Endgame difficulty curve.

[vaudeville]

So let's get a few things out of the way.

1) Please refer to my Item drops post as the following is somewhat related to that subject.

2) I've probably been on here for a strong 2 weeks, and I have all but 1 torch for each character type and, through the graces of other players willing to accept not much (in my opinion) with special deals, have obtained a good number rare and necessary items (i.e. special charms, torches, etc.) all certain characters/builds should have.

3) Excepting my new poison necro, none of my characters can break 20k damage which is barely tolerable to deal with inferno cows (and most of them have torches, annihilus charms, particular set piece items, maxed skill levels, and so forth).

That said I pretty much still can't even touch the end game content material. Even inferno cows is too much or is a very slow grind with my best characters, and I blame part of this both on the overall endgame difficulty curve and item drops. Either way you look at it (item drops vs. overall endgame enemies) is absurd as it stands especially for newer players. The gulf between simply fighting baal or diablo one on one in the hardest difficult or doing cows in the same difficulty is a chasm when doing inferno cows and is even worse with the dreamland bosses, knarst, the lich king, the pits, and lvl 15 and up in the crucible for newer players (I want to emphasize the word NEWER players for you older players that will likely read this post).

At the very least, I would recommend the following course of action that should help newer players pick up the pace.

1) Make getting torches and annihilus (don't get me started with either topic please) charms easier to obtain in particular getting the keys to unlock such (upon consideration, perhaps you ought to consider making the item drops doing "uber runs" more worthwhile as well say for example you can more likely get the blue organ set there or runes such as mal, ist, and ohm).

2) Increase the item drop rate for all runes in general but making ber and up the hardest to get at inferno cows and the "uber" places or even the pits (I leave it to the makers to do this in all places or with act bosses). I think this should be done for the added reason that I find too often that older players tend to pretty much only go and rush the cow queen only and take her treasures. Afterwards, they either leave immediately or go afk for all practical purposes. Very few stay behind and seriously play which almost always leaves less experienced and less well equipped players who happened to come by to lvl up a bit and get new equipment hung to dry which is absurd especially since there is a good chance to still get good items (even for older players such as a facet and enchantment scrolls).

3) Increase the item drop rate for "lower run" enchantment scrolls like increasing one's health or reducing damage (essentially anything but increase elemental damage, add skill points, splash damage, etc.). This ought to help newer players a lot to get by inferno cows and up to the dreamlands and pits.

4) Make one of the endgame content easier (not in terms of item drops but in enemy health, number, and damage).

The point here is to provide an actual curve for new players and not force them to grind ad nauseum with little to look forward to which is thus far where I'm at still.

PS: I'm willing to hear actual coaching on what I'm doing wrong with certain builds and characters (which I'm sure I'm doing in certain cases). If you want to do this, please do so while I'm playing and mention that you read this post.

[Lucid]

1) wont happen. It is meant to take a while and make annis worthy. We had bugs last season and tons of annis & torches. THAT was not fun.

2) - nc from me so far. Dunno whats best there -

3) deops for "low enchants" cannot be increased directly. You could let more enchants drop and give less chance to spawn a rare one. But that would mean for Game, that nobody would by his 300g enchantment book from hadriel anymore. So... That wont happen either.

4) plaguelands is pretty easy infernolevel. You can control the mobs wizh freeze + stun and they are easier.

After that - in terms of difficulty - comes the act 5 infernopoftals (except those new one)

And then it further increases with the 3 new infernoareas.

The bosses are hard. But absolute doable with a decent char.

Regards

[Mephisto]

RNG RNG... Haha, its all about building op slowely if ur starting new, for example: <br />
Get a tal sorc using nova, or mavina zon using exploding arrow + freezing arrow is great to start out with. Hell...

[tragos]

Hey,
Have some patience imo I had a hard time to farm end game content as well for the first whole month back then, believe me end game content is not that hard as it seems all you need for the start is a mavina set bowzon and farm hellcows for ryleh event organs and act bosses for fragments,if you learn the right way to play you won't have any problem to survive / kill even my summon necro can farm some of the end game content with the new items from 3.2, but that doesn't mean that everyone can do it, it needs some strategy and time to learn how to use each build, give some time to yourself you LL see is not that hard! Wish you much luck!

[vaudeville]

I don't have much of a problem with inferno cows with either of my necromancers thanks to confuse, but it doesn't do me much good either since being a necromancer I am

1) Distant from my enemies typically and thus if they drop something good I'll be too far away to get them making farming via necromancers almost pointless.

2) I'll need to count on someone to even tank or kill the inferno cows which I don't always have the fortune to pair up with.

[vaudeville]

You missed the point with regards to Frostfire. I can't farm well to begin with if I can't even get that weapon because the initial dreamland bosses kick my butt. Again, the difficulty curve is backward. You only get rewarded afterwards. When you do you're golden. It would be like winning the lottery only after climbing mount Everest versus climbing the Appalachian Mountains and getting half a million each time. Which do you think people will go for?

[vaudeville]

1) Then what's the point? The torch and annihilus charm is meant to help newer players is it not? What makes you think they (newer players) will stick around if they have to do over 20 runs just to get 1 key only to get all 9 and not get the torch they need. Please explain that to newer players and then wonder why you see less and less of them coming to this server or sticking around.

3) Who would buy the 300 gold enchantment book and risk trying to get a good one when you're likely in the future to need gold to buy one of those orbs to get back your socketed high runes and facets? Because that's what I figure I'll end up doing because I have so few high runes.

4) Yes, that's true. I do that. I may try farming there a bit more, but I haven't seen or heard of anything dropping there that I needed that I couldn't get anywhere else.

[Lampogriz]

try harder, game is easy for pvm already
i'd suggest to make regular hell mobs even stronger

[Game]

You missed the point with regards to Frostfire. I can't farm well to begin with if I can't even get that weapon because the initial dreamland bosses kick my butt. Again, the difficulty curve is backward. You only get rewarded afterwards. When you do you're golden. It would be like wining the lottery only after climbing mount Everest versus climbing the Appalachian Mountains and getting half a million each time. Which do you think people will go for?

Mavina set is not that hard to get, infact I have seen it given away because it isn't that uncommon and the strength it gives you is not that far away from Frostfire!

[LordManhammer]

To be completely honest, I think farming keys for anni charms and torches is one of the most time consuming and unnecessary aspects of the game. I usually wait until I've satisfactorily geared all of my toons for the purpose that I use them and then go back for anni charms and torches if I get bored. When I say "for the purpose that I use them for" I mean that I have a toon that I use for different farming scenarios sometimes multiples of the same class. I gave up trying to take on all of the content with just one character. If you have all of the strongest gear and enchants available you might be able to do it all with one toon but I don't. I use a shield throw barb with an IK set for act 5 infernos and plague lands(although now that the drop rates have been nerfed, I don't bother with PL anymore). I use a standard smiter/poison smiter for dream lands and boss farming the three new inferno portals. Finally I use a frost fire zon for hell and inferno cows(mavinas will work just fine, FF is just faster:).

I play solo. Always have. Always will. The times that I am able to play are different than when most other people are online. I also don't like competing for the same loot table. I'd rather just find gear and strategy solutions for tackling new endgame content than wait for help from other people. Maybe that is a bit anti social but it's how I roll. I guess I should get to my point. If you are having trouble with particular area of the game, try to evaluate what weaknesses of the class you are playing that are preventing you from progressing and perhaps think about rolling a new toon that would be better suited for that content. I know that smiters may not be hipster enough for some people. Just remember that there was a reason that everyone played smiters back in the day. They worked and could kill any boss. They still can. Shield throw barbs can face tank the act 5 inferno portals and with the recent buff to damage reduction they are even stronger. Remember to have fun and teleport is your friend:)

[James]

There's a lot of walls of text, but I agree to some point. It feels like you have to have your character end game before you even decide to start ubers. The problem with that is, so much wealth in the server is already here. Players become new, see these players with already end game gear and expect to do the same. But the big problem is inferno cows imo, where it drops all the rares/sets/uniques that they don't need. Leading the new players to pick them up. But where do they grind to get better to start doing inferno cows? Baal? Meph? Cows? None are nothing compared to Inferno cows or the ubers. (Where one mob kill is about the same loot as a Baal kill.) So we're stuck farming cows and all the none custom things to be able to do that. Or, we could try them and die 15-20 times in order to get a kill. Maybe, a buff to hell cows, or baal runs to make them easier for new players. Nothing is fun about getting rushed to hell in 10 minutes, and try to gear yourself off other people playing. Since there's a really easy way to get to hell, maybe make Baal a huge incentive? It'd be easier to farm, but limited to a time limit (being baal waves etc.). There's really no character that can farm these things efficiently without godly gear. I mean, fighting something with 1 million life, when I only have 150k dps as poison... As I can see, only a few specific builds can destroy these things. I don't see a Druid or an Assassin in these ubers.. I feel like it should be easier to farm, decrease the life, so we don't have to rely on crushing blow and deadly strike. Yeah, diablo II pvm is really easy, but not everyone sees it that way. Maybe add something in the middle of "end game" and "noobies". Like, vaud said. There is just too big of a gap, there is no real progression. Get lucky and if you do, get richer. Same as regular D2, but you could atleast get a diadem from baal that'd be worth 25+ hrs. Here it's like, hope I get either a zod drop or a enchantment that's decent. So one of the godly people looking for them and can over pay and I can farm ubers. I know it's not like this, but the curve is off. I've played Median, with a nice smooth curve into end game. Path of Exile same thing. I'm not complaining the server is awesome, end game content is really nice. But, something has to be done for new players and players that aren't as good or knowledgeable about diablo II as other players are. I just feel like, improving on this small spot will increase the amount of players on the server.

