[Gaming] Diablo 3 : Ser Farm-A-Lot
- Thread starter Jay
- Start date
Played a round of (randomized) hardcore with a few friends. It was cool - skelly king was relatively easy, but the Halls of Agony I /barely/ survived in a rare mob pack. The satisfaction of surviving that with a sliver of health is amazing. Managed to beat the butcher as well, which was also fairly intense. But alas, in act 2, Silas the demon hunter got ambushed by a pack of lacuni slashers and died. 
Now he will live on in the hall of fame.
Best game.
Now he will live on in the hall of fame. Best game.
I call shenanigans, I'm married, have kids, and have been playing the shit*** out of Diablo
(***OK, not 24 hours a day, but only shut-ins do that
)
Looks like I WILL be able to play tonight.
Just beat Diablo on Normal, holy crap was that last fight painful. My wizard had to run around like a bitch, and I had to go in with Diamond Skin with the extra absorb rune because I would have died five times over if I didn't spam that shit anytime he teleported onto my face or trapped me in his cages.
Spoilered.
Finished the game just now. Gameplay is great, story leaves much o be desired. Some things pop out of the blue, some things don't get explained at all, some characters know things for no reason other than they have to and once again, Blizzard creates another clone (or three) of the Arthas arc.
Why was my last post spoilered? I didn't spoil any story information, unless you count me mentioning a certain name as a spoiler, which to be honest, thinking it would be anyone else is a bit silly. "points to name of game". Not really spoiling it anymore then the box does already.
Anyways, I still love the game, it's addicting beyond belief, but the storyline and writing could have been a lot better.
Now to actually mention a bit about the story.
While I thought it was not bad, it didn't feel very good either. They rushed in a bit too fast for certain plot points, which they explain away with the characters kind of shrugging it all off. It just didn't feel as consistent as D2.
Act 1 was very consistent, it probably had the best use of the narrative and a lot of interesting events, like Cain's death, the reveal of Leah's hidden power, Tyrael's fall from grace and mortality, etc...
Act 2 still moves on a bit strong until we get Adria, and then things just start getting thrown in without explanation. Suddenly she knows about some Black Soulstone that is the key to killing all the Evils, and we go on this long quest to get it by rebuilding some mage, only to find the stone is imbued with the souls of the five dead Evils somehow. Did Adria always have access to his sanctum and the Black Soulstone? How did she collect the essence of the Evils? How did she even get such essence? Didn't the nature of destroying the Soulstones on the Hellforge supposed to be the ultimate death, making it impossible to reform? If part of Diablo was hiding in Leah and that is how he escaped his Soulstones destruction, then how is Mephisto also in there? None of this is touched on or explained.
Act 3 is when it really starts losing it, the story taking almost an entire backseat to the action. Leah is shuffled in another room outside of the town zone. You dungeon crawl down, kill the boss, and move on to the next act with Adria finally revealing her true intentions and merging Leah with the Black Soulstone. (which by this point, was an obvious twist)
Act 4 at that point just became Act 3.5, you don't even get a new town, you just use the same town from Act 3 and the overall time it takes to complete it is half of the others. There is zero closure on things like Imperius, Leah, etc...
Now for my two biggest issues.
Leah - She was probably the main character of the game for me. We saw her in the beginning with the dream, her love for her uncle, we saw her swear to carry on his work, and she was the one that saw the vision of Azmodan invading. She showed no signs of an evil heart, or a wicked soul. Yet when Act 3 came around her character was sidelined and then finally entirely replaced with Diablo. She didn't even get a sentence in before being changed, not even a "Noooo. Mother stop this!". My character and Follower constantly mentioned how they wanted to save her, that her soul might still be there, but they NEVER capitalize on it. The ending is pretty much Diablo is dead, let's toss his ass off our spire so his corpse burns up. Leah? Who the hell is that?
Diablo - This is going to sound really stupid, but Diablo didn't really feel a lot like Diablo, at least with his aesthetics. I know, he is supposed to be all 7 of the Evils merged into a single Prime Evil, I know he is in a woman's body, but something about going from this...
To this.
