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Comment by archgrove | Hacker News Reader

Whilst I'm not qualified to comment on the science, I can certainly agree with the conclusion. In Diablo 2, the hunt for loot was part of feeling the "hero" - keep digging for treasure, keep dismembering those skeletons; somewhere, there's that Epic Item with which you can win the day!

I've played Diablo 3 through to "Hell" difficulty, and I've not been using my own looted gear since the middle of the "Normal" mode - there's just no competition between drops, and what you can buy on the AH for very little money. The "sensible" play style is just to farm gold, and buy AH kit. Found an item? Sell it for gold (or, very occasionally, AH) - don't use it!

It's hard to feel like a hero when you're popping off to Macy's every few hours to grab a new +1 Sword of Wounding. Your quest to save the world - sponsored by Nike?

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Another thing, related but not frequently discussed, is the change in how important gear is vs. other factors. For instance, in Diablo II a high level item would give +20 vitality. Your character got 5 stat points per level which you could, if you wanted, put all into vitality. This high level item was roughly equivalent to only 4 character levels (of which you got 99).

In Diablo III, a high-level item is giving you 200+ vitality. I don't know about other characters, but I believe my Monk is getting 2 vitality per level (and there are 60 levels). A _single_ item can give me more of a stat than I gain from leveling all the way from 1 to 60. As such, leveling up doesn't do much other than allow equip items with better stats.

Because items in Diablo II gave, comparatively, closer benefits to gaining another level than those in Diablo III, I felt like I was making progress with either a level up or a nice item drop. If my character was getting decimated in Act IV of Nightmare, I could go back and gain a few levels and maybe get some new items in the process. In Diablo III, not only do your levels not increase your survivability or killing power in any way (besides new skill runes), by the time you feel like you aren't strong enough to defeat an encounter you'll most likely have few or even no more levels left to gain. The only tangible measure of progress is "phatter lewt" at this point.

This isn't really entirely accurate:

First, a single item of, for instance, 200 vitality, is not giving you a +200 to your vitality at lvl 60. Instead, it's giving you the difference between 200, and what ever the bonus would be on average eq that you can get easily in the game by being level 60 and killing a few things.

Second, levels do increase your survivability, in several ways:

1. You get vitality, every level, at +10 life per point plus any percentage bonuses you have 2. You get your key stat, every level, which increases your damage directly and indirectly 3. You become able to wear higher-level equipment when you gain a level, and of course, that equipment improves based on its own level. 4. You learn new skills, not just new skill runes, and both are quite significant. The higher-level skills are more powerful in many cases.

This is actually a good thing. Diablo II spoiled you with unique items so no magical and almost no rare items could ever be useful. In Diablo III, a very simple item can be very useful because of stat bonuses.

This is not entirely correct. While several Uniques could be considered Best In Slot, a good magical (especially true pre 1.10 path with Cruel weapons) and more commonly a good rare would be the best choice for a given build. Rare (or Crafted) Gloves, Amulets, Belts, Boots and Tiaras could spawn with extremely good properties, often surpassing Unique items.

Diablo II's levels provided more than just stat boosts: there were skill points, and likely changes in level-based mechanics underlying damage taken by player characters.

D2's uniques and runewords were more common and reliably useful than D3's legendaries. Finding good uniques (e.g. Stone of Jordan[0]) led to big jumps in character power unmirrored by a level or two.

I don't agree that items were less important in D2 than in D3, but suspect they're presently much harder to obtain in D3 without turning to using the auction house. This is probably intentional.

[0] http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/normal/urings.sht...

I agree 100% in regards to the Auction House. Me and a buddy are in the middle of Nightmare difficulty, and we hadn't taken a look at the AH yet. Upon visiting the AH, we realized just how bad our gear was, and we managed to cheaply replace almost every piece of armor having stats magnitudes better. Also, the boss fights are extremely disappointing. I fear the only rush I'll get out of the game is rolling a Hardcore character.

Sadly Blizzard completely ruined Hardcore play with their requirement to remain connected. If you play an online game for any significant length of time, you will probably experience a lag-spike at some point. Considering how fast one can die in the harder difficulty modes, I don't think I'm going to invest too much time into a hardcore character. I've already died several times due to latency issues on my normal characters. Imagine how frustrating it would be to put over a hundred hours into a character, only to die for reasons that are beyond your control.

I've seen Kungen's[0] hardcore inferno monk die to a DC. That would be so disheartening :-\

[0]: http://www.twitch.tv/kungentv

Don't worry, in Inferno it's very very hard, even with AH. You gotta farm for days before u can buy better stuff from AH.

But in reality you'll just run-die without killing mobs and only killing bosses. Like everyone else. So that you can farm the bosses later / play hardcore, etc.

You could say the same about D2's economy - it became about MFing (magic finding) for loot that you could trade in for the equivalent market value in item currencies: Stone of Jordan rings, or later, charms and points on a 3rd party forum (forgot the name). Then, you could buy the specific piece of shiny loot that you want for your character's build.

