Diablo 3 is fundamentally broken

[MongoJerry]

But... but... but...

Smegged said all of this, and he's in nightmare. Guys, there might be a problem in Inferno that needs to be fixed, but Smegged is in nightmare. I'm sorry, Smegged, but there are guys in hardcore playing DH's who have made it to Inferno without buying AH gear. The game is still new. Try some skills out that you haven't tried before, read up on what skills people who have successfully taken their DH's into Inferno have used, and farm some areas and craft some better gear for yourself. 18.5k hp for act 3 nightmare sounds OK to me, but maybe make a forum post in the DH area explaining your current stats and skill selections and let people make some suggestions to you.

There is a long way to go before you get to the "Inferno's too hard; the AH is bad" part. If you get to Act II Inferno and you've been farming Act I Inferno for two or more weeks, then go ahead and complain. But right now, you need to experiment more with the game, because DH's can and do go much further than you have gone without dying.

Everyone else, when you jump on another round of "Inferno's too hard; the AH is bad" in a thread like this, you're acting as enablers. Help a guy out who clearly needs help, and let's not get yet another thread going on this topic. I think everyone knows where everyone stands on this topic by now but in case you don't know mine, it's this: "Duh, trading has been an integral part of the Diablo series since its inception. The AH merely makes the already existing trading process less painful. If you don't want to use the AH, that's fine. It'll just take you longer to grind up and craft the gear you need to beat the game. If you want to do that (and I'm doing that myself right now), then that's a choice that you personally have made. I'm glad Inferno is difficult, and I hope they don't nerf it too much. I applaud Blizzard for making the game challenging. It'll make it so much sweeter when I beat it on hardcore eventually -- probably months from now."

[FireIceTalon]

Well, as one who has reached Act 2 Inferno, and has been farming Act 1 for over 2 weeks, I can confirm Smegged's complaint as being legitimate, though he should reserve such judgement until he is there himself.

That being said, 18.5K hp should be enough for Act 3 and even Act 4 nightmare, and DPS should be around 1500 ish to be able to play comfortably. Although on DH things can get hairy since the class design itself has several flaws - primarily it is too fragile, as it lacks any real substantial defensive skills compared to other classes. For anyone who really wants to try seriously to beat Inferno, I would recommend starting with a Barb or Wiz first. Sure, there are DH's in Inferno, and even a few who are doing ok in it, but a few is the exception, and not the rule. All it really means is that those players can tolerate more abuse than the average person can, hehe.

[BellaStrega]

It may very well be that Act II will be much easier when smegged gets to it.

[smegged]

But... but... but...

Smegged said all of this, and he's in nightmare. Guys, there might be a problem in Inferno that needs to be fixed, but Smegged is in nightmare. I'm sorry, Smegged, but there are guys in hardcore playing DH's who have made it to Inferno without buying AH gear. The game is still new. Try some skills out that you haven't tried before, read up on what skills people who have successfully taken their DH's into Inferno have used, and farm some areas and craft some better gear for yourself. 18.5k hp for act 3 nightmare sounds OK to me, but maybe make a forum post in the DH area explaining your current stats and skill selections and let people make some suggestions to you.

There is a long way to go before you get to the "Inferno's too hard; the AH is bad" part. If you get to Act II Inferno and you've been farming Act I Inferno for two or more weeks, then go ahead and complain. But right now, you need to experiment more with the game, because DH's can and do go much further than you have gone without dying.

Everyone else, when you jump on another round of "Inferno's too hard; the AH is bad" in a thread like this, you're acting as enablers. Help a guy out who clearly needs help, and let's not get yet another thread going on this topic. I think everyone knows where everyone stands on this topic by now but in case you don't know mine, it's this: "Duh, trading has been an integral part of the Diablo series since its inception. The AH merely makes the already existing trading process less painful. If you don't want to use the AH, that's fine. It'll just take you longer to grind up and craft the gear you need to beat the game. If you want to do that (and I'm doing that myself right now), then that's a choice that you personally have made. I'm glad Inferno is difficult, and I hope they don't nerf it too much. I applaud Blizzard for making the game challenging. It'll make it so much sweeter when I beat it on hardcore eventually -- probably months from now."

I am not sure I mentioned inferno once in my post, although I did imply it. My main points were summarised by these two sentences:

"There's no personalisation, no specialisation and the levelling game, which is not as fun as it used to be, ends too early.

The only thing that can kill you is not being on the right side of the statistics game. If a pack of mobs can lay out X damage in 30 seconds you're dead. If they can't, you're completely safe."

The main problem with Diablo 3 is that Blizzard have designed the game with the focus on the "end game" by allowing you to get to level 60 very quickly and easily. Most characters hit 60 before they finish hell difficulty, and finishing hell difficulty doesn't really take that much time.

There may be some fun to be had with hardcore, but the thought of dying to a lagspike (which has happened playing softcore) keeps me well and truly away from it.

Well, as one who has reached Act 2 Inferno, and has been farming Act 1 for over 2 weeks, I can confirm Smegged's complaint as being legitimate, though he should reserve such judgement until he is there himself.

