Patching 1.0.2c -- potentially nerfed mob damage

[Quark]

Augh quote splitting. I'm just curious about a few things.

I have done hundreds of Warden / Butcher runs with full Nephalem Valor stacks. It's not even challenging anymore - it's flat out boring.
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I've spent two solid weeks farming Act I and have jack to show for it save for a couple pieces that made a minor difference, and not nearly enough to get me even remotely comfortable in Act II.
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I've been doing this. Do you want to know how much I've spent on the Gold AH doing this, before the RMAH came out? Well over 2 million gold, and probably more than 3 million. I still can barely set foot in Act II. In order to buy any sort of upgrade I'm looking at 1 million plus per item, and I guarantee I'll need at least 3 new pieces to get anywhere in Act II

This just doesn't add up for me, at all. I've got *maybe* 20 Butcher runs in, probably less. I've easily made the 3 million you've spent on the AH. And I'm still finding deals for gear at 50k-250k. And I haven't done arbitrage on the AH at all, so that's not where I'm getting the gold from. Noting my own progress I don't see how you can still be stuck in Act 1 with hundreds of Butcher runs.

[MongoJerry]

[*]Set aside your barbarian and play another class up through Act 1 Inferno. I've had a ball on my Wizard, and it seems like the other classes are pretty fun to play as well. Or start a completely different barbarian from scratch, do not twink him or her at all, and use completely different skills.

Right. Set aside our primary class that some of us have invested well over a hundred hours into so that we can, what, get yet another class to the brick wall? What do we do then, play another class, and so on, and so on until we run out of classes? What if we find the first three difficulties boring due to a lack of challenge? What if we don't enjoy the other classes nearly as much? There needs to be some middle ground here.

Two weeks, Roland. Two weeks. That's about the timeframe for 1.0.3. I didn't say to delete your character. I suggested that you can set him or her aside for two weeks and try out something else until 1.0.3 comes out. There are lots of other things you can do in the next two weeks.

[Elric of Grans]

Roland's post sums up my thoughts almost exactly, though I will also add that the complete lack of skill balance. Every class has skills that are useless in Normal, even more struggle in Nightmare; by Hell, every class has to fall into one or two builds because nothing else is possible. Before anyone adds `everyone ran the same two builds in Diablo 2', that is not true. Powergamers ran the cookie cutter builds. I had an absolute blast with my Inferno-only Sorceress, until LoD introduced Fire Immunes. In fact, for the dozens of characters I made, not one was ever a cookie cutter build. Alternate skills were viable, if not optimal; Diablo 3 is so poorly balanced, that very little is viable.

[Lissa]

[*]Set aside your barbarian and play another class up through Act 1 Inferno. I've had a ball on my Wizard, and it seems like the other classes are pretty fun to play as well. Or start a completely different barbarian from scratch, do not twink him or her at all, and use completely different skills.

Right. Set aside our primary class that some of us have invested well over a hundred hours into so that we can, what, get yet another class to the brick wall? What do we do then, play another class, and so on, and so on until we run out of classes? What if we find the first three difficulties boring due to a lack of challenge? What if we don't enjoy the other classes nearly as much? There needs to be some middle ground here.

Two weeks, Roland. Two weeks. That's about the timeframe for 1.0.3. I didn't say to delete your character. I suggested that you can set him or her aside for two weeks and try out something else until 1.0.3 comes out. There are lots of other things you can do in the next two weeks.

As I've noted to Tal, Blizzard's QA has been steadily going down hill for years and it just gets worse and worse. Hearing how they decided to set the difficulty for Inferno tells me that Blizzard really is fairly clueless on how to balance things and didn't do the testing in house they said they did (otherwise immune minions would not have gotten into the game as they are now or there wouldn't have been this difficulty cliff being instituted from Act 1 to Act 2 and Act 2 to Act 3 and finally Act 3 to Act 4 in Inferno).

[FireIceTalon]

1. There aren't any game mechanics that can't be solved with appropriate use of player skills and better gear.

You know very well this isn't true. Inferno has shitloads of mechanics that take complete control away from the player regardless of gear and player ability.

