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**OFFICIAL** Diablo 3 Thread

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tedrodai said:
Bashiok made replies a long time ago that basically equated to: "Yes, it's supposed to be easy in the beta. It's like an introduction and tutorial. Normal difficulty is easy. But it ramps up in Nightmare/Hell/Inferno."

Like it or hate it, I think it's gonna be a cake walk in normal, though it won't be quite as bad as it is just in the beta area. We'll just have to take their word on the "harder difficulties" (or not heheh) til we see more of the game.

The beta is hardly a near-complete version of the game, however. This isn't a defense of D3, but I think some of you guys are really jumping the gun in judging the game as-is. Yes, they're testing out some early game functionality (they've rearranged DH skills as a result of feedback, for instance), but mainly we 'beta testers' have been testing their network capabilities so far. I haven't done a good job of that personally, because they've given us such a boring version of the game (imo)...they don't have gems or runes in-game (thus almost no character customization), nor are they even confident about their item mods yet (see the legendary and set items on the official D3 website where Blizzard has been quoted saying the stats are just placeholders).

As far as the really crappy loot available at the moment, mostly this would be because we're stuck in the extremely low level section of A1, and the item mods they're still working on may or may not be affecting it. However, Blizzard has been quoted in many interviews that they're trying to get people away from 'boss runs' in order to make people want to continue exploring all the nooks and crannies throughout the maps. So you're supposed to have just as good of a chance to get good drops from random encounters (maybe random mini-bosses?) as from bosses like the skeleton king. Or, read another way, not as good of a chance at loot from your main boss type mobs than we're used to in the past.
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My main complaints are the art style, restrictive skill system, and terrible dialog/pacing/voice acting.

Only the last would probably improve before release, and they have a LONG way to go to make it passable.
 
I wonder how they will deal with immunities on monsters. Doesnt seem like you can customize characters too much
 
Dumac said:
My main complaints are the art style, restrictive skill system, and terrible dialog/pacing/voice acting.

Only the last would probably improve before release, and they have a LONG way to go to make it passable.
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There was a quote recently by a Blizzard rep saying something to the fact that the graphics are intentionally bad so that Diablo 3 could be played at near max quality on even low end systems. Seems to me like they would have been better off putting effort into to making the game scale well to lower end systems while maintaining high end graphics for those that have the power instead of just aiming at the bottom.

It seems that that is the general attitude across this entire iteration of the game, optimize for the lowest common denominator. I'm trying to have faith, but I'm going to be very disappoint if they have turned Diablo into farmville.
 
SMOGZINN said:
There was a quote recently by a Blizzard rep saying something to the fact that the graphics are intentionally bad so that Diablo 3 could be played at near max quality on even low end systems. Seems to me like they would have been better off putting effort into to making the game scale well to lower end systems while maintaining high end graphics for those that have the power instead of just aiming at the bottom.

It seems that that is the general attitude across this entire iteration of the game, optimize for the lowest common denominator. I'm trying to have faith, but I'm going to be very disappoint if they have turned Diablo into farmville.
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I can't remember but is Anti-Aliasing disabled in the beta or was that Battlefield 3?
 
QuantumPion said:
There is AA but it is not adjustable, just on or off.
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Oh ok, I couldn't remember what it showed since I haven't looked in a while.

I wonder if they will enable any other video options once the release is out since this beta is mainly for server testing. I would hope so since WoW has a lot more options in graphic quality but I could be wrong.
 
I fell asleep playing the beta as barbarian. Holy boring. Hold down left mouse button, wait for enemies to die. Don't worry about health cause orbs drop in your face all the time.

Oh yay I leveled up, oh boo it's automatic.

I didn't think Diablo could be any more simplified than 1 and 2 already were, but wow I am impressed at how dumbed down it got.
 
I've maxed out the Monk, Demon hunter, and Witch Doctor to level 13.

I've played the Wizard, and Barbarian.


Out of all of them the Monk is so far the "EZ" mode out of all the champs. His built in self AoE which is ridiculous damage and ability to just stand in a big pack of monsters and not have to worry about it makes the Monk too good. I can literally take my monk to any area with elites or even The skeleton king and then go take a leak for a minute. I won't die while my dodge buffs are on. Seriously Dodge buff + Dodge passive = 50% dodge rate. Add in 30% miss rate from an AoE blind ability and nothing touches me. I can set up those two abilities on a macro toggle key on my logitech keyboard and I can do AFK indefinitely without fear of dying in beta at least.


The next most powerful character is my Wizard. Since monsters so far are in small contained packs it is easy enough to get to full Arcane power, run to next pack of monsters, and AoE 1-shot them all. Then I move to next pack and repeat. Sure the wizard is "slightly" squishier, but not really. Still has some defensive abilities like Frozen Armor. All in all the wizard is pretty OP.

The highest DPS character I have is the Demon Hunter. It is also the most cumbersome to use. Also pretty damn squishy. Still it is the ONLY character I can pop a temp buff ability and then use ONE single attack power to take down the Skeleton King. I'm serious. With her shadow mantle ability that buffs her attack speed by a ton for a few seconds, it is all you need to massively boost the attack rate on her Rapid Fire attack. Then you point your character at anything and hold down the rapid fire key until everything is dead. The Skeleton King will actually die in about 4 seconds of holding down rapid fire. No other champ I have can take him down that fast. The DH's lack of AoE abilities thus far is a bit of a pain though. Still, since there are not that many huge waves of enemies at once thus far it has not been a problem.

