Originally posted by ThumbtackJ So are these changes live, or only on test servers? I have a... 60-something Wizard that I haven't touched in a LOOOOONG time. I think I got to the beginning of Hell, maybe end of nightmare difficulty. But if the loot system is better now, I might have to patch up and get back into this.
Yes its Live.
Well worth checking out if you have not played in a long time, many changes since release.
Just patched up, and geeze there's a ton of new stuff. I think I'm going to start from scratch though and level up a Witch Doctor seeing as how Blizzard decided to not add the Necromancer >:( . Hopefully it will be an entirely new, and better, experience.
EDIT: Loving how you can start out on any difficulty now and the scaling. Good stuff.
EDIT 2: Oh yeah. The loot system is MUCH better now. Only level 14 (almost 15) but so far I've gotten more rare's than you can shake a stick at (that I can actually use for my class!), as well as two legendary's. I got The Crudest Boots around level 12, and then a Nagelring (20 INT, 19 VIT, +6 life per hit, all resource costs reduced by 3%, ranged and melee attackers take 4 damage, and +48% MF) from Skeleton King.
I recently completed the game for the first time. I was waiting for RoS to play Act 5 then start over on next difficulty. But I am excited to try the new changes. Can I start playing Act 1 on higher difficulty then go to Act 5 when it comes out? Or do I have to complete it again then go on to 5?
You can now play on any difficulty at any time.
As long as you have beaten an Act on any difficulty, you can re-play it on any difficulty. If that makes sense.
You no longer have to beat the whole game on Normal, then Hell, and then Nightmare before unlocking Inferno.
The new difficulties are Easy, Normal, Hard, Master, and Torment. (Something close to that)
Then Torment has a slider for +1 through +6.
You have be at level 60 for Torment, but the rest you can do at any level.
I'm not likely to try it until after the expansion releases and I read up on how well received BOA is. I don't expect it to work out well, but that's because RNG is a fickle beast and D2 trading just a lot of fun for me.
They reduced RNG with smart drop.
I got an upgrade within 2 hours of play ... that never happened so fast in the past.
The big thing about BoA is whether or not rerolling stats trying to get perfect rolls is fun enough to keep you going. Paragon leveling doesn't seem quite as enjoyable a grind now that they removed the MF boosts at each level.
But I haven't tried it and I won't let the hype trick me into buying the expansion. I'll just try to avoid loot 2.0 until I see it in the context of a month after the expansion is released.
The other thing about BOA is prevent people from selling on the AH before it is closed down. BTW, the mystic is not up yet, right? There is no rerolling until RoS.
Sure .. wait it out. Personally i am enjoying it now, and i am looking forward to refresh everything when i level from 60 to 70.
Such a huge improvement I don't even know where to start, but most of you have covered the details anyway. I'm loving it. I finally got a legendary drop last night that was useful for my monk, and trying out a couple new builds thanks to several rares adding +XX% boosts towards skills I never tried. Looking forward to the expansion now for adventure mode and the new Act.
Against better judgement I tried it out briefly. Got a couple of legendaries which was nice. As always, D3 has the best combat in any ARPG hands down. I still think I'll mainly stick with Marvel Heroes for a while. As I already said, a lot rides on how well they designed loot drops and the BOA system and the game can't be fairly judged until a month or two after release and people are firmly entrenched in trying to get perfect loot.
I played for quite a while yesterday, and much to my surprise, I actually enjoyed it. About the only gripe I have it that if you want to start a new character, it's very hard to find anyone else to play those early acts with in hard/expert mode.
It's a weird complaint, but I have a feeling they made "smart loot" a bit too smart. Such a weird thing to have 90% usable drops all of a sudden. And oh boy, crafting is suddenly useful.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
The more and more I play the better loot I am getting - but I'm also getting other good loot that isn't great for my current build, but kind of entices me to build up alternate sets for alternate builds.
Best piece of advice I can give:
Don't trust your DPS # on the character sheet!
My build revolves around doing Cold damage - most all of my offensive skills have runes to do Cold damage, and between legendaries and rares I've got something like +50-60% Cold damage.
I'm absolutely wrecking Torment 1.
Each "white" hit is doing 100-200k and my skills crit upwards of 750k.
I have to be pulling at LEAST 100k+ DPS to be burning through the mobs in T1 this fast w/o issue.
But my character sheet says I'm only doing like 40k.
