Diablo III Catch-All 2.0

fangblackbone wrote:

I am torn on whether I'd like to see charms make a return. I really don't want to have to scour for +skill items to get to +20-40 to be competitive.

I'd be happy to skip charms entirely. Never did care for having to mess with those.

holy crap I just started playing again. Not to sound like a total baby gamer, but I'm really glad they improved survivability. I feel like I can solo now without having a huge repair bill and rage quitting every session.

ahrezmendi wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

One of the other nice things about d2's itemization is that there were more common white items that were not useless because they were worth 10x the gold of most items. (crowns, circlets and wands come to mind)

The flipside of this is that gold in D2 was completely worthless except on your very first character. There's a reason the player-based trading market was based on items and not gold.

I got into D2 fairly late (I think post-LOD), and didn't have an SOJ to my name.. Though there is probably no better economics lesson on the Gold Standard than teaching people the history of D2 gold, inflation and the SOJ

Carlbear95 wrote:
ahrezmendi wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

One of the other nice things about d2's itemization is that there were more common white items that were not useless because they were worth 10x the gold of most items. (crowns, circlets and wands come to mind)

The flipside of this is that gold in D2 was completely worthless except on your very first character. There's a reason the player-based trading market was based on items and not gold.

I got into D2 fairly late (I think post-LOD), and didn't have an SOJ to my name.. Though there is probably no better economics lesson on the Gold Standard than teaching people the history of D2 gold, inflation and the SOJ

Since I hardly played D2, care to tell the story of these SOJs?

Well someone or some blog can explain it much better than I can, but in short because of massive duping back in the days of D2 there was just way too much gold in the world, so it essentially became worthless.

Instead there was this ring that was extremely good, called the Stone of Jordan (SOJ). Since I don't think anything was unique back then you could hold onto multiples of these. Of course these were duped too, but then I *think* they basically never dropped anymore and Blizzard put in a quest where you could turn in SOJ's for some massive reward, which reduced its numbers further. Since gold was worthless SOJ's became the defacto currency as there were far fewer of those in existence. Ultimately I think those were duped too, and other things became the currency, but at least when I was playing they only way you could "buy" goods from another player was to trade SOJs.

So the econ lesson is basically by fixing value of money (Diablo gold) to a scarce object (an SOJ), it didn't matter how much gold was in the world... a "Sword of awesomeness" was worth 5 SOJs, regardless if an SOJ cost 100g or 100K gold, and you were better off holding SOJ's rather than gold pieces because as more gold game into the system via people playing more, it became worth less, but the SOJ's were fairly consistent.

Man, I'm on a roll. I just killed my second hardcore character but this one was because I was watching a stream at the same time and wasn't paying attention and stood around in poison. Stupid trees.

Carlbear95 wrote:

Well someone or some blog can explain it much better than I can, but in short because of massive duping back in the days of D2 there was just way too much gold in the world, so it essentially became worthless.

Instead there was this ring that was extremely good, called the Stone of Jordan (SOJ). Since I don't think anything was unique back then you could hold onto multiples of these. Of course these were duped too, but then I *think* they basically never dropped anymore and Blizzard put in a quest where you could turn in SOJ's for some massive reward, which reduced its numbers further. Since gold was worthless SOJ's became the defacto currency as there were far fewer of those in existence. Ultimately I think those were duped too, and other things became the currency, but at least when I was playing they only way you could "buy" goods from another player was to trade SOJs.

So the econ lesson is basically by fixing value of money (Diablo gold) to a scarce object (an SOJ), it didn't matter how much gold was in the world... a "Sword of awesomeness" was worth 5 SOJs, regardless if an SOJ cost 100g or 100K gold, and you were better off holding SOJ's rather than gold pieces because as more gold game into the system via people playing more, it became worth less, but the SOJ's were fairly consistent.

It went beyond the SoJ even. Eventually the trading system settled around runes and the runeword system. Runes and runewords were introduced after the duping bugs had been fixed, so those provided a truly fixed currency. Now it's based on a combination of Runes and Perfect Gems, as you can see here.

Runes were jumped on as trading currency because they have a known value in what runewords they can construct. It's easy to look at a Godly Plate of the Whale and compare what stats you get from it with what you get from the best runewords.

I played what I thought was a lot of Diablo II, but it was mostly coop with friends and sometimes single-player. We tired of the game right around when the expansion came out, so it's interesting to hear about all this market stuff and currencies. None of us paid any attention to anything like that at all, instead just giving each other all the equipment we didn't want.

