f13.net

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6923457/

I'd quote it but it's long. It's actually very impressive.

I like it!

Now I'm just hoping no legendaries drop for me in the interim.

Nice.

I just had a maximus drop last night too ;(

That looks fucking awesome and the video makes it look even better.

But what does it matter when they won't ever drop or I could go get my card out and buy one ?

It's still Underlying Fail for me.

Which is a shame, since I am really, really, really impressed with that shit.  I hope those talented guys MOVE TO ANOTHER COMPANY SOON.

I'm just never gonna care about grinding to be "hardcore" enough to get to inferno and see these items...so again, doesn't matter.

Looks good.  I'd like to see some adjustment to how blues and yellows roll their stats as well, but this is a nice start.  At least puts a carrot out there.

Yep. They still haven't mentioned anything about adjusting the drop rates for legendaries. It's great that legendaries which do drop will actually be worth using after the patch, but you're still left with an insanely low drop rate where you only see one every ~100 hours. Unless, of course, you use the AH in which case you can browse 30+ pages of the item and then grind gold to afford it. Exciting.

I'm glad I sold the one I found for $5 before the news hit.

On the 1 hand drop rates for legendaries are going to get worse since they are uping the item level to 63 on many of them.  On the other hand the loot table for ordinary mobs is getting a boost so hopefully that will help.

Based on the Barbarian class preview, we're finally going to see what happens when a developer tries the "all buffs, no nerfs" balance strategy forum dwellers are always asking for.

Unfortunately not true - wizards managed to find a fun build using a terrible skill so that needs nerfing badly!

(but not the equivalent abilities for barbarians weirdly enough)

Witch Doctor Changes gooooood.

I can't remember where I read it (I think it was a blue post), but Legendary items aren't getting a drop increase in this patch, just blues and rares. So yeah, will never see any of them. Well, we will see them, for a few dozen million on the auction house.

As a Demon Hunter, not sure what their goal was for 1.0.4. People don't use Sentry because it stays in one spot, not because it does approximately zero damage. We're usually too busy Smoke Screening like a motherfucker to get away from the jailor waller desecration teleporter mobs. However this is coming from someone who's only damaging skill on their loadout is Razor Disk, so woo +22% damage!!! :drillf: :drillf: :drillf:

This is really the core issue I have with the entire game.  I often wondered if any of the people working on it had played DII.


(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/85916/headache.gif)

THEY ARE FUCKING LEGENDARY UNIQUES YOU WOWTARD

I think a "balanced" Legendary item is somewhat of an oxymoron.

Unbalanced in what way, is another question I really want an answer to.

It let you kill monsters without dying the designed number of times per hour.

Quite.

You were doing so well with ignoring this forum!

I like his point though, the entire "you have won the game" thing with the Diablo franchise is when you hit the point where you feel ridiculously overpowered, in other words once you can lay waste to the vast hordes w/o taking a scratch while godly loot rains down from above (on the most difficult settings) then you knew it was time to create a new character.  Balance? The only fucking balance we need is that all classes should eventually be able to bring mass destruction to the minions of hell!

tldr; If a dev is even thinking to themselves that an item might need to be toned down in a game where being as ridiculously overpowered as you can be is the entire point then that dev has no business working on this game.

Salamok is dead on.

The theory I have is that lots of people at Blizz wanted to get lots of WoW players into Diablo, but that is the theory where I give them lots of credit for being smart.  My alternate theory is that anyone who knew how such a game worked is not on the design team or currently working at Runic or Gearbox.  This includes people who actually played DIILoD when it was a Big Deal, not someone who was assigned to play it before they started working on the DIII team.

I was doing so well.  I'm still staying out of the Are You Done thread, because I'm not done and the complaining lessens my enjoyment by preventing me from ignoring the flaws.  Of course, my max level is 33 so I see different issues and the whole Legendary thing is outside my realm and so this thread is safe.

