Diablo III

[Dom_]

Loving it so far - not had much time on it yet but have almost cleared act 2 on nightmare (hate act 2...). Unlocked the secret pony level yesterday, which is awesome! Playing DH

[bondbill2k2]

Well I purchased Diablo 3 at the weekend, only around an hour in with a wizard but it seems great. Being a total Noob to Dibalo and this style of game I was unsure if i'd like it but its great fun!

Yet to play with people online but several mates from WoW and Starcraft are on my battlenet

[AMLinington]

This is the first time I've played a Diablo game. Seasoned Diablo players in our office are complaining that it's a bit 'samey' but I think Diablo III is gorgeous. The backdrops and cinematics are beautifully done and the game is lush to look at. Having never played Diablo before I am enjoying learning the game and it's great to have a game like this I can pause. I am a seasoned WoW player though and still love my MMORPG, but Diablo is great fun and to pick it up where I left off is nice. I do wish there were more quests available though. There are massive areas of land and random dungeons just 'lying around' in the terrain and it would be great if there were quests or objectives you could pick up around them (like refugees begging you to rescue kidnapped children or something) otherwise it's very tempting to go A to B on the main quest objective / quest line without exploring these beautifully crafted areas. There are some dungeon objectives but you have to go quite far in before you find them so you have to decide - Am I going to spend time exploring here with possibly no purpose or am I going to progress the quest and storyline (I like progressing the storyline at a reasonable pace as I am keen to find out what happens next)? It also annoys me a bit that the map areas you have already explored don't remain 'visible' when you next log in - you have to explore it all again to be able to 'see' the map. But otherwise it's great. Having both Diablo III and WoW to play pretty much satisfies all my gaming needs. I did stupidly buy a copy of Star Wars : Old Republic but I've become very very bored with it. I'm waiting until it does what Star Trek online does and goes Free-to-play. I might go back to it then.

[sonofsanta]

Am I going to spend time exploring here with possibly no purpose or am I going to progress the quest and storyline

 

The entire purpose of Diablo has always been the shiny shiny, though, and some of the random dungeons can be treasure troves... the real meat of the game, at least in D2, was Nightmare and into Hell, so play through quickly for the story on normal, and then start running round repeating dungeons for loot once you get to a decent level where you'll get decent drops.

 

I can probably close my eyes and do a Bloody Hills run entirely in my head, still. And always go clockwise from the Durance of Hate Level 2 waypoint, 90% of the time the stairs down to Mephisto were just round the corner in that direction

[AMLinington]

The entire purpose of Diablo has always been the shiny shiny, though, and some of the random dungeons can be treasure troves... the real meat of the game, at least in D2, was Nightmare and into Hell, so play through quickly for the story on normal, and then start running round repeating dungeons for loot once you get to a decent level where you'll get decent drops.

 

I'd understand this if it were a MMORPG where your gear level MATTERS. Where how epic your gear is will directly impact the raids you do and the groups you get. It also affects the respect other players afford you. In Diablo you are getting shiny-shiny for shiny-shiny's sake. To me, a newbie to Diablo, the game to me is about the Story. It's about the progression of the story from beginning to end. Upgrading my gear is a bonus sideline. Perhaps I have not been playing long enough to really appreciate it or perhaps it is the different way I think about games or my own personal gaming style. To me, PvP is horrible, I never do PvP in WoW. I love raids and dungeons, I love to progress in content and to do this I need to progress my gear. I can't do that pottering around in random places and killing mobs. Diablo III turns that on it's head - you HAVE to potter about killing things to get gear and level enough to progress the story, which is great as a single-player game. Why then would you hammer through the story (which is the bit I enjoy the most) only to farm for good gear at higher difficulty levels which ultimately you don't do anything with. You've already killed the bosses so why are you farming loot? Perhaps I've just not grasped the Diablo concept yet or perhaps my gaming style and preferences don't match up with it. I don't know.

 

Although I do have to ask: If I complete a quest chain in 'normal', when I go back to an area all the mobs I killed are still dead, so there are no more mobs to kill. Lets say I complete the story then switch to nightmare mode, will the previously seen areas re-spawn at nightmare level? Do I have to start the quest chain again in each mode? If so, will the mobs and drops scale with my level?

[sonofsanta]

I can't speak for D3, I haven't got it yet, but I did lose a good couple of years to D2 online with a friend.