[Elric of Grans]

Blizzard commented that they tested Inferno and tweaked it until their testers said it was right. They then doubled all the numbers, assuming their testers were not as hardcore as real players, and did not test the changes. If you halve everything, the curve across Inferno difficulties is probably smoother.

[Chesspiece_face]

1. There aren't any game mechanics that can't be solved with appropriate use of player skills and better gear.

You know very well this isn't true. Inferno has shitloads of mechanics that take complete control away from the player regardless of gear and player ability.

And every single character has abilities to negate or reduce their impact. It's your choice if you use those abilities or not. If you choose not to then those abilities will be a much higher risk for you.

[Chesspiece_face]

Blizzard commented that they tested Inferno and tweaked it until their testers said it was right. They then doubled all the numbers, assuming their testers were not as hardcore as real players, and did not test the changes. If you halve everything, the curve across Inferno difficulties is probably smoother.

I think a lot of the issue that comes up with this is purely a marketing mistake.

The brutal over-tuning of Inferno upon release serves many purposes for Blizzard and offers them tons of information about the game and it's systems that aren't available until you have 6+ million people banging away on it. Are there ways in which the game is broken at the moment? Definitely. It's been my experience that many of the complaints, however, are premature and those complaining often haven't even gotten to the point where things really begin to break down. But that's all moot because Blizz has already begun making a lot of changes that should start to resolve these issue with a little luck.

By over-tuning Inferno they can filter out abusive and broken skills or builds that may have slipped through the cracks very quickly. They will also find the places where people can abuse farming (IE goblins, Chests) very quickly. These are things that can, and often do slip through even the best testing environments. They also get a lot of information and can better guarantee the ongoing health of the game economy, which now that they have brought in-house is the greatest thing they have to focus on to secure the long term health of the game.

Getting back to the marketing mistake. They released that statement during the beta when a lot of people were complaining about how easy the game was. I'm sure it looked like a good publicity statement to come out and say "Hey, this game is twice as hard as our hardcore testers can handle!". Unfortunately that statement has a lot of negative connotations as well, as has been noted. They would be in a much better publicity stand point at this moment had they not made that statement and could now state that they intentionally overtuned it early so that they could weed out issues early. Would that make the very high end of the game less frustrating during these first months? Nope, A3 Inferno on is stupid broken. But I personally can shoulder that for the short term knowing that it will most likely mean a much healthier game environment moving forward as things are tuned downward. Having said that, the sooner 1.03 comes out the better for them. If things are still feeling rough around the edges a few months from now it's going to be hard for them to live down.

[MongoJerry]

As I've noted to Tal, Blizzard's QA has been steadily going down hill for years and it just gets worse and worse. Hearing how they decided to set the difficulty for Inferno tells me that Blizzard really is fairly clueless on how to balance things and didn't do the testing in house they said they did (otherwise immune minions would not have gotten into the game as they are now or there wouldn't have been this difficulty cliff being instituted from Act 1 to Act 2 and Act 2 to Act 3 and finally Act 3 to Act 4 in Inferno).

I wouldn't say that. I would just say they didn't QA Inferno to a high degree, because their focus was to get normal-hell right before release and I would say that they did. Now that they've been able to see what the community comes up with, they're going to tune Inferno appropriately. Compare that with the poor QA before, say, D2 or LOD came out and there's no comparison.

[Elric of Grans]

Not that I am disagreeing with you, but it does fly in the face of two core design principles: (1) there should be no `must-have' skills, and (2) as many skills as possible must be viable options. The current situation requires you to use certain skills, which is why everyone is running around with the same defensive skills and little else. If it were up to player skill (which is clearly what Red was pointing out was wrong in Mongo's comment), then there would be no need to use those skills, only the option.