I will say that I am terribly bothered by frequent use of EQ terms in DIII.  I seem to be "snaring" enemies, but I don't see any ropes tying them down at the ankles so I am assuming that everyone on the design team is a WoWtard; futhermore, one that doesn't understand the significance of certain terms such as "root".  This, plus the RMAH, causes my Sherlock-like mind to conclude that Blizz management is attempting to lure in the El Stupido WoW throngs so they can get some more cash.  Rather than, you know, create a decent game.  The company has changed.

I did assume as much when Runic was formed, though, so the alternate theory isn't dead.

I don't know but maybe the first clue was them giving out D3 free with a year's WoW subscription.

Any idea when this patch is?  I am in a gaming rut. 

Log into LOTRO and almost immediately alt-f4 after the thought of either waiting 15 minutes for the LFG tool or spamming in chat for a group.  Log into WoW and do a dungeon or 2, get bored, think about how I have done this for 63 levels now, alt-f4.

Downloaded Hellgate: Fun Asian Translation Addition.  Clicked on options on loader- crash.  Try again- crash.  Loathe to create an account with a company who have a broken button on first screen.

May or may not get GW2.  Would prefer they patch in the fun to Diablo 3.

Supposedly the patch is this Tuesday.

Im sure they are rushing it in b4 GW2 so that would make sense

Heh. D3 is seeming more and more like a good game to win on Normal and then wait a year for Blizzard to get their heads out of their asses and make the replays on higher difficulties fun.

Ithey can get this out Tuesday I'll play it the 4 days b4 GW2

Whenever Blizzard does their design theory fluff talks one of the major points is how everything is supposed to feel overpowered. Actually most of the points they make in those talks they've been ignoring for several years.

The first two difficulties are joke level easy right now. Boring with how easy they are really. And I hear they have now undone not only the damage buff for playing not solo but the some amount of the hp buff as well? I can't even imagine how easy the game would be with 3-4 people.

Well if you're all done because you found the game so trivially easy I'm sure you won't mind them adjusting it so mere mortals can enjoy it.

Until I see a patch note that says "We have greatly increased the drop rate of set items/legendaries" I'm completely disinterested in playing.  In D2 a few hours of Mephisto runs would net me at least half a dozen uniques + half a dozen set items (and this was with low mf).   I have played over 100 hours of D3 and have not had a single set or legendary item drpp for me.  All I see is wave after wave of crappy yellows that never seem to have the affixes I need so I have to hit theAH to advance.

Maybe they should include a mode where you have massively increased legendary/set item drop rates but you can't play with other players or use the AH with that character?  That would make me very happy.  The stupid RMAH and regular AH ruined this game.

What Amiable said.  I had fun getting drops and loot but when I realized that yellows were shit and I'd never see a set/ legendary I gave up.   You have to spend more time getting gear in this game than a DIKU MMO where people bitch endlessly about loot access.

I keep thinking that this patch is going to highly reward high end players who farm in a tight nit group, 3 players with max MF and 1 player to kick the crap out of the mobs, split loot evenly at the end.

I have a couple of unidentified legendaries in my chest. I wonder if they will benefit from this?

I guess I'll have to log in again someday to find out.

Nope - unidentified legendaries do not get the new stats.

I'll wait until they do! Surely some future patch, surely.

Paragon System is stuppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppid.

Ack.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6968517/Introducing_the_Paragon_System-8_20_2012

I'm not seeing the stupid. The system seems pretty good to me.

Hellgate: London had this exact system....  :awesome_for_real:

So they are adding more levels without adding levels, and capping MF at 300%.

Can somebody detail the supposed pros and cons of this system?

Pros:

More levels to grind
Makes magic find obsolete

Cons:

More levels to grind
Makes magic find obsolete

Seems like a good method to give people a way to progress while playing.

What's bad about it? I'm confused.

It's not terribly surprising to me that they would raise the level cap in the future, although what is surprising to me is that this is coming in a patch rather than an expansion.

(I still have doubts that the team really understands the problems of their game, though).