 

Ultimately it is a very hollow game - you are just chasing bigger numbers for the sake of the bigger numbers. Somehow, though, it taps into the lizard part of the brain that loves that risk/reward - it is really just a fruit machine in game form.

 

What drives you, though, is not just levelling for the sake of levelling - it's to stand a chance in the final difficulty level. In D2 at least, Hell Acts 4 & 5 could be brutal, and you needed to level and get the best equipment you could to make any progress. The best way to do that was to farm certain areas - the start of Act 5 for experience & the end boss of Act 3 for gear were the most efficient - to try and get you ready to face the mobs in later acts.

 

(edit to add, as that didn't really answer the question: by the time you get to the end of normal, you're only just starting out on the power curve of your class. In D2 you often finished the game before you'd unlocked your final tier of skills, so although you know the story, you push forward to build the character, and the joy of ever growing power. A high level multishot amazon with a freezing bow was a glorious thing when you got there.)

 

Although I do have to ask: If I complete a quest chain in 'normal', when I go back to an area all the mobs I killed are still dead, so there are no more mobs to kill. Lets say I complete the story then switch to nightmare mode, will the previously seen areas re-spawn at nightmare level? Do I have to start the quest chain again in each mode? If so, will the mobs and drops scale with my level?

 

Nightmare mode etc. are basically New Game Plus - you are starting the game over, but with an existing character, harder enemies, and better loot drops. Everything restarts, everything scales, the risks and the rewards.

 

In D2 as well, at least, every time you started a new game - session, really - a new map was generated and refilled with mobs to slaughter. Is that not the case anymore? We used to roll a new map every ten minutes or so and rush through the same areas commiting genocide, if they've taken farming like that out that's a pretty fundamental shift from D2.

Edited May 29, 2012 by sonofsanta
wandering apostrophes, and extra stuff

[DMcGuigan]

I'd understand this if it were a MMORPG where your gear level MATTERS.

 

Once you get to the higher difficulties (hell and inferno mainly) your gear is going to matter a LOT. It'll get to the point where one hit will kill you, the gear can turn this into 3-4 if you're lucky

 

Although I do have to ask: If I complete a quest chain in 'normal', when I go back to an area all the mobs I killed are still dead, so there are no more mobs to kill. Lets say I complete the story then switch to nightmare mode, will the previously seen areas re-spawn at nightmare level? Do I have to start the quest chain again in each mode? If so, will the mobs and drops scale with my level?

 

Regardless, of difficulty level, you can force the monsters to respawn by restarting the selected quest, so if you decide you want to farm Act IV, you just select quest one, farm, and reselect it again when you wish to restart. When you start nightmare mode, you will have to start the game from scratch. The Risen in Act I were taking 3-4 hits from my level 34 Barb when I started, the final demons in Act IV on normal were taking about the same, so yes, the enemies do scale. But on the plus side, so does loot!

 

EDIT beaten to it it would seem

[Disease]

I got Diablo 3 free with my WOW subscription, lvl 9 witch doctor at the moment, enjoying it.

[SHimmer45]

witch doctor appears to be very fragile if cornered, im a level 9 but my gear is poor. Jumping spiders are fun

 

is it me or does the DH seem OP in the lower levels?

[SHimmer45]

also anyone found a use for the "tooths" you get when salvaging?

 

mate wasnt amused as the game brings a 3/4 yr old intel Mac to its knees....

[DMcGuigan]

Yeah, the teeth are required to make the rare (yellow) crafting items at the blacksmith on Normal Difficulty.

[SHimmer45]

ahh fair enough only on the 3rd level of the blacksmith, been using lower level chars to grind areas for cash to fund the smith.

[DMcGuigan]

You don't really need to grind for him, by the end of Normal you'll have enough gold playing normally to get him to level 5. From there on you'll need pages of blacksmithing (which only drop on Nightmare) and gold to level him up.

[rob101]

I have a level 55 Barb and have just started act 2 on hell, im getting my ass kicked so bad to the point if I meet a big bad group or blue/gold monster i get owned in a few hits. i have found that farming leorics manor is very good for building up your gear for the difficulty your on, I was going from dead in 1-5 hits to lasting much longer just from getting gear from this area and a little respec on ability's.

