items are so boring there's really very little unexpected synergy to discover/exploit, and I feel like most of the skills don't interact nearly enough. Lack of emphasis on damage types, etc.

I was always a fan of NV being "unlocked" for alts with limited stacks per 10 levels (I think I saw that idea here and have been a fan of it since).

As for crafting, making it free I can't really agree with since it is basically D3's version of gambling and seems like it was intended to be the main money sink which failed horribly with awful itemization and attached fees being way too high. I'm all for further reduced costs, but not free. I do agree with some stat choice on crafted gear. I would really like being able to salvage items but keep a single stat from the item that was salvaged (not the amount but the actual stat so when crafting with that material it gives that stat but the amount is randomized). So if you craft a 6-affix gloves and use a +crit dmg essence then the gloves would be guranteed to have +crit dmg as either one of the six affixes or it would act as a 7th affix.

For the skill system vs D2's with respecs, I don't mind the speccing aspect of their system but I can't stand the lack of hotkeys. Only having lmb/rmb and some f-key bindings feels clunky for a UI now. Though I think D3's ability system feels shittier than intended partly due to ~90% of abilities/runes are garbage, or at least they aren't competetive.

Can I ask what crack people are smoking about hotkeys ?

I had tons in D2, certainly more than I have in D3.  Am I missing something ?

Pretty much this. Every change they made in D3 that deviates from D2 has been for the worse, graphics aside.

I forgot about the lack of hotkeys; that is an improvement in D3. By skill system I meant a speccing system, trees, etc. In D3 I don't have any identity for my character beyond "I'm a wizard" while in D2 I was "a whirlwind pike-barb" or "a lightning sorc" or "a spear/golem necro".

Regarding crafting, even if you made it "free" there is still a cost in the form of the money lost by not vendoring or AHing the items you salvage. Just ratchet up the amount of materials it takes if you want to make it "cost" more, but having to spend money and materials to craft things just rubs me the wrong way.

In D3 I don't have any identity for my character beyond "I'm a wizard" while in D2 I was "a whirlwind pike-barb" or "a lightning sorc" or "a spear/golem necro".

So essentially you miss cookie cutter builds? If you think about it with D3 you can just identify with the current skills you are using. While the variety of skills could be better in D3 this is the one area I liked. Not having to level a new character to play with builds was way more fun that slogging through 30 levels just to test out an idea for a build.

I think you missed the point - I had a bowazon plus a javazon plus a jabazon - 3 toons, 2 ranged, one melee - there was no cookie cutter build, they were different approaches with a different flavour using different skills. You played each one differently with different subtleties to the way you used each skill.

Now it's: "I'm a monk". By Inferno, I can't be a 2HWW barb because the game won't let you - "sword and board bitch - it's the way you play the game" in the leap from Act4 Hell to Act1 Inferno (at least in my experience - maybe gold farming pointlessly for hours or handing over cash would fix this).

This game is not about builds, it's about gear.

(I did use trainers to respec occasionally, but I considered the lack of that option to be D2's greatest failing.)

I get the point fine. What happened when you got to Hell in d2 and found out that the jabazon was a gimp build and couldn't survive? How did you know you were on the right track unless you copied other successful builds. That is a cookie cutter build.

So essentially you miss cookie cutter builds? If you think about it with D3 you can just identify with the current skills you are using. While the variety of skills could be better in D3 this is the one area I liked. Not having to level a new character to play with builds was way more fun that slogging through 30 levels just to test out an idea for a build.

Every level up in D2 brought a choice about how you want to increase your power

Not if you knew how to build your character right.  I know you addressed this in your post already, but quite frankly, pumping 5 points into vitality every level wasn't exactly exciting choice making.  If what you miss is the ability to make terrible permanent decisions - well, I can't imagine lots of people miss that.

Sadly, both systems I feel were removed because of the plummeting IQ of today's average 'gamer'.

No, the terrible permanent decisions were constant for a lot of players well beyond their first time through the game - and patches changing how things worked made it worse. Getting rid of stat allocation in particular is probably the single biggest improvement between D2 and D3. Skill point allocation is more arguable, D2 system + respecs would probably have been fine. I like the D3 system though, personally.

... Getting rid of stat allocation in particular is probably the single biggest improvement between D2 and D3. ...