[Dante]

Stuff may seem a bit hard. Maybe some mid level content with low % chance of high gear could help yea, but I havn't played 3.2 yet, dunno how much areas and crafts help now.

Rune words are very nice here. Just to mention Guardian and extremely good and compared to stats cheap runeword. HRs can be farmed in hell cows or traded. There are some options to help new players closing some gaps.

I understand the pain it can be to die a lot of times trying to kill a boss. But don't forget this game is also not entirely meant to be played solo. Try it in a team, talk to people, trade. If you play with people and they hear you struggling, they will help you for sure. Some more, some less. Don't go with GM's here, they obviously play a lot, don't compare yourself with the rich guys.

I agree, annihilus is not really a casual server, you have to spend some time to get where you want, but that's also part of the idea here.
Drop insensitive could be a nice idea, but only if you encourage more public games. Have yourself fill up games to artificially gain the effect has killed a lot of fun for me here in the past though.

[LordManhammer]

I joined the server about 3 months before the ladder reset. Like any new player that joins now, I noticed that everyone was already geared to the hilt and wanted ridiculous amounts of hrs in exchange for the items I needed to trade for. I then decided to go it alone and find a way to progress without trading. Its definitely doable. I was playing a Zealadin at the time and was able to farm gear starting in the normal difficulty level inferno portals of act 5. When my gear permitted, I went to nightmare infernos. Eventually I was able to farm hell difficulty. It takes time but there is a path laid out for new players to gear their toons without trading. In my opinion the act 5 inferno portals have been nerfed in terms of difficulty and can be easily farmed now with minimal gear levels. Anyone remember the corpse explosion mobs? That shit sucked:)

There are plenty of build guides and content guides available for anyone who is willing to try a different approach to what they feel has been futile for them. Let me finish by saying that if you feel that an anni charm or a torche is going to put you over the top gear wise and suddenly make endgame content accessible that wasn't before, you are in for a huge let down:)

[vaudeville]

Yeah, pvm with regards to inferno cows is easy because you're decked out already Lampo. And it's pretty easy if you have a necromancer with corpse explosion and confuse. The only hard part there is clumping them together and killing one or 2 off so that you can finish the rest off. For any other character not equipped well or isn't a necromancer it isn't a walk in the park. I see newer players get wiped out fast all the time. Hek, most of them not only can do barely any damage against inferno cows even though they have decent equipment, are over lvl 90, etc. but they can't even get past ryleh and in particular Azathoth! What is your point? I've seen veterans get easily destroyed by that guy all the times. And you expect newer players to just play harder and succeed magically somehow? Have you lost your senses?

[vaudeville]

I never said I expected the torches and annihilus charms to be the end all be all. I'm pretty sure I mentioned getting those as just one step closer to buffing your characters.

I would add as a side note that the latter (the annihilus) charm is even more annoying to obtain when you consider that there are enchantment scrolls that require you to sacrifice one in order to get a skill point added. So guess what, that's more key farming. Terrific. And I also have to make or rely on a friend that will bring up to 24 people to have enough standards to get just one annihilus charm. Better hope that no character drops out in the meantime which there is a good chance of happening.

[vaudeville]

Exactly, James this is what I mean. And as far as I"m concerned this is still my experience. I couldn't have gotten as far as I've did without people tossing stuff they found that easily got me going. Granted, I'm not too bothered by this to an extent. I lend a helping hand every now and then to new players too if I find stuff I don't need, but that still won't get them past the dreamlands anytime soon or to the inferno pits most likely.

[qtp]

try harder, game is easy for pvm already
i'd suggest to make regular hell mobs even stronger

well u see lampo him not make like you : hunt inferno cows to teleport at box ^^ him enter in cow and kill cow's to farm and get.. soo nice to come with this hipocrit acting... without not even know how much this player are online from 24 hours... you talk like a pro ... but u acting in game like a garbage....

to get respect .. learn to respect...

you wanna more strong the mobs ... well start from 0 and after 2 weeks without anny friends help let me see if u wll think same...

u have 2 get a torch ... farm a set.. and bla bla.... now AFTER you have all wanna strong...

doh... dude... u are more worse then my english ...

even at general discussion you talk abouth yourself... you post for ? with what reson ? show " i ma the master pick up cow's player" .... damn.... we need more active server with active ( PUBLIC ) games but after.... u make those shit's like that.. ppl turn to play in private games... wow...

You pretend are smart.... ..... maybe in the next life...

[LordManhammer]

"doh... dude... u are more worse then my english" That's one hell of an insult:)

[vaudeville]

Stuff may seem a bit hard. Maybe some mid level content with low % chance of high gear could help yea, but I havn't played 3.2 yet, dunno how much areas and crafts help now.

Rune words are very nice here. Just to mention Guardian and extremely good and compared to stats cheap runeword. HRs can be farmed in hell cows or traded. There are some options to help new players closing some gaps.

I understand the pain it can be to die a lot of times trying to kill a boss. But don't forget this game is also not entirely meant to be played solo. Try it in a team, talk to people, trade. If you play with people and they hear you struggling, they will help you for sure. Some more, some less. Don't go with GM's here, they obviously play a lot, don't compare yourself with the rich guys.

I agree, annihilus is not really a casual server, you have to spend some time to get where you want, but that's also part of the idea here.
Drop insensitive could be a nice idea, but only if you encourage more public games. Have yourself fill up games to artificially gain the effect has killed a lot of fun for me here in the past though.

Yeah, that's what I would wish for, something in between perhaps. It ought to be

1) the regular game first
2) regular cows to lvl up fast and maybe get some blue organs, grand charms, and some decent runes and scrolls
3) uber
4) inferno cows
5) plaguelands
6) to be determined
7) Inferno pits and swamp pit (the other two places in my opinion aren't worth it)
8) dreamlands
9) crucible and anything else

The first 5 are doable especially with a party of at least 1 veteran (say people who've been here for a month). Beyond that, it gets difficult fast.

It's either that or the drops have to be improved in one of the steps. I still suggest keys be made easier to get especially if you're going to have scrolls requiring you to sacrifice an annihilus charm. It only makes sense to do that. If you want, you can make the "diablo clone" harder instead of making getting keys and standards tedious.

Certain rune drops below say vex or ber should be vamped up as well. It would help a lot if I could get more ohm or ist runes for more damage and magic find. I don't mind if the other higher runes are harder to get. That's ok, by why do the other runes have to be difficult to get? I don't want to downgrade a ber or higher rune just to get 1 ohm rune. That's absurd. Also in a related note, guess what? I can't use most scrolls without high runes (or divine gems). Go figure.

As for working with other people, what exactly do you think I've been doing? If anything, it's the opposite. They're working for me, and I still can't do much with any of my characters beyond my necromancers. Trust me, I've been trying to get people aboard. I want to trade with other people, but as James put it these people almost always want say at least 5 high runes or more that I don't have because the drop rate is bad even at over 200 mf, so there goes trading for most anything I still need (though thankfully by now that list isn't so large). I want to do crucible runs and dreamlands too, but it seems a lot of other players don't want to (likely because they already have what they need and are sure that whatever does drop will go to newer players making it completely un-beneficial for them). You see the conundrum here? Newer players can't advance any time past probably a number of weeks without the help of veterans, and they're very unlikely to get access to high runes. Older players have to support them, and they're unlikely to give them anything really good (cow queen set, chtulu stuff, shrunken head, eyeball charm, torches, annihilus charms, and more) unless the noobies give them high runes which they don't have. This is an impasse plain and simple. You can say I should play the game harder all you like, but if I can't get high runes or scrolls with which to trade, or play with veteran players, then I simply CANNOT advance.