That being said, 18.5K hp should be enough for Act 3 and even Act 4 nightmare, and DPS should be around 1500 ish to be able to play comfortably. Although on DH things can get hairy since the class design itself has several flaws - primarily it is too fragile, as it lacks any real substantial defensive skills compared to other classes. For anyone who really wants to try seriously to beat Inferno, I would recommend starting with a Barb or Wiz first. Sure, there are DH's in Inferno, and even a few who are doing ok in it, but a few is the exception, and not the rule. All it really means is that those players can tolerate more abuse than the average person can, hehe.

Yeah there was nothing wrong with the stats on my character when I got to this point. The teleporting, vortexing "screw you and your desire to reposition" mobs just made me realise how many elements of the game are designed to cut down on player skill, given that positioning is a very large part of player skill.

It may very well be that Act II will be much easier when smegged gets to it.

If I bother getting to it. Which was much of the point of my post. There are no real rewards (I'm not a huge item hunter) once you hit 60. There are no quests which permanently change your character and there's no customisation to be had, outside of gear.

[Kurosu]

Hello,

I'm a long time lurker of these forums going back over a decade, and finally decided to make an account to discuss Diablo 3.
As a bit of an introduction, I've played D1 and D2 for a long time, including various mods such as VK/VKME and Abysmal in D1, ES and Median in D2, most of which are generally considered more difficult than the regular game.

I highly enjoyed most of these mods though, as I considered them a "fair" kind of difficulty. And for the same reason, I feel that D3 is a highly flawed game, as many of the challenges imposed on you are of an "unfair" kind that are often impossible to deal with the tools you are given, thus resulting in the player feeling cheated.
My main character is a Demon Hunter, which I mostly play solo, so most of my experiences will be from this class.
I've gotten up to the end of act 3 Inferno, where I've hit a brick wall at the Sin Heart quest.

Some of the things I find less than pleasant in this game are:

1) The hit & miss mechanics
I've noticed that sometimes you can get killed and upon death, the flag that marks your death location is often 10, or even 20 yards away from where your body lies.
Lag? Not quite so, I usually have 60> ms latency to the server.
This actually seems to be an intended feature, as I discovered from a statement by the Blizzard forum representative Bashiok, who wrote one of the most baffling things I've ever seen about a game:

Code:

It’s intentional. We don’t want a game where the most effective way to play is to dodge in and out of enemy attacks. It’s not that difficult to do, and it’s just not a very fun way to play. “Most effective” and “not fun” just can’t be in the same sentence when describing part of the game. We want combat to be based on use of abilities, putting thought into builds, building up offensive and defensive stats, etc. Skill is absolutely a part of all of the systems you’ll use, and kiting can be too, but it’d be ridiculous if you could avoid all of the systems that make the game the game because you can time dodges of enemy attacks and negate every other factor.

Also think about just running past enemies to rush through an area and never being hit. Anyone looking to rush would love it! Which is why it’s not a good idea from a design perspective. :) It’s not something we’ll be changing.

You could've fooled me if you told me this was an April fools joke, but apparently Blizzard does not want you dodging attacks anymore through movement, since that is "not difficult and not fun".
It's more fun to get killed from the other side of the screen by a melee attack that missed you by miles visually but hits anyway.
What this feature seemingly means, is that if a monster takes a swing at you, no matter how far you move away, it will hit anyway unless you use a skill such as Smoke Screen to dodge it.
This also seems to be valid for ranged projectiles to some degree, as missile attacks that were dodged with ample leeway sometimes end up hitting anyway, as such these mechanics simply feel very loose and uncontrollable by the player.

Concerning this, there were many people on various forums saying, "Well, just don't get close then!", but this is not as easy as said due to various factors.
Which leads me to the second major unfair difficulty issue I've noticed:

2) The unavoidable boss modifiers and creature attacks
There are some of these modifiers which are nigh unavoidable by the player, such as Jailer, Vortex and Teleporter.
Yes, you can use certain skills to break the Jailer effect, but these skills generally use up a lot of resources so you cannot always use them.
Vortex is another bag of fun, combined with some other mods such as Arcane Sentry it's a guaranteed death for some classes.

In many occasions it's literally impossible to avoid death from a Vortex + Sentry/Plagued combo: even if you hit Smoke Screen with superhuman reflexes the instant you are pulled by the Vortex, you will still end up dying (possibly due to the "feature" described in the previously mentioned point).

Similarly, Teleporter is often unavoidable as well. A monster with this modifier and a fast attack can often kill you even if you react fast.


There are also various monsters in the game which have impossibly fast attacks, I'm sure you've noticed the irritation of getting killed by these.
A few notable ones are the charging attacks the Oppressors and Corrupted Angels use.
The initiation range of these moves seems to be longer than your visual screen range, so they can actually kill you when you get no visual or auditory cue to warn you against it, in other words, another unavoidable death.
I simply have no idea what Blizzard was thinking when they designed these kind of moves.