I do agree that stat allocation was hardly the most fascinating choice to make, but it was a choice and it did have an impact, and if nothing else it seems to be symptomatic of an overall shift in the design philosophy between the two games.

Why do people keep bringing up the lack of respecs in D2 as though this were a fundamental design decision integral to the skill and stat-allocation system?

Because what people are saying is that they liked the feeling that their build is unique.  Flick on the free respecs button and it doesn't matter if it is skill trees like D2, or the D3 system.  If you want to be a "Nova sorc" or whatever, the system itself matters less than the respecs.  The only thing that made you a "nova sorc" in Diablo 2 is that you couldn't choose to NOT be a nova sorc after the decision was made.

The standard security-related restrictions that will be in place for digital purchases until payment verification is complete:

    No public game access for unverified digital purchasers
    No auction house access (real-money or gold) for unverified digital purchasers
    Unverified digital purchasers cannot trade items or drop items for other players to receive
    Unverified digital purchasers are not able to chat in any public or game channels
    Unverified digital purchasers cannot attach a custom message to friend requests, but they can send/accept friend requests, and play with their friends
    Global Play is not available for unverified digital purchasers

That's a much better solution than the level 13 nonsense.

That's a much better solution than the level 13 nonsense.

Adding a respec to it means you might as well just remove it for all the impact it has... so they did. I can't fault that decision at all.

Makes you wonder what brain child thought that was a good idea AND approved it for prime time without even conceiving that people might you know, be angry with it.

Adding a limited number of respecs means that you end up with an X-type class when you're finished with that champion, leaving room for playing through again as another type in the same class.  It also puts more pressure on the developer to make skills competitive.

Adding unlimited respecs means you play through each class once, and the developer can say (to themselves), "well, this spec can clear this level, so the player just needs to adjust".

I thought I was more of a fan of unlimited respecs, but as it turns out, I like the limited number of respecs more.

and a rare drop you can farm for additional respecs.

There's also a whole spectrum of options between "respec whenever you want" and "only respec 3 times ever". I'd say the best solution would be a small number of free respecs (say, 1 every 20 levels or once per difficulty level) and a rare drop you can farm for additional respecs.

Argh.  Respecs are a red herring.  The discussion only came about AGAIN because of some insistence that you can't do the D2 skill and attribute system if there are respecs available.

It's okay to improve on an existing system.  It's not necessary to throw out the baby Diablo with the holy bath water.

Argh.  Respecs are a red herring.  The discussion only came about AGAIN because of some insistence that you can't do the D2 skill and attribute system if there are respecs available.

Argh.  Respecs are a red herring.  The discussion only came about AGAIN because of some insistence that you can't do the D2 skill and attribute system if there are respecs available.

It's okay to improve on an existing system.  It's not necessary to throw out the baby Diablo with the holy bath water.

Actually the argument came about because you can't have an identity if you have  respecs.

The only thing the attribute system did was test you to see if you knew the exact amount of stats you needed to wear the best gear in the game.

Throwing out the attribute system was good. The only thing the attribute system did was test you to see if you knew the exact amount of stats you needed to wear the best gear in the game.

What I miss from the attribute system is the second loot-high it gave you. You'd feel awesome when you found a powerful new item and then you'd feel awesome again when you reached the level/stat requirement to wear it. It built some anticipation up for the loot which was nice.

They could have mirrored this pretty easily by having higher level gear drop sooner. Rather then having lvl 10 items drop frequently when you're level 20, they could have had you finding items that were 17-23. Maybe you'd find a really awesome level 21 item and it would inspire you to get another level before calling it a night. That can be pretty addictive.

No, you needed all your inventory slots to have magic find charms.  :grin:

The point is, it really added nothing to the game. It wasn't 'customizing' your character in any kind of meaningful way.

Good point.

Respecs in a game where the content is continually being expanded (MMO's) and when the class is majorly re-balanced. Not so much if you want the player base to be playing the same content for years, especially if you find gear in one play-through that would be excellent for some specialized variant. You want to encourage people to be re-rolling new characters even if they have a high level "grind" optimised character.

Heck, I played a minion-less poison dagger necromancer in D2. He sort of sucked, needed very specialized gear and had a really odd gameplay. That just means the roof of how far I could take it was lower but it was still fun seeing how far I could take the build. And certainly didn't see many other people doing the same.

