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[Diablo 3] old thread is old

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  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    I thought it was interesting how they made difficulty manifest in Diablo 3, specifically by making set bonuses for everyone that multiply damage by thousands of percent but doesn't affect your survivability. I was wondering how it was going to work until I got up to that point and it's like oh ok I see. I get what you're doing here.

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  • NaphtaliNaphtali Hazy + Flow SeaRegistered User regular
    I thought it was interesting how they made difficulty manifest in Diablo 3, specifically by making set bonuses for everyone that multiply damage by thousands of percent but doesn't affect your survivability. I was wondering how it was going to work until I got up to that point and it's like oh ok I see. I get what you're doing here.

    it's not great but its probably a better model than the original difficulty/loot cycle, where you bashed your face on act 1 inferno difficulty (the torment equiv) and probably never got the gear drops needed to move to farming act 2. at least now you can farm wherever you like at whatever difficulty lines up with your current DPS.

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  • autono-wally, erotibot300autono-wally, erotibot300 love machine Registered User regular
    Can you even die in normal difficulty Diablo 3? The game doesn’t get challenging till late torment difficulty, and I don’t think I’ve ever played a character at normal difficulty now that I think about it.

    Normal is very easy. I played with someone who never had played Diablo before and even they got bored

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  • fortyforty Registered User regular
    edited November 2018
    Normal difficulty is basically tuned like "Casual" difficulty in Starcraft 2. It is intended to make the game accessible to almost anyone. Just think of it as the "Very Easy" setting of other games and it makes more sense. The whole point is to bump up the difficulty if your current difficulty is too boring.

    forty on
  • ZekZek Registered User regular
    Normal was completely broken by all the mudflation they've applied to the basic skills since launch. Since RoS they've had a "buff everything" approach to balance targeted at endgame builds, and they never bothered to rebalance Normal.

  • E.CoyoteE.Coyote Registered User regular
    The M4N6 DH build is also super tanky, both set bonuses offer damage reduction. I'm curious how it plays on console.

  • fortyforty Registered User regular
    Zek wrote: »
    Normal was completely broken by all the mudflation they've applied to the basic skills since launch. Since RoS they've had a "buff everything" approach to balance targeted at endgame builds, and they never bothered to rebalance Normal.
    Yes that's true too. Normal was tuned for the game back in March 2014, and beyond just skills/runes getting buffs in the last 4 years, gear drops have generally improved since then as well.

  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    edited November 2018
    forty wrote: »
    Zek wrote: »
    Normal was completely broken by all the mudflation they've applied to the basic skills since launch. Since RoS they've had a "buff everything" approach to balance targeted at endgame builds, and they never bothered to rebalance Normal.
    Yes that's true too. Normal was tuned for the game back in March 2014, and beyond just skills/runes getting buffs in the last 4 years, gear drops have generally improved since then as well.

    I think I'm ok with that through. Like you could hand the controller to a 5 year old and say knock yourself out kid. Why not? (Other than incredible violence and gore?) I mean we got Mario Kart options that auto-accelerate and steer away from falls.

    UncleSporky on
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  • BetsuniBetsuni UM-R60L Talisker IVRegistered User regular
    E.Coyote wrote: »
    The M4N6 DH build is also super tanky, both set bonuses offer damage reduction. I'm curious how it plays on console.

    Oh yeah. I forgot about that build. Might have to pull out the PS4 version to check it out.

    oosik_betsuni.png
    Steam: betsuni7
  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    My friend told be something about a unique support monk build that is all tank and no damage, like only used in groups to make life easier for everyone else. I don't know any details though.

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  • BetsuniBetsuni UM-R60L Talisker IVRegistered User regular
    My friend told be something about a unique support monk build that is all tank and no damage, like only used in groups to make life easier for everyone else. I don't know any details though.

    Yeah it is called a zDPS Monk or zero DPS where all you are is there for your circles of happiness and health globe generation. I only ran the zDPS Barbarian a long time ago so no idea what gear you need. Basically you are a support player who just runs around gathering minions and spamming your circles during battles. Someone else here who runs them can probably help you set one up. @Klatu or @Al_wat ?

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  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    edited November 2018
    Oh I wasn't necessarily wanting to create one, just while the subject is on different builds, tanky builds etc. Thought it sounded interesting. He made it sound like the monk was about the only class that could do it well. Now that I know what it's called I can google it too.

