D3 teaser site is up.

[Eric]

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/reaper-of-souls/

Wonder what system changes they're gonna make. Although I could see them ignoring all the critics since it's like one of the best selling PC games of all time.

[Flip]

I dont know if i can put myself through more D3 hardcore playing. I had so many lvl 60's die to lag, which one expects, that getting back into the grind seems like more torture for myself. The problem is i dont think softcore is fun.

I havent played in months and months, so with the new ubers and uber crafting items, my characters will suck

[Shrinweck]

I'm hesitant to buy another game in this series. We'll see what information releases as time goes on.

[Anarky]

I think I'm done buying Blizzard games and expansions day 1 for awhile. I will take the wait and see approach.

[Shrinweck]

It would certainly be in their best interest to basically have the best launch day in their history.

[Don]

The launch day problems is why people sign up in the first place. It's like the guys who line up for Thanksgiving sales or a game console launch or whatever. The whole point is to get into the insanity of the launch because you'll probably never see it again.

That said I was disappointed with Diablo 3 and don't really plan on getting the expansion. I figure Phantasy Star Online 2's got to be a better Diablo clone unless they totally screw things up, assuming it ever gets released here.

[Shrinweck]

Hours of login problems is hardly why people pre-order games to play at launch. Or why people shop on Black Friday.

[Eric]

I don't think he means that literally, but if you buy a ridiculously popular game @ launch, and any kind of server authentication or online play is involved, you already know you're not going to be able to play, or be able to play well/consistently. Like it or not, it's part of that glorious launch experience. I fondly remember WoW's server issues at launch, was it kinda frustrating? Yeah, but my only take away was how I just couldn't wait for the server(s) to be back up so I could play. MMOs in general always have this problem. They don't have enough servers @ launch and have load issues, then run out and add a bunch of new servers, and then 3 months later when the fickle types who don't think the game is for them leave they end up with too many servers and not enough people to fill them properly.

[Don]

I don't think he means that literally, but if you buy a ridiculously popular game @ launch, and any kind of server authentication or online play is involved, you already know you're not going to be able to play, or be able to play well/consistently. Like it or not, it's part of that glorious launch experience. I fondly remember WoW's server issues at launch, was it kinda frustrating? Yeah, but my only take away was how I just couldn't wait for the server(s) to be back up so I could play. MMOs in general always have this problem. They don't have enough servers @ launch and have load issues, then run out and add a bunch of new servers, and then 3 months later when the fickle types who don't think the game is for them leave they end up with too many servers and not enough people to fill them properly.

That problem is because companies try to be cheap about hardware despite hardware cost is a negligible part when you talking about the budget these games have. If you have say 10 servers each with a concurrent capacity of 500K that's far more concurrent user than WoW ever got, so that ought to be enough. If you somehow go over that, that means you sold at least 5 million copies of the game and hopefully that's supposed to cover your costs to buy even more servers. And if the game flops the next day you still have 10 servers which is a reasonable number of servers and then you can donate the rest of your computers for SETI@home or your next game or whatever. The cost of hardware is absolutely irrelevent compared to the budget of a high profile online game that it makes no sense to skimp out on them. Let's say WoW relaunched today what it should have is say 5 servers in NA and 5 servers in Europe and you'd be in like US-West-Origimmar(150) or whatever, since technology to divide things up has been around for a very long time. If the game eventually flops you'd just be in US-West-Origrimmar(1) and they can even ship the extra computers to do something else since a server is rarely one giant powerful machine.

In fact server congestion issues is kind of fun. People cry about having 10 times the players than mobs but it's honestly a pretty cool sight to see, especially if the game supports any kind of PvP. It doesn't matter if a 100 vs 100 PvP invariably turns into a lagfest, because that kind of stuff is just fun and you usually only get it during the game launch. I've never heard of anyone who quit a game because too many people are playing it, but plenty of people quit due to too few people playing the game. Heck I was on Tallon Zek when it had 5000 concurrent users in EQ1, and that's EQ1 running on antiquidated technology, but for some reason modern MMORPGs have a hard time sustaining 2000 concurrent users reliably.

