Ehm, no - not specifically.
I would have liked a reason to replay the game with the same class.
There are thousands of ways to accomplish that.
Going with their current system - I’d probably wait until everything was unlocked.
As in, give people a 5-10% boost in skill perfomance for skills selected at a time of their choosing - post 60. After choosing a build at that point, there would be no going back. People unwilling to commit to a build, would then perform 5-10% less. But with how gear works in D3 - it’d still mean that everyone was viable in Inferno with enough farming.
But, since it takes ~20 hours to boost a character to 60 in D3 - I think people are kinda overestimating the investment.
Then again, as I said, I’d be perfectly fine if they created a separate game mode for people who prefer this way of playing.
Just like they created Hardcore for people into that. I doubt anyone can argue that Hardcore is not incredibly punishing of minor mistakes. So, there’s already room for crazy people who like to “punish” themselves :)
20 hours to level 60? Not even close for me. I’m more of a methodical player.
Anyway, I had concerns about the lack of replayability before the game came out. I do agree that it hurts the longevity of the game in a specific way. However, I think it is important to be balanced and look at what was gained by the change.
One thing I like is that you get a full assortment of useful skills much more quickly. Also, there’s no wasting skill points on garbage skills to get to what you really want. There’s also no grinding through 10-15 levels saving up skill points to dump them into one thing when you are high enough level. There are FAR more combinations of skills, runes, and passives to play with in D3 than in D2, and switching out various things is easy and fun. Some of the runes make major changes to the skills, and allow you to work in other abilities you thought you couldn’t fit in previously.
Do the changes give less of a reason to level a different character of the same class? Absolutely.
Are the benefits worth that loss? For me, absolutely.
I demand that you guys stop debating each other until you can learn to agree on everything.
Joe_M
5904
Indeed, this means that I can level one of each class and spend my time playing around with skills instead of grinding levels. Given the difficulty of Inferno and the amount of time I’ve spent tweaking builds to tackle encounters, I really can’t fathom how awful the game would be for me if they’d adopted any of the alternatives suggested above.
Drai
5905
Ha- any mention of DII being less of farming game than DIII is hilarious.
As you approached high end levels running the same 3-4 bosses over and over was all that happened (Hell Pindle, Meph and Baal come to mind). The loot table in DII had the best items only available to drop of those bosses- there was no reason or benefit to actually playing the full game anymore.
DKD- if you want the ability to play DII style with no repecs, just pick your skills and runes and never change them. No one is forcing you to, and why would you care if others played differently?
Or better yet, if you want it to be EVEN MORE like D2, don’t choose any skills until you reach level 40 or so.
State of the game update, future plans, etc:
Thanks for posting that, some great stuff in there, like on game balance and spikiness of damage in inferno.
Interesting that 35% of HC deaths occur in Act I normal.
Glad that legendaries are getting some love.
Can’t believe they are making combining gems even easier.
Can’t believe they are making combining gems even easier.
Well, from the way they’re describing it, it’s only the lowish level, droppable gems. Given how cheap they are in the AH, it kind of makes sense. There’s really no reason to craft gems that drop.
Anyway, I might just stop levelling my Blacksmith until the 1.03 patch, given what they’re saying.
Ugh, wish I knew this was coming before I sank a couple hundred thousand into the (nearly) useless bastard.
JMR
5911
What’s your battlenet tag? Me, angrycoder, reptilehouse, and another guy ran through hell Act IV last night and throughout the entire time I felt like a 5th wheel from getting my ass handed to me every 3 or 4 minutes. It was fucking sad and I almost logged so the others would have an easier time finishing the act but I did end up sticking it out. Too bad the AH was flaky yesterday otherwise I would have picked up some new threads
Ugh, wish I knew this was coming before I sank a couple hundred thousand into the (nearly) useless bastard
Likewise, though I’m getting to the stage where a couple of hundred thousand isn’t a vast amount, and besides the only other thing I’d have sunk it into is stash space.
My battlenet tag is: rayhorakhty.
I’m still pretty successful on inferno dual-wielding weapons and actually prefer it over a shield so far. Maybe that will change going into Act II, which I’m not sure I want to move to just yet. :)
Yeah, Act 2 is a whole different world from 1. I’m not sure quite how hard stuff is hitting, because I’m using Force Armor, but trash is hitting hard enough to blast past the 35% limit, which means it would be one shotting me with 40k health and a combined 80% reduction in melee damage. Enemy health is also tediously higher. I’ve been able to progress, but it’s not a lot of fun. I decided I’ve be better off farming up some more cash in Act 1, where I roflstomp everything, and upgrading on the AH before completing Act 2.
Reldan
5915
How well does this work if your goal is to game with friends at that level? How long does it take to get someone up to speed and ready to tackle the next set of content with you? I always get leery with exponential power creep because it stratifies the playerbase to an insane degree, although perhaps the purpose of the AH is to mitigate that (and the RMAH to provide a shortcut to catch up).
StGabe
5916
Stupid iPhone. Nevermind this post.
JMR
5917
Can you post a pic of your gear? Did you get all of your stuff off of the AH? Also, I need the number thingy to add your tag to my list.
Oh, so that’s what the number is for. It’s: rayhorakhty#1981
And yes, most of my gear is bought from the AH. It takes a lot of farming to find an item that has a ton of vitality (100+), so I’ve been buying it. Actually, I take that back. I bought most of my gear up until 60, after 60 I’ve since upgraded my shoulders, waist, boots, legs, and bracers by random loot drops that were just plain better than what I had.
The AH at level 60 can get quite expensive to upgrade just one piece (100k+), but I did just buy a new weapon for 300k:
So, I’m not sure if people realize this when they trash 2-handers, but they have stats specific to classes that 1-handers can’t have that reduce the cost of secondary abilities.
I’m now cutting through creatures and elites in less than half the time it would’ve taken with my previous 1-hand weapon (475 DPS). Most 1-handers above 700 or so DPS are insanely expensive at well over a million a pop and into the 10s of millions if you want decent stats on it.
Here’s another screenshot with all my stats:
Notice my high resistances. Resistance is something I didn’t really pay much attention to, but I think they can be enormously helpful, much more so than armor. I do wish I knew how physical resistance compares to armor though and whether say 50 physical resistance is better than 500 armor.
Finally finished Normal with my WD, level 32 after 25+ hours. Seems a reasonable leveling curve. Oddly enough, I got my first Templar relic as a drop for that final battle, during which he wasn’t part of my group anymore.
I think the loot finding needs to be ramped up in Normal a bit. There was a huge stretch of time when I’d find no new items to swap for what I had. I never used the AH (haven’t even logged into it) and my WD is my one and only character right now so no trading available (I played it solo, throughout). The only benefit is that Normal is a perfect difficulty for my style of play with that type of character. I managed to make it through without dying but the lack of equipment swapping for a big part of the later levels meant I didn’t enjoy it as much as I would have liked.
Now for a monk or barbarian character; melee to switch it up from the range WD.
Hey JMR, I have my old weapon/shield combo I’d be willing to give you if you like.