[memories]

qtp
You really gotta stop crying. This thread isn't even about what you're talking about. It's about new players getting decent items and how it's a bit difficult. Not about lampo. You sound like a 12 year girl talking to her friends about getting bullied for wearing a blue shirt with black pants.
vaudeville
Why you gonna use the enchants you find? Trade them if you don't need them. It's a trading game. That's how you advance. You think all the "rich" players found the items they use? Mostly they trade...

The way you get items in this game is farm hell cows for organs/enchants/highrunes. Make good trades, drive a hard bargain for the items you need. Once you can run Plaguelands, keep at it. Farm farm farm. Necros can never do what zons and pallys do. There's a build for every scenario. There's never one build for everything.

[qtp]

qtp
You really gotta stop crying. This thread isn't even about what you're talking about. It's about new players getting decent items and how it's a bit difficult. Not about lampo. You sound like a 12 year girl talking to her friends about getting bullied for wearing a blue shirt with black pants.
vaudeville
Why you gonna use the enchants you find? Trade them if you don't need them. It's a trading game. That's how you advance. You think all the "rich" players found the items they use? Mostly they trade...

The way you get items in this game is farm hell cows for organs/enchants/highrunes. Make good trades, drive a hard bargain for the items you need. Once you can run Plaguelands, keep at it. Farm farm farm. Necros can never do what zons and pallys do. There's a build for every scenario. There's never one build for everything.

i was complaing not cry ing... i am one fair and ... usual friengly person ....
i know .... with those ... scrolls remeber ... how much u was beggin me to sale u my light scrool ? did.. i told you 'stop cry ing " ? pfff i was friendly and i told you : ok ... not even reply.. like u reply ... second time with ... " crying " .... the point... is eazzy 2 see it.. but hard 2 admit it...
i not think i was reply with any .. rudish words..... for..... scroll u was.. send me message for.. "correct me" u reply .... intristing... and make me think better... when i will have 2 sale something...

[vaudeville]

qtp
You really gotta stop crying. This thread isn't even about what you're talking about. It's about new players getting decent items and how it's a bit difficult. Not about lampo. You sound like a 12 year girl talking to her friends about getting bullied for wearing a blue shirt with black pants.
vaudeville
Why you gonna use the enchants you find? Trade them if you don't need them. It's a trading game. That's how you advance. You think all the "rich" players found the items they use? Mostly they trade...

The way you get items in this game is farm hell cows for organs/enchants/highrunes. Make good trades, drive a hard bargain for the items you need. Once you can run Plaguelands, keep at it. Farm farm farm. Necros can never do what zons and pallys do. There's a build for every scenario. There's never one build for everything.

1) ...I'm not exactly sure what's with a lot of the posters here. You all sound like I've never played this game before. I have, and even if I didn't, I have figured out most everything there is to have figured out.

2) You think I don't want to trade stuff I find or haven't done so already? I have done that in a few occasions (I got a druid and assassin prime doing that along with torches), but whose going to trade with me now to get high runes or the best equipment there is? Certainly not players that are newer than me since they have nothing and yet they're most likely to be on, and I bet certainly not older players since 1) they are least likely to be on as often as newer players, 2) many of them either already have those kinds of enchantments that I have (and guess what they're probably not willing to sacrifice an annihilus charm they have just to use the enchantment thus going back to that point regarding torches and annihilus charms being completely tedious to get how many times now), or 3) they don't think its worth trading their high runes for them for whatever reason. So I don't so your point.

3) Yes, there is a build for every scenario. Yes a Necromancer can't do what an amazon does (maybe that's why they're two different things). but in the end of the day it doesn't amount to much if you don't have the proper equipment for them now does it? Why else do you think I prefer the necromancer in general? Because he's easy to use in general and getting good equipment for him isn't that hard (minus the trag trophy which can be a pain to find). Most other characters/builds are another story (especially the druid and assassin in general and anything but a shield throwing barbarian).

[val]

I support the statements of vaudeville! The drop rate is really low. Before the new patch in a single cow game you could easy get like 2 hrs. Also i suggest you consider a lader reset cuz the economy on the server is broken. There are thoose 15 - 20 guys that have like 200+ hrs and all the godly gear X 10 and for a new player is really hard to trade someone who have everything. Also there is a HUGE!!!!!! handicap for the players who started to play the server after the new patch. So if you want the server to grow you need to make some changes, otherwise you risk to remain the same 20 guys with zilions of runes, tfs, corrupted items etc.. that wont cost a penny.

[Lucid]

Ehmm. A serverreset hurts new guys more than rich guys o.O

No free sets to get newbs started.

The rich will just play up golemancer + java and making the endgameareas after a week or two.

While newb maybe found full mav in between, our 15-20 pros have their thunderfurys again and selling good stuff for tons of hrs to those newbs.

= after a month or two, we are exactly where we are now...

Just my opinion...

[Lampogriz]

Ehmm. A serverreset hurts new guys more than rich guys o.O

No free sets to get newbs started.

The rich will just play up golemancer + java and making the endgameareas after a week or two.

While newb maybe found full mav in between, our 15-20 pros have their thunderfurys again and selling good stuff for tons of hrs to those newbs.

= after a month or two, we are exactly where we are now...

Just my opinion...

Well said Lucid, nothing to add.

[James]

Ehmm. A serverreset hurts new guys more than rich guys o.O

No free sets to get newbs started.

The rich will just play up golemancer + java and making the endgameareas after a week or two.

While newb maybe found full mav in between, our 15-20 pros have their thunderfurys again and selling good stuff for tons of hrs to those newbs.

= after a month or two, we are exactly where we are now...

Just my opinion...

The fact that to use 2 characters to farm something.. is saying something. Plus, that would take hours and hours of people doing that to get where we are now in just 1-2 months. Basically any class besides Zon Necro or Pally are useless as shit. There's no point in making them... I'm not going to lie, I feel like the "grind' to "end game" is boring and not fun. The monsters have so much health, you're wasting 90% of your time just waiting for things to die. I've got plenty of characters, tried mutlple things. Nothing can compare to a holy shock zealer. NOTHING, it's simply retarded. Plus, all the bosses have so much health and damage. It's impossible for even end game characters to not die. What's the fun in that? Dying 20-30 times for a boss kill? It's like a lottery.. "Maybe I'll kill him before he 1 shots me". Every time you'd die, you'd have to precast and make another portal. It's annoying and old. I mean, if you have plenty of time to waste sitting here watching something with 1m hp when you do 20k DPS... That's going to take awhile. This game takes no strategy anymore.. There's 2-3 builds that rise above EVERYTHING ELSE, and if we try to play something different we're wasting time. Or we can all just sit here with Pally and Necro with a BO barb in another window. It's not how d2 is meant to be played.. It's like the only custom content is for people who want to waste shitloads of time to get ahead. As far as I can see it, the items suck. Yeah, there's plenty of stuff that's good. But the end game ones, don't get you anywhere. Just saying this because I feel like, the server is ran by rich kids who have everything. Because they wanted to waste time on it. New players will eventually end up quitting, because they see the time and effort needed to actually have fun. I've tried playing this, the farming is so much worse than old school LoD, it's annoying and boring. You die a lot and you have to wait and wait and wait.. iirc d2 wasn't a waiting game. But go ahead, act like it is all okay lol... Farming is possible yeah it is. But, the ways you have to farm... Are just simply boring and inefficient. Something needs decreased and something needs increased. It just isn't balanced right at all. We need new items for other classes that are comparable. Maybe lower class items that are comparable too. Switching an item shouldn't bring you from 20k damage to 90k just saying... One item.

[Lucid]

Its still a mod, with only one person working on it.

And the ladder reset like requested wont change a thing, like i already said.

I personally find it very good as it is. Maybe its just not meant, to solo all endgameareas without dying?!

Also there are some more classes that can tank, like valkyrie ama or summonerdrood. But like at the zealers inba'ness, the golemancer is far ahead in tanking.
To nerf or buff the classes into a balanced state is never really possible.
You would have to balance pvp to pvm and every class at the same level... Not even big programming teams are able to do that. How could Game do?

[Mephisto]

There will allways be superior classes, look at the original diablo. Hammerdin rings a bell?
Hammerdin was the only thing that was used, in here u can use so many more classes!
Im still using a smiter, and it wont die, even for new content, where i see those light zealers die quite some times.

[James]

Its still a mod, with only one person working on it.

And the ladder reset like requested wont change a thing, like i already said.

I personally find it very good as it is. Maybe its just not meant, to solo all endgameareas without dying?!

Also there are some more classes that can tank, like valkyrie ama or summonerdrood. But like at the zealers inba'ness, the golemancer is far ahead in tanking.
To nerf or buff the classes into a balanced state is never really possible.
You would have to balance pvp to pvm and every class at the same level... Not even big programming teams are able to do that. How could Game do?

