Mav's turn to rant

[Mavfin]

What a bunch of whiners!!!!!!

I've been reading several threads here, and a few of them are mainly devoted to whining......

God, this reminds me of the 1.08 patch that everyone said would ruin D2. I knew this was coming, but it's just depressing to hear the same crap all over again. "Oh, my <favorite class> is all <pick implied expletive here> up! And my <pick another class> is too. But <some other class> got all these boosts, but I don't like to play them! Blizzard sucks! Blizzard put out a bad patch. Again!"

Oh, and don't EVEN get me started about the "I can't solo players-8 hell" crap with me. I heard that SO many times when 1.08 came out, with the PI's, and the nerfed whirlwind. And the sorcies whining about all the <elemental> immunes. We all know how that turned out.

Hey, everyone, if you can't do anything better than recycle the crap I've seen before, then spare me, please.

[Archon_Wing]

Indeed, if we were always to listen to the whiners, the game's being going to hell for several years and the world has ended a few times.

Anything is better than 1.08/1.09. I have never really been excited playing the game in LOD 1.09. 90% of the game is patheticaly easy and then they throw in some one-hit kill msleb boss for "challenge." When was the last time you were afraid of non-boss monsters? Which in reality, is what someone, (I believe Sirian) labled "the gap"

"The sky is falling!"

[Dixen Andomiel]

I have found the fact that nearly all of my characters are under-powered (most were middle of the road to begin with) very refreshing. The sheer ecstasy of taking my older characters back into Act 4 of NM and having my arse handed to me as Doom Knights laughed and danced around my corpse was more fun than I have had in a very long time playing this game.

To those who are crying about not being able to solo 8-Player Hell games... tough crap. Thank you for your order, pleaee drive through!

[phooker51]

No offense, but how is whining about whining any better?

You make it sound as if all the posts have been expletive filled temper tantrums rather than attempts at figuring out the patch. Hey guess what, familiar gameplay mechanics and familiar problems will result in familiar comments. Personally, I don't think 1.10 brings ruin to the game, the game was already pretty broken. I think the patch doesn't solve any of the problems.

If you already knew the posts were full of 'whiners', why read them when you could be enjoying this glorious patch? Heaven forbid people use a public forum to discuss what they think of the new patch in a mature fashion. No, everyone should just shut up and play, right? I just find it ironic that no one resorted to inflammatory posts except for the admin trying to put a cap on the otherwise civiilzed discussions.

[WarBlade]

What a bunch of whiners!!!!!!

I've been reading several threads here, and a few of them are mainly devoted to whining......

This is true. Curiously though, this statement is most true when applied against this thread that I'm posting in right now. ;)

[Mavfin]

I wasn't trying to put a cap on anything. I posted my opinion. Plain and simple. And of course, you realize that you are posting to whine about me posting to whine about your whining.......... B) :P

[DeeBye]

God, this reminds me of the 1.08 patch that everyone said would ruin D2.

That was exactly my thought as well. Well said, Mav.

My wife and I have been taking turns playing 1.10 for the past couple of days, and we are both having fun with it. The best part is the sheer novelty of it. Everything is new when you start from scratch again.

It has put some spark back into the game, which is a good thing.

I think that most of the whiners are having problems because they are taking existing (or hacked-up) characters and plunking them directly into Act 5/Hell. They are completely skipping the "learning curve" by bypassing the lower levels and difficulties. I find it it easier to start from scratch with a new character and progress through the game (you know, the way it's SUPPOSED to work). When I get to Hell diff, I'll be ready. I'll know how to play my character, and what his limitations are in this patch.

In a few months, after all the hubbub has settled down, everyone will have adapted to the changes. New "uberbuilds" will emerge, and no one will even remember 1.09.

I'm happy the game is changing. It has been fairly stale for a long time.


-DeeBye

[Guest]

I was surprised to see all the "rants" and complaints here at the lounge. Its kind of a poor show.

[DeeBye]

Personally, I don't think 1.10 brings ruin to the game, the game was already pretty broken. I think the patch doesn't solve any of the problems.

I'm curious.

If the game is so "broken", and the patch doesn't appeal to you, why are you still playing it?


-DeeBye

[lemekim]

You have to admit Mav, in 1.08 those whines did have effect to some degree (Removal of multiple immunuties in favor of 2 at most comes to mind) :P No point really, except I'm wondering if those whines will have any effect this time, or is this beta the first spoon of the meal that is already prepared?