The "tongue lasher" type of monster is also often complained about, because their attack is extremely fast and hard to dodge, while also dealing huge amounts of damage.
I noticed that you can avoid this attack somewhat by strafing rather than moving in a straight line.
Against white creatures of this type you might be able to dodge a few and take them out fast, but add in the extra health from a boss pack coupled with a few fun modifiers such as Reflect Damage, Fast, Vortex, Jailer, etc, and you're looking at either a park, die & move on or die and remaking the game.

Also, Reflect Damage: why? Iron Maiden was removed from the Oblivion Knights in D2 after a while, and now it was brought back with a vengeance, as it also returns ranged damage.
Yes, you can deal with this through Life on Hit items, but again player skill is taken out of the equation in favour of equipment.

In short, the design of this game very obviously wishes to steer you into building up good items rather than relying on actual player skill (through experience, strategy, hand-eye coordination, timing, reflexes, and so on), as many challenges are simply taken out of your control and require X amount of life, resistances or defense to survive.

Which brings me to another annoyance, the way the Demon Hunter class is built up, it is simply impossible to survive more than 1 hit in act 3 Inferno.
I am aware that the melee classes have it just as bad if not worse, so I do not wish to get into a melee vs. ranged debate.
Perhaps you might be able to become strong enough to take two hits rather than one with absolutely perfect damage mitigation items, but attaining such a setup would take such a long time of farming (or shopping!) that it is not realistically obtainable.
As mentioned in the other thread, the DH class truly need a rework in its defensive capabilities, even if at cost of its offensive abilities.

Regarding this, I noticed a very ironically titled point in the 1.03 patch note:

Code:

Paying for Your Mistakes
Current repair costs at level 60 are barely noticeable, and because of that we see a lot of people wonder if “graveyard zerging” tough enemies or “chain rezzing allies on a boss” is intended gameplay – it definitely is not. To help solve the issue we evaluated a number of new death mechanics, such as just allowing the resurrection timer to increase even higher, disallowing resurrection during boss fights, or putting a debuff on you when you resurrect (such as reduced combat effectiveness).
Ultimately we felt that increasing repair costs was the best solution that preserves the fast paced style of the game. Repair costs on level 60 items are going to go up a lot. Our goal is the next time a player is graveyard zerging a boss, it should occur to them that “this is probably not an efficient way to go about things”. We’re currently evaluating repair costs between 4x and 6x their current values.
In the face of increasing costs, we recommend listening to the Hardcore players out there as they probably have some helpful advice on how to minimize repair costs. Following this change zerging a boss will still be possible, but our intent is that it won’t be optimal, and players who are seeking to be as efficient as possible will adjust their item hunting routes accordingly.

Blizzard wants to increase repair costs to discourage zerging, but what about the players aren't employing these kind of tactics and are actually trying their best to stay alive and play normally, but die over and over anyway due to the unavoidable death mechanics mentioned?


There is a myriad of other flaws which I find less than agreeable, but this is already a very long and whiny first post, for which I apologize.

This is basically how I feel about D3 in its current state: unfair towards the player, designed with a combination of incompetence and greed in mind.

[smegged]

Hello,

I'm a long time lurker of these forums going back over a decade, and finally decided to make an account to discuss Diablo 3.
As a bit of an introduction, I've played D1 and D2 for a long time, including various mods such as VK/VKME and Abysmal in D1, ES and Median in D2, most of which are generally considered more difficult than the regular game.

I highly enjoyed most of these mods though, as I considered them a "fair" kind of difficulty. And for the same reason, I feel that D3 is a highly flawed game, as many of the challenges imposed on you are of an "unfair" kind that are often impossible to deal with the tools you are given, thus resulting in the player feeling cheated.
My main character is a Demon Hunter, which I mostly play solo, so most of my experiences will be from this class.
I've gotten up to the end of act 3 Inferno, where I've hit a brick wall at the Sin Heart quest.

Some of the things I find less than pleasant in this game are:

1) The hit & miss mechanics
I've noticed that sometimes you can get killed and upon death, the flag that marks your death location is often 10, or even 20 yards away from where your body lies.
Lag? Not quite so, I usually have 60> ms latency to the server.
This actually seems to be an intended feature, as I discovered from a statement by the Blizzard forum representative Bashiok, who wrote one of the most baffling things I've ever seen about a game:

Code:

It’s intentional. We don’t want a game where the most effective way to play is to dodge in and out of enemy attacks. It’s not that difficult to do, and it’s just not a very fun way to play. “Most effective” and “not fun” just can’t be in the same sentence when describing part of the game. We want combat to be based on use of abilities, putting thought into builds, building up offensive and defensive stats, etc. Skill is absolutely a part of all of the systems you’ll use, and kiting can be too, but it’d be ridiculous if you could avoid all of the systems that make the game the game because you can time dodges of enemy attacks and negate every other factor.

Also think about just running past enemies to rush through an area and never being hit. Anyone looking to rush would love it! Which is why it’s not a good idea from a design perspective. :) It’s not something we’ll be changing.