And I know.. He does an amazing job. He is very talented and I totally respect him. But there's too big of a gap. You can sit here and tell me reason why, but it's not going to change in game. There is a problem, and if the player base doesn't say anything about it maybe he'll never know. I'm not saying nerf or buff classes. Just simply introduce better items. A ladder reset and a new vamp of easier ubers and possible farming area would do this server a lot of good. Something has to be there for the new players that got from level 1-90 in an hour. They don't have gear, what do they do? Quit. Simple as that, they see all these GODLY players and don't have that amount of time. An area with decent life and decent damage, with nice drops would be nice. But something with a shitty drop rate already and the things take a year to kill for a new player. Why would they invest time here? Seems like, the richer get richer kind of deal. And what do rich people do mostly? Some will help, but most will take advantage of everything.



There will allways be superior classes, look at the original diablo. Hammerdin rings a bell?
Hammerdin was the only thing that was used, in here u can use so many more classes!
Im still using a smiter, and it wont die, even for new content, where i see those light zealers die quite some times.

Hammerdin was superior for boss killing and botting. That was about it, so many other thing outclassed him in every other way. so many other builds that shine.. Light Sorc? Java Zon? Cold Sorc? Summon necro? So many things were useful on reg d2. Atleast, I could play a trap sin lol. Smiters have no fucking damage lol... Even with 100% crushing blow, you're still sitting there for a year. Well, unless you have every end item in the game already like you. Then yeah, it wouldn't be hard to not die. Getting there in the first place is the challenge for new players. Plus very time consuming.

[val]

Totally agree with James....it meant to be fun, not time consuming.....we are not 14 years old anymore... :) And yes we need a lot more new items, a lot more new runewords .... And james is right nothing beats or its closer to light pala :)

P.S RESPECT TO ALL THE ADMINS AND THE OWNER!

[Dante]

I think what you posted is mostly right, maybe not the ladder reset part, but the item situation for sure.

For me a ladder reset is not about the items, you can farm it eventually anyway. It's about leveling up, exploring everything as first, reaching 99 as first and the increased player base in this time period. I wanted more ladder resets too, but for that reason. Not for item reset. I agree with Lucid there. But that beside, it's ok if you think differently there...

The problem imo is, we have no real mid class player base, as you said. You are in this position right now. There are too few players, and as you said, if you level 1-90 and stay there with no gear but tedious boss fights and 1k hours ahead of you. There is no real content to justify that amount of time to get to that level. You shouldn't compare yourself with that, but of course you do, players want to reach the highest level obviously.

Key hunting is time consuming, also frag parts and all of that. 24 SoH for a soulstone may sound like a cool idea, but is stupid if you allow endless loaders, could just make it 3 SoH and drop one each time. Like 2 patches ago we had a aware "bug" that dropped two organ sets for one key set. Considering the ease to level chars, the time to spend and now even recipes with annis, I think that should NOT have been "fixed".

In my opinion, d2 bnet vanilla was so fun to run, because at every point, or almost every, you could get every item. The things you farmed, no matter where, were always kinda rewarding and allowing you to progress. Of course, there was still ubers, but you don't farm them, as you farm dreamlands or plaguelands here now. The items were more balanced in general and you knew there uses already. Also with basic selffound stuff you could do the hardest parts of the game, like Ubers. You can't do that here so easily.

We should care to not have a "power creep" (see: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/648126) effect for the server here. If new content and items gets added, old will get obsolete. If you wanna fight high Cruci stuff, you need the gear of Dreamlands for example. It's similar with what you said, farming cows for hours just to get that HRs that can't directly (e.g. via rune words) help you, but instead you need to collect like ~20 to get a single piece of good item is stupid. I'm not saying we have this situation here, but especially if we get new content, that is limited to "rich" people we will stick with the community we have and new player will stop after a very short while, because it is not as casual as they wanted it to be and really too hard to catch up.

Again, I haven't played 3.2. I can't say how much the changes there work against what I said. I saw some good fixes for sure.

Also I want to mention this is indeed a new mod server. The idea of the server is challenging and should not be fully compared to bnet in every aspect, especially economy and pvm or non yet existent pvp. For players with a lot of time it is surely really good as it is, but I fully support what you are saying needs to get attention too.

[caca]

Hi!
imo its just a question of... char building and inestissement. i am kind of in the same situation, even if i started to play feqw months ago...
but trust me your necro WONT be able to do much, BUT he can EASELY do PL, do like we all did farm it , with lichking again and again, get frost mourne and sets...
then you can do uber cow, of course you wont kill the Rlyeh boss... unless you ll do a pala, smiter to kill it and get Boxes, that you will be able to open for free when some one will open a cthulu.
with that same smiter you will be able to make plaguelands, you cant do all 4 bosses because of lake of stuff? Right make an java then, with comon stuff and some time you can do 2 boss with java and the 2 other with pala.
Got it ? then make few hell cow with your java//necro to get some HR to make few rw.... thats kinda it, then it will become harder to get good chars to make crucibles and new area....i am at this point... but because i am lazy to make chars to be able to make solo crucible, and die and try hard again ... maybe so hard you :D
GL dude!

[Equalibrium]

all i can say is come play hc then moan about sc.
its not ment as a dig to anyone .
but hc is way way way more of a pain in all these regards.
the dificulty curve is a pain yes but your sc . your imortal.
sc = time thats all. just stick at it my friend.

[James]

all i can say is come play hc then moan about sc.
its not ment as a dig to anyone .
but hc is way way way more of a pain in all these regards.
the dificulty curve is a pain yes but your sc . your imortal.
sc = time thats all. just stick at it my friend.

have fun playing regular d2 on hard core is all i can say lol. Those bosses and inferno levels are nothing to fuck with.

[Lucid]

We do the inferno levels and bosses on hardcore. Just takes even longer and there are only a few viable starterbuilds tho... But still possible.

[Equalibrium]

not the new inferno lvls mind. they are a propper piss take.
but we will eventualy. all im sayin is just be glad you dont have perma death on top of your percived issues.
#game (http://annihilus.net/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=game) and the others have done an amazing job here and even though hc gets shit on i greatly appreciate it.

[vaudeville]

Ehmm. A serverreset hurts new guys more than rich guys o.O

No free sets to get newbs started.

The rich will just play up golemancer + java and making the endgameareas after a week or two.

While newb maybe found full mav in between, our 15-20 pros have their thunderfurys again and selling good stuff for tons of hrs to those newbs.

= after a month or two, we are exactly where we are now...

Just my opinion...

...what?

1) Yes there won't be free sets for new players if there was a ladder reset, but neither will there be anything for any one in the meantime.

2) This statement is patently absurd. Not only do you make it sound like first both the golemancer and javazon are the best classes/builds (the former is useless without a tank and the latter doesn't even compare to a zeal paladin), but you would have us believe that within 1 to 2 weeks people will, after a reset no less, get all the things either classes will need from endgame material. Really? So you expect that to just magically get the cow queen set the first few times you do Inferno cows? How are you going to get past Azathoth and his minions the first time? How are you going to deal with the lich king for that matter the first couple of times? How about the crucible? There is no way you will get the best equipment with both classes in 2 weeks without cheating.

[vaudeville]

I just want to reiterate my main point in this thread by asking why can't there be an actual curve? Why can't certain items which aren't even that great in the long run such as mal and ist runes (I think I'll try to make a small list in the next post) drop more often? Why not make uber or omega runs worth while both to new and older players where the latter is willing to help the former by getting them torches, annihilus charms, abyss spheres, and tomes if the drops (in particular say with runes) are increased? Is that really too much to ask if you want people to stick around?

[vaudeville]

So here is the list so far of particular items I think whose drop rate should increase with the main purpose being to get players t advance at a certain pace. Note that this will of course be a work in progress.

Regarding runes
Increase in general (and yes I do mean in general) but very slightly the drop rates for all runes, but with everything below mal being the most and everything after ohm being the least. The new "middle runes" (mal through ohm) ought to help newer players advance more if the drop rate for such is better than it is now. Perhaps such should be increased in uber or omega areas.

Regarding blue organs
I know these aren't too find to hard, but perhaps the drop rate for such ought to be tweaked a little more higher (certainly something to be considered if everything else is ignored).

To be continued/edited

[Lucid]

...what?

1) Yes there won't be free sets for new players if there was a ladder reset, but neither will there be anything for any one in the meantime.

2) This statement is patently absurd. Not only do you make it sound like first both the golemancer and javazon are the best classes/builds (the former is useless without a tank and the latter doesn't even compare to a zeal paladin), but you would have us believe that within 1 to 2 weeks people will, after a reset no less, get all the things either classes will need from endgame material. Really? So you expect that to just magically get the cow queen set the first few times you do Inferno cows? How are you going to get past Azathoth and his minions the first time? How are you going to deal with the lich king for that matter the first couple of times? How about the crucible? There is no way you will get the best equipment with both classes in 2 weeks without cheating.

jep. im exactly saying this.

