Diablo III Catch-All

I wish I was able to pass my beta key on to someone with the time and inclination to participate now. The D3 dream is dead for me but I can see that there are still a lot of people looking forward to it. I guess that's one of the disadvantages to associating with battle.net accounts. I'll email Blizz an see what they say about it.

Jack Malleus wrote:

I wish I was able to pass my beta key on to someone with the time and inclination to participate now. The D3 dream is dead for me but I can see that there are still a lot of people looking forward to it. I guess that's one of the disadvantages to associating with battle.net accounts. I'll email Blizz an see what they say about it.

Somewhere, Grenn is weeping and furiously looking up how to steal your identity.

No response from Blizzard as yet... Sorry Grenn I doubt they'll be able to do anything, but I feel I owe it to my fellow Diablo addicts.

Jack Malleus wrote:

No response from Blizzard as yet... Sorry Grenn I doubt they'll be able to do anything, but I feel I owe it to my fellow Diablo addicts.

It's ok. I'll just buy it when it comes out. Whenever that is.

I actually love the new change. Previously leveling up seemed like a non-event. But now every single level grants you at least a new skill or a new rune. So in that respect, leveling up is now very fun and worth it.

I was disappointed that runes as items were removed but then again, even thinking about each skill having 5 different runes and each rune having 5 ranks... inventory would have been unmanageable. Not to mention the frustration I would have by not being able to find the 1rune I was hoping for ... and having to surf the AH and find it for sale at sky high prices... yep I think patch 13 will save me and many others a lot of frustration.

Also it is important to realize that each of the 5 runes for every skill has a different effect on the skill. This means the animation is different and its wonderful!!! Base Magic Missile to the runed Magic Missile you get at lvl 6 was a huge upgrade, and same goes with Arcane orb. You literally can see the difference.

I can't wait to try out the other classes. My only gripe is that they should remove skill cooldowns when switching skill in town.

I wonder if it wouldn't be more interesting to unlock rune slots, so to speak. So instead of getting Multishot for Poison Dart as the level 6 Witch Doctor rune, you get to pick a rune to unlock for some skill that you already have. You still would only get one, but you'd get to pick which one.

Jack Malleus wrote:

The D3 dream is dead for me

I haven't really followed D3, but what happened? Did the game not turn out good, or personal reasons?

I'm not sure what I think about the updates to the skill system yet (IMO, they will tweak it further before release, as it just doesn't feel quite right). That said, I am really, really enjoying the beta, even with the limited item distribution and lack of runes/gems/etc. I have played through multiple times with each class, and it just *feels* like Diablo to me.

I can't wait for release, personally. Have faith, good sirs and/or maidens!

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

I wonder if it wouldn't be more interesting to unlock rune slots, so to speak. So instead of getting Multishot for Poison Dart as the level 6 Witch Doctor rune, you get to pick a rune to unlock for some skill that you already have. You still would only get one, but you'd get to pick which one.

I think having more choices like this would make the entire game more interesting. I'm still not sure where this entire "hardcore vs casual" debate came from. Skyrim has you make choices at every step of the levelling process (even between levels, with training), and no-one has described that as a "hardcore" levelling system. It also sold millions of copies, so clearly making the players make choices and think when they level up hasn't harmed its success.

The vanilla World of Warcraft had the balance set pretty right; the talent choices you made were "permanent" but you could be reset completely your talents at any time by spending X amount of gold. It also had the illusion of choice with which skills you spent your money on first (though almost everyone always had money to buy their unlocked skills immediately).

I really like the new skill/rune changes. I love the anticipation of something new every level and looking forward to new skill modifications, and it really added a level of fun that was missing before the latest patch.

That said, the new skill/rune UI sucks. It's workable, but there's no good way to see all the skill/rune combinations at a glance; you have to drill through a lot of screens to get a good look at what's available and what's coming. Fortunately I think Blizz agrees and we should see a new UI before launch.

I like that they've mixed up the skills you get prior to level 14 in the new patch. I tried out arcane barrage and it is a lot of fun. The demon hunter gets to test out strafe now and that is a blast too!

The wizard was fun pre-patch 13 but now it is amazing with arcane orb (runed and not), electrocute, and arcane barrage. Arcane barrage is great for getting big bonuses for destroying objects and scenery. It also can kill things on another level or around obstacles easily. I'd expect to hear some arcane barrage exploits shortly after release. I haven't seen or done any but I can forsee boss/elite kills from an untouchable perch.