You could've fooled me if you told me this was an April fools joke, but apparently Blizzard does not want you dodging attacks anymore through movement, since that is "not difficult and not fun".
It's more fun to get killed from the other side of the screen by a melee attack that missed you by miles visually but hits anyway.
What this feature seemingly means, is that if a monster takes a swing at you, no matter how far you move away, it will hit anyway unless you use a skill such as Smoke Screen to dodge it.
This also seems to be valid for ranged projectiles to some degree, as missile attacks that were dodged with ample leeway sometimes end up hitting anyway, as such these mechanics simply feel very loose and uncontrollable by the player.

Concerning this, there were many people on various forums saying, "Well, just don't get close then!", but this is not as easy as said due to various factors.
Which leads me to the second major unfair difficulty issue I've noticed:

2) The unavoidable boss modifiers and creature attacks
There are some of these modifiers which are nigh unavoidable by the player, such as Jailer, Vortex and Teleporter.
Yes, you can use certain skills to break the Jailer effect, but these skills generally use up a lot of resources so you cannot always use them.
Vortex is another bag of fun, combined with some other mods such as Arcane Sentry it's a guaranteed death for some classes.

In many occasions it's literally impossible to avoid death from a Vortex + Sentry/Plagued combo: even if you hit Smoke Screen with superhuman reflexes the instant you are pulled by the Vortex, you will still end up dying (possibly due to the "feature" described in the previously mentioned point).

Similarly, Teleporter is often unavoidable as well. A monster with this modifier and a fast attack can often kill you even if you react fast.


There are also various monsters in the game which have impossibly fast attacks, I'm sure you've noticed the irritation of getting killed by these.
A few notable ones are the charging attacks the Oppressors and Corrupted Angels use.
The initiation range of these moves seems to be longer than your visual screen range, so they can actually kill you when you get no visual or auditory cue to warn you against it, in other words, another unavoidable death.
I simply have no idea what Blizzard was thinking when they designed these kind of moves.

The "tongue lasher" type of monster is also often complained about, because their attack is extremely fast and hard to dodge, while also dealing huge amounts of damage.
I noticed that you can avoid this attack somewhat by strafing rather than moving in a straight line.
Against white creatures of this type you might be able to dodge a few and take them out fast, but add in the extra health from a boss pack coupled with a few fun modifiers such as Reflect Damage, Fast, Vortex, Jailer, etc, and you're looking at either a park, die & move on or die and remaking the game.

Also, Reflect Damage: why? Iron Maiden was removed from the Oblivion Knights in D2 after a while, and now it was brought back with a vengeance, as it also returns ranged damage.
Yes, you can deal with this through Life on Hit items, but again player skill is taken out of the equation in favour of equipment.

In short, the design of this game very obviously wishes to steer you into building up good items rather than relying on actual player skill (through experience, strategy, hand-eye coordination, timing, reflexes, and so on), as many challenges are simply taken out of your control and require X amount of life, resistances or defense to survive.

Which brings me to another annoyance, the way the Demon Hunter class is built up, it is simply impossible to survive more than 1 hit in act 3 Inferno.
I am aware that the melee classes have it just as bad if not worse, so I do not wish to get into a melee vs. ranged debate.
Perhaps you might be able to become strong enough to take two hits rather than one with absolutely perfect damage mitigation items, but attaining such a setup would take such a long time of farming (or shopping!) that it is not realistically obtainable.
As mentioned in the other thread, the DH class truly need a rework in its defensive capabilities, even if at cost of its offensive abilities.

Regarding this, I noticed a very ironically titled point in the 1.03 patch note:

Code:

Paying for Your Mistakes
Current repair costs at level 60 are barely noticeable, and because of that we see a lot of people wonder if “graveyard zerging” tough enemies or “chain rezzing allies on a boss” is intended gameplay – it definitely is not. To help solve the issue we evaluated a number of new death mechanics, such as just allowing the resurrection timer to increase even higher, disallowing resurrection during boss fights, or putting a debuff on you when you resurrect (such as reduced combat effectiveness).
Ultimately we felt that increasing repair costs was the best solution that preserves the fast paced style of the game. Repair costs on level 60 items are going to go up a lot. Our goal is the next time a player is graveyard zerging a boss, it should occur to them that “this is probably not an efficient way to go about things”. We’re currently evaluating repair costs between 4x and 6x their current values.
In the face of increasing costs, we recommend listening to the Hardcore players out there as they probably have some helpful advice on how to minimize repair costs. Following this change zerging a boss will still be possible, but our intent is that it won’t be optimal, and players who are seeking to be as efficient as possible will adjust their item hunting routes accordingly.

Blizzard wants to increase repair costs to discourage zerging, but what about the players aren't employing these kind of tactics and are actually trying their best to stay alive and play normally, but die over and over anyway due to the unavoidable death mechanics mentioned?


There is a myriad of other flaws which I find less than agreeable, but this is already a very long and whiny first post, for which I apologize.