    Something I AM thinking about is the potential utility of starting a second player account on my Switch and making a character that just gets dragged along everywhere but still manages to help out...like if nothing else, a necromancer with his skeletons and golem who will auto-attack.

    UncleSporky on
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  • rahkeesh2000rahkeesh2000 Registered User regular
    edited November 2018
    In fairness the newer story style is more in tune with how Diablo endgame typically goes. I mean nothing says "average joe" like teleporting everywhere and wiping rooms with one chain lightning or frozen orb.

    That doesn't have much to do with the story, though. First playthrough was always traditionally weak, using white and blue items, scraping along and having a tough time at various points. Yeah you can wipe rooms with chain lightning in Diablo 1 but you're chugging potions to be able to do so and still barely dodging and surviving enemy attacks, missiles etc. Doesn't matter what you're doing later in nightmare or hell or torment.

    Is that why people play Diablo for hours on end though? When you're mindlessly farming everything?

    Yeah the AH was BS but you should've seen the tears when D3 Inferno difficulty was actually hard. Hell I remember dying in normal mode several times on the PC release, first time visiting the Butcher being a few of them. The expansion made everything so vastly easier and suddenly the game is "great."

    I'm not saying nothing of value was lost. Just that I can see why they went down that road. Also that Diablo 2 was already a slide down that slippery slope from the aesthetic perfection of D1.

    rahkeesh2000 on
  • TheStigTheStig Registered User regular
    Noggin wrote: »
    I only beat the first one once and bounced of the second for some reason I can't remember. I should probably give it another try.

    It was a fun playthrough at lower difficulties but their math was completely screwed up for high level play. Armor was subtractive so it was like enemies were doing 2,000,000 damage and your armor reduced it by 10,000 so you only took 1,990,000 damage and got one shot slightly less hard than otherwise.

    The only character who could take a hit was the engineer who had a shield that absorbed all damage from the attack that broke it (so literally, you could take one hit).

    I know it's tough to balance endgame difficulty but it's like they didn't even try. Felt un-playtested at that level. At least Diablo has some ways to survive at high levels.

    Armor and damage mitigation of any kind was so pointless that it was something you just ignored entirely. Useless stat, everyone was eventually a glass cannon. Made stats like vitality pointless too, you knew at endgame you'd be dying in one hit regardless.

    Ah yes the vanilla Diablo 3 approach of "eh just make it super hard it doesn't matter players will figure it out." which basically just turned inferno difficulty into a bullet hell game.

    bnet: TheStig#1787 Steam: TheStig
  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    In fairness the newer story style is more in tune with how Diablo endgame typically goes. I mean nothing says "average joe" like teleporting everywhere and wiping rooms with one chain lightning or frozen orb.

    That doesn't have much to do with the story, though. First playthrough was always traditionally weak, using white and blue items, scraping along and having a tough time at various points. Yeah you can wipe rooms with chain lightning in Diablo 1 but you're chugging potions to be able to do so and still barely dodging and surviving enemy attacks, missiles etc. Doesn't matter what you're doing later in nightmare or hell or torment.

    Is that why people play Diablo for hours on end though? When you're mindlessly farming everything?

    Yeah the AH was BS but you should've seen the tears when D3 Inferno difficulty was actually hard. Hell I remember dying in normal mode several times on the PC release, first time visiting the Butcher being a few of them. The expansion made everything so vastly easier and suddenly the game is "great."

    I'm not saying nothing of value was lost. Just that I can see why they went down that road. Also that Diablo 2 was already a slide down that slippery slope from the aesthetic perfection of D1.

    I don't think the reason people play a game, or what a game becomes later at endgame etc., should have any bearing on the story or aesthetic of a game.

    Some people only play Dark Souls for hours on end as a multiplayer game, invading others' games to kill them in pvp. That doesn't mean Dark Souls should embrace a plot or world design less dark, lonely, or gothic.

    Or just because GTAV online modes involve endlessly grinding money so you can buy exponentially more expensive vehicles with weapons fitted to them doesn't mean the base game plot should revolve around that.

    Switch Friend Code: SW - 5443 - 2358 - 9118 || 3DS Friend Code: 0989 - 1731 - 9504 || NNID: unclesporky
  • fortyforty Registered User regular
    In fairness the newer story style is more in tune with how Diablo endgame typically goes. I mean nothing says "average joe" like teleporting everywhere and wiping rooms with one chain lightning or frozen orb.