[MongoJerry]

Roland's post sums up my thoughts almost exactly, though I will also add that the complete lack of skill balance. Every class has skills that are useless in Normal, even more struggle in Nightmare; by Hell, every class has to fall into one or two builds because nothing else is possible. Before anyone adds `everyone ran the same two builds in Diablo 2', that is not true. Powergamers ran the cookie cutter builds. I had an absolute blast with my Inferno-only Sorceress, until LoD introduced Fire Immunes. In fact, for the dozens of characters I made, not one was ever a cookie cutter build. Alternate skills were viable, if not optimal; Diablo 3 is so poorly balanced, that very little is viable.

They were viable only because the game was so easy. They weren't balanced, though. A few builds could blow through the game on player-8 without trouble while the rest could be played in one or two player games but with more difficulty.

Regarding D3, I've seen quite a number of different Wizard builds out there that are quite different from one another with lots of arguements back and forth on which attack skills, defensive skills, and which passives are better. I think that's a sign of a well designed class. That's a whole lot better than the static field/finisher or you're a variant version of the D2 sorceress.

[Chesspiece_face]

Not that I am disagreeing with you, but it does fly in the face of two core design principles: (1) there should be no `must-have' skills, and (2) as many skills as possible must be viable options. The current situation requires you to use certain skills, which is why everyone is running around with the same defensive skills and little else. If it were up to player skill (which is clearly what Red was pointing out was wrong in Mongo's comment), then there would be no need to use those skills, only the option.

Well there is a difference between saying:

There should be no 'must-have' skills.

And saying:

Players don't need to take any defensive skills.

The game is designed around using a set of offensive skills and a set of defensive skills. The defensive skills obviously offer you counters to a lot of the "problem" mods on enemies. If you choose to not take those skills you do so at your own risk.

[MongoJerry]

You know very well this isn't true. Inferno has shitloads of mechanics that take complete control away from the player regardless of gear and player ability.

That's why you have to use your defensive skills and terrain to counter them. Also, it makes passives that reduce the cooldown time on your defensive skills something to consider getting. It's these mechanics that make the game exciting. Otherwise, the game would be a kiting snoozefest.

[FireIceTalon]

Well, the point of playing a Wiz or DH, is to kite. That is what ranged classes are designed to do, but this is pretty much impossible to do in Inferno - most mobs are naturally faster than you anyways, and when you throw on "fast", "teleport", "vortex", and "mortar" it doesn't make the game exciting, it makes it FRUSTRATING. The defensive skills mean little as a ranged class when you have a group of elite Soul Lashers headed your way and you die faster than you can say "oh shit". For the melee chars, it's a little bit better, but not much - fire chains, molten, frozen, and extra health shit on pretty much any Barb - and Ignore Pain and Revenge only help so much really. Inferno is a pure cheese fest that has little to do with player skill, and much more to do with player patience and how much abuse they can absorb. Maybe you like these faulty mechanics in your video games, but for me, they bring back horrible memories of the 1980's when kids would want to smash the nearest thing in sight because a game was frustrating to the point that you were seeing red.

[MongoJerry]

Well, the point of playing a Wiz or DH, is to kite. That is what ranged classes are designed to do, but this is pretty much impossible to do in Inferno - most mobs are naturally faster than you anyways, and when you throw on "fast", "teleport", "vortex", and "mortar" it doesn't make the game exciting, it makes it FRUSTRATING. The defensive skills mean little as a ranged class when you have a group of elite Soul Lashers headed your way and you die faster than you can say "oh shit". For the melee chars, it's a little bit better, but not much - fire chains, molten, frozen, and extra health shit on pretty much any Barb - and Ignore Pain and Revenge only help so much really. Inferno is a pure cheese fest that has little to do with player skill, and much more to do with player patience and how much abuse they can absorb. Maybe you like these faulty mechanics in your video games, but for me, they bring back horrible memories of the 1980's when kids would want to smash the nearest thing in sight because a game was frustrating to the point that you were seeing red.

I know the conversation is going in circles, but I nonetheless feel obligated to continue the circle:

1. There aren't any game mechanics that can't be solved with appropriate use of player skills and better gear

The mechanics are fine. Either you are not playing well, do not equip yourself appropriately with proper defensive skills, or you do not have the gear yet to play at the level you are trying to play at. If soul rippers are destroying you that fast, then most likely your gear isn't right. Of course, it is entirely possible that the appropriate gear for Acts 2 and 3 Inferno doesn't yet exist or drops so rarely that it might as well not exist. I do not dispute this. This gets back to my second mantra:

2. I believe that Blizzard held off on some gear while they waited to see what skill and farming exploits the community comes up with.