This is basically how I feel about D3 in its current state: unfair towards the player, designed with a combination of incompetence and greed in mind.

Great first post. Even MSLEB archers in Diablo 2 were beatable for range classes (melee was fundamentally broken in that game) because you could dodge the attacks and the sparks. There are some deaths that are wholely unavoidable in Diablo 3, simply because of boss combinations.

[FireIceTalon]

Hello,

I'm a long time lurker of these forums going back over a decade, and finally decided to make an account to discuss Diablo 3.
As a bit of an introduction, I've played D1 and D2 for a long time, including various mods such as VK/VKME and Abysmal in D1, ES and Median in D2, most of which are generally considered more difficult than the regular game.

I highly enjoyed most of these mods though, as I considered them a "fair" kind of difficulty. And for the same reason, I feel that D3 is a highly flawed game, as many of the challenges imposed on you are of an "unfair" kind that are often impossible to deal with the tools you are given, thus resulting in the player feeling cheated.
My main character is a Demon Hunter, which I mostly play solo, so most of my experiences will be from this class.
I've gotten up to the end of act 3 Inferno, where I've hit a brick wall at the Sin Heart quest.

Some of the things I find less than pleasant in this game are:

1) The hit & miss mechanics
I've noticed that sometimes you can get killed and upon death, the flag that marks your death location is often 10, or even 20 yards away from where your body lies.
Lag? Not quite so, I usually have 60> ms latency to the server.
This actually seems to be an intended feature, as I discovered from a statement by the Blizzard forum representative Bashiok, who wrote one of the most baffling things I've ever seen about a game:

Code:

It’s intentional. We don’t want a game where the most effective way to play is to dodge in and out of enemy attacks. It’s not that difficult to do, and it’s just not a very fun way to play. “Most effective” and “not fun” just can’t be in the same sentence when describing part of the game. We want combat to be based on use of abilities, putting thought into builds, building up offensive and defensive stats, etc. Skill is absolutely a part of all of the systems you’ll use, and kiting can be too, but it’d be ridiculous if you could avoid all of the systems that make the game the game because you can time dodges of enemy attacks and negate every other factor.

Also think about just running past enemies to rush through an area and never being hit. Anyone looking to rush would love it! Which is why it’s not a good idea from a design perspective. :) It’s not something we’ll be changing.

You could've fooled me if you told me this was an April fools joke, but apparently Blizzard does not want you dodging attacks anymore through movement, since that is "not difficult and not fun".
It's more fun to get killed from the other side of the screen by a melee attack that missed you by miles visually but hits anyway.
What this feature seemingly means, is that if a monster takes a swing at you, no matter how far you move away, it will hit anyway unless you use a skill such as Smoke Screen to dodge it.
This also seems to be valid for ranged projectiles to some degree, as missile attacks that were dodged with ample leeway sometimes end up hitting anyway, as such these mechanics simply feel very loose and uncontrollable by the player.

Concerning this, there were many people on various forums saying, "Well, just don't get close then!", but this is not as easy as said due to various factors.
Which leads me to the second major unfair difficulty issue I've noticed:

2) The unavoidable boss modifiers and creature attacks
There are some of these modifiers which are nigh unavoidable by the player, such as Jailer, Vortex and Teleporter.
Yes, you can use certain skills to break the Jailer effect, but these skills generally use up a lot of resources so you cannot always use them.
Vortex is another bag of fun, combined with some other mods such as Arcane Sentry it's a guaranteed death for some classes.

In many occasions it's literally impossible to avoid death from a Vortex + Sentry/Plagued combo: even if you hit Smoke Screen with superhuman reflexes the instant you are pulled by the Vortex, you will still end up dying (possibly due to the "feature" described in the previously mentioned point).

Similarly, Teleporter is often unavoidable as well. A monster with this modifier and a fast attack can often kill you even if you react fast.


There are also various monsters in the game which have impossibly fast attacks, I'm sure you've noticed the irritation of getting killed by these.
A few notable ones are the charging attacks the Oppressors and Corrupted Angels use.
The initiation range of these moves seems to be longer than your visual screen range, so they can actually kill you when you get no visual or auditory cue to warn you against it, in other words, another unavoidable death.
I simply have no idea what Blizzard was thinking when they designed these kind of moves.

The "tongue lasher" type of monster is also often complained about, because their attack is extremely fast and hard to dodge, while also dealing huge amounts of damage.
I noticed that you can avoid this attack somewhat by strafing rather than moving in a straight line.
Against white creatures of this type you might be able to dodge a few and take them out fast, but add in the extra health from a boss pack coupled with a few fun modifiers such as Reflect Damage, Fast, Vortex, Jailer, etc, and you're looking at either a park, die & move on or die and remaking the game.

Also, Reflect Damage: why? Iron Maiden was removed from the Oblivion Knights in D2 after a while, and now it was brought back with a vengeance, as it also returns ranged damage.
Yes, you can deal with this through Life on Hit items, but again player skill is taken out of the equation in favour of equipment.