There are people having cowset after a week or two.
If im right, i did lichking in between the first week even without a golemancer by my side.

i spoke of java + golemancer, cuz this is what you will need to have after a serverreset. There will be no lightning zealer...
you may forget, that the first crucible clear has to be without stuffs from crucible. This pretty much proves, that is doable :3 otherwise we wouldnt have thunderfurys at all.

There are people/teams playing all day long and doing all the endgamestuffs that early. It will be like i said: While you are having your mavina full set finally, somebody else is joining your game with tons of effects around him and gosu stuffs.
And guess who will be that. The rich people were the ones, that played the most and didnt care about what classes perform best.
They were the richest in the last season (when i started), they are the richest now and they will stay the richest after the next reset.

So: a reset doesnt change THAT specific richness thing. No way.

Also: I really like resets and the start without having anything. Its not that i just argue against, so there wont be a reset.
If you do it earlier, i appreciate it. But i just say, that it will change things for maybe a few weeks or the first months...

----------------------------

OH and back 2 topic:

The easiest way would be, to stretch out crucible a bit (like 30 levels). The level 20 should stay as it is and become lvl 30.
The first few levels (from 1-10) should be stretched to the new 1-20.

This will: Make 4 "easy" bosses, that everyone even without golemancer should be able to kill.

4 bosses each dropping 100% one or two of 10 different items would end up being 40 items, that are pretty easy to get.
The hardest part probably will be to make items that are not op and also making items that are for viable classes.

the crucible as it is, is a little bad atm... Good stuffs drop at lvl15+20, which you cannot reach without golemancer / a team.
And the first two bosses are so easy, everone can farm it. And the 100% chance on only 2-3 items per boss makes me not even loot this things... I just let the items from the first boss lie on the ground, cuz they are bad and more common than blue rings.
And the second boss' items are farmed pretty fast if you really would need em some day. But for the moment they just fill up your mules. So.. if they are not perfect, i let them on the ground also.

ends up in crucible beeing boring for me after 2-3 times of reaching level 14 solo.

if only the bosses would drop 10 items each. And one of those items being more rare than the others (and better ofc), then farming would make sense at least. Or?

regards.

oh btw, read this Game :) if you have some spare minutes

[Game]

I don't have time to respond in full right now, but I disagree a lot with things said in this thread. People want things to be a little too easy it seems. A lot of these suggestions may make the first week or two of playing easier for new players, but after that it completely sucks and people will burn out faster than ever. The way drops work on this server weren't just wildly thought up, drop rates of all sorts of items (blue organs included) have been changed a lot overtime to find the sweet spot, I am very pleased with the drop rates of almost all items right now.

Crucible could use a little tweaking, but I am not going to add 10 more levels, I do not think that would help much of anything. When Crucible came out though I did say I will work on expanding it in different ways in the future, I will touch on that probably in patch 3.4. the first 2 bosses aren't meant to be super hard, it isn't supposed to get real hard until after that.

[rrra]

Ok I dont think you really understand whats going on here. Lucid is entirely right about this. A golem mancer isnt a tank. Its golems are the tanks. Since clay golems slow the effected monster;...

[Game]

That is exactly what I was shooting for, and I am glad people realize it! Rares have a LOT of potential now. Sure they don't have certain unique effects like auras, skill modifiers, or anything like...

[LordManhammer]

Yes, yes, yes. I messed around with my a lvl 93 Barb last night to get a feel for how the rare items would impact gearing now that thier potential stats have been buffed. I removed all of the toon's gear and bought a sword/shield that would have been issued at lvl one upon creating the character. I assigned skill points into the Barb's passive resistance/defence/sword mastery abilities and the rest into shield throw. I put stat points into about 125 str and 150 dex, the rest into vit. At this point I had a character that could effectively farm normal Plaguelands. The magic and rare gear that dropped was more than enough to get me started and I can see how I would eventually be able to move on to nightmare and then hell in this manner. The only real game changer item that you woul absolutely need to farm hell infernos would be an item with the chance to cast Amp damage on hit and there are several that can drop in nightmare Plaguelands. This process will of course take time but it is way easier now than it was before patch 3.2.

I think the gap has been sufficently bridged.

[caca]

Yeah rare item give a HUDGE durability to the game IMO. You can now expect to loot a Godly rare or a godly craft... yeah as the name says it IS rare ! that is the point... still some uniques cant be replaced but for some builds new rares can be a nice add... before patch boots/belt was like Cow or lich king. Now plenty of possibilities...
Oh btw did i say ...

THANK YOU GAME TO BRING ME BACK CRAFTED AND RARE!!!!

fuck it already spend like... hours farming cows only for crafting stuff :p
because maybe ppl did not noticed but... new craft are like...
so yeah i think that the guy that "cant do" end game content, doesnt do it because he cant... but because (like i do because i hate pala) doesnt want to make the chars that will permit him to do so.
Once again so do i, i dont feel like i wana make this shitty pala or java to make dream l lands and invest time in that... i prefer have fun with my shitty necro poison doing cows, hell cows, plaguelands lich, and 1 or 2 new inferno lvl :)
and those can be farm with full trang... so please PLEASE, dont tell me no one here will be able to give you some crappy trang set ? :D

[vaudeville]

Actually rrra, I do understand that and yet again it sounds as if you folks think I don't know how this game works. What I don't understand though is how are you supposed to have a good golemancer and javazon when you don't have good enough equipment for either and the only way you can "tank" well with golems is with that equipment. THAT is the point. Nothing else. And that is why I have shown frustration with most of the comments here because many of you seem to think you'll just get all those items you need within days if not a few weeks even after a reset which I can only see happening with lady luck being right by your side the whole time.

I have yet to see a modestly equipped duo of the javazon and golemancer do well against any end game content (golemancer and paladin yes, but not a javazon and golemancer. You would have to run that experiment to dispel my pessimistic view. I take it you and a friend will have no trouble taking the lich king with just the trag stuff for the necromancer (and therefore summoning only 1 golem) and whatever mediocre equipment a javazon would have.
a javazon would have.

[vaudeville]

I don't buy that whatsoever aside from the fact that yes a lightning zealer is pretty much difficult to make without material from accomplishing the crucible. That is true.

I also do not buy for a minute that people have been that lucky with cow queen sets. I have yet to even see or hear of one piece drop after all the runs I've done and that's with players with more mf I could hope to have anytime soon.

[vaudeville]

I don't have time to respond in full right now, but I disagree a lot with things said in this thread. People want things to be a little too easy it seems. A lot of these suggestions may make the first week or two of playing easier for new players, but after that it completely sucks and people will burn out faster than ever. The way drops work on this server weren't just wildly thought up, drop rates of all sorts of items (blue organs included) have been changed a lot overtime to find the sweet spot, I am very pleased with the drop rates of almost all items right now.

Crucible could use a little tweaking, but I am not going to add 10 more levels, I do not think that would help much of anything. When Crucible came out though I did say I will work on expanding it in different ways in the future, I will touch on that probably in patch 3.4. the first 2 bosses aren't meant to be super hard, it isn't supposed to get real hard until after that.

How are newer players not burning out already ? I know a player that hasn't even been on here for a week, and he considered quitting thanks to the endgame difficulty and the drop rates. I suspect he may only stay on a bit longer just because he recently got stuff from a veteran player.

[Lampogriz]

removig a possibility to rush players via spectate mode and gaining exp will help alot

[Frigide]

vaudeville <br />
<br />
Man, how do you think we did at ladder reset? <br />
<br />
I personnaly came to play here 2 weeks after reset in october. I knew nothing about the additionnal content. <br />
I had to read wiki a lot,...

[Equalibrium]

[QUOTE=Frigide;60619]
Some things said in this thread makes me feel like you guyz want the mod to be noobfriendlied so its easier to get to late game, but part of the game IS to get to late game, not play 1 weeks and kill all DL without dying...

have to disagree here mate just shows how low on the list hc is tbh. yes this is 100 % exactly the point for hc players. no if no buts this is the aim.
sc is not the only mode on diablo2.

just to be clear i mean the not dying part . not the noobfest part lol.

[Mephisto]

I think rrra said everything that needed to be said. :)

[thessarill]

Game could you imagine something for spec mode? ( i don't know if it would be hard or even possible to do it) : autorize to spec only char of your own account.
As you can log multiple chars of the same account, it could be something interesting, people will have to participate the killing to get xp while their other chars would benefit the xp of the account owner.
There's a lot of people who go on inferno cows when there's an announcement but don't do anything, in fact, they go in the game to leech xp, and then, continue to play on another player/game.
This could be a solution to make players more active on xp games :)

[Lucid]

vaudeville

Last ladder started at 16th of October 2015.

This post was made at the 23rd. As you can see:

http://annihilus.net/showthread.php?t=8776

Its the first full cowset after only a week if im right...