I don't think it is updating to reflect gear +% damage and skills.
The consensus of the beta forums is that if you liked vD3, then you will like ROS, but if you did not like vD3, then you will not like ROS.
I wonder how much of it is true.
This is a generalisation which no one can make. It really depends on what you didn't like in the original game. RoS made a lot of changes which if you ask me are for the better.
1. Much better loot, game feels more rewarding.
2. More "endgame" variety.
3. No Auction House
4. Improved Paragon system
5. More useful crafting system
6. Improved difficulty system - a lot of people were complaining about D3 having 4 rigid difficulties which you couldn't skip. Now you can!
A lot of people didn't like Diablo 3 because it was an ARPG. I have heard a lot of complaints which pretty much complain about the genre.
As someone said, RoS is to Diablo 3 what LoD was to Diablo 2. LoD pushed Diablo 2 from an average APRG to THE best APRG I have ever played.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Originally posted by FrodoFragins Against better judgement I tried it out briefly. Got a couple of legendaries which was nice. As always, D3 has the best combat in any ARPG hands down. I still think I'll mainly stick with Marvel Heroes for a while. As I already said, a lot rides on how well they designed loot drops and the BOA system and the game can't be fairly judged until a month or two after release and people are firmly entrenched in trying to get perfect loot.
I play both D3 and Marvel Heroes. There is little reason to choose between the two because no one has to play just one ARPGs.
D3 has better combat. MH has cap america, iron man .....
I am enjoying both .. probably more on D3 now to after i finish RoS, but i will still play MH
I don't think it is updating to reflect gear +% damage and skills.
Different skills has a different multiplier to the sheet DPS .... hence it cannot tell you the true DPS using skill A vs B.
Sheet DPS is just a general number of how much dmg your character can do ... if you use a burst skill (Like Archon) you can bump that up a great deal for a short time.
I am at roughly 250k sheet dps and 450k toughness .. and I am comfortable with T3. However, the build makes a huge difference. There are some build i can farm much faster than others. And i also find that burst dps (like archon) is very useful for elite/champ packs.
1. Better loot system. You are rewarded almost every run.
2. Abandoning the 4 different Hell through Inferno fases is great.
3. Better crafting
4. Better engine behaviour.
5. Fights last longer and damage is much better controlled (no sudden deaths due to slower and more controlled combat)
6. Way points are a great addition. Probably will be superb with the free roaming in the upcoming expansion.
Negative points:
1. No more AH is ridiculous. The AH was never the problem, the loot system was the real problem.
2. No trading in basic mats/gems. They could have used the automated mats trading from the old AH, that worked perfectly.
3. D3 can only be enjoyed from a hardcore point of view : since trading is rather non existent in softcore.
D3 Vanilla had a marvellous opportunity to combine a unique dungeon/crawler and an automated trading system. Due to wrong decisions (abandon even basic mats AH), they missed that opportinuty.
End conclusion: For "normal" players wanting to have fun in a dungeon crawler, it is great to play for 100+ hours. But the long term commitment for softcore players is doubtful due to no trading (read sell) opportunities.
This version - from a simple player point of view - is the best version, but hardcore is the only way to enjoy it in the long run.
Against my old advice: I would recommend D3 2.01 without a doubt. But it remains limited in time played without trading.
New patch has made this the Diablo 3 I was waiting for. So fun, so good, addictive, all builds feel viable, just a blast. Can't wait for the expack to add even more goodness now that the base game is "fixed".
Originally posted by elocke New patch has made this the Diablo 3 I was waiting for. So fun, so good, addictive, all builds feel viable, just a blast. Can't wait for the expack to add even more goodness now that the base game is "fixed".
I was playing a cold build .. but then i got an legendary amulet with 25% damage + in arcane, and i switch my build. This is exactly the kind of build variety goodness i want in a ARPG.
I get a lot less legendaries per hour compared to before 2.0.1 patch
I play on Torment IV with my Wiz and clear pretty fast kill elites in less than 20 seconds, yet it feels like I get a lot less legendaries per hours.
Then again I used to be 100 paragon so I had max Magic Find. Now since magic find was removed from the new loot table and paragon doesn't give MF anymore, there is less legendaries for me compared to before.
It saddens me.
Unless you people are talking about getting legendaries before lvl 60... yes the loot before lvl 60 is great and fun, time spent is rewarding as well, but soon as you hit lvl 60... it gets really bad for me at least.