Deleting off-topic stuff in a non-general forum is good moderation. Now if they're deleting legitimate posts criticizing the book itself (which I am sure is horrible) that's another matter.

It makes me wonder how different a feel the game would have had if Blizzard kept their original random drop design for runes.

New hulabaloo today: Magic Find Gear Swapping, and how to stop it!

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6583302/Magic_Find_Gear_Swapping-7_3_2012

I think you don't need to keep tinkering with shit like this.

New hulabaloo today: Magic Find Gear Swapping, and how to stop it!

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6583302/Magic_Find_Gear_Swapping-7_3_2012

Indeed.  The AH is the biggest thing to consider;  the impact it has on the whole game and how you would design the whole game, is monstrous.

I think #4 is kind of best to me. (and a lot of the poll seems to be going there and #1, which I admit, has its own appeal)

#2 just introduces the "kite the monster for X time while you wait for your MF gear to work"

I honestly think Blizzard could win over a ton of people if they put in a mode that was completely single player. No AH, no invites, no linking, no ladder, no achievements, but it had the drop rates adjusted for life on your own.

Be cool if I could have a private "world" with just me and my couple of friends that I play with, with no items coming from the outside world.  But that's probably getting a little too weird.

Just agree with them to do it?

I tried to login to reply, "cap it!   ... and put a little thought into why your All Resist implementation is stupid while you're at it", but couldn't because:

"This account has limited posting access due to the following condition:
                        
                              
      This game license has expired or been cancelled."

henh?  oh whatever, I didn't want to post that badly anyway.

I tried to login to reply, "cap it!   ... and put a little thought into why your All Resist implementation is stupid while you're at it", but couldn't because:

"This account has limited posting access due to the following condition:
                        
                              
      This game license has expired or been cancelled."

henh?  oh whatever, I didn't want to post that badly anyway.

#4 seems the most logical, which means they will probably cap it and piss everyone off.

This is an example for me that falls under "stupid shit that is not fun, but gives an advantage" mechanics. Those shouldn't be encouraged. Yet again, however, it points out that their difficulty curve / itemization isn't close to right.

I honestly think Blizzard could win over a ton of people if they put in a mode that was completely single player. No AH, no invites, no linking, no ladder, no achievements, but it had the drop rates adjusted for life on your own.

Magic find was always kind of retarded anyway.

Sure thing. You just defend gear swapping as fun game play that would exist without the magic find incentive, and I'll agree with you. Otherwise, its stupid and needs to go.

Regardless of who champions the argument i am against design that is both nonsensical and not fun.

You think if you did not care you would just ignore it. Regardless of who champions the argument i am against design that is both nonsensical and not fun.

anal poop

There has to be other, more important things the community managers could be spending their time on.

I am against the container Nerf. Its too broad and the Mf cap is broad. The 3m thing is not. If they go that way it will be fine

I seriously doubt it.

And honestly, how did they not have the foresight to see this coming?

Ya it's not like they could poll about how to make the game more fun or anything like that.

We recognize that the item hunt is just not enough for a long-term sustainable end-game. There are still tons of people playing every day and week, and playing a lot, but eventually they're going to run out of stuff to do (if they haven't already). Killing enemies and finding items is a lot of fun, and we think we have a lot of the systems surrounding that right, or at least on the right path with a few corrections and tweaks. But honestly Diablo III is not World of Warcraft. We aren't going to be able to pump out tons of new systems and content every couple months. There needs to be something else that keeps people engaged, and we know it's not there right now.

We're working toward 1.0.4, which we're really trying to pack with as many fixes and changes we can to help you guys out (and we'll have a bunch of articles posted with all the details as we get closer), and we're of course working on 1.1 with PvP arenas. I think both those patches will do a lot to give people things to do, and get them excited about playing, but they're not going to be a real end-game solution, at least not what we would expect out of a proper end-game. We have some ideas for progression systems, but honestly it's a huge feature if we want to try to do it right, and not something we could envision being possible until well after 1.1 which it itself still a ways out.