[Frigide]

have to disagree here mate just shows how low on the list hc is tbh. yes this is 100 % exactly the point for hc players. no if no buts this is the aim.
sc is not the only mode on diablo2.

just to be clear i mean the not dying part . not the noobfest part lol.

i think i didnt get it all from what u say ;/ i may be dumb though huhu.

Just know u have my deepest respect for playing HC on annihilus, and note that all i said was excluding HC from the reflexion.

I LOVE HC but its indeed far from being balanced in here. (Hardest PVM implies deaths even with high chars so ...bad for HC).

I personnaly chose not to play HC, coz i want to enjoy all the additionnal content that brings annihilus.
Maybe now that i am more familiar with it, on next reset i could play HC.
It must be very satisfying to achieve late game content in HC, and very frustrating to try do it. I already thought of strats for HC but i am lazy starting now.

HC baalrunz: Barb creates, TP, BO. Someone tele, make safe tp, then mobs get vanished insta coz we dont like to have living mobs
SC baalrunz: "Who can tele? i cant coz i have not enough fcr and blablablablabla" "ho no i gonna die and resu in town" so hard for you poor little thing, i ll have to teleport with a lvl 65 sorc with zero items...
When i played bnet HC, i really felt SC is for the weak hahaha, but in here its more like HC is for masochists ;)
I "love" to RIP with high rares though, so maybe i ll try it now hahaha

Sorry for the off topic shit!

[Lampogriz]

first cow set was done in 5 runs ))

[Equalibrium]

i think i didnt get it all from what u say ;/ i may be dumb though huhu.

Just know u have my deepest respect for playing HC on annihilus, and note that all i said was excluding HC from the reflexion.

I LOVE HC but its indeed far from being balanced in here. (Hardest PVM implies deaths even with high chars so ...bad for HC).

I personnaly chose not to play HC, coz i want to enjoy all the additionnal content that brings annihilus.
Maybe now that i am more familiar with it, on next reset i could play HC.
It must be very satisfying to achieve late game content in HC, and very frustrating to try do it. I already thought of strats for HC but i am lazy starting now.

HC baalrunz: Barb creates, TP, BO. Someone tele, make safe tp, then mobs get vanished insta coz we dont like to have living mobs
SC baalrunz: "Who can tele? i cant coz i have not enough fcr and blablablablabla" "ho no i gonna die and resu in town" so hard for you poor little thing, i ll have to teleport with a lvl 65 sorc with zero items...
When i played bnet HC, i really felt SC is for the weak hahaha, but in here its more like HC is for masochists ;)
I "love" to RIP with high rares though, so maybe i ll try it now hahaha

Sorry for the off topic shit!

far from misunderstanding mate . you hit the nail dead on.
atm only and i mean only the most dedicated skilled even attempt HC which in my humble opinion is a massive downside.
as in general a HC comunity is far closer and a lot more friendly and inclusive. and by its very nature demands teamwork/co-op
play. which is what i belive game and the rest of the dev team are after.
and in my opinion you will never achive this on SC side as the type of player is not suited to it. thats in no way ment as a dig to SC players.
SC in most cases is just how hard can i hit and if you dont have the dps your are useless to anyone. hc is far more complicated.
and i do hope in the future HC is taken into acount a bit more.
if you want a loyal dedicated player base the focus should be as equal for HC in my opinion.
SC gets very dull very fast in my opinion.
i hope this dosent read as a dig a SC lol its not ment in this way . but i just wanted to put forward the side of the other half of diablo as it seems to get overlooked alot. because i know there are ALOT of anni players that want to play HC but the benifits in play dont outway the risks atm.

[Equalibrium]

first cow set was done in 5 runs ))

then somthing is wrong with drop rate lol. because ive done atleast 20 inferno cows on hc and not seen 1 peice drop for me :)

[Mephisto]

If i were a pvm only player, id stick to HC as well, but i like to duell time to time, so softcore is the choice for me for that reason :)

[Equalibrium]

If i were a pvm only player, id stick to HC as well, but i like to duell time to time, so softcore is the choice for me for that reason :)

yea i never been 1 for pvp but each to there own hehe.

[Frigide]

If i were a pvm only player, id stick to HC as well, but i like to duell time to time, so softcore is the choice for me for that reason :)

Its fine meph, with 100k gold, u can have pvp chars in sc and still play hc :D

[val]

Sorry but the drop rate is just rediculously lowwwww.....7 days of running and NOT A SINGLE!!!!! item or rune ..... that just not fun!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHlY5k0feVI

[val]

About the ladde reset.... its just not fair after that huge drop rate change for the new players...the handicap is just unreal.
Just imagine that you are a new player... you get some newby items and start running cows..... you make 5 runs .... nothing, you make 20 runs.... nothing... you make 50 runs nothing..... (btw i dont know why we still have cow lvl) Then you talk to a senior member and he tells you to run abaddon... pits etc.... you try it and die before you kill the first monster... in the same time you see thoose 20 senior flashy member with zilions ot stuff rushing all the content in 1 hour and what you do.... you quit.
Btw i`m in the same new player situation cuz 4 weeks ago i dropped all my gear and from that side i can tell you thats not fun.

P.S If you are extreamly lucky and you menage to find a hr.... or a cow peace and you try to sell them you must trade with those 20 senior members who have the items you wish for and their answer will be "buhahahahahahaha i have 250 + hrs and 10 cow sets, nn sorry, bring me your wife or kids"

[memories]

Talk to a barb named blablahbarb. He just started not even a month ago. He constantly farms different locations and he must have around 30 hrs now. So. val You guys just aren't paying attention when farming or too slow to pick up the items. He's found many enchants and good runes. Talk to him and see what he does...

[val]

month ago.....before the new patch.... in 1 day i got cow set...tf..., pally neph....and tons of stuff ... everyday i got like 10 hrs (in trade and drop) so dont give me that as an exaple

[memories]

I will give that to you as an example, he is on my friends list and he constantly tells me what he finds. He finds hrs and enchants. AFTER the new patch.

[val]

probaply playing 10 hours a day....

[memories]

It's a shame because I'm STILL finding enchants/hrs and puzzle boxes doing simple PL. everyone needs to stop complaining...seriously. It's getting old me trying to defend the fact that you guys are clearly doing something wrong.

[val]

Sorry but the other guys have different opinion check other forum treads also chat.....some dude made like 50 inf cow runs and nothing. BTW i did like 30 PL and guess what..... nothing. And you are the first one who is happy with the drop

[memories]

You're going to say I'm the only one who is happy with the drop, when you don't know the opinions of others. I'm done. Keep crying.

[Boozinbear]

Sorry but the drop rate is just rediculously lowwwww.....7 days of running and NOT A SINGLE!!!!! item or rune ..... that just not fun!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHlY5k0feVI

rofl I love Eddie Murphy...

[James]

Well, I find the problem in the Crucible. It has the best items in the game, but very hard to do. What's the point in not having to die? It's not hard to load a loader... and a time limit? It seems like the Crucible needs a complete rework. I've done all the custom content besides that. Nothing really great has dropped for me at all... Tyrael's armor and some chuthlu rings. Done over 100 cow runs, over 150 plague runs, and idk.. 50+ DL runs and nothing really worth the time I spent. The custom items that aren't from crucible are useless. Maybe Lich belt and Lich boots.. other than not much else is used. I've farmed a lot.. maybe not 10 hours a day. But playing 3 hours of killing DL/Plague Lands/Inferno levels with no drops. Sorta defeats the grinding.. Unique/sets/rares drop like candy. But aren't worth anything. You farm something in hope of that 1/300 drop.. while passing up all the other items. Just thinking about the amount of time is needed to run these things efficiently... I still die constantly with 130k zeal 90+ all res over 250+ stack and 5k life. It's just like a waiting game, with a chance to get good items lol. The custom content takes no skill or luck. Magic Find has no real value. It's item based, if you have better items you can farm faster. But without better items you're stuck farming at the pace of a snail. Every unique has been modified in the game. But it doesn't even compare to cruci drops.. So if you can't farm cruci.. you're stuck with trading. So that lead so grinding for runes/chants/puzzle boxes and maybe a GC with life on it. There's no real value in anything other than crucible items and custom content. And the stuff that is comparable has such a low drop rate.. It seems only one class can do crucible and that's the necro. Which is a problem.. I don't see this content as hard or a challenge. It's dumb and time wasting. These are my opinions, but.. I feel someone will share the same ideas I do. Maybe run a quick poll and see how many people have made it to cruci level 10 alone?