It's good now. I've been playing all weekend. This is how it should have launched, well with the adventure zones that are coming in. It shows Blizz knew how to do this all along, but somehow got caught up in the RMAH BS.
I find it a lot fun, however still needs more tuning.
I personally think with BoA having legendarys average to about 1 every 45 minutes. It is really hard to tell how the system is working, for every person that says they get no drops there is one that says they get to many. I know RNG is part of it, however it needs to be a bit more consistent to keep the desire to farm going.
I hope they address rares being viable, for the most part they are crap. The weapons seem to roll really low, 2 handers in general are an issue as well. Maybe it'll balance out at 70.
As for the class changes and unique functions some items have, its fun. I'm running a reduce cooldown barb with Call of Ancients and Berserk. Can do Torment 4 at a reasonable rate, having buffed Call of the Ancients up near perm makes things easier.
I don't think it is only about the NUMBER of legendaries, but also the quality. Before the patch, i get legendaries all day but all of them are crap.
After the patch, i already have 3 upgrades (helm, amulet, sword). The amulet is only a side grade for DPS/toughness, but it has a 25% damage increase for arcane, and i tailor a build for it, and became an huge upgrade.
It's good now. I've been playing all weekend. This is how it should have launched, well with the adventure zones that are coming in. It shows Blizz knew how to do this all along, but somehow got caught up in the RMAH BS.
well, even D2 took until LoD to became the classic that it was. You have to see the RMAH as what it is .. an experiment. You can't deny that Blizz is a) not afraid to experiment and change stuff (like getting rid of the skill trees), and b) not afraid to change decisions that do not work.
1. Better loot system. You are rewarded almost every run.
2. Abandoning the 4 different Hell through Inferno fases is great.
3. Better crafting
4. Better engine behaviour.
5. Fights last longer and damage is much better controlled (no sudden deaths due to slower and more controlled combat)
6. Way points are a great addition. Probably will be superb with the free roaming in the upcoming expansion.
Negative points:
1. No more AH is ridiculous. The AH was never the problem, the loot system was the real problem.
2. No trading in basic mats/gems. They could have used the automated mats trading from the old AH, that worked perfectly.
3. D3 can only be enjoyed from a hardcore point of view : since trading is rather non existent in softcore.
D3 Vanilla had a marvellous opportunity to combine a unique dungeon/crawler and an automated trading system. Due to wrong decisions (abandon even basic mats AH), they missed that opportinuty.
End conclusion: For "normal" players wanting to have fun in a dungeon crawler, it is great to play for 100+ hours. But the long term commitment for softcore players is doubtful due to no trading (read sell) opportunities.
This version - from a simple player point of view - is the best version, but hardcore is the only way to enjoy it in the long run.
Against my old advice: I would recommend D3 2.01 without a doubt. But it remains limited in time played without trading.
This sums it up pretty well for me. I will not be buying ROS. One thing that bothers me is how they are subtly pushing people to play ROS to progress to the highest levels. I worked hard for my gear and right now, after tweaking my wiz and demon hunter, I am finishing master and will probably move to torment. I am not having any issues in middle of heaven thus far with anything. Overall while I am having fun and agree things needed to be done, the cons mentioned above weigh heavily for me.
1. Better loot system. You are rewarded almost every run.
2. Abandoning the 4 different Hell through Inferno fases is great.
3. Better crafting
4. Better engine behaviour.
5. Fights last longer and damage is much better controlled (no sudden deaths due to slower and more controlled combat)
6. Way points are a great addition. Probably will be superb with the free roaming in the upcoming expansion.
Negative points:
1. No more AH is ridiculous. The AH was never the problem, the loot system was the real problem.
2. No trading in basic mats/gems. They could have used the automated mats trading from the old AH, that worked perfectly.
3. D3 can only be enjoyed from a hardcore point of view : since trading is rather non existent in softcore.
D3 Vanilla had a marvellous opportunity to combine a unique dungeon/crawler and an automated trading system. Due to wrong decisions (abandon even basic mats AH), they missed that opportinuty.
End conclusion: For "normal" players wanting to have fun in a dungeon crawler, it is great to play for 100+ hours. But the long term commitment for softcore players is doubtful due to no trading (read sell) opportunities.
This version - from a simple player point of view - is the best version, but hardcore is the only way to enjoy it in the long run.
