SLI means you're using two of them at once. Most people are probably not using dual-580's right now unless they live in the Southern hemisphere.
--Patrick
[Gaming] Diablo 3 : Ser Farm-A-Lot
- Thread starter Jay
- Start date
--Patrick
F
Feiht
Oh then no, I'm not running it in SLI.
Still have horrible stutter in game.
Still have horrible stutter in game.
Necronic
Staff member
Yeah, I mean....look i'm having issues with stuff in the game right now (they hosed the balance), but I don't really buy these arguments that they are intentionally unbalancing the game so that they can make more profit, because these arguments don't really make any sense.
The repair thing has nothing to do with them trying to get money off of players. I don't see how you could come to that conclusion unless that was a conclusion you were determined to come to. It's just dumb game design.
Also, I noticed the same thing with the rares. Maybe I was just unlucky last night, I dunno.
But yeah, I'm remembering why I dislike Blizzard. They are horrendous at balance.
The repair thing has nothing to do with them trying to get money off of players. I don't see how you could come to that conclusion unless that was a conclusion you were determined to come to. It's just dumb game design.
Also, I noticed the same thing with the rares. Maybe I was just unlucky last night, I dunno.
But yeah, I'm remembering why I dislike Blizzard. They are horrendous at balance.
Necro, you're oversimplifying (well, or others are and you're paraphrasing them). I don't think they'll deliberately try to unbalance things so that people are forced to use the AH. I do think they're trying to balance the game, given that everyone uses the AH. This means the "balance point" is elsewhere than if you're balancing for "everyone's playing completely untwinked without AH". Balancing for everyone playing solo with only their own gear would obviously provide a "too easy" play experience for those who do trade. Balancing for people trading will tend to unbalance the game for those who play alone - making some parts too hard without ridiculous grinding (especially HC). Trying to balance it for both is what they're trying to do and are failing to do so far.
Anyway, I wonder if they haven't gone too far in cheapening crafting. I admit it was kind of useless anyway, but still. Levelling the blacksmith - let alone Shen - costs next to nothing now. I've now gone and used all my low level gems to the highest I can at the moment (don't have any recipes or whatever they're called yet), and suddenly I'm running aorund with socketed items out my wazoo. Sure it's fun, but for low level play, crafting is now not only viable but completely OP if you're staying off the AH. Don't really know how the prices stack up in comparison - the AH has some pretty weird pricing structures.
Anyway, as always, they overbalanced. Inferno wipes will be much more commonplace now. Let's wait 'till they up the difficulty again, just to hear people whine that it's too hard now, they've been nerfed, etc etc - because they cleared Inferno with gear that wouldn't get you out of Act 1 before.
Also, AH => always on line => everybody has to play the same version of the game; which is a shame. Nobody will ever be able to "best" Kripp/Krippie because no-one can go back and play HC Inferno as it was pre-patch. Also, big problem if a patch comes out with new bugs in it, which is bound to happen sooner or later.
Anyway, I wonder if they haven't gone too far in cheapening crafting. I admit it was kind of useless anyway, but still. Levelling the blacksmith - let alone Shen - costs next to nothing now. I've now gone and used all my low level gems to the highest I can at the moment (don't have any recipes or whatever they're called yet), and suddenly I'm running aorund with socketed items out my wazoo. Sure it's fun, but for low level play, crafting is now not only viable but completely OP if you're staying off the AH. Don't really know how the prices stack up in comparison - the AH has some pretty weird pricing structures.
Anyway, as always, they overbalanced. Inferno wipes will be much more commonplace now. Let's wait 'till they up the difficulty again, just to hear people whine that it's too hard now, they've been nerfed, etc etc - because they cleared Inferno with gear that wouldn't get you out of Act 1 before.
Also, AH => always on line => everybody has to play the same version of the game; which is a shame. Nobody will ever be able to "best" Kripp/Krippie because no-one can go back and play HC Inferno as it was pre-patch. Also, big problem if a patch comes out with new bugs in it, which is bound to happen sooner or later.
From what I'm hearing in talking to friends, it sounds like these changes to Inferno were amazing for people playing DH - the damage reduction made it so that they're not getting instantly one-shot by anything that hits them, and opens up the possibility of gearing for mitigation and sustained damage instead of pure burst and hoping to kill before they die. It makes me think that they - and maybe the standard-build wizards, witch doctors, and 2h/dw barbarians and monks - were the target here, and they didn't really take tank builds into account. Adding enrage timers to just about every boss on Inferno supports that, or suggests that they're actively trying to eliminate tanky builds as viable for solo progression.