Thank you very much for this informative and honest answer. Though to be honest what this answer really reveals is "we didn't have a real end game ready or in mind and aren't sure how to retain customers, the game was released before it was quite ready, possibly because of the giant outcry from the fans"

Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose, but we believed pre-release that the item hunt would be far more sustainable, and would work to be a proper end-game for quite a while. That didn't turn out to be true, and we recognize that.

Meanwhile Bashiok is under the impression that Blizzard pumps out new content for WoW "every couple of months", when the game is on track to go a year without any content updates. :oh_i_see:

I appreciate the truthful answer but this is really not the sort of thing a CM should be saying in public. There are already articles popping up with headlines like "Blizzard Admits There's Not Enough Content in Diablo 3".

Meanwhile Bashiok is under the impression that Blizzard pumps out new content for WoW "every couple of months", when the game is on track to go a year without any content updates. :oh_i_see:

What exactly does that do if Bashiok says that? For one thing, it vindicates the detractors to a degree, and admits that they made mistakes with the projects. Honestly, there is almost nobody in the D3 community that didn't already believe this game has been mismanaged and seems rudderless. Telling them what they already know does nothing except make the customers feel more involved in your commitment to fix the issues. Trying to pretend there are no issues or saying nothing gets you into the boat of Bioware with the ME3 ending.

It is unfortunate it took so long to get there and it is mired with so much baggage.

Oh Just STOP.

Diablo 2 at release, bare ass bones, no patches, was fucking fifteen THOUSAND times the game this is.

There was fuck all iffy about it.

Man, I dunno guys, I think D3's core gameplay is pretty damn good.  I never got through all of D2, and that was back when I didn't have tons of games to play cuz I was poor.  I'm not saying that's true for everyone, or even most people, but I do think the actual "game" part of D3 is goddamn great.  I don't usually play games for 200 hours, after all.

I don't disagree that there are severely fucked up aspects of the game though.  And while I don't have much D2 experience, it's entirely possible it didn't have the same kind of severe flaws.  And yeah, it may be that D3 isn't really up to Blizzard's standards.  But it's still a great game.

People are also remembering the height of D2 v. the launch of D3.  Diablo 3 is vastly superior on release than Diablo 2 was on release.  Obviously they should have more experience and not make some of the mistakes they did.  But in the end I agree with you - the core gameplay is damn good, and that is why I keep playing - and also why I think it'll be fine once they get their end game figured out.  I mean, if a bunch of you out there just get no enjoyment from the actual *playing* of the game, then I'm not really sure what you did expect in the first place.

Diablo 3 is vastly superior on release than Diablo 2 was on release. 

I don't respectfully disagree.  I think Mala is utterly full of fucking shite and listening to him tell me what I remember is fucking offensive.

I really wish my original D2 1.0 CDs still worked (or if someone had a 1.0 patch_d2.mpq on hand). I'd be super interested in going back and showing off the differences between 1.0, 1.09 (the last patch before synergies and the Hell revamp) and 1.13d, which is the current patch.

Ah, the days of 20-hit Zeal that could take upwards of a minute to execute with a slow enough weapon.

Sorry you are so butthurt over it.  Get over it maybe?

Yeah Zeal is the first thing I think of when people talk about D2 at release. Put too many points in that? Sorry, character ruined, start over. Read the forums first next time!

To be fair, your viewpoint on what's fun in games is pretty narrow and ridiculous. I believe at one point or another you questioned even playing stuff anymore.

I don't respectfully disagree.  I think Mala is utterly full of fucking shite and listening to him tell me what I remember is fucking offensive.

You should take a break from posting in the D3 threads.


[/quote

Like I said before, he's lost all touch with reality when it comes to this game.  These threads have had a pretty good discussion of the pros and cons of this game if you tune out his histrionic bile.

D2 is the same, sure, but it at least felt more epic. 

It helps when you don't have the bad guy at the end of each act constantly talking to you saying "Ha ha ha! You'll never find me! Ha ha ha!" every 5 minutes.

Oh come now, the bit where you had to save your points and not spend them until you could dump them all in one skill was pretty silly.  I mean, I thought D2's skill system was pretty retarded at the time I played it.  This isn't some revisionist history thing. 

And yeah, I do see that the retarded-on-its-own skill system did allow for some interesting itemization, definitely, so I don't disagree that D3 is probably missing something that D2 had.