[Hammerskjold]

I have no class. Eh.. make that I have no favorite class. I enjoy playing one at any given time, but I like trying them all equally. Having said that, there are certain things with ALL classes that can always use improvements.

>Oh, and don't EVEN get me started about the "I can't solo players-8 hell" crap with me.

To me, that isn't the main point. Given enough time, my bet is there will be solo 8 in Hell in 1.1. It's only a matter of when, and who will figure out which build\item\tactics can do it first. Exactly as you mentioned when 1.08 first came out. (Though the G.P.R. in Nightmare and Hell for D2C was definitely a goof and not a planned feature iirc.)

My minor beef is really with blizzards P.R. spiel. I thought I read that one of their goals for Hell mode was to make it so "challenging" that a team is needed to tackle it. Some people interpret that as soloing 8 in hell is now dead. Actually I'll let the ASummit answer that one.

http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/basics/ex...xperience.shtml

>Do you get any extra or bonus experience for being in a party?
Yes.

I'm guessing this is their way to promote party play. Fair enough.

>Monster Experience In Multiplayer Games
Monsters' experience value and Hit Points will change with the number of players in the game. When more people join a game, the monsters become harder, and as they leave the game, the monsters become easier. For the ultimate challenge, fight solo against monsters on Hell difficulty in an 8-player game.

I understand they never said "Guaranteed to be ABLE to strut around like a God on steroids while soloing in Hell 8". All they said is the choice is there if you want it. (Which by the way, I think is great. Giving more choices like this to players is a good thing in my books.) But this seems like the old "we are against the concept of muling. By the way, here's how you do it if you want to risk muling yourself, create a realm game..."

And I'm guessing the amount of "whining" you see is exactly because this game is so popular, and therefore so closely scrutinized. (I still enjoy playing D2C and the occasional LoD, warts and all. Though I still like D1 even more. :) Chances are there's very little whining done on a game like "Space bunnies must die!".

[phooker51]

If the game is so "broken", and the patch doesn't appeal to you, why are you still playing it?

Until the news of the patch, I hadn't played in about 6 months. I play some hardcore classic when I'm bored just to kill the time. I'm still 'playing' the patch because I'm looking for something I might have missed. Despite my pessimism, I'd like to see the final patch done well. I'm just not encouraged by the beta thus far.

[whyBish]

Classy!

[unless]

What a bunch of whiners!!!!!!

I've been reading several threads here, and a few of them are mainly devoted to whining......

God, this reminds me of the 1.08 patch that everyone said would ruin D2.&nbsp; I knew this was coming, but it's just depressing to hear the same crap all over again.&nbsp; "Oh, my <favorite class> is all <pick implied expletive here> up!&nbsp; And my <pick another class> is too.&nbsp; But <some other class> got all these boosts, but I don't like to play them!&nbsp; Blizzard sucks!&nbsp; Blizzard put out a bad patch.&nbsp; Again!"

Oh, and don't EVEN get me started about the "I can't solo players-8 hell" crap with me.&nbsp; I heard that SO many times when 1.08 came out, with the PI's, and the nerfed whirlwind.&nbsp; And the sorcies whining about all the <elemental> immunes.&nbsp; We all know how that turned out.

Hey, everyone, if you can't do anything better than recycle the crap I've seen before, then spare me, please.

If I had ten cookies, I would give you five of them. Thank you for this.

[whereagles]

Yeah indeed, I dunno what ppl are whining about. I made a frenzy babo who's doing Act 1 nightmare right now. His weapons are quite lame, so he can't do more than players 3. If I were stubborn to try and do players 8 anyway, then the patch would indeed suck lol. But players 3 give enough xp already, so I have no problems with that. Plus I'm using lev 3 find item on every corpse to compensate the lesser drops. Leech is no problem because life tap wands are still there :) I don't get owned because I use a defiance merc to boot. (Right now he kills faster than me lololol.)

In any case there are some things that remain a problem. The boss vs. normal monster discrepancy is still very striking. Getting a decent weapon is still very hard and time-consuming. If I were in charge, there would be NO damage enhancement modifiers on weapons. All the weapons would do roughly the same damage and the pluses to max and min damage would come from skills, just like they do with spells. But that's another story...

As for the builds, I don't think my frenzy babo will be very different from the one I had in the Realms. I still need to max frenzy to get AR and speed. Double swing gives more damage, but I can't split the points 10/10 because I really need the AR. I think the classic frenzy build is fine. Left-overs go to double swing, but that's it.

