Diablo III - It's official

[John Reynolds]

I wrote this on another board:

Hit 60 last night, four of us went into Act 1 in Inferno. If you'd told me 17 days ago that I'd be in that situation and still seeing tons of whites and blues dropping, even with Nephalem's running, I wouldn't believe that Blizz could so thoroughly screw itemization up in the game. And I would've been wrong.

Of course if you'd told me that Blizz would have such instability/lag/downtime with B.net, I wouldn't have believed it either. What was my most anticipated game in the last 3-4 years has become arguably the single biggest train wreck in my personal gaming history. Not to be overly dramatic, but when I compare the issues against my level of interest and Blizz's experience with hosting a client-server game that supports millions globally for years now, I just never expected it to be this bad.

I'm about ready to make up a 5th Skyrim character, especially now that I have a GTX 670 and it runs so much smoother at 2560x1600 for me, and wait for Blizz to fix Inferno and itemization in the coming months. Assuming they do.

I would add that my disappointment also stems beyond the support issues to a sense that the game feels fundamentally broken at this point. I'm sick of not feeling rewarded for the hours spent to reach 60/Inferno, of having to walk my ass over to the AH and play mini-eBay to better equip my barbarian since not one single drop in days and days has been of use to my character. At this point Blizz should've just had the mobs drop gold and auto-populated the AH from their loot DB with more moderate pricing.

 

[Malo]

You want only rares and legendary's to drop in Inferno?

I played D2 for years. I plan to plug away at D3 for years as well. I don't expect to have the best equipment possible for a character after days of playing.

 

[John Reynolds]

You want only rares and legendary's to drop in Inferno?

I certainly don't expect to see whites dropping. And while I think the legendary drops should be restricted to boss/elite mobs, the rare drop rate feels low and, overall, itemization is just f*cked. Nothing like class-unique cesti dropping like they did last night that had 200 strength. Or a similar wand.

 

[liolio]

I'm way lower in difficulty lvl (early nightmare) and my artisans (which I spend all my money on) does some fine items (I wear quiet some of the item he makes).
Is he getting useless later on?

Just a remark as I haven't played that much I still pretty much destroy everything in the background and check every chests, library, dead bodies, etc.
I don't know if people are doing it latter on but I've found nice gear doing so (not too mention page of blacksmithing/jewelry).

Other than that the game is out for only 2 weeks and Blizzard prove reactive in updating the game. It ain't perfect for sure but aren't people lacking a bit patience? I understand after such a long wait and many beta but it's out for only two weeks and that games they expect users to play for a long while.

I'm not that concerned by gear now but I hope they balance some rune in the upcoming month for wizard (my class) some are quiet useless.

 

[trinibwoy]

My biggest problem is that I'm not seeing any of the Blizzard polish and special sauce that I expected. I'm struggling to understand how Diablo is any better than Torchlight.

 

[Kyyla]

EU login seems to be down again. It's the third or fourth night in a row. No matter I reached Inferno and found it to be a boring grind.

 

[Pressure]

I'm way lower in difficulty lvl (early nightmare) and my artisans (which I spend all my money on) does some fine items (I wear quiet some of the item he makes).
Is he getting useless later on?

Just a remark as I haven't played that much I still pretty much destroy everything in the background and check every chests, library, dead bodies, etc.
I don't know if people are doing it latter on but I've found nice gear doing so (not too mention page of blacksmithing/jewelry).

Other than that the game is out for only 2 weeks and Blizzard prove reactive in updating the game. It ain't perfect for sure but aren't people lacking a bit patience? I understand after such a long wait and many beta but it's out for only two weeks and that games they expect users to play for a long while.

I'm not that concerned by gear now but I hope they balance some rune in the upcoming month for wizard (my class) some are quiet useless.

Yeah, stop wasting money on your blacksmith and visit the Auction House instead. You can in no way find as nice loot until you hit level 60 and Inferno.