 

I cant help but think the Barb is way underpowered though, I was playing with a wizard friend last night who is 5 levels below me and he was doing much better, the gear you need to use with the Barb needs to be top notch with high resist to stand any chance of staying alive and i dread to think how hard Inferno is going to be. I like a challenge though.

 

Is any one else finding the Blacksmiths gear a little poor in relation to how much it costs to upgrade him each time, drops from gold/blue monsters seem to be much better!

[Dom_]

Yeah - the BS has been rubbish for me so far... one tip I do have, is to vender all your blues and yellows (or auction yellows with decent stats for lowish buyouts, then buy dust if you want to craft anything... Most blues sell for 100+, and you can buy dust for around 24g, so for every blue you get at least 4 dusts rather than the 1 you'd get for salvaging

[SHimmer45]

in D2 found the barb suffered in the later levels unless gear was good because its the need for him to be in direct contact with the mobs which is where the gear is so important, the casters/ranged suffered less from this.

[DMcGuigan]

in D2 found the barb suffered in the later levels unless gear was good because its the need for him to be in direct contact with the mobs which is where the gear is so important, the casters/ranged suffered less from this.

 

It works much in the same way for D3, barbs in inferno are killed in about 3-4 hits sometimes, whereas the wizards are able to solo the full thing. They've since nerfed the wizard's force armor, it was essentially making them invincible with the right build

[ZeroHour]

mate wasnt amused as the game brings a 3/4 yr old intel Mac to its knees....

If he hasnt already tell him to try bootcamp as OSX is generally very poor for games performance. WoW on mac ran at 30 fps, on the same kit in windows it was at 70fps.

[AMLinington]

Is any one else finding the Blacksmiths gear a little poor in relation to how much it costs to upgrade him each time, drops from gold/blue monsters seem to be much better!

 

Yes, the Blacksmith it very poor for the money. I don't think I've used a single item from him yet as its too poor and I have collected better in the world.

[rob101]

Yes, the Blacksmith it very poor for the money. I don't think I've used a single item from him yet as its too poor and I have collected better in the world.

 

 

There seems to be a lot of game areas that need polishing for a game that took 10 years!

[GrumbleDook]

If he hasnt already tell him to try bootcamp as OSX is generally very poor for games performance. WoW on mac ran at 30 fps, on the same kit in windows it was at 70fps.

 

I've even found that running it under Parallels on my 3 year old MBP (with nowt else running) works better than on OSX. Thankfully the home desktop (iMac) now set up with BootCamp for most of my gamin needs ... just need to pick up a Win98 image again to run some games (last one died on an ageing external drive and the CD is scratched to hell).

[Valentine]

It works much in the same way for D3, barbs in inferno are killed in about 3-4 hits sometimes, whereas the wizards are able to solo the full thing. They've since nerfed the wizard's force armor, it was essentially making them invincible with the right build

 

Not quite invincible but it did make bosses a joke (some are still a joke on inferno without it). They seem to be trying to remove any abilities which enable you to finish the game currently Demon Hunters will probably get another nerf soon as they can still do it. I would say no class can kill all types of rare pack on inferno yet (at least not without dying a huge amount) but unfortunately teaming up with other people just makes all of you even less able to kill any of them rather than making it easier which they really need to fix.

Edited May 29, 2012 by Valentine

[DMcGuigan]

Not quite invincible but it did make bosses a joke. They seem to be trying to remove any abilities which enable you to finish the game currently Demon Hunters will probably get another nerf soon as they can still do it. I would say no class can kill all types of rare pack on inferno yet (at least not without dying a huge amount) but unfortunately teaming up with other people just makes all of you even less able to kill any of them rather than making it easier which they really need to fix.

 

I agree with their nerfs to be honest, it doesn't seem fair to have a totally overpowered character within 2 weeks who can solo top difficulty. For now I think the only way to do inferno SHOULD be to team up with a nice diverse group, but somewhere down the line, after gearing for a while, solo'ing should be completely viable for all classes. I'm currently playing Barbarian, and I've already noticed the difficulty ramp up significantly on Nightmare (really don't like any combination including mortar/molten/vortex/arcane empowered). I welcome the challenge though! I solo'd normal for the story, but multiplayer for me now with some friends.

 

Though currently grinding achievements... I love me some achievements

[SHimmer45]

as in bootcamp XP on the pc?

not really up with Macs

[bondbill2k2]

add me my battletag is bondbill2k2#2837