[jondifool]

Very good point there Mafin!

I have been thinking about why it is so. And 1 off the things that comes to my is all the conflicting purposes that people have with this game!

To me it looks like we miss to define/discuss the purposes off the changes before ranting around about how good/ bad they are.

Take the synergies, what is the purpose of them? What are they intended to do for the game! Can we agree about a general prediction about what blizzard wanted with them and discuss if that was 1) a good idea, 2) achieved in the beta 3) what needs to be changed to get there 4) or what needs to be done to get somewhere else.

Going a little more in deepth i predict that Blizzard didn't want to use synergies to create and support new uber coccie cutter builds. No actual I asume that they want to create diversity with different builds possible.
And how is that achieved? securing that to get the effeckts and benefits from the synergies you have to sacrifice something else. And as I agree with the goal I am ready to go on discussing if they achieve it!

Exsample. The sorceress can build a very strong character utilising the synergies full in one elemental tree but not without sacrificing some damgage from the second (and the third) skill tree.

And with that I also think that the idea is that you now should be able to build some really powerfull but very 1 eyed characters, very suiteble for team play ( or should we say not suitble for any thing else!) And with the non scaling minions I see other moves from blizzard going in that direction.!

Also I think that synergies is meant to create a more interesting build path , where low level skills actual can be used, and you therefore don't have to play to lvl 30 before starting pumping your skills. And as such they are meant to fill in the gab that rushers leapt over before! ( and as a ok sideeffeckt it actual can make a messy character build from the clueless to some use).

Going back to rants! There are many complain about the balance of the synergies, in terms off some clases getting more powerfull than others. As exsample the paladin is called " a really mess!" But As I see it, we forget that synergies is not meant to be a tool balancing the classes between each other, but a tool to provide diversity in the posible good ways a class can be played! If we wanted to classes to be more balanced, the tool is the skills them self as I see it.

[SonOfYarg]

Well I agree mostly with what you said, but I think you are grouping some complaints that are valid in with a few that are whines. From what I have read here I did not see that many that were complaining about not being able to solo in players 8. I personally like 98% of the changes they have made. About the only things I don't like was the nerf to MF, some of the skill synergies need more work, and the difficulty needs to be scaled back about 25%. I wanted it more difficult, much more difficult, but when you can barely survive in a 1 player game with all of the best gear in the game, that of course you will never find, then its a bit over the top. Thats what I expected for a 1 player very good equipped character, as in one with attainable items. I want new challenges, and having to learn skills.

You know it is a beta patch that they wanted feedback on. As in our opinions on the changes they have made. Albeit constructive critisism. Mine as to difficulty is as follows; cut back the hitpoints on monsters by about 25%. The greatly increased range of monsters for spells and revives, along with their speed, and new regenerative powers is great, make thems a much greater challenage. It should be hard to kill them, but when dealing 5K plus physical and 100's of points of various elemental damage barely nicks their life, then maybe they have a bit much life.

[kandrathe]

Mine as to difficulty is as follows; cut back the hitpoints on monsters by about 25%. The greatly increased range of monsters for spells and revives, along with their speed, and new regenerative powers is great, make thems a much greater challenage. It should be hard to kill them, but when dealing 5K plus physical and 100's of points of various elemental damage barely nicks their life, then maybe they have a bit much life.

Now I'm talking Hell difficulty, players 1. I think the hitpoints are fine, I can even live with the ultra fast swarms, but in some cases I think the regeneration is too much. You can literally watch their life bars go back to full. Most of the lesser HP monsters, no problem. But for some, like Lister, you always need to be spamming him with poison to be able to make any headway against him. Poison is fine for those classes and builds that want to use it, but it should not need to be in every players strategy kit. As he is currently, non-melee classes will mostly likely need to park him.

Edit: Oh, and Mav, I agree with your thread. I don't get why people are taking their v1.09 chars into players 8 hell, getting smoked and thinking that is a problem. Thier tactics, and strategies are still v1.09. Heck, v1.09 players 8 hell would catch me off guards at times. If I dust off high level character after a few weeks hiatus, I need to relearn how to survive with them.

[Quark]

I tried a thread similar to this a long time ago, and got burned badly :P

Let's hope you fare better.

[Bolty]

I was surprised to see all the "rants" and complaints here at the lounge. Its kind of a poor show.

I'm not. This happens every patch. People apply the old character setups and playing styles to the new changes, find they don't work, and complain it's too hard. Every time.

-Bolty