That, or you farm and hope that the piece of loot that you want serendipitously drops.

I believe the 3rd party website you're referring to is d2jsp.

Yes, but you could at least beat D2 on normal difficulty without resorting to that.

The comments on TFA make it sound like it's impossible to complete D3 without buying gear from the AH, which makes me a very sad panda.

On normal it's not just possible, it's easy. Incredibly easy. I personally didn't feel the game even started until Nightmare mode.

My experiences were with Witch Doctor & Demon Hunter.

Try normal again with a Wizard or Barb... I found both much more challenging than either Witch Doctor or Demon Hunter.

Barbarian is stupidly powerful, at least in normal. I killed Diablo first attempt, no AH bought gear (I hate the AH, think it ruins the game, and haven't bought a single item from it). I stood toe to toe most of the fight using the first passive ability and two other survival related abilities.

It's funny there's a lot of whining about melee classes being weak and I just don't see it (I'm only halfway through nightmare) -- I'm playing a monk with my wife's wizard and the monk is just as ridiculously overpowered as the barbarian (as in run to the biggest concentration of mobs and make them explode). Demon Hunters have to deal with enemies that are immune to missiles, which is ridiculous. (The worst thing with melee so far is dealing with flies in Act II.)

As for the challenge level of normal, I think it's fine for new players. I just wish nightmare were unlocked to start with (with whatever mechanics you like). I don't like games to assume every player has played twenty similar games and knows how to finesse gear, specs, etc. I imagine normal is quite challenging for new players (and I had trouble with two bosses on my DH and one on my Barbarian -- mostly because I had gotten so far using simple minded tactics and actually had to think).

Yeah, wait until you get on inferno... All mobs are basically immune to your pulls/pushes/whatever, and you can't really tank. And you're not very good at kiting either, being melee.

Forget about not using the AH in inferno, a barbarian pretty much needs gear farmed in act4 to progress.

I'm halfway through inferno on my DH and haven't met a missile immune mob yet. I think some of them have damage reduction for missiles, but I still dps them down easily. The hard mobs are the ones with invulnerable minions/fast.

You could easily beast D2 on hell difficulty without resorting to that, google for "d2 build hell cheap" See: fishymancer, summonmancer, lightning sorc, windy druid, any barb, etc.

And yes, in D3 you cannot progress past inferno a2 without ah gear or exploit farming (goblins)

you can beat D3 hell without AH. I did it myself only with items found by me or my friends.

It's possible and quite easy to complete D3 normal difficulty without buying from the AH, don't believe everything you read.

Of course it is, but if you're trying to be at least moderately efficient you'll npc your loot and buy equipment on the AH.

Sure, sponsored by Nike, but the reward cycle happens with every blue/yellow drop. You sell it for gold and eventually go to the AH to get your fix.

this changes at the inferno level though, because here the rate of gold gathered vs needed to upgrade jumps significantly. You begin to grub at every blue, yellow drop for the upgrade that gives you a little bit more survivability.

I think they the system more of a grubbing for small coins all around the map to buy crack from the AH.

They reduced the frustration loop by removing the "oh this wasn't the rare I wanted" and change it to "I can sell everything for gold, I just need a little bit more". Since you can see continuous progression you don't feel frustrated (as much). I would think this is analogues to being told why a que is taking so long instead of waiting blindly in a que.

  > que

Did you mean 'queue?' Or is this an American English vs. Queen's English thing?

My friend, I think it's a phonetic thing.

In America it's more common to hear it than ever see it.

Hell, I only know how to spell it because of scrabble.

I am personally immensely frustrated at the game. It feels pointless to me farming act 1 Inferno over and over just to buy 1 piece on the AH.

I think it's intended though, soon as the RMAH rolls around all us terribly frustrated people can just buy our way into progression, without even having to farm for the gold!

It's not just the gold farming that bothers me though, I feel like it is gimmicky, not genuinely difficult (as compared to Heroic WoW bosses anyways). Blizzard learnt through WoW that 1-shot deaths, even on tanks, was a horrible prospect and toned down burst damage a lot. They really need to figure out a way to make D3 more difficult without the monster just killing you because you looked at it.

It was terribly frustrating to farm bosses in D2 over and over again for days just to get a piece of equipment that put one on parity with others.

Meanwhile, you can go buy it from Chinese gold farmers for a few bucks... pretty clear something was wrong with that.

True - not everyone bought from them though. In your case, it sounds like you are talking about PVP more than PVE progression. D2 may have had hacks/issues/farmers - but it was more fun.

The AH here though assumes that having to buy from chinese gold farmers was an issue which everyone faced, and now makes the AH an issue for everyone to face.

People may complain about Craiglist or a Bloomberg terminal, but at the end of the day, they still use and love them. Similarly people may complain about D2, but they still loved it.

They changed the system so they can make money off the auction house later on. But so far they've delayed the "real-money" auction house indefinitely, because of worries that it may make the whole system even worse than it is now. Too bad they had to ruin the reward system, and for nothing.

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