Just felt a bit jolting, like I almost wish they didn't call him Diablo and just gave the character a new name. The new creature wouldn't have to be the Lord of Terror, but instead the Lord of All Evil. I actually think they did make it so Diablo was the "driver" just because they wanted to make sure, like always, the name of the game fit with the main antagonist.
It also didn't help that in one of the cinematic, Diablo enters heaven with a swagger that makes me think more runway model then Lord of Terror. Did they really have to give him scale plates that make it look like he has breasts?
While I thought it was not bad, it didn't feel very good either. They rushed in a bit too fast for certain plot points, which they explain away with the characters kind of shrugging it all off. It just didn't feel as consistent as D2.
Act 1 was very consistent, it probably had the best use of the narrative and a lot of interesting events, like Cain's death, the reveal of Leah's hidden power, Tyrael's fall from grace and mortality, etc...
Act 2 still moves on a bit strong until we get Adria, and then things just start getting thrown in without explanation. Suddenly she knows about some Black Soulstone that is the key to killing all the Evils, and we go on this long quest to get it by rebuilding some mage, only to find the stone is imbued with the souls of the five dead Evils somehow. Did Adria always have access to his sanctum and the Black Soulstone? How did she collect the essence of the Evils? How did she even get such essence? Didn't the nature of destroying the Soulstones on the Hellforge supposed to be the ultimate death, making it impossible to reform? If part of Diablo was hiding in Leah and that is how he escaped his Soulstones destruction, then how is Mephisto also in there? None of this is touched on or explained.
Act 3 is when it really starts losing it, the story taking almost an entire backseat to the action. Leah is shuffled in another room outside of the town zone. You dungeon crawl down, kill the boss, and move on to the next act with Adria finally revealing her true intentions and merging Leah with the Black Soulstone. (which by this point, was an obvious twist)
Act 4 at that point just became Act 3.5, you don't even get a new town, you just use the same town from Act 3 and the overall time it takes to complete it is half of the others. There is zero closure on things like Imperius, Leah, etc...
Now for my two biggest issues.
Leah - She was probably the main character of the game for me. We saw her in the beginning with the dream, her love for her uncle, we saw her swear to carry on his work, and she was the one that saw the vision of Azmodan invading. She showed no signs of an evil heart, or a wicked soul. Yet when Act 3 came around her character was sidelined and then finally entirely replaced with Diablo. She didn't even get a sentence in before being changed, not even a "Noooo. Mother stop this!". My character and Follower constantly mentioned how they wanted to save her, that her soul might still be there, but they NEVER capitalize on it. The ending is pretty much Diablo is dead, let's toss his ass off our spire so his corpse burns up. Leah? Who the hell is that?
Diablo - This is going to sound really stupid, but Diablo didn't really feel a lot like Diablo, at least with his aesthetics. I know, he is supposed to be all 7 of the Evils merged into a single Prime Evil, I know he is in a woman's body, but something about going from this...
To this.
Just felt a bit jolting, like I almost wish they didn't call him Diablo and just gave the character a new name. The new creature wouldn't have to be the Lord of Terror, but instead the Lord of All Evil. I actually think they did make it so Diablo was the "driver" just because they wanted to make sure, like always, the name of the game fit with the main antagonist.
It also didn't help that in one of the cinematic, Diablo enters heaven with a swagger that makes me think more runway model then Lord of Terror. Did they really have to give him scale plates that make it look like he has breasts?
Anyways, I still love the game, it's addicting beyond belief, but the storyline and writing could have been a lot better.
I think you nailed everything I wanted to say.
Necronic
Staff member
Finished my first run through last night and started on nightmare difficulty. I can tell that thta they really nailed the difficulty scaling, which is arguably the most important design concern for this game. I messed around for all of a minute last night on the auction house, and I realized that I shouldn't be salvaging all of those yellows I get, they will make my good gold on the auction house.
The RMT auction house is bar none the most interesting thing about this game, and I'll be curious how it plays out. My guess is that prices will be pretty low early on (after the opening day madness), since the only thing I hear from anyone is about selling gear, not buying it, but you may start seeing 10-20$ prices for some of the really rare items. I think people are smoking crack if they think they will hit the 250$ cap on a single item.