For all the issues the AH in D3 may have, part of its design intent was to avoid what happened in D2, and I think it not only succeeds in doing that but is a much better system for having done it. It prevents gold from devaluing the way it did in D2, and it also provides an understandable system, even for relatively new players, to buy equipment from other people.

Well all the talk of legendary drop increases, and I hit this lucky drop! And shockingly, you don't see it here but there was another elite pack right after this that dropped another legendary! Crazy stuff.

IMAGE(http://imageshack.us/a/img703/1564/screenshot000qk.jpg)

Of course none of it was very useful.. the last legendary was a shield that has a -3 lev requirement so maybe I can get a few coins for that.

Pretty sure I'm going to unfavorite this thread. It's been a slice, fellas, but D3 is just a bad game I doubt I will put any more time into. Sorry Carl, I really enjoyed playing with you, mostly cause you're badass, not cause of the game.

Its so strange. I get my ass handed to me on MP3 solo, but rip through MP4 in a group. When looking for a public game, does the MP level you set for solo affect what MP level you get in?

Grenn wrote:

Its so strange. I get my ass handed to me on MP3 solo, but rip through MP4 in a group. When looking for a public game, does the MP level you set for solo affect what MP level you get in?

Monster Power isn't active in Public games. only solo and private. If you're joining public games, you're at MP0.

Carlbear95 wrote:
Grenn wrote:

Its so strange. I get my ass handed to me on MP3 solo, but rip through MP4 in a group. When looking for a public game, does the MP level you set for solo affect what MP level you get in?

Monster Power isn't active in Public games. only solo and private. If you're joining public games, you're at MP0.

So not so strange, then.

So apparently, a good way to make gold is by selling gems? Maybe not knowing that is why I have yet to break a million gold yet. (at one time)

Just made a 200K profit in about 20 minutes...

Farscry wrote:

10-to-1 odds that the expansion brings back Diablo 2's runes+runeword system or something very very similar.

10-1? That's it? I can't imagine them not doing that in the expansion. Jewels will probably be back as well. Not sure about Charms though.

JillSammich wrote:

So apparently, a good way to make gold is by selling gems? Maybe not knowing that is why I have yet to break a million gold yet. (at one time)

Just made a 200K profit in about 20 minutes...

Are you sure? Are you adding tomes and crafting costs and gem costs etc? Last time I checked it was like 200k profit but only on the 20 million gems, and even then it wasn't that great because you could lose money if the price shifted even a little...

I just ran across this on Quarter to Three, and frankly it's just stated so well that I feel it's quite worth sharing here.

It's a long image, so I'm spoiler-tagging it to keep from making it look like I puked all over the thread.

[edit]GAH. Sorry. Apparently you can't spoiler-tag an image.

Click THIS LINK to view the image I'm talking about here. Really hits home on the majority of the reasons I find the itemization in D3 so disappointing after D2 and now after getting into Torchlight 2.

Mex wrote:
JillSammich wrote:

So apparently, a good way to make gold is by selling gems? Maybe not knowing that is why I have yet to break a million gold yet. (at one time)

Just made a 200K profit in about 20 minutes...

Are you sure? Are you adding tomes and crafting costs and gem costs etc? Last time I checked it was like 200k profit but only on the 20 million gems, and even then it wasn't that great because you could lose money if the price shifted even a little...

I started crafting my gems with 500K, crafted 3 or 4 radiant squares, which brought me down to about 350K. I put them in the AH. When they sold, it brought me to 700K. They moved pretty fast too. It may be that I just caught the market when gems were selling high, but it's the first time I've tried, so I dunno

Farscry wrote:

Click THIS LINK to view the image I'm talking about here. Really hits home on the majority of the reasons I find the itemization in D3 so disappointing after D2 and now after getting into Torchlight 2.

Some good points, like the DPS > all, primary stat, and skill damage based on weapons. However, some of the comparisons are made against LOD and version 1.10 which I don't think are fair... yet.

shoptroll wrote:

However, some of the comparisons are made against LOD and version 1.10 which I don't think are fair... yet.

Yup, I do agree with you on that point. I'm still waiting for the D3 expansion with hopes that they still have the chance to fix some of the flaws in D3's design (it's not the core game code that's the problem; it's mostly stuff they can fix with patches and/or expansions).