But I mean, come on.  Next we'll be saying that rolling for your character's attributes over and over in Baldur's Gate was a good system.  That shit was dumb, it was noticeably dumb even at the time, and it is ok to say that it was dumb (and I loved the hell out of BG).

Except you don't have to save skill points if there are respecs, so this is a fixed problem even in D2. Yet, they still decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And despite everyone saying "D2 at launch sucked" D3 isn't competing with Launch-D2, it's competing with D2:LoD v1.whatever in the same way that any MMO that launches isn't competing with Vanilla WoW but Cata WoW (see also: MMOs launching without LFG systems).

Except you don't have to save skill points if there are respecs, so this is a fixed problem even in D2. Yet, they still decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And despite everyone saying "D2 at launch sucked" D3 isn't competing with Launch-D2, it's competing with D2:LoD v1.whatever in the same way that any MMO that launches isn't competing with Vanilla WoW but Cata WoW (see also: MMOs launching without LFG systems).

Except you don't have to save skill points if there are respecs, so this is a fixed problem even in D2. Yet, they still decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And despite everyone saying "D2 at launch sucked" D3 isn't competing with Launch-D2, it's competing with D2:LoD v1.whatever in the same way that any MMO that launches isn't competing with Vanilla WoW but Cata WoW (see also: MMOs launching without LFG systems).

If you have respecs and points, why do you have the points?

If you have respecs and points, why do you have the points?

I am a bit sympathetic to the idea that completely free respecs can hurt the game in some way. That does prevent you from having to commit to something and see it through through good times and bad, forcing you to get creative in those bad times. Nephalem Valor is a super-hacky and heavy-handed way of approximating that.

But Nephalem Valor is very clearly not an organic system that makes sense and more of an "oh shit, after observing people playing we see some flaw...hmm how can we put a band-aid on this?" It's more fixing a sprung leak than creating plumbing that doesn't leak in the first place.

The problem with Blizzard not liking pure boss runs as a design is that I did like pure boss runs.  If I had fifteen minutes to kill, I could knock over Meph a few times, or Pindle a bunch, and have a shot at something good.  That isn't  the case with D3, and the 20+ minutes needed to develop NV just to farm a boss once is often enough to keep me from logging in.

I don't really have the desire, or often even the time to sit down for a dedicated hour clear of Act 1 Inferno.  Additionally, I don't have the gear to clear the act in an hour, nor can I afford it.

If you have respecs and points, why do you have the points?

A lot of the decisions around the design of Diablo 3 seem centered around stopping the players from playing the "wrong" way having fun

I think the game would have been better with some sort of throttle, however small, on changing builds. 

A lot of the decisions around the design of Diablo 3 seem centered around stopping the players from playing the "wrong" way - which is any way that Blizzard did not intend. Even in cases where the game is designed in such a way that the wrong way is entirely predictable and the most effective.

You think they would have learnt from... oh what's that company's name that made WoW?

You mean the one that completely fucked-up their last expansion and are now trying to shovel things out the door that might appease the disgruntled fan base that left?

You think they would have learnt from... oh what's that company's name that made WoW?

You mean the one that completely fucked-up their last expansion and are now trying to shovel things out the door that might appease the disgruntled fan base that left?

Today was yet another 'patch' and still nothing is done about gold farming and botting. Sarkoth has remained untouched for well over a month.

... and you have massively successful botters pulling in thousands using Blizzard's OWN RMAH. They're actually more successful now using Blizzard than they ever would be on their 3rd party sites...

I'm sure some people on this forum will want me lynched, but here we go:
<snip>
It's out of fucking control, man...

While I wouldn't do this myself, I don't put the blame on you for how broken Diablo 3 is. These things were predicted.

Blizzard made a broken game.

Their stance toward botting has never made sense to me. In WoW, I used to report every bot I came across. It would sometimes be weeks before the bot would disappear - as in several weeks, more than 3. How much "data" do they need to collect to see a bot? It's ridiculous. I don't buy Blizzard's explanations; I think they are full of shit. They simply do not care about botters much, and in D3, probably not at all. Botters enrich Blizzard.

In threads that I've responded to in the past, there were several follow-up questions and suggestions which I kept seeing over and over again. Rather than go back to those older posts and respond individually, I thought I would round them all up and provide answers here.