I mean, technically that matches their "we want to make more builds viable" philosophy, right? Crush the need for any survivability, let people run wild with whatever abilities/runes/gear setups they want, and let the ability to meet those enrage timers be the only metric for what's a viable build. If that is what they're doing - or if they decide to nerf melee tank setups to bring their ability to progress in line with other classes in the new Inferno - that'll be the thing that convinces me to stop playing.
I mean, technically that matches their "we want to make more builds viable" philosophy, right? Crush the need for any survivability, let people run wild with whatever abilities/runes/gear setups they want, and let the ability to meet those enrage timers be the only metric for what's a viable build. If that is what they're doing - or if they decide to nerf melee tank setups to bring their ability to progress in line with other classes in the new Inferno - that'll be the thing that convinces me to stop playing.
Necronic
Staff member
After playing last night I don't think they "overbalanced" it too much. I was able to get much farther in A3 than I had been able to previously, including killing Soul Lasher elites without dying much (impossible before), but it was still challenging. Ghom was a complete no-go for me though, which was surprising to say the least.
I feel like I need to join a Gamers Anonymous group. I imagine my first meeting would go somewhat thusly:
"Hi, I'm Gared, and I'm addicted to Blizzard Software's games."
<pause for all of the greetings>
"Even though I've already played D3, and I knew I didn't have any fun playing the game, and even though nearly everyone I know said that 1.0.3 was a horrible patch, I couldn't keep myself from reinstalling the game and playing it again."
I blame the better graphics, and the lack of sleep.
"Hi, I'm Gared, and I'm addicted to Blizzard Software's games."
<pause for all of the greetings>
"Even though I've already played D3, and I knew I didn't have any fun playing the game, and even though nearly everyone I know said that 1.0.3 was a horrible patch, I couldn't keep myself from reinstalling the game and playing it again."
I blame the better graphics, and the lack of sleep.
OK, just wondering whether this is a change from the patch, and I'm simply the only one who's annoyed, or some setting I changed accidentally somewhere...Lore books, when picked up, still start their audio automatically, but don't open anymore on screen.
I can see how this would be useful (losing part of your screen in Inferno is probably quite deadly
) but it's bloody annoying to those of us who want ot read them. Especially those in Act IV are pretty much impossible to understand unless I'm reading along - the voices are too distorted.
So...Can I turn that back on somewhere, or have the cries of Inferno-playing hardcore 1337 gamers drowned out the idea that newcomers should be able to enjoy the lore to the fullest? I mean, I'd expect it to be a toggle somewhere, but I'm just not seeing it....
I can see how this would be useful (losing part of your screen in Inferno is probably quite deadly
) but it's bloody annoying to those of us who want ot read them. Especially those in Act IV are pretty much impossible to understand unless I'm reading along - the voices are too distorted. So...Can I turn that back on somewhere, or have the cries of Inferno-playing hardcore 1337 gamers drowned out the idea that newcomers should be able to enjoy the lore to the fullest? I mean, I'd expect it to be a toggle somewhere, but I'm just not seeing it....
Yeah I tried playing this. Massive stuttering. Every 15 steps or so (Loading the area) it stutters. Every time there's about 5+ npcs on screen it stutters. My PC should be blowing this out of the water, but I think it's my hard drive?
This is one of the reasons I'm trying to get a SSD. Weird that I'd have to do this for a game though when a game like Tera runs at max speed smoothly.
This is one of the reasons I'm trying to get a SSD. Weird that I'd have to do this for a game though when a game like Tera runs at max speed smoothly.
I'm pretty sure the new patch introduced something on that front, because I went from never having any graphics issues at all to seeing regular stuttering while I'm playing. My computer is more than capable of max settings and was doing fine until the patch.
That said, I haven't been motivated to play enough to figure out a pattern in what might be causing it, so who knows.
That said, I haven't been motivated to play enough to figure out a pattern in what might be causing it, so who knows.
A) oddly, I haven't had any technical issues since the patch, while I sometimes had stuttering and slowdowns before. I'm running it at less-than-minimum-requirements...So I guess they applied some sort of thing to make it behave better with lesser machines, and at the same time introduced some issues with newer hardware. It'll get fixed, but it's still sloppy.
B) Apparently, the patch reset the subtitles settings - I noticed when there were no subtitles in a cinematic....I was wondering before whether I was imagining things with the NPC talk just appearing in the chat window instead of also above their heads My bad!