 

[liolio]

Yeah, stop wasting money on your blacksmith and visit the Auction House instead. You can in no way find as nice loot until you hit level 60 and Inferno.

INteresting, so those artisans are not a valid long term investment

Anyway as I've no trouble for now (only nightmare again) I may continue a bit. When I seriously start a second character I know that my smith will be up to the task to do good enough gears for most of the leveling (without having to spend the money as you say I might have to spend elsewhere as soon as hell or may be even latter on in nightmare).

 

[John Reynolds]

The crafters are end-game investments. The blacksmith for example can craft decent stuff if you get him to level 10, have the materials, and get recipe drops. Now, the odds of getting a recipe drop for somethign you want, and that it will have desirable attributes. . . . Yeah, stick with the AH.

 

[AlphaWolf]

I've crafted things that have sold for upwards of 1m on the auction house, but you need recipe drops from inferno.

 

[DeF]

Found something disturbing

Today i was browsing AH and found something disturbing.

Looks like someone is selling 5 identical magical items. What are the chances that 5 different players sell 5 identical items at the same time? Or maybe one player found 5 identical items and put them on sale?
I checked stats and they are all identical.

I might be wrong but it looks like someone found a way to dupe items.

 

[BRiT]

It's sure a great thing that Blizzard completely screwed over their consumers by removing offline gameplay in an effort to prevent the unpreventable. Go Blizzard Go!

 

[pcchen]

I might be wrong but it looks like someone found a way to dupe items.

I personally already found several identical magical rings. Since blue magical items have less random stats, it's not that uncommon to have multiple items with the same prefixes and stats. Yellow items, on the other hand, are less likely to have the same stats.

 

[Grall]

Surely you haven't found FIVE rings with the exact same stats, though? And those aren't rings, I'm not sure what weapon that is (never gotten that far into the game), but rings gotta be more common than one single type of weapon.

Exact same auction price and duration (well, almost; 1 auction lasts 1 hour longer) also indicates it's the same person who put them all up for sale.

Sure looks like dupes to me, although what might speak against a dupe is I'd expect someone to dupe a more valuable item than a random blue. *shrug*

 

[RobertR1]

I certainly don't expect to see whites dropping. And while I think the legendary drops should be restricted to boss/elite mobs, the rare drop rate feels low and, overall, itemization is just f*cked. Nothing like class-unique cesti dropping like they did last night that had 200 strength. Or a similar wand.

Speaking of shit drops. I'm at the end of Act III on Hell now. All the main and mini bossed I've been to this point have only dropped whites and blues. That's right, not even 1 epic drop from any of the bosses so far.

 

[DeF]

I personally already found several identical magical rings. Since blue magical items have less random stats, it's not that uncommon to have multiple items with the same prefixes and stats. Yellow items, on the other hand, are less likely to have the same stats.

I find it highly doubtful that one can find 7 identical weapons like this:

 

[pcchen]

Why not? There are only two different stats on that weapon. Also, it's not completely "random." Weapon damage is of limited range, it's actually most likely a single random variable. Now add another variable, which is "increase attack speed by x%." This variable is unlikely to have a large range either.

Of course, if someone actually found a way to dup items, and don't want Blizzard to find out, they may want to "test" it on a less valuable item first. But then again he (or she) wouldn't be selling all duped items at once, no?

I'm not saying it's impossible to be dup items, I just want to avoid jumping conclusion. If what you found is several identical yellow items with multiple random stats all of the same values, I think it's going to be more convincing.

 

[AlphaWolf]

You can buy as many blues from vendors as you want. Mystery solved.

 

[Grall]

Ah... I C. Yeah, that would explain it. I forgot that D3 vendors have infinite copies of the same items, for some reason...

 

[DeF]

You can buy as many blues from vendors as you want. Mystery solved.

Oh, thank god its true. I was a bit pissed when i saw all those weapons on AH.