If playing the game at the level you are trying to play it at is like banging your head against the wall, then stop. Play a different class, play the Lurker Lounge tournament, start a hardcore character, work on various achievements, etc. Wait for 1.0.3 to come out and then try to push forward at that point. Blizzard has tacitly acknowledged that Inferno isn't where they want it, so they clearly are going to make some adjustments by making gear easier to find at an earlier level, making some gear better (at least legendaries), making crafting cheaper, and adjusting the damage and health of mobs in Inferno.

However, there is nothing at all wrong with the mechanics. If you have appropriate gear and are getting killed by the mechanics, then you need to learn to play, because every class is given skills and passives designed to counter those mechanics. However, what you describe sounds like you are playing at a level that your gear cannot support. If that's the case, stop playing at that level and do something else for the moment or at least recognize that you placed your character in that situation.

[FireIceTalon]

It's far too easy to blame the player, and not see the faulty mechanics of the game. I am confident that my skill level is quite adequate, and my items and skill selection are par for the course. There are certain mechanics that are designed to be unbeatable. You have to be completely delusional to deny this.

Elite/Champ Soul Lashers are pretty much GG for almost any ranged char, regardless of what traits they have, and if they have the "fast" trait it's pretty much auto-skip unless you are playing a melee char. Just like Fire Chains, Molten, Freeze, and Arcane own Barbs. My Wiz is at Act 3 of hell difficulty and does fine, but there are some elite/champ packs, namely the aforementioned, that simply are impossible to deal with. She is not under geared by any means, and my skill selection is pretty run-of-the-mill for a high level Wiz (Wormhole Telly, Force Armor, Electrocute or Magic Missile, Arcane Orb with Tap the Source, Venom/Arcane Hydra or Blizzard etc - Glass Cannon, Astral Presence as passives with Blur usually as the final option). Gear is fine, because I beat most of the elite packs pretty well, but some mechanics make a few mobs virtually unbeatable. And this is hell mode, in Inferno, this problem goes from being present in some mobs, to MANY, or even most, mobs. Nor is it me lacking any skill - its just that Soul Lashers move 100000x faster than my char does, so kiting doesnt work at all, and they do INSANE damage to ranged chars who cannot tank it like a Barb or Monk could.

I'm hoping 1.03 solves some of the issues but at the end of the day, the cheezy mechanics will still be there, and even if they make it waaay easier, there will still be some mobs that just have to be skipped for every class due to the randomness that they spawn.

[MongoJerry]

Elite/Champ Soul Lashers are pretty much GG for almost any ranged char, regardless of what traits they have, and if they have the "fast" trait it's pretty much auto-skip unless you are playing a melee char. My Wiz is at Act 3 of hell difficulty and does fine, but there are some elite/champ packs, namely the aforementioned, that simply are impossible to deal with. She is not under geared by any means, and my skill selection is pretty run-of-the-mill for a high level Wiz (Wormhole Telly, Force Armor, Electrocute, Arcane Orb with Tap the Source, Venom/Arcane Hydra, etc). Gear is fine, because I beat most of the elite packs fairly well, but some mechanics make a few mobs virtually unbeatable. And this is hell mode, in Inferno, this problem goes from being present in some mobs, to MANY, or even most, mobs.

I also had trouble with hell difficulty elite/champ lashers and any scavenger/dog packs until Frag convinced me to go with Fracture instead of Wormhole for teleport. Having those two extra bodies distracting the mobs while I burn down the pack really helps. Also, I hope that your missing sixth "etc." skill is either Diamond Skin or Mirror Images. If not, then that's what you're missing. I personally find that having two active defensive skills plus an armor skill is perfect. With lasher/scavenger packs, I'll Diamond Skin for a few seconds while I burn the pack, then teleport-fracture away, burn, then by then hopefully Diamond Skin is back, then teleport-fracture, etc. Add in some use of potions and health orbs, and that should get you through it.