[Shrinweck]

Okay so I read the preview for this in this months PC Gamer and I may have to buy it after all. They're fixing the problems that would have made me not want to buy another game in this series in ways that actually sound fun. "Smart" drops that drop excellent equipment the first time you kill a boss in the quest line that you can actually use is something that should have dawned on them in the first place. This along with other things align the game towards an "auction house should only be a last resort" philosophy. They're adding suffixes to equipment to give the game a little more randomness, but the example they gave (chance to spawn a friendly treasure goblin on hit) sounded stupid. There's only one new class (ugh...), but at least it's an adaptation of the paladin from Diablo 2, so I'm happy about that. There's ten more levels and they're saying that these levels will aid in giving us more "build diversity" which definitely makes me a happy camper.

Also randomly generated mini dungeons to grind for items instead of the same old story levels over and over again sound interesting. Apparently they're also drastically increasing item drop (including legendaries) and making it so paragon levels have an effect on new characters.

Only one new hero type would kind of be a deal breaker for me if it wasn't for what I would call the ideal hero to introduce.

Still probably waiting a week to buy it unless I see some assurances it isn't going to be another shit show.

Edit: I think grammatically I had a sentence with like a quadruple negative or something? Simplified it.

[Don]

If the expansion is supposed to fix the problem with the core game then it should be a patch, not a new game.

I mean, I get that a lot of expansions are really more like balance fixes (e.g. Starcraft) but these cases you start out with something decent that may be better (or not) so it was worth buying to take a chance.

[Flip]

I think most of the fun for D3 for me, in Hardcore, was the auction house since it wasnt real money. Since they are nixing that, I dont really have any interest. When the game was in its prime, I found it stupid fun to hunt for loot, sell it on the AH, then try to buy gear that helps me. The HC AH didnt have many of the issues that the real money and regular in game money AH did and it was pretty great.

I got that e mail a few months ago from Blizz, even though I havent played in quite a while, stating that they were getting rid of the auction houses, in general, right? Real money, in game money, everything? That means pre-AH players will be mixed with non AH players online and the game will never be fair or the same.

[Shrinweck]

They're only getting rid of the RMAH. The in game currency auction house is staying.

Edit: I went into my trash folder and you're right it says both.. I'm going to reread the preview because I swear they contradicted that... I guess I would trust the e-mail over the preview

Edit 2: Yeah contradiction is there in plain words as a negative "Auction house remains intact".. Given the total closure of both is up on the website, unedited, I guess that's gospel.

Edit 3: I'm not sure how the game wouldn't be fair... they're raising the level cap, meaning all top tier gear is worthless any way. There will be very rich players but without an auction house money loses a lot of value. It's going to be interesting to see how this all turns out.

[Don]

The legacy gear wouldn't matter anyway because presumably the expansion will have better gear anyway (otherwise why even buy it?) Besides, very few people actually had that super expensive stuff since they're ridiculously rare.

[Shrinweck]

If the expansion is supposed to fix the problem with the core game then it should be a patch, not a new game.

I mean, I get that a lot of expansions are really more like balance fixes (e.g. Starcraft) but these cases you start out with something decent that may be better (or not) so it was worth buying to take a chance.

It just dawned on me that if they're shutting down the auction houses then a loot fix would have to be patched in and not necessarily part of the expansion since the game would be unplayable without the changes to loot drops.

[Shrinweck]

While I'm in the business of bumping old threads...

So the expansion is out and it's fun. I saw more legendary items drop going through act one for the first time on the new Hard difficulty with my new crusader then I would usually see in an entire week of playing. Crafting is also really useful this time around. Crafting is much more affordable this time around without the auction house driving the prices to insanity and beyond. Overall a much more pleasant experience.

I like the new crusader class, but don't have much to say about it only having taken it through act one.

I think the star of the show in changed mechanics is the difficulty scaling to your level. I like completely clearing maps as I move through the game and found a (mostly) complete clearing of act one got me to level twenty-two instead of 16ish like before.

[Anarky]

I think I'm done buying Blizzard games and expansions day 1 for awhile. I will take the wait and see approach.

Well... I didn't follow through with this. I played the 2.0.3 patch a couple of weeks before RoS was to launch and just found myself having so much fun with the game. I upgraded without thinking about it. They overhauled the problems I had with the game. Story is still very saturday morning cartoons, but Act V was much better written.

[Shrinweck]

I liked what they did more in Act 5, too. All the cool stuff in the story was always (sadly) done with the lore books. One would wonder how all these villains have ANY time to do anything evil with these detailed journals that they just leave strewn about the landscape. The monster variety is better, too. There aren't any annoying jerks that spend 8 seconds running from you for every 3 seconds they attack and enemies that resurrect are kept to a minimum. The bosses are fun with the final one being hard as hell.