B) Apparently, the patch reset the subtitles settings - I noticed when there were no subtitles in a cinematic....I was wondering before whether I was imagining things with the NPC talk just appearing in the chat window instead of also above their heads
My bad!
Nah, that's the real ending. Diablo's soul is now imprisoned in your laptop battery. You should be fine so long as you don't drive it into your forehead, which is really a poor choice when dealing with items containing prime evils.
D'oh! You should've told me sooner! But I can contain it, don't worry. Now I'll just go have some sex with the local witch and set off on my long-awaited vacation to the East....Always into the East....
WHY DID HE DO THAT?
I know, he planned to contain Diablo within himself, but really, that was a stupid plan.
I got a Monk up to lvl 10 on hardcore mostly just for the achievement, and I'm pretty much not willing to run much further with one. The idea of getting so far and then just losing that character is not enticing to me. Though, my best character on Torchlight was a hardcore character, so I may run with it.
I could handle dying on HC if it's my own fault. I don't trust Blizzard's servers enough to play HC, though. If I died to lag/disconnect/etc I'd be pissed.
That is an EXTREMELY relevant point.
Co-op HC would be more viable now with the damage nerf, but I'll still be steering clear of it for awhile.
I swapped out Horrify for Spirit Walk with Honored Guest. The difference was AMAZING, thanks for the suggestion.
I know this won't work for Hell or above, but on Nightmare, my usual fight is:
1) run into the middle of the crowd and do Soul Harvest with Swollow your Soul rune (to get maximum 5 stack damage increase).
2) Spirit Walk the hell out of there
3) Lay down a few spirits and corpse spiders ( with Widowmaker rune to get some mana back)
4) Plague Bats up the ass.
5) If mana runs out, throw more corpse spiders and blow dart while kiting.
6) rinse and repeat as necessary
Also, the Butcher was SUPER easy on Nightmare with this build.
I know this won't work for Hell or above, but on Nightmare, my usual fight is:
1) run into the middle of the crowd and do Soul Harvest with Swollow your Soul rune (to get maximum 5 stack damage increase).
2) Spirit Walk the hell out of there
3) Lay down a few spirits and corpse spiders ( with Widowmaker rune to get some mana back)
4) Plague Bats up the ass.
5) If mana runs out, throw more corpse spiders and blow dart while kiting.
6) rinse and repeat as necessary
Also, the Butcher was SUPER easy on Nightmare with this build.
Whoa, this shit is nonsense. The future!
http://www.1up.com/news/diablo-iii-approval-period
Sad day when you need almost as long an approval period to play a game as to buy a gun.
http://www.1up.com/news/diablo-iii-approval-period
Sad day when you need almost as long an approval period to play a game as to buy a gun.
Wow, that's pretty shitty.
Yeah, apparently the people who experienced issues with their digital purchases from before 1.0.3 were caught up in the ever-tightening anti-bot net for digital purchases made post-1.0.3. Still not sure how pissing off tons of legitimate fans and purchasers in the hopes of inconveniencing bots is good business. But with Forbes contributors writing about this for investment and business readers, it's not likely to do Actiblizz a whole lot of good financially.
Wow. Just...wow. I'm glad I've got my digital edition before this. Man, if this ISNT very explicitly stated in advance, I imagine this could lead to a LOT of lawsuits/refunds. A EULA or TOS presented after paying wouldn't even be a legal way of presenting this to a consumer. That's.... daring.
I was going to check to see if there was anything specifically spelled out in the purchase process, but I'm at work and don't keep my key fob authenticator with me. And apparently Battle.net can't handle the kind of IP ranges that a major corp like Microsoft has all that well, because just going to the battle.net page gets me a greeting of "Hello <login name that isn't mine>"
I thought I had read in that article that this bullshit is happening to all digital purchases, whether it was bought day one or today. I don't have my authenticator with me and can't check till I get home tomorrow. Some posts in the support forum are saying they have 30+ level characters that are bugged out and locked at their current xp.
So anyway...To talk about the game itself a bit...
1. Diablo powers down all of the angels' wings, and fights a mortal human on the top of a really high arch. Can someone explain to me why s/he doesn't just drop you off the arch? You can make a case for a wizard to have some sort of feather fall/teleport/whatnot, but a Barb or monk? No matter your health pool, a 5-mile drop 'd be pretty effective. Plus, you'd have to climb all the way back up, giving h/im/er plenty of time to finish his rituals.