Edit: Oh yeah and I am actually a bit scurred about switching to hardcore mode. I'm definitely waiting until the severs are a little more mature, and until I have a better understading of the game mechanics/builds. Like, last night someone pointed out to me that I was playing with basically no vitality gear which was getting me killed. Derp.
Edit2: And for any wizards in the house, what are your builds? Right now I am rocking Diamond Skin (prismatic), Meteor, Storm Shield (lower casting), and Archon (best skill in the game omfg it's awesome). My mains are electrocute and disintigrate. Passives switch around a bit. Basically between the prismatic skin and the storm shield (plus one of my passives) I can walk into a giant group of dudes, through up the diamond skin and then drop 2 meteors right on myself. Then everyone dies (hopefully).
The RMT auction house is bar none the most interesting thing about this game, and I'll be curious how it plays out. My guess is that prices will be pretty low early on (after the opening day madness), since the only thing I hear from anyone is about selling gear, not buying it, but you may start seeing 10-20$ prices for some of the really rare items. I think people are smoking crack if they think they will hit the 250$ cap on a single item.
Edit: Oh yeah and I am actually a bit scurred about switching to hardcore mode. I'm definitely waiting until the severs are a little more mature, and until I have a better understading of the game mechanics/builds. Like, last night someone pointed out to me that I was playing with basically no vitality gear which was getting me killed. Derp.
Edit2: And for any wizards in the house, what are your builds? Right now I am rocking Diamond Skin (prismatic), Meteor, Storm Shield (lower casting), and Archon (best skill in the game omfg it's awesome). My mains are electrocute and disintigrate. Passives switch around a bit. Basically between the prismatic skin and the storm shield (plus one of my passives) I can walk into a giant group of dudes, through up the diamond skin and then drop 2 meteors right on myself. Then everyone dies (hopefully).
I don't even plan to go that high. When I use it I plan to go between $2-5 per item, unless it's EXTREMELY rare, at which point I will go up to $20-30. I see it as "free money" because I am just selling stuff I am getting while playing the game, so I have no need to jack up the price. People are more likely to pay a few dollars on a good rare or unique then a hundred.
Necronic
Staff member
I think 2$ will buy you pretty impressive gear. Like, exceptionally impressive gear. The best way to determine prices is to think about how many of these items can someone who is running 4 clients simultaneously grab in an hour. Based on that, and what qualifies as a "good income" in some crappy country, you can figure out prices. In one hour of high focus play I can usually grab 2-4 decent rares. I'm guessing someone multiboxing and minmaxed out for magic item find could manage more like 10-16/hour. Which would put the price at ~$0.50 per item.
Very true, I bet someone could make money off this system at only a few cents and item. Will really be interesting to see how it develops.
Necronic
Staff member
Arguably there's more money to be made in other games (like WoW or EvE), but the security of knowing that the RMT system is actually endorsed by the company makes me think that farmers are going to flock to the game like flies to a carcass. They do seem to have included some decent anti-farming schemes into the game, like if you kill the same boss on the same day it won't drop a rare (I think), and the exclusion of the korean market from the RMT store will reduce some of this, but w/ magic find items the farmers may do fine just hitting regular mobs. I agree that it's going to be interesting, and as far as RMT/microtransaction models go this is a pretty good one.
See, this isn't an issue with Witch Doctors. I'm currently rocking a massive wall of 4 dogs, which take 10% of the damage I'm hit with, and my gargantuan, which seems to draw aggro well, and my Templar, which has mostly Vit gear and can taunt. That's 6 guys tanking for me, which gives me plenty of time to drop acid on just about everyone.
Pfft, he has me to tank for him, don't let him fool you into thinking those mutts are doing anything for him!
To be fair, I haven't gotten into Nightmare yet, so I need to slot more Vit than I currently am. I'm still finishing up Act III. Probably gonna get Mojo through Normal and then wait for Jay to come back so I can help get him back up to where we are.