[qtp]

well all who can make alone... are old at this server...

unforcen the sistem are... good but at server ar alot of greedy... wich not all time like 2 get in party new players

so all new are for the old who got good set and itemes.... and yes.. if u wanna get something idk... make trade with few thing's and.. maybe at next ladder u will get a place... in one active team...

because 99% of activity are in private mode.... wich make this server... such... cold.. with no life...

manny greedy ( rich ) wanna get more and more.. and prefer 2 sale something not at hr ( thing ) what will make u to be again in impossibility mode to get...

idk what to say.... wellcome at server... and glad to hear ( read ) are some new ppl

maybe i will chach you online.. and can help with some thing's

[Lampogriz]

Crucible was made to play in team, not alone. Yeah i agree, it is getting boring very quickly (too much levels and all maps are Presets). James, so you are playing with tf zeal, why u need to run crucible? There is no point, because you already got #1 (http://annihilus.net/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=1) pvm charatcter in game.
Yeah, item balace is gone, with new overpowered items, about 90% of other can be dropped to trashcan. Uniques are not unique anymore.

[Game]

Crucible was made to play in team, not alone. Yeah i agree, it is getting boring very quickly (too much levels and all maps are Presets). James, so you are playing with tf zeal, why u need to run crucible? There is no point, because you already got #1 (http://annihilus.net/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=1) pvm charatcter in game.
Yeah, item balace is gone, with new overpowered items, about 90% of other can be dropped to trashcan. Uniques are not unique anymore.

I like you can lampo but you can be wrong often lol. Builds are more versatile now than ever.

[memories]

Well, I find the problem in the Crucible. It has the best items in the game, but very hard to do. What's the point in not having to die? It's not hard to load a loader... and a time limit? It seems like the Crucible needs a complete rework. I've done all the custom content besides that. Nothing really great has dropped for me at all... Tyrael's armor and some chuthlu rings. Done over 100 cow runs, over 150 plague runs, and idk.. 50+ DL runs and nothing really worth the time I spent. The custom items that aren't from crucible are useless. Maybe Lich belt and Lich boots.. other than not much else is used. I've farmed a lot.. maybe not 10 hours a day. But playing 3 hours of killing DL/Plague Lands/Inferno levels with no drops. Sorta defeats the grinding.. Unique/sets/rares drop like candy. But aren't worth anything. You farm something in hope of that 1/300 drop.. while passing up all the other items. Just thinking about the amount of time is needed to run these things efficiently... I still die constantly with 130k zeal 90+ all res over 250+ stack and 5k life. It's just like a waiting game, with a chance to get good items lol. The custom content takes no skill or luck. Magic Find has no real value. It's item based, if you have better items you can farm faster. But without better items you're stuck farming at the pace of a snail. Every unique has been modified in the game. But it doesn't even compare to cruci drops.. So if you can't farm cruci.. you're stuck with trading. So that lead so grinding for runes/chants/puzzle boxes and maybe a GC with life on it. There's no real value in anything other than crucible items and custom content. And the stuff that is comparable has such a low drop rate.. It seems only one class can do crucible and that's the necro. Which is a problem.. I don't see this content as hard or a challenge. It's dumb and time wasting. These are my opinions, but.. I feel someone will share the same ideas I do. Maybe run a quick poll and see how many people have made it to cruci level 10 alone?

Wah.

[rrra]

Wah.

Yeah this thread has really turned into a wambulance ride.

[memories]

Yeah this thread has really turned into a wambulance ride.
I'm going to end this thread here with this:
Boozinbear just posted a FT list with 5 hrs, 4 enchants, one of them being 150 mf, and some skillers. He has 7 sets of blue organs, worth another 3.5 hrs. He JUST started in April. We are 8 days into April. Imagine if he found a fire ench/lightning ench/dr ench. He could sell them off a lot quicker. He has the potential of buying outright cow armor or cow shako. The game is meant to be played SLOWLY. Not all of the good items are meant to be found in crucible James. Dreamlands and plague are useful too. Dreamlands you get, dragon jewel, eyeball and madness/horror. All worth something and all are useful for characters you play. What is given out in crucible that is worth a lot? Tf, nephalem, maybe emblem. What else? Crucible is a TEAM OBJECTIVE. You aren't meant to get rich quickly at all. The 'rich' players have made friends with others and formed teams to farm and trade with. You are given the SAME EXACT OPPURTUNITY AS THEM. You should do the same instead of crying. It says a lot about you...

[James]

I don't see why you all are still here... Says a lot about you. I've been here a week lol.. The reward doesn't really outweigh the amount of time. But I'm just trying to help other players by expressing my opinions.

[Lampogriz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHlY5k0feVI

SUMMARIZE THIS THREAD :P

[memories]

I don't see why you all are still here... Says a lot about you. I've been here a week lol.. The reward doesn't really outweigh the amount of time. But I'm just trying to help other players by expressing my opinions.

The reward? I play this video game in my spare time because I enjoy it and it's fun. That's my reward. Your opinions are null and void. This is another example of your argument, "I see others getting good grades in school, I want good grades too! But, I don't wanna put the work in cause I'm lazy. I wanna reap the benefits, without work!" Can't have it both ways.

[James]

The reward? I play this video game in my spare time because I enjoy it and it's fun. That's my reward. Your opinions are null and void. This is another example of your argument, "I see others getting good grades in school, I want good grades too! But, I don't wanna put the work in cause I'm lazy. I wanna reap the benefits, without work!" Can't have it both ways.

Lol.. the reward in upgrading a character. If you find this fun good for you, this is my opinion loll. It was fun playing, maybe if you read.. i've said this will help other players not just me. But yeah I guess you're right, but not maybe all these players have as much time as you.

[vaudeville]

1) And there's the snobbish attitude again about lecturing me about teamwork as if I haven't tried that already. I have (typically with the veteran players, go figure) before, and now since around...

[vaudeville]

vaudeville

Last ladder started at 16th of October 2015.

This post was made at the 23rd. As you can see:

http://annihilus.net/showthread.php?t=8776

Its the first full cowset after only a week if im right...

Consider that person extraordinarily lucky then. If everything happened to fall from the sky for me a week or two ago maybe we wouldn't have had this thread.

[vaudeville]

About the ladde reset.... its just not fair after that huge drop rate change for the new players...the handicap is just unreal.
Just imagine that you are a new player... you get some newby items and start running cows..... you make 5 runs .... nothing, you make 20 runs.... nothing... you make 50 runs nothing..... (btw i dont know why we still have cow lvl) Then you talk to a senior member and he tells you to run abaddon... pits etc.... you try it and die before you kill the first monster... in the same time you see thoose 20 senior flashy member with zilions ot stuff rushing all the content in 1 hour and what you do.... you quit.
Btw i`m in the same new player situation cuz 4 weeks ago i dropped all my gear and from that side i can tell you thats not fun.

P.S If you are extreamly lucky and you menage to find a hr.... or a cow peace and you try to sell them you must trade with those 20 senior members who have the items you wish for and their answer will be "buhahahahahahaha i have 250 + hrs and 10 cow sets, nn sorry, bring me your wife or kids"

Pretty much sums up what goes on for pretty much every new player's experience and those of us who may have been here for about a month or less.

[vaudeville]

I will give that to you as an example, he is on my friends list and he constantly tells me what he finds. He finds hrs and enchants. AFTER the new patch.

I've been trying that recently, and I believe I have more mf than that guy and so far no luck. I will try a few more times, and I better see some results.

[vaudeville]

probaply playing 10 hours a day....

Funny because that's how much time I've been putting for a few weeks now. Why else do you think I'm frustrated. And yet all I hear from the older players is to play harder, trade, team up, read the wikis, etc. as if I haven't done all those already. Yes, I've made progress since last I started this thread, but it's still a snail's pace and with the same characters/builds and players if I'm lucky to play with someone not afk.

[vaudeville]

I like you can lampo but you can be wrong often lol. Builds are more versatile now than ever.

How? Tell me how many more people are preferring to play as the elemental or shapeshifting druid, the frenzy barbarian, the poison amazon, the foh paladin, the "hammerdin", and the martial arts assassin compared to the other builds. I'm sure things are better than once the server began, but it's still pretty much the same 3 to 4 builds for everyone (i.e. bowzon, zeal or smite paladin, poison or golem necromancer, and a barbarian usually for support mostly).

[vaudeville]

I'm going to end this thread here with this:
Boozinbear just posted a FT list with 5 hrs, 4 enchants, one of them being 150 mf, and some skillers. He has 7 sets of blue organs, worth another 3.5 hrs. He JUST started in April. We are 8 days into April. Imagine if he found a fire ench/lightning ench/dr ench. He could sell them off a lot quicker. He has the potential of buying outright cow armor or cow shako. The game is meant to be played SLOWLY. Not all of the good items are meant to be found in crucible James. Dreamlands and plague are useful too. Dreamlands you get, dragon jewel, eyeball and madness/horror. All worth something and all are useful for characters you play. What is given out in crucible that is worth a lot? Tf, nephalem, maybe emblem. What else? Crucible is a TEAM OBJECTIVE. You aren't meant to get rich quickly at all. The 'rich' players have made friends with others and formed teams to farm and trade with. You are given the SAME EXACT OPPURTUNITY AS THEM. You should do the same instead of crying. It says a lot about you...