Since these types of posts can draw a lot of attention, please try to keep your responses as civil as possible. In the end, I'm hoping this helps provide some developer insight into a few of the recurring questions from this forum.

Questions:

1) You said you're inherently okay with players stacking certain stats over others. If this is the case, why did you nerf IAS?
One of the biggest issues we discovered with IAS was that it actively limited build diversity. While IAS was pretty strong on its own, when coupled with certain gear and skill combinations, it simply became too alluring for a lot of players to ignore. So, instead of seeing an increase in gear and skill diversity over time, what we actually saw was more and more players shifting to IAS-focused builds almost exclusively. On a scale large, it was crippling experimentation and skill diversity.

A lot of players think we reduced the value of IAS because it made characters too powerful. While that's not a totally unreasonable conclusion to jump to, it's definitely not true. We don't think "doing a lot of damage" or "doing too much damage" is enough reason for us to nerf something outright. IAS was an outlier -- it's not that it made characters too powerful, but rather that it caused a few builds to become vastly superior to others. On top of that, it introduced a ton of bugs just due to how fast characters were attacking when stacked to its upper limits.

The initial iteration of IAS was flawed in many ways. So, in effort to promote skill diversity and remove several game-impacting bugs from the environment, we reduced the value overall. We're fairly happy with where IAS is right now, as well as skill diversity in general (though we're going to need to do some additional skill balancing to bring it up to where we want).

2) So, when are you going to nerf Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage affixes?
We've no plans to nerf +Crit Chance or +Crit Damage. While +Crit Chance and +Crit Damage are very strong right now, there's nothing inherently wrong with something being strong. As mentioned above, players doing too much damage is not enough reason for us to bring out the nerf bat. Neither affix is having a negative impact on build diversity (we're seeing a pretty good balance overall), and there aren't any technical issues with them being stacked to higher values. It's something we're keeping an eye on of course.

3) Why aren't monster affix combinations restricted in some way?
Monster affixes are actually grouped into categories and then restricted based on those categories (to a degree). Our restrictions aren't as tight as some players have suggested, but in the end we found that adding extra limitations often made Elite pack encounters very predictable and repetitive, which kind of went against our design goal for these types of monsters.

We know that not all players will see eye-to-eye with us on how these categories are organized, and we expect some criticism and disagreement, especially from such a passionate group of gamers. While we're happy with where affix combos are right now, we're open to feedback and especially constructive discussion. :)

Here are the categories:

Strong CC (Limit 1):
Knockback
Nightmarish
Vortex
Defensive (Limit 1):
Avenger
Extra Health
Health Link
Horde
Illusionist
Missile Dampening
Invulnerable Minions
Shielding
Vampiric
Aggressive (No Limit):
ArcaneEnchanted
Desecrator
Electrified
Fast
Fire Chains
Frozen
Jailer
Molten
Mortar
Plagued
Reflects Damage
Teleporter
Waller

4) Is Whimsyshire considered an Act I or Act IV zone?
It's considered an Act III/Act IV zone, depending on difficulty. The monsters in Hell are considered Hell - Act IV monsters, and the monsters in Inferno are considered Inferno - Act III/Act IV monsters. The drop rates buffs from June 28 affect the zone accordingly.

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Suggestions:

1) Allow to gems to stack up to 100.
Totally reasonable request. We're looking into it!

(We originally set the stack size to 30 so it would fit in with the other "3" gem values. Now that it only requires 2 gems to combine into the next tier and the pattern has been broken, we've no issue increasing the base stack size. Good suggestion.)

2) Allow players to create multiple gems and items with just one click, if you have enough materials.
No plans right now to implement this kind of automated queuing for crafting.

3) Allow users to buy multiple health potions with one click.
Also a cool idea! We're looking into it.

4) Allow the Town Healer to heal your active follower too.
Ditto. We'll definitely consider this.

5) Add an option to block follower conversations.
Understandable annoyance, but no plans at this time to add in an option. Still good feedback!

Most of the bots use AutoIT or Autohotkey.

How does resist all restrict build diversity? It restricts *gear* diversity, but I don't see how it affects builds.

Try and find an inferno barb that doesn't have the War Cry with the impunity rune on his bar.

How are Frozen and Jailer not "Strong CC"?