2. Tyrael rejoins the council as a mortal...This council's existed for countless millenia and will continue for as long. It's all nice and good to say he rejoins them as a mortal, but...How does that work? That's bullcrap. Rejoins as an immortal but without wings, or "with a greater understanding of the point of view of a mortal" or whatever, fine...But these writers apparently do'nt get the idea of true immortality.
3. Why the H do people refer to the player character as "The Nephalem"? No offense, but...aren't ALL people Nephalem? Yes they are. So...? Nephalem, humans and mortals are supposedly seperate concepts but they're the same, but not, but....eh? The writers apparently confuse themselves with these terms. Tyrael isn't human - or a Nephalem. The PC and Zultan Kulle are Nephalem, because they're, what, "awakened" humans?
4. Seriosuly, who thought "Maghda" was a good name for a villain? It's a normal female name. It's nothing special. Our old housekeeper was named Magda. Adding an -h- doesn't make a name ominous or magical. See also: Leah.
5. Acts III and IV are....really, really...weak story-wise, aren't they? Jeesh. I saw how Azmodan was and I fervently hoped Diablo wouldn't be as bad, but s/he was probably even worse. Some parts of the story were OK. Lots of the dialogue was written sort of good. But having the villains constantly pop up to mock you...Man, I can take it for one bad guy - Azmodan, given the fact that he's pride personified...But god that got annoying towards the end.
6. This is just a question: does every lore book spawn every game? 'cause I've been pretty good at clearing everything out, and I've found plenty of doubles, but there's still plenty I haven't found. Psht.
Overall:
Gameplay 8/10 -> Good but not great. DII was - to me - more addictive.
Graphics and sound and shit 10/10 -> I have a computer well under the minimum requirements, adn it's still fluid and pretty great looking. The music is great, ambient sounds are very well done. Some things get "slightly" tedious (the taunts of both villains and followers are stupidly repetitive), and the grunts of my Gargantuan were nice for the first few hours I ran with him :-p
Story 5.5/10 -> I know it's an ARPG...I know Diablo and DII weren't exactly world literature...But this is still pretty weak. As Gared said: it's a rehash of Diablo II, with less-well-written villains to boot.
Technical 7/10 -> Yes, some issues at launch and whatever, but all in al, for an always-online game, it's pretty stabel adn the servers are decent. I don't like this aspect of the game ,but at least it's not horribly executed as well.
Other 2/10 -> This is for the always-online, for Blizzard customer support, for crappy balance, for making it more useful to play alone instead of in group in a game they wanted to be multiplayer....
Overall Man, I really don't know. 7/10. Or 9/10 and 3/10 at the same time. Or something.
2. Tyrael rejoins the council as a mortal...This council's existed for countless millenia and will continue for as long. It's all nice and good to say he rejoins them as a mortal, but...How does that work? That's bullcrap. Rejoins as an immortal but without wings, or "with a greater understanding of the point of view of a mortal" or whatever, fine...But these writers apparently do'nt get the idea of true immortality.
3. Why the H do people refer to the player character as "The Nephalem"? No offense, but...aren't ALL people Nephalem? Yes they are. So...? Nephalem, humans and mortals are supposedly seperate concepts but they're the same, but not, but....eh? The writers apparently confuse themselves with these terms. Tyrael isn't human - or a Nephalem. The PC and Zultan Kulle are Nephalem, because they're, what, "awakened" humans?
4. Seriosuly, who thought "Maghda" was a good name for a villain? It's a normal female name. It's nothing special. Our old housekeeper was named Magda. Adding an -h- doesn't make a name ominous or magical. See also: Leah.
5. Acts III and IV are....really, really...weak story-wise, aren't they? Jeesh. I saw how Azmodan was and I fervently hoped Diablo wouldn't be as bad, but s/he was probably even worse. Some parts of the story were OK. Lots of the dialogue was written sort of good. But having the villains constantly pop up to mock you...Man, I can take it for one bad guy - Azmodan, given the fact that he's pride personified...But god that got annoying towards the end.
6. This is just a question: does every lore book spawn every game? 'cause I've been pretty good at clearing everything out, and I've found plenty of doubles, but there's still plenty I haven't found. Psht.
Overall:
Gameplay 8/10 -> Good but not great. DII was - to me - more addictive.
Graphics and sound and shit 10/10 -> I have a computer well under the minimum requirements, adn it's still fluid and pretty great looking. The music is great, ambient sounds are very well done. Some things get "slightly" tedious (the taunts of both villains and followers are stupidly repetitive), and the grunts of my Gargantuan were nice for the first few hours I ran with him :-p
Story 5.5/10 -> I know it's an ARPG...I know Diablo and DII weren't exactly world literature...But this is still pretty weak. As Gared said: it's a rehash of Diablo II, with less-well-written villains to boot.