    That doesn't have much to do with the story, though. First playthrough was always traditionally weak, using white and blue items, scraping along and having a tough time at various points. Yeah you can wipe rooms with chain lightning in Diablo 1 but you're chugging potions to be able to do so and still barely dodging and surviving enemy attacks, missiles etc. Doesn't matter what you're doing later in nightmare or hell or torment.

    Is that why people play Diablo for hours on end though? When you're mindlessly farming everything?

    Yeah the AH was BS but you should've seen the tears when D3 Inferno difficulty was actually hard.
    To be fair, trying to gear up to progress in Inferno was a miserable, tedious process. Unless you were lucky/persistent enough to get good enough gear to actually be able to grind mobs efficiently, the best min-max way to find upgrades was to build your character to farm radiant chests and jar smashing. Yuck.

  • KwoaruKwoaru Confident Smirk Flawless Golden PecsRegistered User regular
    edited November 2018
    Inferno sucked because drops were impossible to get, the only difference between progression in diablo 3 now vs diablo 3 at launch is that now you don't have to claw tooth and nail for every single inch of progression

    Shit still kills you D3, you still hit difficulty walls that require substantial investment to overcome, but now those walls come later and you hit them already covered in cool gear that makes your skills shit out big numbers instead of random trash yellows that you could barely afford after selling the random trash yellows that dropped for you but didnt actually work for your class

    so yes D3 is way more fun now

    Also: there is tons of blood and gore and dark gothic shit in diablo 3, the environments and gameplay are all completely in line with diablo 2, there are dozens of gore filled rooms and poorly lit hallways throughout the game

    And the meat of the story isn't any worse than D2 but the storytelling in D3 is just so much worse that it brutally undercuts everything else

    Like I think that most of the reason D3 isnt scaring anyone in this thread is that none of us are 10 years old staying up late at night to click demons, but its impossible to say for sure when ultimate evil shows up every 5 minutes to go neener neener you cant catch me

    In summary: diablo 3 is good and I like it

    Kwoaru on
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  • hushhush Registered User regular
    You seem to only be remembering half of why people found vanilla D3 inferno difficulty, which is weird, because people were crying about the difficulty in relation to the god awful loot that dropped. You basically had to win the lottery on loot drops in order to progress, it wasn't anywhere close to skill based progression, or even grind based progression - you had to absolutely hope that the right rare (cuz uniques were shit in most cases) dropped and you could make use of it (no smart loot), and then you had to hope for that to happen multiple times, and definitely had to happen with a weapon (which again, you had to hope you could use).

    When that almost definitely didn't happen, you had to at least hope you could get something good to sell on the AH so you could buy the gear you actually needed to proceed. It was a weird decision, and they definitely swung the pendulum all the way to the other end with their reaction to the players reaction, and that has given us the insane power creep we see today.

    This is the future. This is what we built. This is what we wanted. It must have been. Because we all had the fucking choice, didn't we? It is only our money that allows commercial culture to flower. If we didn't want to live like this, we could have changed it at any time, by not fucking paying for it.

    So let's celebrate by all going out and buying the same burger. -transmet
  • DehumanizedDehumanized Registered User regular
    Oh I wasn't necessarily wanting to create one, just while the subject is on different builds, tanky builds etc. Thought it sounded interesting. He made it sound like the monk was about the only class that could do it well. Now that I know what it's called I can google it too.

    Something I AM thinking about is the potential utility of starting a second player account on my Switch and making a character that just gets dragged along everywhere but still manages to help out...like if nothing else, a necromancer with his skeletons and golem who will auto-attack.

    on PC there's generally a 4-man meta group that is considered the strongest on a given patch. currently the meta is something like:

    zDPS monk to keep everyone alive
    zDPS barb to round everything up
    Rathma Necromancer to explode the boss (they are light years ahead of anyone else at this)
    Some wizard to kill all the trash

    the necro does literally nothing but stand there until the RG (at which point it stacks up every multiplier it can then 1-shots the guardian, even on difficulties up to GR120+), and the wizard just kinda hangs out while the RG is up

  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    edited November 2018
    Kwoaru wrote: »
    Like I think that most of the reason D3 isnt scaring anyone in this thread is that none of us are 10 years old staying up late at night to click demons, but its impossible to say for sure when ultimate evil shows up every 5 minutes to go neener neener you cant catch me

    In summary: diablo 3 is good and I like it

    There are plenty of games out there that can still invoke anxiety/fear in adults. Dark Souls is one. Perhaps coincidentally it's also a game where suddenly a massive creature can show up with no fanfare and just destroy you instantly.