I do wonder why we have to wait for Blizzard to release an expansion to re-apply the results of all the lessons learned during Diablo II's expansion cycle... Instead of using control of the item market as a core design philosophy they should have used the reasons *behind* that market to drive development. This is a very interesting case of fundamental design decisions cascading throughout seemingly tangential areas and internal systems, resulting in a different user paradigm to that which was expected in many cases.

tldr; Blizzard should have focused on the game itself and not the MMO-inspired cash grab.

DC Malleus wrote:

Instead of using control of the item market as a core design philosophy they should have used the reasons *behind* that market to drive development. This is a very interesting case of fundamental design decisions cascading throughout seemingly tangential areas and internal systems, resulting in a different user paradigm to that which was expected in many cases.

What

tldr; Blizzard should have focused on the game itself and not the MMO-inspired cash grab.

Oooooh. Yeah. Yeah!

DC Malleus wrote:

I do wonder why we have to wait for Blizzard to release an expansion to re-apply the results of all the lessons learned during Diablo II's expansion cycle...

Arrogance. New team tried to re-invent the wheel, ended up with a square, and they keep coming back to Diablo II's design as they round off the corners.

shoptroll wrote:
DC Malleus wrote:

I do wonder why we have to wait for Blizzard to release an expansion to re-apply the results of all the lessons learned during Diablo II's expansion cycle...

Arrogance. New team tried to re-invent the wheel, ended up with a square, and they keep coming back to Diablo II's design as they round off the corners.

As much as I give the game crap for what it gets wrong -- and I'm probably the most vocal long-term detractor in the thread -- I don't actually agree with the assessment that this was due to arrogance. They were trying to do what they thought they should: keep the core of the experience similar (fast-paced action rpg gameplay with loot-chasing and highly varied classes), but try giving players something new at the same time. I actually like that they tried that, and some of what they came up with was outstanding. I still completely love the skill customization options (the rune bit, letting you have a core skill that has multiple options to tweak it), I like the addition of environmental "traps" the player can use against the enemies (and want to see more of that), I like having semi-randomized quests again like Diablo 1 (and Diablo 3 took it a little further, but could use even more of that kind of content) and the semi-randomized locations (caves & ruins and such that aren't always there). I actually like the health orb mechanic, since you still have potions to help with tight spots, but it's not a potion-chugging-festival like Diablo 2 sometimes tended to turn into. I like the tweaking of hirelings, where you can pick some skills for them to adjust them to fit your playstyle a little; I also like having quest-specific npc companions to run along with you at times.

See, there were things that the devs came up with that were nice, positive additions or changes to the game. It's just that the drawbacks were fairly significant as well (and I'll spare you guys having to listen to me list those out again ;)). I think that, aside from the shoehorning in of the auction house monetization attempt, the devs were pretty above board in their intentions, and I appreciate that they tried to do right by giving us a solid new experience after such a long wait. I just wish they had been more attentive to the detracting voices and looked more critically at the merits of the complaints being levied against the game.

Edit: It's quite telling, as Fyedaddy has commented to me not too long ago, that while Diablo 3 should have been a shoe-in for my favorite game of the year, it didn't even make my top ten. That's not to say it's a bad game, it's just not one that I found particularly good. I put in well over 100 hours, and it's still installed and gets played by me periodically, but it's not close to how great the ~15 games were that I really loved this past year.

Wow, I completely agree with everything Farscry said there.

D3 + D2 customization + D1 random quests - D3 loot always being too low and needing to be auctioned = Game of the Decade.

I know it's a long shot, but anybody care to help me run Belial in the next hour of so? I keep getting him down to about a quarte health and his bombs destroy me. I just can't evade them all.

JillSammich wrote:

I know it's a long shot, but anybody care to help me run Belial in the next hour of so? I keep getting him down to about a quarte health and his bombs destroy me. I just can't evade them all.

Sure friend me up, krev#1705

krev82 wrote:
JillSammich wrote:

I know it's a long shot, but anybody care to help me run Belial in the next hour of so? I keep getting him down to about a quarte health and his bombs destroy me. I just can't evade them all.

Sure friend me up, krev#1705

Sweet. Thanks. Let me quit this game of FTL and I'll be on in a few.

JillSammich wrote:

Sweet. Thanks. Let me quit this game of FTL and I'll be on in a few.

You must be new here [size=6]Seriously though, no rush.[/size]