Technical 7/10 -> Yes, some issues at launch and whatever, but all in al, for an always-online game, it's pretty stabel adn the servers are decent. I don't like this aspect of the game ,but at least it's not horribly executed as well.
Other 2/10 -> This is for the always-online, for Blizzard customer support, for crappy balance, for making it more useful to play alone instead of in group in a game they wanted to be multiplayer....
Overall Man, I really don't know. 7/10. Or 9/10 and 3/10 at the same time. Or something.
I'm not comparing to Crysis 2. I'm comparing to "what runs on my computer, and how good". Yes, compared to how hard my pc has to work for it, D3 looks surprisingly good. I'm sure there are plenty of games out there that look much better. Also, it's mostly a 10 because of the music, I'm a big fan of Diablo-styled music and it's probably the only aspect in which they've been absolutely faithful to the previous two.
Necronic
Staff member
Eh, for what it is it's not bad. If you actually play "zoomed in" (z button) you'll see that the graphics aren't halfway bad. More important than that though is the amount of thought put into some of the background stuff, like Heart of Sin, which is amazing looking. I remember stopping and just looking at some of the scenery from time to time. I rarely do that in a game.
Also, as for the Nephilim stuff, it's a bit strange. Apparently in D3 it means that you are the offspring of an Angel and a Demon. Dunno where it explains that. But...it's also a real biblical word with way more interesting meanings:
1) Giants
1a) A race of actual physical giants that existed in ye olden tymes.
1b) A metaphor for the "Giants" of the classical era, like Achilles.
2) Offspring of "Fallen" angels and humans. Not like Lucifer fallen angels, but more like angels that just decided to come down to Earth and "have a good time". Or maybe they moved there. I can't remember.
or
3) a combination of 1 & 2.
I have NO idea why they couldn't have gone with one fo those definitions and instead went for some weird angels + demons definition.
Also, as for the Nephilim stuff, it's a bit strange. Apparently in D3 it means that you are the offspring of an Angel and a Demon. Dunno where it explains that. But...it's also a real biblical word with way more interesting meanings:
1) Giants
1a) A race of actual physical giants that existed in ye olden tymes.
1b) A metaphor for the "Giants" of the classical era, like Achilles.
2) Offspring of "Fallen" angels and humans. Not like Lucifer fallen angels, but more like angels that just decided to come down to Earth and "have a good time". Or maybe they moved there. I can't remember.
or
3) a combination of 1 & 2.
I have NO idea why they couldn't have gone with one fo those definitions and instead went for some weird angels + demons definition.
All of humans are the offspring of angels and demons. Sanctuary was made as a refuge for an angel and demon that fell in love, and their offspring were the nephilem. Heaven started getting worried that the nephelim, containing both order and chaos, would grow to be more powerful than any of them, so they altered the world stone to make them mortal, turning them into humans. Tyreal's destruction if the world stone means that it's possible for men to be born if nephelim power again, and the pc's are the first to awaken that power.
This is what I got from all those lore books.
This is what I got from all those lore books.
Well, they sort of mean 1b+2. I guess. Except 2b - angels and demons instead of angels and humans. Because there weren't any humans before angels and demons had fun time.
How it supposedly works is that Angels and Demons had some fun time
and we ended up with a race of superhumans (the Nephalem) who were deliberately depowered via the worldstone; some still managed to break free and reach their potential (Kulle). With the Worldstone gone, alle humans are once more growing stronger and realizing their true potential - as if we're all living as long as Adam and Eve and are all as strong as Achilles. Fair enough.
But that creation story means there ARENT any non-Nephalem humans. But in DIII they're playing it up as if only a select few have the "power to ascend" or something - and the PC is special because of this. And that's just wrong according to their own lore...Or they're horribly confusing.
How it supposedly works is that Angels and Demons had some fun time
and we ended up with a race of superhumans (the Nephalem) who were deliberately depowered via the worldstone; some still managed to break free and reach their potential (Kulle). With the Worldstone gone, alle humans are once more growing stronger and realizing their true potential - as if we're all living as long as Adam and Eve and are all as strong as Achilles. Fair enough.But that creation story means there ARENT any non-Nephalem humans. But in DIII they're playing it up as if only a select few have the "power to ascend" or something - and the PC is special because of this. And that's just wrong according to their own lore...Or they're horribly confusing.