    UncleSporky on
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  • Casually HardcoreCasually Hardcore Once an Asshole. Trying to be better. Registered User regular
    Kwoaru wrote: »
    Like I think that most of the reason D3 isnt scaring anyone in this thread is that none of us are 10 years old staying up late at night to click demons, but its impossible to say for sure when ultimate evil shows up every 5 minutes to go neener neener you cant catch me

    In summary: diablo 3 is good and I like it

    There are plenty of games out there that can still invoke anxiety/fear in adults. Dark Souls is one. Perhaps coincidentally it's also a game where suddenly a massive creature can show up with no fanfare and just destroy you instantly.

    VR RE7 is as almost to intense for me to play.

  • KwoaruKwoaru Confident Smirk Flawless Golden PecsRegistered User regular
    edited November 2018
    Kwoaru wrote: »
    Like I think that most of the reason D3 isnt scaring anyone in this thread is that none of us are 10 years old staying up late at night to click demons, but its impossible to say for sure when ultimate evil shows up every 5 minutes to go neener neener you cant catch me

    In summary: diablo 3 is good and I like it

    There are plenty of games out there that can still invoke anxiety/fear in adults. Dark Souls is one. Perhaps coincidentally it's also a game where suddenly a massive creature can show up with no fanfare and just destroy you instantly.

    This is true! I didnt mean to say its impossible for games to make you feel tense/scared as an adult but rather I think D3 wouldn't be appreciably more or less scary than D2 (i havent played D1) if the storytelling wasn't so bad

    Kwoaru on
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  • IncindiumIncindium Registered User regular
    So all my friends got Diablo 3 on the switch, so of course I brought Diablo 3....for the 4th time.

    Honestly, I like Diablo 3. It’s a really good sit on the couch with friends and bullshit about nothing in particular game. A game to eat a slice of pizza and watch numbers get bigger.

    But, my biggest complaint about Diablo 3 is that it kind of lost it soul. I remember when I first played Diablo and I was afraid. The sheer amount of horror and gore and dread that game presented was like nothing else at the time. I also love the idea that you’re just an average joe going down that basement to fight against the forces of hell. None of the nephelim (or whatever the fuck) bullshit. Just Man vs Satan, because Haven doesn’t give a shit.

    The same goes with Diablo 2. That game was ahead of its time in every way except graphics.

    I honestly wish I could go back and play those games, but I have a feeling it’s a painful ordeal now that I’m used to playing Diablo 3 on a leaning back on a couch with a controller.

    And I've been saying this in the thread earlier, but I think crucially you don't know what awaits you at the bottom of that pit. You've heard rumors and stories, and find more in ancient tomes on the way down. But Diablo doesn't pop up scrying portals every 5 minutes to taunt you and say "so you killed my Butcher? Never mind, he was weak anyway. You did me a favor. You shall die to my other minions!"

    Same applied to Andariel, Duriel, Mephisto. It was Lovecraftian. Fear of the unknown is the best kind of fear.

    Actually Act 1 in Diablo 3 is actually pretty good story wise. There is some cool stuff going on that leads you into the Skeleton King and then into the Butcher... But everything goes downhill from there.

    I always run Act 1 with every character in every season I play as a result and still enjoy it.

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    Nintendo ID: Incindium
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  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    TBH I am not a fan of butterfly woman/coven as a villainous force. It feels weird and unfitting somehow. And what I most remember from act 1 was the in-engine cutscene in Cain's house and how bad it looked because it was done in-engine like that.

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  • fortyforty Registered User regular
    Yes, the death by butterflies was the most hokey and embarrassing end for Cain.

  • DehumanizedDehumanized Registered User regular
    edited November 2018
    on the other hand cain was 83 years old during Diablo 3 and a stiff breeze probably coulda done him in

    Dehumanized on
  • fortyforty Registered User regular
    on the other hand cain was 83 years old during Diablo 3 and a stiff breeze probably coulda done him in
    I think you should watch the opening cinematic again! Cain is a tough old coot to survive what happened to him.

