Silent_Buddha
Legend
Played a bit of the latest BETA so far and some good things and bad things.
Lore items now give experience when they are picked up.
Mini Bosses have a greater chance to drop magical items which somewhat counteracts the rarity of magical item drops otherwise. Overall I'd guess I'm getting about 1/2 to 2/3 less magic items per run now. But it's more consistent from things you "expect" to drop magic items. Chests also seem to have a slightly better chance to drop magic items than before.
Overall if you ignore the following it makes item progression seem smoother and more meaningful.
Magic Items at vendors are cheaper than they were previously. Combined with reduced magic drops this makes it a far more viable route to get item upgrades. Except..
I was expecting the reduce magic drops and inability to salvage white items to reduce the unbalancing effect of crafting in the early game, but that isn't the case. Crafting now no longer uses common (white) crafting materials. Hence, it is meaningless that you can't salvage white items any longer. And the amount of blue crafting mats for items remains the same. So a monk weapon still just needs 2 salvaged magical items as before. But no longer also needs 4 white items salvaged (2 blue, 6 white crafting mats).
The reduced drop rate of magical items to salvage "should" have counteracted this to prevent crafting 5-10x items at once in order to get the mods you want, however when you combine selling of all white items (more gold income) now with the cheaper prices of magic items on vendors you end up with being able to craft items almost as frequently as before. Sell white items, buy blue items, salvage, craft. /sigh...
That said. Up until you unlock crafting, the game is slightly more challenging. Certain mini-boss types actually require more than just spammig a single attack type.
Armor levels of all items have been increased to counteract the removal of the defense stat. Some more than others. Belts, for example, received a huge boost to the armor they provide.
As expected having to go back to town to sell/salvage hasn't impacted my play in any significant way. And combined with the changes to salvaging and crafting will actually mean smoother and less interrupted gameplay in the future. Magic find runs can basically ignore everything except mini-bosses, chests, and bosses. Whereas before you had to kill everything as mini-bosses only had an almost imperceptablely greater chance to drop magic items than normal mobs.
I also generally like the stat changes. It at least encourages classes to use weapons appropriate to their class rather than having virtually all weapons being as good as anyother weapon for any class with regards to damage potential.
That said. I still feel a lack of involvement with my character. I feel disassociated with it. The lack of any character customization at all still leaves me feeling detached from my character. I'm not invested in them in any way. They have quirks, no personality, no identity as the ones in D2 did through leveling them up how you wanted to level them up. Assuming you didn't just go with online character templates in D2 (I never did).
Also, re-enabling achievements combined with the increased player load on servers after the patch seemed to have made the D3 servers rather unstable again.
Regards,
SB
Lore items now give experience when they are picked up.
Mini Bosses have a greater chance to drop magical items which somewhat counteracts the rarity of magical item drops otherwise. Overall I'd guess I'm getting about 1/2 to 2/3 less magic items per run now. But it's more consistent from things you "expect" to drop magic items. Chests also seem to have a slightly better chance to drop magic items than before.
Overall if you ignore the following it makes item progression seem smoother and more meaningful.
Magic Items at vendors are cheaper than they were previously. Combined with reduced magic drops this makes it a far more viable route to get item upgrades. Except..
I was expecting the reduce magic drops and inability to salvage white items to reduce the unbalancing effect of crafting in the early game, but that isn't the case. Crafting now no longer uses common (white) crafting materials. Hence, it is meaningless that you can't salvage white items any longer. And the amount of blue crafting mats for items remains the same. So a monk weapon still just needs 2 salvaged magical items as before. But no longer also needs 4 white items salvaged (2 blue, 6 white crafting mats).
The reduced drop rate of magical items to salvage "should" have counteracted this to prevent crafting 5-10x items at once in order to get the mods you want, however when you combine selling of all white items (more gold income) now with the cheaper prices of magic items on vendors you end up with being able to craft items almost as frequently as before. Sell white items, buy blue items, salvage, craft. /sigh...
That said. Up until you unlock crafting, the game is slightly more challenging. Certain mini-boss types actually require more than just spammig a single attack type.
Armor levels of all items have been increased to counteract the removal of the defense stat. Some more than others. Belts, for example, received a huge boost to the armor they provide.
As expected having to go back to town to sell/salvage hasn't impacted my play in any significant way. And combined with the changes to salvaging and crafting will actually mean smoother and less interrupted gameplay in the future. Magic find runs can basically ignore everything except mini-bosses, chests, and bosses. Whereas before you had to kill everything as mini-bosses only had an almost imperceptablely greater chance to drop magic items than normal mobs.
I also generally like the stat changes. It at least encourages classes to use weapons appropriate to their class rather than having virtually all weapons being as good as anyother weapon for any class with regards to damage potential.
That said. I still feel a lack of involvement with my character. I feel disassociated with it. The lack of any character customization at all still leaves me feeling detached from my character. I'm not invested in them in any way. They have quirks, no personality, no identity as the ones in D2 did through leveling them up how you wanted to level them up. Assuming you didn't just go with online character templates in D2 (I never did).
Also, re-enabling achievements combined with the increased player load on servers after the patch seemed to have made the D3 servers rather unstable again.
Regards,
SB