The demon hunter was fun and improved also, albiet slightly less than the wizard. Chakram is still a blast, strafe is really cool (its like whirlwind but with a bigger radius), and the extra pierce% on hungering arrow makes it nicer and a better boss killer.

The witch doctor stayed the same but is still fun. Poison dart got so much more powerful with the triple shot rune effect. The leaping corpse spider rune is nice but the cosmetic change far exceeds the functional change. The +damage rune for graping dead is nice too (especially for those quick little crawlers and the pigmies that spawn when the bloated things explode)

I have not even touched the barbarian or monk after patch 13. I am much more obsessed with the wizard and demon hunter right now.

That said, the new skill/rune UI sucks. It's workable, but there's no good way to see all the skill/rune combinations at a glance; you have to drill through a lot of screens to get a good look at what's available and what's coming. Fortunately I think Blizz agrees and we should see a new UI before launch.

Yes the new UI for the skills is workable but much less optimal than prior to patch 13. As has been mentioned in many posts here and on the beta forums, it is much hard to see upcoming skills and runes. And it is even hard to track down the new ones you just got when you level up despite them even tagging things with a flashing "new" next to it. It was an attempt at a migration to gamepad friendly controls and it changed something that was fine to something barely usable.

Maybe it's a strange thing to ask for, but I wish they'd be more tight lipped about this stuff because their indecisiveness does nothing do inspire confidence in the game.

I totally concur. But I have played enough of the beta to know that they are going to have to try so much harder if their intention is to ruin the game as it stands.

Maybe it's a strange thing to ask for, but I wish they'd be more tight lipped about this stuff because their indecisiveness does nothing to inspire confidence in the game.

kyrieee wrote:

Maybe it's a strange thing to ask for, but I wish they'd be more tight lipped about this stuff because their indecisiveness does nothing to inspire confidence in the game.

So you'd be more confident if they said "this was a bad decision and isn't fun, but by God we've made that decision and we're sticking to it!"?

I for one like the fact that they're willing to throw out stuff that's not working. It'd be far worse if they were married to what they'd built and spent their time defending and justifying poor decisions instead of iterating to find what works.

Mex wrote:
Jack Malleus wrote:

The D3 dream is dead for me

I haven't really followed D3, but what happened? Did the game not turn out good, or personal reasons?

To be honest Mex, I preferred the rogue-lite elements of the Diablo series to the ultra-distilled, ilvled-to-the-nth-degree loot piñata that D3 is turning out to be. As I've said before, I really do appreciate the level of polish that's gone into it, but it's so shiny and smooth that I just can't get a handle on it now. It feels like they've stripped the personality out of the franchise and laid the ARPG time+money mechanic bare on the table. In short, they've put so much effort into refining their vision of the genre that all the edge cases have been pushed out...

Jack Malleus wrote:
Mex wrote:
Jack Malleus wrote:

The D3 dream is dead for me

I haven't really followed D3, but what happened? Did the game not turn out good, or personal reasons?

To be honest Mex, I preferred the rogue-lite elements of the Diablo series to the ultra-distilled, ilvled-to-the-nth-degree loot piñata that D3 is turning out to be. As I've said before, I really do appreciate the level of polish that's gone into it, but it's so shiny and smooth that I just can't get a handle on it now. It feels like they've stripped the personality out of the franchise and laid the ARPG time+money mechanic bare on the table. In short, they've put so much effort into refining their vision of the genre that all the edge cases have been pushed out...

Interesting because i felt D2 was a ilvled-to-the-nth-degree loot piñata game, and loved it for it. Also disagree they've stripped out the personality.

TBH unless there's 2 different levels of beta i dont see how anyone can think that yet because we see so little of the game in the beta version i play.

Comes down to personal preference i guess.

ranalin wrote:
Jack Malleus wrote:
Mex wrote:
Jack Malleus wrote:

The D3 dream is dead for me

I haven't really followed D3, but what happened? Did the game not turn out good, or personal reasons?

To be honest Mex, I preferred the rogue-lite elements of the Diablo series to the ultra-distilled, ilvled-to-the-nth-degree loot piñata that D3 is turning out to be. As I've said before, I really do appreciate the level of polish that's gone into it, but it's so shiny and smooth that I just can't get a handle on it now. It feels like they've stripped the personality out of the franchise and laid the ARPG time+money mechanic bare on the table. In short, they've put so much effort into refining their vision of the genre that all the edge cases have been pushed out...