  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    By the way, are any of the heroes from Diablo 2 supposed to be present in any capacity in Diablo 3?

    I mean seeing how the heroes of 1 returned in 2, and then 3 fleshed that out even more by retconning the warrior being named Aidan and Leoric's older son. Just wondered.

    Like my necromancer met a couple other master necromancers throughout the story, notably at the end, are any of them supposed to be the Diablo 2 necromancer? And same for the other classes.

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  • DehumanizedDehumanized Registered User regular
    there's a student of the diablo 2 necromancer in an act 1 event; i don't know if any of the actual heroes from D2 show up

  • DehumanizedDehumanized Registered User regular
    edited November 2018
    Digging a little more into the lore, some of the characters from D2 have a known history. Basically, though, after diablo 2 the canon is that the heroes disbanded and went home.

    Amazon: Returned to Skovos (a small group of islands where all the Amazons come from). This area was originally scheduled to be in D3 but was cut because it didn't make any sense.
    Necromancer: Went back home to the Eastern Empire, where the Priests of Rathma (his sect of necromancers) hail from. Mentored that Necromancer that shows up in act 1.
    Paladin: Unclear. Home would either be Westmarch or Khanduras. With the Zakurum order destroyed, he might have joined the Knights of Westmarch?
    Barbarian: Would have returned to Harrogath, which I believe was mostly destroyed when the worldstone was smashed.
    Sorceress: Taught mage students, but was ultimately murdered by an Assassin, as confirmed by the "Firefly" short story published about the D3 wizard, where her canon name is Isendra. Apparently she shows up as a spirit in the Pandemonium Fortress if you're playing as a Wizard.
    Druid/Assassin: Nothing is known

    Dehumanized on
  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    the male D3 barbarian is literally the D2 barbarian

    BahamutZERO.gif
  • DehumanizedDehumanized Registered User regular
    the male D3 barbarian is literally the D2 barbarian

    nope

  • KwoaruKwoaru Confident Smirk Flawless Golden PecsRegistered User regular
    the male D3 barbarian is literally the D2 barbarian

    nope

    Well I don't like that at all

    2x39jD4.jpg
  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    the male D3 barbarian is literally the D2 barbarian

    nope

    that's dumb and the idea that he's the same guy is not contradicted anywhere in the actual text so I choose to ignore that reality and substitute my own

    BahamutZERO.gif
  • DehumanizedDehumanized Registered User regular
    i mean, it's diablo lore so make as many substitutions as you want, none of it really matters :)

  • Casually HardcoreCasually Hardcore Once an Asshole. Trying to be better. Registered User regular
    edited November 2018
    I pretty much erased nephelim from my mind and tyreal is still a badass angel in my mind.

    Oh, and crusader is black. That like about how the zerkatum (or whatever) warriors was black but now they’re white because ‘Reasons’ is straight ass.

    Casually Hardcore on
  • italianranmaitalianranma Registered User regular
    So speaking of difficulty and new console players, I bought this on the switch because I blindly follow every fad on the PA front page, and like Gabe I'm trying out Adventure mode for the first time. I think I've got the basics down: I grinded out to level 51, and wow is this way different from my original play through of the base game way back when it released. I just finished the first set of seasonal challenges, but the first one on the second page is to complete a Nephalim Rift on Expert, but it looks like I can't change my difficulty mid-season; I started in Normal because I didn't know this and it said it was for people who didn't have any gear. Am I missing something or do I need to reroll a new character for that and another for challenges on Hard?

    飛べねぇ豚はただの豚だ。
  • KwoaruKwoaru Confident Smirk Flawless Golden PecsRegistered User regular
    You should definitely be able to change it to a harder difficulty at basically any time, I dunno how on switch but you 100% don't need to make a new character

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  • italianranmaitalianranma Registered User regular
    When I go to Change Difficult on the Switch, the difficulties are locked out and there is a message that says "Difficulty cannot be increased during seasonal play."

    飛べねぇ豚はただの豚だ。
  • PoketpixiePoketpixie Siege Registered User regular
    You have to quit out to the menu to raise the difficulty usually. You can drop the difficulty in the middle of the game at any time though.

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