08-21-2012, 04:49 PM
The game is getting easier for new players as time goes on. The low end gear in the AH is just getting better over time, and I see no reason why this would change. Breaking into inferno certainly isn't the problem - even somewhat wacky builds can do Act I. 3-5 Million can buy most classes into act 2 and the ability to slowly push through act 3 with an appropriate build. That might sound like a lot of money but it actually feels like a reasonable progression to me as even without getting lucky and finding something to sell you can make enough money to buy something new after every play session.
The big progression problem comes after the initial investment in the AH. It starts to feel like a tedious exercise in spreadsheets. I feel like I have to be aware of the range of values for all the stats you want for each equipment slot and it's still a guessing game which slot to search for upgrades in. This is really just an interface problem, but a hard one. I want to tell the AH that I have 1M to spend and that the stats I care about are str, vit, resist all, resist phys, armor, life on hit, crit, and crit damage: go find me a list of pieces that don't sacrifice too much in any one area and have a higher combined total.
The AH works great as a way to let me easily try out variations on builds for act I inferno. It let's people "catch up" and break into act 1 inferno quickly if they want to. It seems great as a way for the really high end people to trade items for amounts of money I may never have. It just falls down for me as a progression path.
I'm mostly excited about the coming patch. Reducing the damage and nerfing some of the pack mods that caused problems for me will indirectly help with any gearing problems. I wish the class skill balancing would have gone a little farther, but I like the changes I see. The new legendary items seem interesting. However the drop rate for legendary items is pretty low currently. I guess the idea is I'm expected to grind out 20-50 paragon levels to get magic find to address this. I hope that makes some people happy, but it doesn't really excite me.
The big progression problem comes after the initial investment in the AH. It starts to feel like a tedious exercise in spreadsheets. I feel like I have to be aware of the range of values for all the stats you want for each equipment slot and it's still a guessing game which slot to search for upgrades in. This is really just an interface problem, but a hard one. I want to tell the AH that I have 1M to spend and that the stats I care about are str, vit, resist all, resist phys, armor, life on hit, crit, and crit damage: go find me a list of pieces that don't sacrifice too much in any one area and have a higher combined total.
The AH works great as a way to let me easily try out variations on builds for act I inferno. It let's people "catch up" and break into act 1 inferno quickly if they want to. It seems great as a way for the really high end people to trade items for amounts of money I may never have. It just falls down for me as a progression path.
I'm mostly excited about the coming patch. Reducing the damage and nerfing some of the pack mods that caused problems for me will indirectly help with any gearing problems. I wish the class skill balancing would have gone a little farther, but I like the changes I see. The new legendary items seem interesting. However the drop rate for legendary items is pretty low currently. I guess the idea is I'm expected to grind out 20-50 paragon levels to get magic find to address this. I hope that makes some people happy, but it doesn't really excite me.