And most of that stuff Boozy got was from older players wanting to help him because he's a newcomer. I would know because I've done just that and seen it in person (that is him getting stuff from others). That and he's been pretty lucky. Seriously any time he's around me good stuff does tend to drop, in fact I think on one of the first regular cow runs we did a tor rune dropped andthen the next game a zod. He's a lucky sob, and I do mean that respectfully. A similar thing happened to me around the 1st week (minus finding all those stuff), and it was thanks overwhelmingly to the older players which only goes back to my point that they pretty much are the ones carrying everyone else at this rate.

[Game]

How? Tell me how many more people are preferring to play as the elemental or shapeshifting druid, the frenzy barbarian, the poison amazon, the foh paladin, the "hammerdin", and the martial arts assassin compared to the other builds. I'm sure things are better than once the server began, but it's still pretty much the same 3 to 4 builds for everyone (i.e. bowzon, zeal or smite paladin, poison or golem necromancer, and a barbarian usually for support mostly).

You've been playing less than a month lol. I was referring to item builds but if you want to talk about class specs we can do that too. Before 3.2 sorceresses were non existent, summon necros were unthinkable to kill things, and summon druids? Don't even think about it. All elemental builds are much more potent now with the new piercing mechanic. You do realize I am literally a 1 man team with a toddler and another full time job? I think it is already extraordinary how much I was able to get into patch 3.2 by myself. I already said I will be working on making more class specs viable in the upcoming patches. You're being very rude and unreasonable.

[vaudeville]

You've been playing less than a month lol. I was referring to item builds but if you want to talk about class specs we can do that too. Before 3.2 sorceresses were non existent, summon necros were unthinkable to kill things, and summon druids? Don't even think about it. All elemental builds are much more potent now with the new piercing mechanic. You do realize I am literally a 1 man team with a toddler and another full time job? I think it is already extraordinary how much I was able to get into patch 3.2 by myself. I already said I will be working on making more class specs viable in the upcoming patches. You're being very rude and unreasonable.

Sorry but what I stated was still the facts despite the changes and despite the way I said it. So far as I'm aware, the golem necros were very viable before the patch. I haven't seen or experienced golemancer become better dramatically anyway since.

I also don't see that the changes to the sorceresses have made her that much viable certainly not in comparison to the big 3/4 but perhaps that could be because no one really bothered building the sorceresses up so perhaps time will tell though I'm not particularly confident in any other type other than the fire sorceress.

As for summoning druids, yes I like the new changes with them, but they still don't compete well with the builds I listed, but at least its good to know people can have some fun with them. That's worth enough to me. I'd gladly shut up if all the builds/characters could at least do well at inferno cows without taking weeks to build them. If there are superior classes still, so be it.

Finally the elemental builds. If there was anything I'd gladly offer you an apology on, it would be that. Thank you for making immunities less of a hassle before the patch. I believe I mentioned this in some off comment/unrelated topic (I think it was in the chat actually). That has to be the best change made since the patch.

As for your own heartaches, I wish I knew that before. I only expected a fair shake with the suggestions I made and any down to earth advice as to what I've been doing wrong (that was the first post I made to this thread). And yet it seems by and large, I just got brushed off and put down by the old guard here as if I didn't matter which I suspect you might have felt with your reply. I don't seek to belittle those that don't do so to me.

[soulkush]

If y'all want an easier game, buy gold and get gear that way, otherwise, man up, put on your working gloves and get to work, but work smarter not harder. And for the love of god stop asking for handouts.

1. ) We shouldn't raise the drop rate of runes pul+ because 2 puls make an um, and so forth. HRs will quickly lose value and that Frost fire that cost 10 hrs now cost 20 hrs or they want super ridiculous rare items and don't care about hrs.

2.) We shouldn't make garbage enchants drop more often because 3 random enchants cubed together gives you a new random enchant. nothing like combining cheap ass deadly strike scrolls for light enchants or FF chants...

3.) If you think this game is hard, get a buddy and start from scratch on hardcore like I did. Come back to SC and see how easy it is.

4.) I got my start on this server by farming annis and torches with a just a tals fire sorc. Tell me, how many fire sorcs do you see here? None. If she could do it, you can too.

5.) New players shouldn't be coming on here expecting to be the Michael Jordan of diablo 2 in a week or two. Come on bro, it takes time, thought, luck, and strategy to get ahead.

6.) The fuck you still here reading this for? If you can type and bitch about how bad you're toon is, you can be working on improving your toon.

[Frigide]

6.) The fuck you still here reading this for? If you can type and bitch about how bad you're toon is, you can be working on improving your toon.

hehe

[vaudeville]

If y'all want an easier game, buy gold and get gear that way, otherwise, man up, put on your working gloves and get to work, but work smarter not harder. And for the love of god stop asking for handouts.

1. ) We shouldn't raise the drop rate of runes pul+ because 2 puls make an um, and so forth. HRs will quickly lose value and that Frost fire that cost 10 hrs now cost 20 hrs or they want super ridiculous rare items and don't care about hrs.

2.) We shouldn't make garbage enchants drop more often because 3 random enchants cubed together gives you a new random enchant. nothing like combining cheap ass deadly strike scrolls for light enchants or FF chants...

3.) If you think this game is hard, get a buddy and start from scratch on hardcore like I did. Come back to SC and see how easy it is.

4.) I got my start on this server by farming annis and torches with a just a tals fire sorc. Tell me, how many fire sorcs do you see here? None. If she could do it, you can too.

5.) New players shouldn't be coming on here expecting to be the Michael Jordan of diablo 2 in a week or two. Come on bro, it takes time, thought, luck, and strategy to get ahead.

6.) The fuck you still here reading this for? If you can type and bitch about how bad you're toon is, you can be working on improving your toon.

First and foremost, I don't recall asking for handouts here. How about you get back to me when you can find out if I ever asked for a free amazon torch.

1) Utterly false with regard to crafting runes unless doing so here works easier here than it does than what is mentioned in Arreat's Summit which I was told wasn't the case (i.e. that gems aren't required which is what you stated). In fact I made a post talking about the subject recommending that a game room ought to be made where people could drop unwanted gems and low runes with the hope of trying to craft high runes from them and was specifically told this was a waste of time. So unless Arreat's Summit crafting mechanics don't apply here, you're wrong never mind that's probably easier to find a high rune than getting enough runes to make a high rune which further annihilates whatever point you thought you had.

2) You seem to be assuming two things here. One, that I recommended that enchantment scrolls pretty much drop at the rate that say a starting set green item does. I don't recall suggesting the rates of such be that high as you think I did (all I said was that it should be higher which can be anything from a simple tweak to such dropping at the same rate as mana potions do). Two, you seem to assume people will get very lucky with re-rolls when its quite likely that I could get a cannot be frozen scroll for re-rolling 3 fhr scrolls. You're engaging in fantasy talk by suggesting that it would be more likely that instead I should get a lightning enchantment by re-rolling 3 bad scrolls or anything good for that matter.

3) What does hardcore have to do with anything and why should I care to do hardcore anyway? You mean you want me to farm or play there where there is less people on, and where a simple lag spike will ruin all effort made? Completely off topic.

4) I have a fire sorceress too (she was one of my earlier characters), and I've done that with that character and others and done uber quests with a friend before the new patch to get torches and annihilus charms making your point completely invalidated. The point is further invalidated because the issue wasn't that this couldn't be done, but that it was unnecessarily tedious for instance requiring the 24 standards of hero limit which can be easily overcome by just bringing mules. I also seem to recall recommending that perhaps the "diablo clone" should just be made harder than go through this tedious obstacle, but then you probably didn't read that since you're the same guy accusing me of demanding hand outs because like a number of other people here you intentionally wish to either misinterpret what I've said or flat out ignore such and then sneer at me for having the audacity of making suggestions.

5) Again with the sneers. Tell me where I said I should expect to get everything in 2 weeks. How about you learn to actually quote people correctly and respectfully.

6) How about you apply that to yourself. If you don't like the what others post here, why are you replying? How about you ask around how many hours I've put for the past couple of weeks to get stuff instead of unjustly scrutinizing me or is that asking too much from you? .

[vaudeville]

I stand corrected on point number one. Whoever told me here (I.e in the server in general) that you can't craft runes without a gem should be slapped.

[norak]

i started with barb < just to play something different and not sorc grind all over again this season> some nice guy sold me ik set for a token and i could already clear infernoportals plaguelands and 3 bosses in dreamland.

just sayin