The Witch Doctor is my least favorite on the power scale. But fun to play at least. His early game thus far is running up to things and tossing explosive frogs in their face. Practically all his damage is DoT base. The WD doesn't have many hard damage spells except the frogs. Even they are strange to use because unless you are in the targets face, they just hop around in the direction they were released. Which may or may not be at your intended target. I can see the WD being a great addition to a group looking to take down long lasting bosses. His DoT damage is REALLY high. But against monsters that die in one or two hits from other champs, the DoT based damage he does leaves him feeling useless in a group most of the time. His only really hard hitting single ability attack so far I've seen is his frog spell. Which requires you to get right in your targets face to maximize its effectiveness. All his ranged attacks are DoT based. He has no gap closer either so in groups you are feeling useless because if you use ranged DoT attacks the monsters die before your DoTs do much damage to casting them effective, or if you use frogs then you have to run up to a target which may be dead by the time you get there. The WD does have some strange utility powers though. Undead hands grabbing enemies from the ground. Turning enemies to chickens by summoning a pimgy shaman character that runs around. The WD is definitely the pet class of the game. Everything you do basically has some other incarnation doing it for him. Zombie dogs, zombies, spiders, bats, frogs, and little pigmies. Solo wise I think the WD may be the easiest to play on higher difficulty levels. This is just a guess though.



The Barbarian is strong but boring I thought. Jump, stun, AoE. Move on to the next. Not squishy, but not as "tanky" as the monk either. The barbarian takes a few more levels to get going when it comes to getting decent damage abilities. But after level 8 or so it comes together. A decent solid champ that doesn't feel like anything special than D2 barbarian right now. Some of the later powers look promising though.
 
HumblePie said:
The highest DPS character I have is the Demon Hunter...Still it is the ONLY character I can pop a temp buff ability and then use ONE single attack power to take down the Skeleton King.
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I think the skill used is getting a nerf (or maybe already got one...haven't been keeping up with it), but someone made a video of 1-shotting the Skeleton King with his Lv13 barb lol. Weapon throw I think? He farmed a lot to get some good gear and on a crit...bam, SK dead.

Dumac said:
My main complaints are the art style, restrictive skill system, and terrible dialog/pacing/voice acting.

Only the last would probably improve before release, and they have a LONG way to go to make it passable.
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Yeah I hear ya. Excepting the skill system and maybe pacing, I doubt any of that will improve. The art style isn't my favorite, but so far I haven't exactly disliked it when playing the beta. However, if you look up (spoiler) pics of some of the gear sets (especially higher level stuff) on character models...god. Some of it is as fugly as fugly can get. Outrageous cartoony stupid shit. Maybe it'll end up working for them, but it has lessened my appeal for the game already.

I'm still on the fence regarding the skill system. So far I don't like it either, but I'll wait to see how it ends up. Pacing I assume will improve as you gain levels, but who knows.
 
I don't know I was a huge fan of D1/D2, but too many other games since then have done what D3 is trying to accomplish and done them better. Titanquest, Dungeon Seige series, and Torchlight for example.

I was hoping for something a bit more ground breaking besides voice acting.
 
HumblePie said:
I don't know I was a huge fan of D1/D2, but too many other games since then have done what D3 is trying to accomplish and done them better. Titanquest, Dungeon Seige series, and Torchlight for example.

I was hoping for something a bit more ground breaking besides voice acting.
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i disagree. TQ and TL simply don't have the right "feel." they are good games, but i simply do not enjoy them the way i do diablo1/2.
 
Why'd they have to do server maintenance on the same day/time as FFXIV? bah
My SWTOR key isn't active yet either.

I figured I'd play a little this afternoon, seeing as I've only put in about 2hrs altogether in the beta so far lol. Oh well.
 
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So I just finished my first play through of the beta, and I have a quick question. I experienced what I would think is lag, the visuals got really choppy when scrolling around the open areas at times. But no slow down when there was lots of baddies on screen, just running about - sometimes I would be glitched half a screen back. Any one elese experience this?
 
JACKHAMMER said:
So I just finished my first play through of the beta, and I have a quick question. I experienced what I would think is lag, the visuals got really choppy when scrolling around the open areas at times. But no slow down when there was lots of baddies on screen, just running about - sometimes I would be glitched half a screen back. Any one elese experience this?
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I've noticed a few places where it would stutter a little. Normally with the abominations blew up but after the last patch/char reset it seems to have been resolved.
 
JACKHAMMER said:
So I just finished my first play through of the beta, and I have a quick question. I experienced what I would think is lag, the visuals got really choppy when scrolling around the open areas at times. But no slow down when there was lots of baddies on screen, just running about - sometimes I would be glitched half a screen back. Any one elese experience this?
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Sounds like syncing problems, where your computer and the server disagree where your character is located, in those cases the server wins and your local client gets updated to what the server thinks is right.
 
SMOGZINN said:
Sounds like syncing problems, where your computer and the server disagree where your character is located, in those cases the server wins and your local client gets updated to what the server thinks is right.
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I know it's a beta and I shouldn't be too judgmental, but this wouldn't happen if the single player game didn't require the 'intrawebs.'
 
Got into the beta today. Downloader is going ridiculously slow. Is there a better way to download this and still be properly associated with my account?
 
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