I think this is why this is bad.  It's not adding anything at all except for another...what? 100 strength?

Diluting the magic find versus raw power decision with Paragon levels is completely not understanding what makes Diablo tick and is a silly way to address the mf gear switchers issue. 

Adding 100 levels of nothing but a few stat points is not a good "end game" solution. 

I still play on occassion, but man it sure is one step forward with the legendary fixes and one step back with the Paragon system.

They heard that people don't like how stagnant/grindy endgame can feel because they get good drops so rarely, so they decided to let them have levels every so foten to make it feel like they were progressing even when the drops sucked.  I get the idea, but it would've been better to, you know, make drops suck less.

The only fix they need to add is the reintroduce rune levels, the system they originally had had each rune with L1-L7.

The rune levels didn't just add damage, they added more shit, like the old diablo 2 system.

L1 magic missile was 1 magic missile.

L2 was 2.

L7 was fucking 7 magic missiles.

They were working on this for every rune in the game, they had animations and graphics and specs already drawn up.  Then they dropped them for a 'simpler system" by making the runes in the game about equal to a level 3 rune of this system.

Want to fix Diablo 3 end game, add L7 as a rare modifier on rares and uniques.  Now, I just looted a crystal ball that gives me 7 magic missiles but haven't used that spell since level 8.  Damn, I kinda want to use it! Whoa, what a cool thing to use! I'm going to go find loot that makes this magic missile spec viable now! Hell, add level runes as skill modifiers to a huge level range.  Maybe that L7 magic missile rolls on a lower end item, now I have to make a choice if it's worth losing some vitality and crit damage to gain a few more missiles.

Boom - you've just increased up to L60.

tl;dr - the only thing they need to add is MORE item variability not LESS item variability by phasing out MF.

At least this opens the possibility for ladders that can reset every few months.  That whole feeling of starting the game over again with a crapload of people is what I find compelling.

Man I have been spending ALL my gold on getting unbuffed MF to 300 w/o having to gear swap in act I (and most of 2), I am currently at 286 (should be 287 but teh blizz can't add) and each additional point is costing me millions.  I was so sure they were just going to nerf gear swap and buff NV, then they go do something retarded like this.


edit - btw who thinks this shit up?  Loot is broken so let us just let people level stats so they don't need loot.

Out of all the MF solutions they suggested, this seems the most elegant. Your already-acquired MF gear is still useful, and will continue to be useful for a long time. As you slowly gain levels you can start replacing some pieces. Eventually (long-term) you won't need any MF gear. Unless you expected to play another 1000 hours without upgrading any gear, I don't see what the complaint is.

As for the stat increases, we have no idea how big of a boost you'll get per level. If it's a small boost, it won't impact your character much but at least you'll feel like you're progressing.

While I'm not going to say this is perfect end-game solution, or even a good one, it's substantially better than what they had before which was nothing. Out of all the 1.0.4 changes this one seems the most promising to me. Still doesn't really help with their boring loot, but it's progress.

This is the one thing I want most but will never get, sadly.

I slightly over-reacted, I read Paelos' comment on a 300 cap and assumed it was inclusive of NV which it is not.  It is still a bit of a let down as I had visions of 400+ MF & buffed legendaries dancing through my head.  I also am less than thrilled as I feel the most fun solution to the problem would be to fix the actual loot instead of buffing the raw character to be less dependant on loot.  

There are plenty of ways they can fix loot, for starters it would be awesome if they made it so the affixes could only have at most 1 core stat + vit (so 2 core stats but if there were 2 one would be vit).  And holy fuck why not remove Life Steal from 60+ weapons (or entirely) since they nerfed the living crap out of it for inferno anyhow, one less affix to compete with something useful.

They will fix loot, they just won't fix it in this patch. It's not like they are ignoring the issues of itemization.

Diablo isn't diablo without useless stats anyways.  The problem is more that the retarded difficulty and the auction house lead to an expectation of perfect gear. That is why they need a limited trade ladder reset more than anything else.  The gear people have is already too good really.