Interesting because i felt D2 was a ilvled-to-the-nth-degree loot piñata game, and loved it for it. Also disagree they've stripped out the personality.

TBH unless there's 2 different levels of beta i dont see how anyone can think that yet because we see so little of the game in the beta version i play.

Comes down to personal preference i guess.

You make an excellent point about not judging the full game based on the beta Ran. Funnily enough, I run beta trials as a part of my day job, so the pungent scent of hypocrisy laces all of my comments :p The difference to me is that enterprise betas normally give you the full toolkit to play with and I also had wishful (and completely unfair) expectations that Blizzard would focus on the things that I like instead of the things that everyone else likes. 80/20 should only be applicable where I am the 80, damnit!

Ohhh just hit lvl 13 on my Wizard. Its sooooo good. Runes really up the power of your Skill and the graphics look slightly different too.

Arcane Torrent is really powerful. You click on a mob and it releases 3-4 heat seeking missiles that will track the target even if moving and hits for a ton of dmg. So its actually perfect for hard to kill single target mobs like bosses. If you click and hold, a constant stream of missiles gets released but your AP really drains. The only down side is that it takes about 1 second before they hit, so it's not immediate like Arcane Orb or Magic Missile.

2nd Rune for Magic Missile is the one that causes multiple missiles to be released. In this case 3 missiles get's fired per click and they fly out in an arc. Think the bowazon's Strife from D2. I can't really determine how many dmg each missile does, since I was lvl 13, all the mobs mostly died to it. But it does cover a larger spread than a single magic missile. Its a toss up if this is better than electrocute.

Also completed the beta patch 13 with my Demon Hunter up till level 8. I love his hungering arrow ability. No aiming required, you just need to fire in the general direction. The first rune - increases the Piercing of the arrow and its awesome, each arrow will not only seek out a target but potentially hit 2-3 of them (and it happens quite often). I used it exclusively till Leoric.

And while gold is now more scarce, its not that bad. I did about 6-8 Leroic runs last night and was since the quest gives you a nice chunk of gold, I was able to increase my stash size twice (that's 5000g total, 2500g each time) and level the blacksmith to level 2 (1000g, 250g each time). And of course a ton of hand me downs and gear ups for alts. Incidentally, that's also what it took me to level from 8 to 13 on my wizard. So its not that much grinding at all.

All in all very fun. If you need an idea of how addictive and fun it is, I sat down mostly to play a little bit of my wizard, expecting to be bored after 1 run since its a quest I've already done. But, the next thing I knew it was 3-4 hours later and I was still hooked. They have made joining public games really easy and fun.

If you get separated from your party member or you both went in different directions, you simply portal back to town, click on his flag and now you're right beside the guy. Comes in very very handy since sometimes you reach a dead end in your search for the next level, instead of walking all the way back, this saves a ton of time.

I like the idea of the flag system. In D2 when I would play it at LAN parties, there was constantly people saying, "Where are you?" Then someone would need to open a townportal. Sometimes you could enter the wrong one and end up somewhere completely random. It was painful.

Looks like they've added pause for single player. Parents of young children rejoice! Tested it this morning.

Hollowheel wrote:

Looks like they've added pause for single player. Parents of young children rejoice! Tested it this morning.

This is not the game they promised. I'm done with Bizzard forever.

Next thing you know they'll be removing the rainbows.

okie sillie dokio I'm an idiot.

Hollowheel wrote:

Looks like they've added pause for single player. Parents of young children rejoice! Tested it this morning.

Hurray! This had been a deal-breaker for me. On the other hand: "Damn you, Blizzard! I had made other plans for that $60."

Blizzard says that a release date announcement is "near".

In related news, Blizzard thinks their game needs more hype.

Tkyl wrote:

Blizzard says that a release date announcement is "near".

In related news, Blizzard thinks their game needs more hype.

Let's set a release date for the release date for the release date!

Grenn wrote:

okie sillie dokio I'm an idiot.

But I don't want a large farva, I wan't a damn literacola

Demyx wrote:
Tkyl wrote:

Blizzard says that a release date announcement is "near".

In related news, Blizzard thinks their game needs more hype.

Let's set a release date for the release date for the release date!

We need to go deeper.

MeatMan wrote:
Demyx wrote:
Tkyl wrote:

Blizzard says that a release date announcement is "near".

In related news, Blizzard thinks their game needs more hype.

Let's set a release date for the release date for the release date!

We need to go deeper.

Yo Dawg! I heard you liked Blizzard!

Is this the meeting to discuss the upcoming meeting?