How are Frozen and Jailer not "Strong CC"?

How the code could possibly written to allow for that...

... it's mind-boggling.

OK, random maintenance on a thursday is admittedly making me slightly less skeptical.

Wording?

Waller is another one that ought to be in that category.

The best part is, the hack works by editing two hex values: swapping the bid and buyout buttons.

And then their server has a horrible bug that obeys a buyout request for an item with no buyout, using (allegedly) the current bid price as the buyout price somehow.

So you can still have a

Vortex, Vampiric, Teleporting, Waller, Jailer

which is just wrong.

Wrong, but super easy to kill?

Okay, I guess not everyone is melee. But if every elite mob had that loadout I would probably be finished Inferno by now.

This is the same AH that allowed you to roll your PC clock time backwards to cancel an auction...

Edit:  Given the "clock setting back" stupidity, I'm guessing that maybe all that is happening is that switching the button order means it grays out the wrong button (probably the point where they aren't checking button ID, but rather button ordering), which lets you press what is actually the "buyout" button, allowing you to send a buyout request on an item that you shouldn't be able to.  And then their server has a horrible bug that obeys a buyout request for an item with no buyout, using (allegedly) the current bid price as the buyout price somehow.  I could believe that combination of bugs actually happening.  Not in a "forgivable" sense, but in a "I can imagine someone fucking up that bad" sense.

Didn't that turn out to be bullshit? Much like this one probably is. Oh and the session hijacking too.

Start a chat line, in party, whatever. Link your item. Follow that immediately with two special characters, for example ëë. Then link the same item again (some of this might be extraneous but I know this works). Put the cursor in between the two ë's. Press delete three times. Instead of deleting the entire [Archon Armor] it will just delete the [ and it will expose the item code.
The item code is a bunch of numbers and gibberish, it probably means something, some of it is probably encrypted, but at the very minimum you can find a specific part just before the name that looks like this:
528:528:0:0:7:0
the 528 will be some random 3 digit number, but that 7 is what you're looking for. subtract 2 from that number, and this is how many properties your item has. In this case 5. EDITED BECAUSE TYPING IS HARD
You can expect that until this is patched, at least a decent percentage of items that are being sold UnID'd will be known to be not 6 property items and well, thats awful, so don't buy them. You can't do this from a link just in the trade chat from someone else.
As long as items don't change hands, this exploit does nothing, so lets try to keep it that way.

There's really only two things they need to work on, the whines about Inferno are stupid.

There's really only two things they need to work on, the whines about Inferno are stupid.

#1) AH use is mandatory. AKA: You don't farm for drops you farm for gold and things to sell on AH to buy your "drops".

#2) Ongoing balance preferably way less fucking nerfs to the things people are making work (except say venom hydra) and lots of buffs to the stuff that just doesn't serve any purpose starting with abilities and eventually getting to runes that aren't that good.

Most of this other shit is so unimportant compared to those two things that its hardly even worth mentioning. Although I think fixing #1 may require they look at the entire item/crafting/drops/legendaries/sets systems and get real smart about fixing shit.

What are "things to sell" if not drops.  Again, I'd say this end game is pretty much just like Diablo 2 in that you hoped for ANYTHING good, and then you traded it in for Stones of Jordan  and then bought the items you needed.

[...]Again, I'd say this end game is pretty much just like Diablo 2 in that you hoped for ANYTHING good, and then you traded it in for Stones of Jordan  and then bought the items you needed.   [...]

I don't think as many people participated in the Diablo 2 barter economy as you believe did.

This is basically the main thing these forums have taught me in the last few months. 

I think just about everyone who played the game long term participated in it to some extent.

Again, I'd say this end game is pretty much just like Diablo 2 in that you hoped for ANYTHING good, and then you traded it in for Stones of Jordan  and then bought the items you needed. 

I think just about everyone who played the game long term participated in it to some extent.

I think just about everyone who played the game long term participated in it to some extent.

I think just about everyone who played the game long term participated in it to some extent.

never got anything really high-end but that was OK, I didn't need it to have fun. I did get a couple of drops that I then specifically made characters for, e.g. a spear (forgotten the name of it) that had a huge bonus to pierce I think, that I made a Javazon just to use it. There's no, none, zilch, nada gear like that in D3.