Endgame difficulty curve.

[Frigide]

@vaudeville

Man, how do you think we did at ladder reset?

I personnaly came to play here 2 weeks after reset in october. I knew nothing about the additionnal content.
I had to read wiki a lot, ask ppl questions, find my own way to get items, coz in addition, i couldnt get free mav or tal, i had no tal amu for like 2/3 weeks or more.
I made a cheap smiter, coz as ur saying if u know D2, u must then know how to make a smiter, even with shitty items... (astreon dracul dragonscale veil etc)
I farmed knarst + kaalut + othuyeg + shaa for days, i couldnt take on mappo and i died so much doing the 3 other bosses from DL. BUT I FARMED THEM ANYWAY.
Made some inf cows with mav set when i could, and eventually traded a cow part to finish my 1st cow set.
When i had my java to 7.5k charge strike, i made mappo runz, sometimes took me 5 mn to kill mappo, and so what ?
Thats how the game is ... kinda hard at some point to transition to being strong in late game content

My point is, its totally doable, without any kind of help (or maybe a little bit of trading, which is a big part of D2 anyway)

If u know how to make a bad smiter + a mav bowama and a tal sorc, u just have to farm then.
If u answer me u dont wanna invest time in farming, then just dont play D2?

Did you email Blizzard because ppl can do ubbers faster than u, or coz sorc is a must have to farm bosses when ur poor?
Did you email them to say hammerdin is OP? Java is OP? Make Keyz drop more often coz its boring to farm for it?

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...
(in that regard i totally agree with lampo that the spect mode is lame, even so i like the fact i can have all my chars XPing at same time easy, but it seems lame)
... OFC after 2 weeks of playing, u cant have all the best items, and i'd say FORTUNATLY!!!

I surely would prefer to have more players in here, and i dont wanna be rude to you, but man, if its to hard or to much time to invest farming and getting gear, just dont play in here? Go play D3? u ll have so much less time required playing to be happy with what u have...

PS: i didnt mention the fact u can also play in TEAM, and so get more chances to be ok for late game by comboing classes.
(i always used a BO barb, which enabled my chars a lot faster, even with low items. having double life is a way man ...)

[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.

[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!

[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.

[vaudeville]

@vaudeville

Man, how do you think we did at ladder reset?

I personnaly came to play here 2 weeks after reset in october. I knew nothing about the additionnal content.
I had to read wiki a lot, ask ppl questions, find my own way to get items, coz in addition, i couldnt get free mav or tal, i had no tal amu for like 2/3 weeks or more.
I made a cheap smiter, coz as ur saying if u know D2, u must then know how to make a smiter, even with shitty items... (astreon dracul dragonscale veil etc)
I farmed knarst + kaalut + othuyeg + shaa for days, i couldnt take on mappo and i died so much doing the 3 other bosses from DL. BUT I FARMED THEM ANYWAY.
Made some inf cows with mav set when i could, and eventually traded a cow part to finish my 1st cow set.
When i had my java to 7.5k charge strike, i made mappo runz, sometimes took me 5 mn to kill mappo, and so what ?
Thats how the game is ... kinda hard at some point to transition to being strong in late game content

My point is, its totally doable, without any kind of help (or maybe a little bit of trading, which is a big part of D2 anyway)

If u know how to make a bad smiter + a mav bowama and a tal sorc, u just have to farm then.
If u answer me u dont wanna invest time in farming, then just dont play D2?

Did you email Blizzard because ppl can do ubbers faster than u, or coz sorc is a must have to farm bosses when ur poor?
Did you email them to say hammerdin is OP? Java is OP? Make Keyz drop more often coz its boring to farm for it?

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...
(in that regard i totally agree with lampo that the spect mode is lame, even so i like the fact i can have all my chars XPing at same time easy, but it seems lame)
... OFC after 2 weeks of playing, u cant have all the best items, and i'd say FORTUNATLY!!!

I surely would prefer to have more players in here, and i dont wanna be rude to you, but man, if its to hard or to much time to invest farming and getting gear, just dont play in here? Go play D3? u ll have so much less time required playing to be happy with what u have...

PS: i didnt mention the fact u can also play in TEAM, and so get more chances to be ok for late game by comboing classes.
(i always used a BO barb, which enabled my chars a lot faster, even with low items. having double life is a way man ...)

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 the time of the patch there have been a lot less people doing dreamland or crucible runs at least not right now. A clan I joined recently wants to do just that though, but the band is rarely on at the same times. It's pretty much me and Donte most of the times so far as the clan goes. So far as playing in general goes, it's usually myself qtp, his brother, Boozy for the time being, acculla on and off, most of the times. Everyone else is either doing rushes, normal cows, torches, trading, going afk, and occasionally doing inferno cows.

2) Why would I have to talk to Blizzard about anything? What's your point? It's a completely different ball park if you want to compare this server and game to what it was in the past.

3) Since the patch, dreamland boss drops aren't really even worth it any more especially since there's a good chance you can get some of the items they drop from the cache of Azathoth. The only thing worth getting now from them are probably the mark of the dragon slayer, the eyeball charm and the set items.

4) Noob friendly would be if zods dropped normally in regular cows, and I never asked for that. How about you and all the other people here actually read what I posted before making such a comment. I only asked that the difficulty curve felt more rewarding and less of a grind so that newcomers actually would like to stay and maybe play as different characters and builds, but if you prefer to keep this server an all exclusive club, then by all means keep things as difficult as they are now or worse if you want to go with Lampo's suggestion about either making regular cows harder or removing spectating. The rest of us though would actually like to have fun.

5) I have no idea exactly how bosses or drops were prior to the reset, so a comparison of the bosses now to then is meaningless. I have no idea if the bosses before 1) had the same HP, 2) the same defense, 3) do the same damage (which from what I understand supposedly Azathoth is weaker than he was before and yet I still see him constantly one shot even veteran players so...I don't know how exactly he is weaker), 4) have the same resistances, and 5) have the same drop rates which I know that isn't true anymore. I'll admit from what I've heard before even starting this thread and experiencing the patch, things ought to have been easier than they were before, but my experience and what I've heard from others who weren't around before have not shown this. You would have to provide me with more information to believe things are just as doable now as they were before AND the drop rates were as good (good luck trying to prove the latter).