And those exploding Mobs? Yeah, they got me good the first time they showed up. Never again.
And those exploding Mobs? Yeah, they got me good the first time they showed up. Never again.
In normal, as a Wizard, those Phasewalkers were the worst. Everything else was pretty easy to avoid but if I ran into a group of phasewalkers (or worst, champion phasewalkers) I found myself getting chopped to bits. I ended up saving Diamond Skin for when they showed up.
BTW, my ending build ended up evolving into Diamond Skin with the rune that increased the absorb damage (It became required since I was mostly heavy on intelligence over vitality), Magic Missile with the split rune for when I ran out of Arcane Power, Disintegrate with the AOE rune as my main damage skill that I would focus, Mirror Image for when things got really bad, Familiar with the damage boost rune, and lastly good ole Hydra with arcane rune. My passive skills were the one that lowers melee damage taken, the one that lowers the cooldown on abilities, and the one that increase max Arcane Power and Arcane Regeneration.
My normal method of fighting was to run in, start casting disintegrate into a group of enemies making sure to "spread" over them. Those that survived and got close were then hit by the AOE streams. If anything got close enough to hit me I would use Diamond Skin and just keep pushing out the disintegrate beam. If things were really bad I would use Mirror Image and run like crazy. I would use hydra only if the room is extremely crowded. It worked out well.
BTW, my ending build ended up evolving into Diamond Skin with the rune that increased the absorb damage (It became required since I was mostly heavy on intelligence over vitality), Magic Missile with the split rune for when I ran out of Arcane Power, Disintegrate with the AOE rune as my main damage skill that I would focus, Mirror Image for when things got really bad, Familiar with the damage boost rune, and lastly good ole Hydra with arcane rune. My passive skills were the one that lowers melee damage taken, the one that lowers the cooldown on abilities, and the one that increase max Arcane Power and Arcane Regeneration.
My normal method of fighting was to run in, start casting disintegrate into a group of enemies making sure to "spread" over them. Those that survived and got close were then hit by the AOE streams. If anything got close enough to hit me I would use Diamond Skin and just keep pushing out the disintegrate beam. If things were really bad I would use Mirror Image and run like crazy. I would use hydra only if the room is extremely crowded. It worked out well.
Necronic
Staff member
I used to use hydra and just spam it into every fight (since it's so cheap), but someone turned me on to meteor and I've been using it ever since. That spell is so phenomenally devastating when done right. I messed around with Mirror Image a bit but never really liked it (because there's a decent chance they will still hit you.) Also, Archon is probably the single coolest skill I have seen in the game, and there is no way I would give that up.
While Archon is great, it prevents me from using some of the skills I needed to stay alive, like Diamond Skin. When I used it on the final boss it ended up getting me killed. Mirror Image will not always distract the enemies, but in the case of packs it will always split them, and in the case of bosses will always grab their attention long enough to let you get a few strong attacks in.
So umm...
did anyone else find Diablo to be a pussy after the Izrual fight and the massive killing floor that was the 2nd floor of the spire? I mean, I only had to use one health potion and I probably didn't even need that one - just didn't want to chance having to wait for an orb to drop.
My solo strategy has basically been the same as it always was: Run in, Soul Harvest for the massive Int boost, AOE the crap out of everything with Acid Rain. The only thing this doesn't work on is bosses, where I just let my pets tank while I use my Poison Dart + Splinter Rune to pile on the damage while they attack it.
Necronic
Staff member
The other awesome thing about the Archon, and I noticed this right after I activated it the first time, is that it seems like it's taken directly from Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, the scene where that one dude takes that weird drug and goes into the Barbarois killing everyone. That's what I feel like when I activate my Archon.
Edit: And Gared, no that was probably the hardest one for me.
Edit: And Gared, no that was probably the hardest one for me.
EXACT opposite for me.
Izual was freakishly easy, I killed him without taking any damage and even got one of the speed kill achievements. Diablo on the other hand would rape my face if I didn't stay out of the prisons or keep a decent distance from him at all times. Went through five potions and both pools before he went down.
I almost feel bad for using the healing glyph on Serenity.
Almost.
Almost.