I've got my crusader up to 45ish. On paper these guys really kind of suck but once they get into the thick of things they're pretty strong. Either way, they need some tweaks pretty bad. A ton of their skills are next to useless. The forums are full of people complaining about them being terrible. They're kind of right. Still I'm making my way through act 3 "master" difficulty now and having an easy time of it for the most part. Extra health elites and bosses are an exercise in patience but that's par for the course. I'm probably going to drop down two difficulties to "hard" for the Azmodan fight.

I liked what a Blizzard employee had to say about the new difficulty:

The difficulty system now is very different from previous iterations, primarily because enemies now level along with you (where previously their levels were static across difficulty settings). While leveling, moving up to a higher difficulty should be a way for you to tailor what's comfortable for you, and some players find the higher difficulties better suited to their style of play (or level of gear they've acquired).

You'll find the difficulties interact a little differently once you reach level cap, since monsters no longer get progressively harder as you gain Paragon levels. It’s likely that you’ll lower your difficulty as you get closer to cap. Once you reach 70, over time as you acquire more gear you’ll find yourself ascending through difficulties again. I know some of you are super pro and might be able to tackle harder difficulties from the get-go, but that just highlights what’s different about this new system – it’s much easier to tailor to your play style as well as level of skill and gear.

[Don]

I don't like how they make the boss battle some kind of lame one person raid where you can't die even once. Not everything needs to be like World of Warcraft. Shining Force Neo had a great way to make boss battles challenging with only one death because the number of potions you can carry is limited. Heck, Diablo 2 already sort of did this even though technically you can just spend a lot of time dropping potions on the ground to prepare. There's nothing interesting when you get hit by a big attack that knocks you into red zone and your potion is cooldown and you run away like a headless chicken hoping one of the health pools would regenerate. It's also contrary to what Diablo is. You're supposed to die on the boss and run back and continue fighting. It's not like the bosses even drop anything interesting most of the time.

[Shrinweck]

There was nothing interesting about having your group drop town portals/running back yourself and dying 50 times either. That was never fun. And the Diablo 3 act bosses have always been this way.

[Shrinweck]

The xp bonus on master difficulty is the shit in adventure mode when you're on the 1-55 treadmill. For every five bounties, depending on how many other events you happen upon, you're looking at 3-5 levels in ~40 minutes. Throw one of those new rubies into a level appropriate weapon and you can just steamroll your way to 55.

I got my crusader to 61 and I still have reservations about the class... Their auras are basically garbage. They should really be on par with monk mantras or they shouldn't be in the game at all. Crusader auras really need to have something that sets them apart from mantras. Also they have the least interesting skill animations in the game other than the heavenly ray orbital strike thing. I'm just going to abandon it and play my demon hunter for a while.

[Anarky]

Most people have been super underwhelmed by the Crusader from what I've come across.

They need to buff 2 handed weapons and give barbarians the ability from Diablo 2 that allowed you to dual wield them with the 15% debuff.

Walking around with almost 600,000 sheet DPS http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Tabe ... ro/2304070

Still doing Adventure mode normal though for speed. Read a lot of guides regarding efficiency.

[Shrinweck]

I don't think 2H as one hand is coming for barbarians. They gave it to crusaders (in a passive), so if barbs were going to get it it probably would've happened. I would imagine if barbarians got it they'd have to give up that flat 15% damage reduction that they and monks get (seeing as how crusaders don't get said reduction). I read that the big problem with 2H weapons right now is that they tend to roll with 1H DPS. I expect an incoming fix at some point but Blizzard has always been glacial with fixes.

The problem with crusaders is that they just don't do anything better than anyone else... they don't deal damage as well as DH/Wiz, they don't take damage as well as barbs or monks, their support skills are definitely the worst, they don't have any pets to speak of.. basically they're just really mediocre at everything. And lots of useless skills just like the other classes had at launch. They really need to go back to the drawing board on a lot of those crusader skills. And the skills they got right almost universally need better animation.

My demon hunter is up to 300k sheet dps, but I'm up to 7.43 million sheet toughness so I've started doing Torment 1 runs in groups. Got a really good public group earlier today and just ran rifts. I'm still splitting my time along a shit ton of different characters. Spent like 450 blood gems and got a nice legendary weapon for my demon hunter that should carry him for a while. I'm trying to gear up my monk now. With my best dex gear her damage is only 200k.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/shri ... ro/3154997

Edit: If you check my profile and my demon hunter lacks equipment it's because it's on my monk lol