[Chesspiece_face]

My Wiz is at Act 3 of hell difficulty and does fine, but there are some elite/champ packs, namely the aforementioned, that simply are impossible to deal with. She is not under geared by any means, and my skill selection is pretty run-of-the-mill for a high level Wiz (Wormhole Telly, Force Armor, Electrocute or Magic Missile, Arcane Orb with Tap the Source, Venom/Arcane Hydra or Blizzard etc - Glass Cannon, Astral Presence as passives with Blur usually as the final option).

That's only 5 skills. I hope you have another defensive skill on top of that. Also, I'm sorry, if you are forced to skip mobs in Hell with that wizard either you are badly geared or you are misplaying those mobs. There is NOTHING in Hell mode that is unbeatable. Had you said you were having those problems with your Wiz in Inferno I would have backed you here. As I've said A3 Inferno on is where the game falls apart. A3 Hell is perfectly fine.

Best advice I can give you with your wizard is drop Electrocute and take Magic Missle/Seeker. Scout with your Hydra and then tag those lashers around the corners. Same issue with Vortex mobs, utilize the terrain and you can nearly completely negate them.

[Elric of Grans]

The basic game mechanics are mostly fine; the numbers need a little tweaking. The Elites can very easily be stupidly over the top too. Imagine trying to take out Invulnerable Minions/Shielding/Illusionist/Extra Health Soul Lasher Champions. Pure player skill and gear, is it? Yes, it is an absurd example, but it is also one that can indeed occur. Again, this is something that just needs tweaking rather than being a fundamental game issue. Blizzard can resolve these issues, though it would be nice if they were a little more forthcoming with information.

A very big point, which I feel is the main point of contention here, is fun. Can you take out these kinds of things? Yeah, sure; it is beatable. Is it fun to face these kinds of opponents? Clearly, there are many players who do not consider it fun. This is a game. It should be a way to enjoy your time. It should not feel like work. It should not be stressful, frustrating or tedious. RedRadical is describing frustration. No matter whether or not MongoJerry is capable of overcoming the challenge that RedRadical cannot, it does not change that frustration, and that is a big issue.

[FireIceTalon]

I havent tried Fracture on teleport yet, will give it a go and see how it works. The cooldown on teleport is quite annoying though, so hope that fracture rune is worth it. I don't have huge confidence in Diamond Skin on hell mode though, I think one hit and its gone, and if you are still on cooldown when that happens, its gg I think. Ill give it a go if i see such a mob again, but can't say I'm very optimistic, although Diamond Skin did save my arse vs Rakinoth on nightmare mode.

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The basic game mechanics are mostly fine; the numbers need a little tweaking. The Elites can very easily be stupidly over the top too. Imagine trying to take out Invulnerable Minions/Shielding/Illusionist/Extra Health Soul Lasher Champions. Pure player skill and gear, is it? Yes, it is an absurd example, but it is also one that can indeed occur. Again, this is something that just needs tweaking rather than being a fundamental game issue. Blizzard can resolve these issues, though it would be nice if they were a little more forthcoming with information.

A very big point, which I feel is the main point of contention here, is fun. Can you take out these kinds of things? Yeah, sure; it is beatable. Is it fun to face these kinds of opponents? Clearly, there are many players who do not consider it fun. This is a game. It should be a way to enjoy your time. It should not feel like work. It should not be stressful, frustrating or tedious. RedRadical is describing frustration. No matter whether or not MongoJerry is capable of overcoming the challenge that RedRadical cannot, it does not change that frustration, and that is a big issue.

This hits the nail on the head perfectly. I probably could beat these mechanics if I kept trying over and over again (assuming I'm not in Inferno and dont have to deal with the enrage timers), but after dying 3 or 4 straight times, usually one is to the point where its like "why am I doing this? This is not fun. At all."

I can deal with 1 or 2 deaths. Three is where I start to get annoyed, and anymore than that and I view it as not being worth my time because it isnt fun anymore.