Stats are rolled on drop, not identify.

I just read the Paragon stuff.  One hundred AA levels?  What?

(http://cdn.pastemagazine.com/www/articles/Borderlands2.jpg?1337339241)

I kind of felt that way about the idea of getting to level 99 in D2.

I am excited.  Loving everything about this patch and extremely optimistic for the future.

Yeah I don't know what's pissing people off about paragon levels, but it seems to give people at the top something to achieve even if the drops don't work during that play session.

I like the idea in theory. We'll see how the execution goes.

You're breaking my heart, you know.

I think what bothers me about the Paragon thing is that it isn't really a thing.  All it adds are 100 ding/grats.  Which in my mind is only sort of a thing.  If those ding/grats actually added something meaningful, then it would be worthy of my excitement.  Instead it's just a treadmill that adds 100 meager stat points and replaces something I already had.  I guess I appreciate that this is probably a better way of implementing magic find in an abstract sense.  But that alone isn't enough to get me excited about it.

And still, nowhere have I seen anyone accept responsibility for the game's biggest flaw.  And that is how the RMAH adversely affects game balance.

If you were already gear swapping then yea it doesn't add anything.  For those of us who don't gear swap it gives us an extra slot on pieces to work with.  That's a lot more than a few hundred stat points.

So any opinions on the whole some servers are better than others for drops theory?  I can see the devs taking some sort of seed once shortcut maybe especially as some sort of cop out to random dungeon creation.   In the past I have also noticed that once my MF was above 200ish my legendary drops started coming in pairs (and tied to better drops all around for that run) more often than not.

Over the weekend I did pay some extra attention to what servers I was on and the loot did seem to be better on the even .7x servers but I only really completed 9 or 10 butcher runs with legendaries dropping on .72 and .38, not a very large sample to be sure but still somewhat interesting.

I am also getting a hunch that a possible indication of a "good" server is the presence of an elite mob in the ACT 1 graveyard.

When you're talking drop rates as low as legendaries, you are going to need thousands of samples to draw any kind of conclusion. I suspect it is "Onyxia deep breathes more" myth, though.

I don't think people realize how easy it is to use RNGs (not the writing of the function part, which isn't something a game dev will bother doing, but actually using it.)  Your shit starts up, you toss that bad boy the current time or whatever the fuck, and bam, now you get random numbers.  The only time you're realistically going to see randomness failing is when you use those random results incorrectly in your code (Asheron's Call did something like this where certain players almost always drew aggro or something, as I recall).  Despite the outcry of random numbers "not being random", that's extremely misleading, and arguably untrue.  I could babble about this for hours, but the short version is that "true randomness" as an object quality of something may not even exist, and the fact that we can't be certain if they exist illustrates the fact that it doesn't matter whether your RNG is "truly random" or not.  If you can't figure out the pattern behind the numbers, then they are random.  With readily-available RNGs, you cannot figure out the pattern.  Even if you could, once multiple players are hitting that same RNG, and each player is doing an unpredictable number of things constantly, you once again can't figure it out because you don't know the pattern of the requests for random numbers.

If you're seeing tendencies and vague connections, you're almost certainly not seeing anything at all.  If you see overwhelming, near-constant repetition and easily exploitable patterns, then you might actually have found a problem.  But it will have nothing to do with "seeds."  Even if you did seed an RNG in D3 with the same number every time, you'd have to make sure to do the same exact actions every time to get the same results.  Otherwise your results would once again be totally random.

I think the one server instance is better than the other has some weight, but from my experience it has more to do with the # of elite packs and champions present (and possibly their level).  Seems like when I land on one of the blogged about preferred IP's the ACT 1 cemetery always has 6-7 champ/elites and is almost immediately identifiable as good because there is a champion right at the waypoint.

Also talking about the RNG in theory w/o some coder effing it up, a fine example of this is the online poker site that had their shuffle cracked.  They were seeding fine but screwed everything up by trying to account for every possible shuffle combo with a 32 bit int.