Against my old advice: I would recommend D3 2.01 without a doubt. But it remains limited in time played without trading.
This sums it up pretty well for me. I will not be buying ROS. One thing that bothers me is how they are subtly pushing people to play ROS to progress to the highest levels. I worked hard for my gear and right now, after tweaking my wiz and demon hunter, I am finishing master and will probably move to torment. I am not having any issues in middle of heaven thus far with anything. Overall while I am having fun and agree things needed to be done, the cons mentioned above weigh heavily for me.
Just so you know, finishing Master is no big deal. In fact, it's not even a deal. I have some characters from before 2.0.1 having a poor measly 50K DPS and i can still steamroll through Master. Gearing up for Master doesn't require shit.
Also, there are people who reached the cap two years and are not still stuck leveling their character. So, Blizzard are not "subtly pushing people to play ROS to progress to the highest levels". It's well due, the people have been waiting for an expac to show up
Comments
Just patched up, and geeze there's a ton of new stuff. I think I'm going to start from scratch though and level up a Witch Doctor seeing as how Blizzard decided to not add the Necromancer >:( . Hopefully it will be an entirely new, and better, experience.
EDIT: Loving how you can start out on any difficulty now and the scaling. Good stuff.
EDIT 2: Oh yeah. The loot system is MUCH better now. Only level 14 (almost 15) but so far I've gotten more rare's than you can shake a stick at (that I can actually use for my class!), as well as two legendary's. I got The Crudest Boots around level 12, and then a Nagelring (20 INT, 19 VIT, +6 life per hit, all resource costs reduced by 3%, ranged and melee attackers take 4 damage, and +48% MF) from Skeleton King.
You can now play on any difficulty at any time.
As long as you have beaten an Act on any difficulty, you can re-play it on any difficulty. If that makes sense.
You no longer have to beat the whole game on Normal, then Hell, and then Nightmare before unlocking Inferno.
The new difficulties are Easy, Normal, Hard, Master, and Torment. (Something close to that)
Then Torment has a slider for +1 through +6.
You have be at level 60 for Torment, but the rest you can do at any level.
Not yet .. i think it is scheduled for mid-march.
However, all the new good loot 2.0 legendaries are BOA now .. so RMAH won't affect the game anyway.
The other thing about BOA is prevent people from selling on the AH before it is closed down. BTW, the mystic is not up yet, right? There is no rerolling until RoS.
Sure .. wait it out. Personally i am enjoying it now, and i am looking forward to refresh everything when i level from 60 to 70.
got my first Legendary last night
Thunderfury!!!
I haven't tried it but I have bought ROS and can't wait to play it.
Btw guys how are you playing Torment? I thought you needed to be level 70 to play Torment?
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
The consensus of the beta forums is that if you liked vD3, then you will like ROS, but if you did not like vD3, then you will not like ROS.
I wonder how much of it is true.
I played for quite a while yesterday, and much to my surprise, I actually enjoyed it. About the only gripe I have it that if you want to start a new character, it's very hard to find anyone else to play those early acts with in hard/expert mode.
The more and more I play the better loot I am getting - but I'm also getting other good loot that isn't great for my current build, but kind of entices me to build up alternate sets for alternate builds.
Best piece of advice I can give:
Don't trust your DPS # on the character sheet!
My build revolves around doing Cold damage - most all of my offensive skills have runes to do Cold damage, and between legendaries and rares I've got something like +50-60% Cold damage.
I'm absolutely wrecking Torment 1.
Each "white" hit is doing 100-200k and my skills crit upwards of 750k.
I have to be pulling at LEAST 100k+ DPS to be burning through the mobs in T1 this fast w/o issue.
But my character sheet says I'm only doing like 40k.
I don't think it is updating to reflect gear +% damage and skills.
This is a generalisation which no one can make. It really depends on what you didn't like in the original game. RoS made a lot of changes which if you ask me are for the better.
1. Much better loot, game feels more rewarding.
2. More "endgame" variety.
3. No Auction House
4. Improved Paragon system
5. More useful crafting system
6. Improved difficulty system - a lot of people were complaining about D3 having 4 rigid difficulties which you couldn't skip. Now you can!
A lot of people didn't like Diablo 3 because it was an ARPG. I have heard a lot of complaints which pretty much complain about the genre.
