The Raven Council

I thought I'd jump in with some news about Diablo III, in case you didn't know!

1.0.4 will be released tomorrow. The patch is rather big actually, and you can find all the notes here

I've made a TL:DR, in case you're just interested in the short version (mainly pointing out biggest changes):

They added 100 new levels, namely Paragon levels. You start gaining them after level 60, they increase magic find, gold find and stats. Jay Wilson states it will take "hundreds and hundreds of hours to reach level 100, but majority of the first levels will be reached relatively quickly, so one can assume it'll be about the same as Diablo II level 1 - 99 time-wise.

In the auction house you can now search for 6 preferred stats instead of the current 3. You can now cancel an auction whenever you want unless it has been bid on.

They're removing the invulnerability affix. A lot of affixes are being nerfed, for instance several has been reduced in damage, and diminishing return added to some. Some possible affix combinations have been removed (for instance shielding+firelink can't occur any more). The health of monsters in all acts are being reduced (only elites in act 1). The damage of all monsters in act 2, 3 and 4 are being reduced.

A lot of buffs have been handed out to all classes (only very few nerfs). Particularly the Witch Doctor has been buffed extremely.

Tons of legendary items have been buffed. A lot of unique affixes added to many of them, such as for instance "X% chance to cast a Frozen Orb on hit". Note that current legendary items will remain the same, this change only applies to legendary items dropped after tomorrow's patch.

They're capping magic find at 300. If you get level 100 with Paragon, you're capped at 300 (3% per level). The valour buff will stack beyond this cap though. They want to remove magic find entirely over time (this does not happen in this patch, but it seems none of the new items have magic find on, so in the future this might happen).

That's the biggest changes. Much more detailed information are available within the actual patch notes.

Yay

I wonder if it isn't too late. I haven't played d3 in quite a while now and I'm not sure if, apart from maybe finishing the last part of inferno, it will keep my attention.

I think it's a great game to play for a couple of hours once in a while. I'm still doing that and now find myself in Act IV of Inferno (I defeated Belial on my own ).

I heard they nerfed it a lot.

Just tried that cydaea fight. It's an annoying fight with no fun factor in it.
So she spawns spiderlings that 2-shot me if I get hit. She also keeps doing that, so I hardly get to spend time on dpsing her and when I do dps her, she's going down at a rate that would take 10 minutes on its own. What fun is in that? I don't enjoy dodging little spiders and adding 10 minutes to that just to get that little bar of hers from 100% to 0%.

I'm good at games like wow and most mmo's, and I'm good at first-person-shooters. Diablo's control mechanism however and the view you have on the 'battlefield' are just frustrating. And I thought they nerfed the damage, but maybe 25k hp is so low that it still means that I'm one-two-shotted by most anything-lings. Spiderlings, dragonlings are supposed to be small creatures that are only deadly when in groups, not when there's just one. D3 is just broken and the inferno difficulty is just scaled up like you can scale up a 540p movie to a cinema screen but it will never be a full-hd movie.

Maybe it's fun when you play a class that actually tanks stuff, as you can just stand still and take the damage then and small mistakes are forgiven.

Well Diablo III is (IMO) not a good game. This patch might/probably change something for the better though. The game is hugely driven by the auction house, it's basically the whole centre and purpose of the game. With the radical changes to legendary items and weapons, they're basically resetting current equipment for everybody, since they're increasing the gear:value ratio substantially. This means the time and money you invested in your current gear becomes obsolete, since for a much much cheaper price (and this is far from a sole consequence of inflation) you can get the same gear:value. They also made it possible to sell 1 million gold for 0.25 EUR, and in less than a week, this will be the standard price because of the huge supply (mainly from actual gold-sellers running bots on a big scale). Because of that, the gold auction house will be impossible to use properly for casual players without actually buying gold, as the gold will hyper-inflate, and nobody can realistically farm gold in that scale. Of course, it works both ways, if you find a godly item, it will sell for the hyper-inflated price.

This tendency will continue with Diablo III, because as said, it's controlled and driven by the auction house, as in the end, the cut Blizzard receives per transaction, is all that matters. No good game will ever come out of that. The game is nothing but an endless gear-farm, essentially and objectively at least. You might score 50 million gold with some trading skills, or 50 million with some hard-core farming and a bit of luck, but a few months later, the inflation caught up with you. You can't secure your fortune in value with gear either, as Blizzard will keep adding new items to the game (pretty much like they just did), destroying the current gear:value level. The only secure investment you can make is something that doesn't change, but is kept in motion. The only things that would be, are crafting materials, but they're also entirely dependant on Blizzard continuing to add new consumer sources for crafting that yield up to date gear:value. Once the player-base has been satisfied with up-to-date gear, Blizzard will add something new so consuming continues, much like when Apple releases iphone 5, since now iphone 4 has satisfied the consumers.

Now you could argue, "why not just don't use auction house, and enjoy the game yourself or with friends?". You can, but not "realistically". Of course there are certain goals, personal achievements, fun-factors etc. for each individual, but most consider end-game completing the last acts of inferno and farming efficiently there. Now it's very hard to do these acts without using the auction house (at least efficiently, or unless you've been extremely lucky with drops), why? Because Blizzard balanced the drop rate of good items (including actual good yellow items) to the auction house. So when you have 2 million people farming, you have to make the drop chance of good items extremely low, in order for there to be a relative non-inflated market, so prices are kept high (and Blizzard can get their higher cut).

With that said, it's very possible to play and progress without using auction house, it just takes more time. The game can also be fun, especially playing with friends, but as Pyx said, I think most enjoy the game for a couple hours once in a while. It's all pretty much how you take it, but if you don't want to farm a certain act for a long time without using the auction house, you will likely get frustrated by dying a lot going later acts without the appropriate gear. Blizzard's direction with this game is all about the auction house (read: gear). There's not much "skill" in this game, you often can't control your character because you're so controlled by elites and RNG, so it all boils down to your gear being able to handle it.

With the 1.1 PvP patch a new aspect will be added to the game that might appeal to some, but it will with every little cent be controlled by the auction house. The system will be very similar to the Starcraft II one with leagues. Only this time, your gear will determine your league, and not your skills (not technically, but realistically).

Of course, all this greedy crap also means opportunity to earn a little extra, should that be your thing

Zeatrix wrote:Well Diablo III is (IMO) not a good game. This patch might/probably change something for the better though. The game is hugely driven by the auction house, it's basically the whole centre and purpose of the game. cut

That is why I have become less and less intrested from Blizards new products they are shifting from well working enviroment to give me cut of your virtual item auctions in real money.

Now that and information of adding adverticement to bugger people in their new mmo game its about only news there is from it.uhm who cares about game play look shiny realmoney auctions and advertising that pop up for you everywhere!

I would expect all this crap is coming to wow either during MoP or latest on next expansion as with those they see greatest value content and other things are just secondary they are not new ways to try milk more money

Zeatrix wrote: They want to remove magic find entirely over time (this does not happen in this patch, but it seems none of the new items have magic find on, so in the future this might happen).

If they remove Magic Find entirely... AH prices will just shoot up!