In short, the design of this game very obviously wishes to steer you into building up good items rather than relying on actual player skill (through experience, strategy, hand-eye coordination, timing, reflexes, and so on), as many challenges are simply taken out of your control and require X amount of life, resistances or defense to survive.

Which brings me to another annoyance, the way the Demon Hunter class is built up, it is simply impossible to survive more than 1 hit in act 3 Inferno.
I am aware that the melee classes have it just as bad if not worse, so I do not wish to get into a melee vs. ranged debate.
Perhaps you might be able to become strong enough to take two hits rather than one with absolutely perfect damage mitigation items, but attaining such a setup would take such a long time of farming (or shopping!) that it is not realistically obtainable.
As mentioned in the other thread, the DH class truly need a rework in its defensive capabilities, even if at cost of its offensive abilities.

Regarding this, I noticed a very ironically titled point in the 1.03 patch note:

Code:

Paying for Your Mistakes
Current repair costs at level 60 are barely noticeable, and because of that we see a lot of people wonder if “graveyard zerging” tough enemies or “chain rezzing allies on a boss” is intended gameplay – it definitely is not. To help solve the issue we evaluated a number of new death mechanics, such as just allowing the resurrection timer to increase even higher, disallowing resurrection during boss fights, or putting a debuff on you when you resurrect (such as reduced combat effectiveness).
Ultimately we felt that increasing repair costs was the best solution that preserves the fast paced style of the game. Repair costs on level 60 items are going to go up a lot. Our goal is the next time a player is graveyard zerging a boss, it should occur to them that “this is probably not an efficient way to go about things”. We’re currently evaluating repair costs between 4x and 6x their current values.
In the face of increasing costs, we recommend listening to the Hardcore players out there as they probably have some helpful advice on how to minimize repair costs. Following this change zerging a boss will still be possible, but our intent is that it won’t be optimal, and players who are seeking to be as efficient as possible will adjust their item hunting routes accordingly.

Blizzard wants to increase repair costs to discourage zerging, but what about the players aren't employing these kind of tactics and are actually trying their best to stay alive and play normally, but die over and over anyway due to the unavoidable death mechanics mentioned?


There is a myriad of other flaws which I find less than agreeable, but this is already a very long and whiny first post, for which I apologize.

This is basically how I feel about D3 in its current state: unfair towards the player, designed with a combination of incompetence and greed in mind.

Hello, and welcome to the forum.

Your post, for me anyways, really hits the nail on the head. Truth be told, if they took all the monster affixes out of the game and just stuck with normal monster buffs with increased difficulty (dmg, health, and so on) I wouldn't really miss most of them in the least bit. But that isn't going to happen, Blizz wants to cheese us because of all the nerds who complained that D1 and D2 were too easy. Which to some degree, is true I suppose. But adding in all the artificial mechanics isn't the solution in my opinion. Inferno DOES have a couple things about it that are right on the money for having a good challenging game: all the monsters are a higher level than you are for one. And second are the normal upgrades such as health and dmg. I also really like the fact the monsters are more aggro here than in D2, and seem to come in much bigger packs.

But it is what it is. With the monster traits being here to stay, the very least Blizz can do is reduce the amount of affixes in Inferno from 5 to 4, eliminate SOME of the affixes entirely (Invulnerable Minions and Reflect Damage really should go completely), get rid of the enrage timers (they have no business in an RPG), and simply reduce monster dmg by 25% or so. I really dont understand why Blizz made so many traits for champion/elite packs anyway, because even many white mobs have natural abilities to challenge the player - whether its the charging of Oppressors, teleporting of Phasing Hulk Beasts, the super fast ability of Scavengers and their kin, the fast high dmg abilities of soul rippers, summoning Fallens/Goat men, poison DOT from Heralds of Pestilence, invisibility of those snake guys in Act 2, etc.....

I also don't understand the so-called "auto hit" system of melee in this game. I mean, if I get close to a melee attacker and I get hit, fine. But if he fails to hit me and I run, I shouldn't be getting hit when im 5, 10 yards away. It's absurd. Undead especially do this alot.

[FoxBat]

Blizzard wants to increase repair costs to discourage zerging, but what about the players aren't employing these kind of tactics and are actually trying their best to stay alive and play normally, but die over and over anyway due to the unavoidable death mechanics mentioned?

You are "zerging" by their definition whether you intend to or not. Pulling a boss near a waypoint or whatever and respawning many times over to gradually whittle it down because you have no other way of defeating them. Supposedly with enough gear you should survive more than one hit, but seeing as Blizzard didn't playtest a3-a4 after doubling the difficulty, they wouldn't know exactly how its supposed to shake out.

The thing Blizzard seems to be wising up to is 1/2-shot difficulty is not a good idea. Defensive gear should be viable and competitive for ranged softcore characters. If that happens with the incoming damage nerf to later inferno, then upping dying consequences may be a better idea. Although I think some of these crazy abilities need a nerf on their combinations, too much of a damage reduction to everything else won't have a good effect.