As someone said, RoS is to Diablo 3 what LoD was to Diablo 2. LoD pushed Diablo 2 from an average APRG to THE best APRG I have ever played.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I play both D3 and Marvel Heroes. There is little reason to choose between the two because no one has to play just one ARPGs.
D3 has better combat. MH has cap america, iron man .....
I am enjoying both .. probably more on D3 now to after i finish RoS, but i will still play MH
Different skills has a different multiplier to the sheet DPS .... hence it cannot tell you the true DPS using skill A vs B.
Sheet DPS is just a general number of how much dmg your character can do ... if you use a burst skill (Like Archon) you can bump that up a great deal for a short time.
I am at roughly 250k sheet dps and 450k toughness .. and I am comfortable with T3. However, the build makes a huge difference. There are some build i can farm much faster than others. And i also find that burst dps (like archon) is very useful for elite/champ packs.
Positive points:
1. Better loot system. You are rewarded almost every run.
2. Abandoning the 4 different Hell through Inferno fases is great.
3. Better crafting
4. Better engine behaviour.
5. Fights last longer and damage is much better controlled (no sudden deaths due to slower and more controlled combat)
6. Way points are a great addition. Probably will be superb with the free roaming in the upcoming expansion.
Negative points:
1. No more AH is ridiculous. The AH was never the problem, the loot system was the real problem.
2. No trading in basic mats/gems. They could have used the automated mats trading from the old AH, that worked perfectly.
3. D3 can only be enjoyed from a hardcore point of view : since trading is rather non existent in softcore.
D3 Vanilla had a marvellous opportunity to combine a unique dungeon/crawler and an automated trading system. Due to wrong decisions (abandon even basic mats AH), they missed that opportinuty.
End conclusion: For "normal" players wanting to have fun in a dungeon crawler, it is great to play for 100+ hours. But the long term commitment for softcore players is doubtful due to no trading (read sell) opportunities.
This version - from a simple player point of view - is the best version, but hardcore is the only way to enjoy it in the long run.
Against my old advice: I would recommend D3 2.01 without a doubt. But it remains limited in time played without trading.
I was playing a cold build .. but then i got an legendary amulet with 25% damage + in arcane, and i switch my build. This is exactly the kind of build variety goodness i want in a ARPG.
Man we must be playing a different game.
I get a lot less legendaries per hour compared to before 2.0.1 patch
I play on Torment IV with my Wiz and clear pretty fast kill elites in less than 20 seconds, yet it feels like I get a lot less legendaries per hours.
Then again I used to be 100 paragon so I had max Magic Find. Now since magic find was removed from the new loot table and paragon doesn't give MF anymore, there is less legendaries for me compared to before.
It saddens me.
Unless you people are talking about getting legendaries before lvl 60... yes the loot before lvl 60 is great and fun, time spent is rewarding as well, but soon as you hit lvl 60... it gets really bad for me at least.
I've been a D3 hater since launch.
It's good now. I've been playing all weekend. This is how it should have launched, well with the adventure zones that are coming in. It shows Blizz knew how to do this all along, but somehow got caught up in the RMAH BS.
I don't think it is only about the NUMBER of legendaries, but also the quality. Before the patch, i get legendaries all day but all of them are crap.
After the patch, i already have 3 upgrades (helm, amulet, sword). The amulet is only a side grade for DPS/toughness, but it has a 25% damage increase for arcane, and i tailor a build for it, and became an huge upgrade.
well, even D2 took until LoD to became the classic that it was. You have to see the RMAH as what it is .. an experiment. You can't deny that Blizz is a) not afraid to experiment and change stuff (like getting rid of the skill trees), and b) not afraid to change decisions that do not work.
This sums it up pretty well for me. I will not be buying ROS. One thing that bothers me is how they are subtly pushing people to play ROS to progress to the highest levels. I worked hard for my gear and right now, after tweaking my wiz and demon hunter, I am finishing master and will probably move to torment. I am not having any issues in middle of heaven thus far with anything. Overall while I am having fun and agree things needed to be done, the cons mentioned above weigh heavily for me.
Just so you know, finishing Master is no big deal. In fact, it's not even a deal. I have some characters from before 2.0.1 having a poor measly 50K DPS and i can still steamroll through Master. Gearing up for Master doesn't require shit.
Also, there are people who reached the cap two years and are not still stuck leveling their character. So, Blizzard are not "subtly pushing people to play ROS to progress to the highest levels". It's well due, the people have been waiting for an expac to show up