Of course, wanting expensive defensive gear to be desired by ranged characters is clearly being done solely to boost auction sales. And upping repair costs is to just encourage you to buy gold. . I'm wondering what wouldn't be interpreted as a sign of greed at this point.

[FireIceTalon]

The penalties for dying in Inferno are already steep as it is: most mobs fully regain their health from what I can tell, repair costs, and those lame ass enrage timers. And they want to punish the player more?? Sigh. Blizz just does not seem to get it. Unless Inferno is very substantially nerfed, all this is going to do is make people rage quit more, and possibly even drive players away from the game entirely.

[Mavfin]

Of course, wanting expensive defensive gear to be desired by ranged characters is clearly being done solely to boost auction sales. And upping repair costs is to just encourage you to buy gold. . I'm wondering what wouldn't be interpreted as a sign of greed at this point.

Yeah, it's already been reported on this forum by someone who isn't raging all the time that even chain-dying in Inferno isn't expensive to repair at the moment. Of course they want to curb that as a tactic. We already know they're aware of the spike damage and some of the out-of-control affix combos. We'll just have to see what they change about them.

As far as the RMAH and greed: You can look at it two ways, depending on your preconceived notions. You can look at it as a huge money grab by Blizzard, especially when they take a cut of what people make from it, or you can look at it as them supplying the means for interested parties to make a modest amount of money using their factory and their supplies, and also their storefront. If you owned all the means of production and the building in the real world, wouldn't you expect a cut of the proceeds? I would.

Of course, if they didn't have an RMAH, none of those people could make a cent, let alone keep 70-85% of the price of items that come from a game Blizzard owns, on an AH they own and pay the costs to run. Any money made from the RMAH by individuals is basically free money from playing a video game. I find it pretty hilarious that the company that built the factory that made it possible is 'greedy' for wanting a cut.

As many have pointed out, if Blizzard didn't run it, various other 'someone elses' would, and I doubt as much profit would be made by people other than those various other entities as will be made on Blizzard's RMAH by individual players. Also, if Blizzard wasn't running it, security costs/restore costs for Blizzard would be higher because of people going to those other shady places. It's a no-brainer from a business standpoint. Save security costs, and get a cut, too.

I still disagree that anyone is *forced* to use the AH. The AH is the defacto way to trade items between people w/o making trading games and the like. Just as in D2, no one has to trade to play the game. To get BiS gear quickly, yes, you'll need to trade, as you would have had to in D2. In D3, that's using the AH, rather than making a trading game. You can always post trades on a forum somewhere if you want to do it the old way. I've seen several places facilitating that. Regardless, that's a *choice* that a person can make. Trade for the gear, or farm it yourself, same as it's always been.

I simply would prefer to see more real discussion and less 'omg this game is broken' rage. If it's really that bad, then why waste time on it?

[MongoJerry]

1. Get better gear so that you can survive a couple of hits
2. Use player skills to get out of Vortex situations (Vortex/Arcane and/or Plagued is *not* insta-kill)
3. They're nerfing Inferno and making it easier to find high level items in the next patch, so things are going to get a lot easier

Caveat: If your comments are DH-specific, I have not played a DH, so I can't advise you on gear or skill selection. With my hardcore Wizard, I have no trouble gearing myself up with enough life, armor, and resistances to be able to survive some hits (Energy Armor - Prismatic is awesome) and I'm able to use Teleport and Diamond Skin to deal with Vortex situations. If DH really and truly does not have effective skill sets that allow you to do this (note: this is different from the class having them and you choosing not to use them), then that is a problem with the class and not with the monsters. Don't ask to nerf the game because your class may not have been built effectively. Ask for class changes instead. Vortex, jailer, waller, teleport, etc. are fun mechanisms that keep you on your toes. They don't need to be nerfed.

[Treesh]

3. They're nerfing Inferno and making it easier to find high level items in the next patch, so things are going to get a lot easier

Did they hotfix in some of the nerfs? I finally made it to inferno. Hopped in directly after killing Diablo and fully expected to get my ass handed to me even by the regular mobs (which is what some folks griped about a couple of weeks ago). After the first champ pack I did realize I needed to upgrade my weapon, but other than that, she's good to go. Oh! And I also got an upgrade for her out of act 1 inferno. 70+ dex, 100+ int, 60 resist all and I don't remember the other mods, maybe strength? She's a monk so I was happy to see the dex. But, the champ packs really aren't anymore challenging to me than they were in hell. Same amount of damage done to me if it's the wrong combination of mods. I'll have to kill some real bosses though to thoroughly see what the deal is, but it seems like a let down from all the stories I've heard about inferno. So far. We'll see when I get to Act2. =)

[BellaStrega]

They hotfixed in the removal of damage increase for multiple players. Act I has always been fairly easy, however. I was able to get all the way to the torture chambers on my hell gear before I had to actually find better gear to survive, and if I hadn't run into some bad affix combinations along the way, I wouldn't have had to do even that.

[Treesh]

They hotfixed in the removal of damage increase for multiple players.

I knew that, but that was for all difficulties, wasn't it? Edit: And I was doing singleplayer most of the time except for here and there.[/edit]

Of course, since I wasn't one of the vanguard for inferno, there are a lot more gear choices on the AH for me to snag before inferno so that may have smoothed out the transition more for me than for the folks who were whining and crying at the start.

[FoxBat]

As far as the RMAH and greed:

What bothers me more is not the question of whether the RMAH is "greedy" or not, but how much of an influence people seem to think it has over game design.

Inferno was set up to require a lot of farming to progress in. It's like they started with the idea of the D2 uber bosses, which were one of the few things you would actually want that good gear for to beat, and extended it out to an entire difficulty. They looked at the people that loved running for loot, and they looked at how may people complained the game was too easy, and this type of endgame was the result.

Try and imagine what a no-farming-required alternative would be like. Would you rather all of Inferno be equivalent to Act 1? Would it be just another difficulty like hell that you blow through and are done? Considering the limited incentive to reroll characters, what kind of longevity are you expecting for the game?

I'll admit this also makes a convenient setup that mirrors F2P games, where you can either grind to win or pay real money to win. But the effect of this is at present limited. There is gear that makes A3/A4 Inferno manageable but it does not make it cakewalk. That gear doesn't just automatically make the hardest elites curl up and die, I think that's a sign that Jay and crew actually wanted to make a challenging endgame, even if they clearly didn't put the requisite time in to balance it properly. They just set that challenge in the context of D2's loot farming tradition, which some people may hate, but it is not like $$$ is the only motivating factor.

The other problem is when people overthink just *how* much game design could possibly be affected by RMAH. Nerfing gold drops or upping repair costs isn't going to do squat for the RMAH when so much gold value is connected to items players need to progress. Whether you get 1 million or 1 billion gold for your dollar doesn't matter to Blizzard, only how many dollars you are paying, and that doesn't change if the same rarity of items are going for 1 million or 1 billion gold.

The main thing that *does* matter for Blizzard is that people keep playing Inferno and keep trading gear on the AH. Sheer volume is where Blizzard can make profits, not high prices that only a few will bother paying. If Inferno is too easy/quick to farm through then people quit fast, if it's too hard then they quit in frustration. Apparently Blizzard believes they erred too much on the latter half and are chipping away at Inferno difficulty in the next patch. If this is pure "greed" then bring on the greed because it's promoting the *longevity* of the game for the majority, which I thought we all agreed was a good thing.

[Elric of Grans]

Inferno is a cake-walk. Just get Roland to join your game

Treesh, I read that Blizzard consider Act I/Inferno to be `right' and are using that as their basis for rebalancing the other acts. Other than certain issues that impact the whole game (eg Invulnerable Minions), Act I/Inferno is unlikely to change. My impression of Act I/Inferno was also ``Eh, everyone is jumping up and down about this?''. I would like a little more armour/resists, but DPS really is the core issue I face coming from Hell, just as you describe.

[BellaStrega]

They hotfixed in the removal of damage increase for multiple players.

I knew that, but that was for all difficulties, wasn't it? Edit: And I was doing singleplayer most of the time except for here and there.[/edit]

Yes, all difficulties, but it was specifically made to ease Inferno.

I wasn't sure if you knew, because you'd asked if they'd hotfixed any changes.

Of course, since I wasn't one of the vanguard for inferno, there are a lot more gear choices on the AH for me to snag before inferno so that may have smoothed out the transition more for me than for the folks who were whining and crying at the start.

Yes, that's my current experience. There is a lot of gear to ease your way into act I inferno. Gear that is good for act II is generally more expensive, but you can still find something affordable occasionally.

[Treesh]

Inferno is a cake-walk. Just get Roland to join your game

And then he just kills everything before his meat shield even gets up there. Although I'm really going to have to fight with the mystic ally in order to get some of the big mobs positioned a bit better so Roland doesn't whine when I don't have the big mob in the right place and make him waste resources to place another. =)

---

I wasn't sure if you knew, because you'd asked if they'd hotfixed any changes.

Well, I asked if they hotfixed in any of the nerfs for inferno. The incoming damage hot fix, I just considered a general DUH fix, but I didn't clarify that in my post.

[Elric of Grans]

Yup, I have now hit that point. Inferno was fun, at first, because White mobs finally posed an interesting challenge. The complete lag of progression, however, makes it an extremely boring grind. I get no experience, so most kills get me nothing. Drops are so insanely poor that even when I get something, it is usually not even worth salvaging at the blacksmith. Add in the constant encounters with unkillable Elites and the absolutely terrible design of the Demon Hunter and the late game is just not even remotely enjoyable. I will probably give up on Inferno until 1.0.3, in the hopes that they resolve the Elites and drops. If 1.0.3 flops... Blizzard may have their first failure on their hands.

[Archon_Wing]

Only salvage level 60s for exquisites, sell everything else. Then sell your exquisite essence for good money too and go buy yourself a better item. Rinse, repeat, and die 50 more times.