New diffilculty sucks

[LordManhammer]

To be honest I think items such as Mark of Sin/Mark of Lies/Black Soulstone/Trag Oul's Mark/Tyrael's Key, Ect.
Should have their drop rate upped a bit, because several people who are doing 100's of runs are getting nothing.
If you add it all up, that's easily 1000's of runs a day where most people are left unlucky and unhappy.
I myself haven't found any of the items listed above, and It's pretty sad that I haven't gotten a chance to try them.
I surely haven't been as unlucky or tried as much as others but I've put in a fair share of time myself.
And I'd most likely be more eager to put in even more time if I knew it would be worth my time to do so.
The way the server was last ladder seemed to be working a lot better than the current one is in my opinion.
As it was, if you found one of the items I listed above, you had a much better chance of defeating those areas.
Now that the difficulty on all those areas has been raised, it's not only harder to beat those areas.
But it's also still just as hard to get the items to get to those area's in the first place.
With every update it seems the difficulty is leaning towards the pro players more and more everytime.
Which is why only very few people have even been able to get to and beat the new areas with harder difficulty.
I'm not saying I hate the difficulty I just think since last ladder a lot of the added areas have become too hard.
I believe at least 50% of the server thought last ladder was too hard, and now 75% think it's way too hard.
Far too many area's we're made 100% harder than they were before and some people can't keep up.
At least if some of these areas were easier to get to, people could have a chance to see the new areas.
There is so much to do on Annihilus but so much of it is out of reach for such a long time to so many players.
I've said this plenty of times and strongly believe it to be true, but I'll say it again.
The majority of Diablo 2 players are actually quite bad at the game and Annihilus is just getting harder.
I think it should be kept in mind that if the content doesn't please the average player then it's a bad thing.
Minor changes could make a lot of people happier and leave a lot less topics like this being started.
I could go on forever, but I'll leave it at that and see what other's think about my opinion.

I tend to agree with part of what you are saying. In the last ladder there were areas that felt progressively more difficult as you moved through the content. It was tough but fair. Like how the newer inferno areas in act 2, 3, and 5 were more difficult than the act 5 pits. The puzzle box maps were harder yet. This felt right as the rewards were appropriately greater as you moved along.

Now it seems like the difficulty has just been dialed up to eleven on top of an added MMO style boss mechanic to make solo play just that much harder if not impossible to the average player (not to mention new players). Now I'm not saying that people aren't adjusting to the changes. It just seems that the spirit of the game is shifting from the need to find more powerful gear in order to progress to the need to find the right group of people to group with.

I also remember Game saying that the difficulty needed to be increased because people were solo killing bosses too fast and were able to kill them in a couple seconds. That's fine and I agree but doesn't the introduction of insane weapons that do 30k+ damage, crap loads of new -res gear, and OP skills (that will soon have unlimited damage potential once the cap is raised) subvert any effort to balance that out?

I love the new content. I looks cool. I'm enjoying the new items and changes to older items. I finally have a use for the Acid Injector. Yippee. However, in a game where farming one area or one boss 5000+ times in order to find that specific item that you need to progress, increasing the difficulty of said content AND lowering drop rates feels more like punishment than a challenge. For instance: in the last ladder I did thousands upon thousands of Liche King runs before I found my first Frostmourne. I ended up finding three after all was said and done. It definitely wasn't rare enough then. I agree that boss specific items needed their drop rates adjusted but when you also make killing that boss take longer, it loses it's appeal. I think that you need to do one or the other. I also feel that increasing boss difficulty might have been neccesary to make items more valuable and hold their value in the long run but increasing overall difficulty might have been a bit over kill.

These are just my two cents. Take them for what they are worth which is probably not much. The only reason that I comment on things like this is that I represent your solo player base and sometimes it feels like we cater to the group players. Keep up the good work and thank you for the new shiny lootz

[sleezy2]

I tend to agree with part of what you are saying. In the last ladder there were areas that felt progressively more difficult as you moved through the content. It was tough but fair. Like how the newer inferno areas in act 2, 3, and 5 were more difficult than the act 5 pits. The puzzle box maps were harder yet. This felt right as the rewards were appropriately greater as you moved along.

Now it seems like the difficulty has just been dialed up to eleven on top of an added MMO style boss mechanic to make solo play just that much harder if not impossible to the average player (not to mention new players). Now I'm not saying that people aren't adjusting to the changes. It just seems that the spirit of the game is shifting from the need to find more powerful gear in order to progress to the need to find the right group of people to group with.

I also remember Game saying that the difficulty needed to be increased because people were solo killing bosses too fast and were able to kill them in a couple seconds. That's fine and I agree but doesn't the introduction of insane weapons that do 30k+ damage, crap loads of new -res gear, and OP skills (that will soon have unlimited damage potential once the cap is raised) subvert any effort to balance that out?

I love the new content. I looks cool. I'm enjoying the new items and changes to older items. I finally have a use for the Acid Injector. Yippee. However, in a game where farming one area or one boss 5000+ times in order to find that specific item that you need to progress, increasing the difficulty of said content AND lowering drop rates feels more like punishment than a challenge. For instance: in the last ladder I did thousands upon thousands of Liche King runs before I found my first Frostmourne. I ended up finding three after all was said and done. It definitely wasn't rare enough then. I agree that boss specific items needed their drop rates adjusted but when you also make killing that boss take longer, it loses it's appeal. I think that you need to do one or the other. I also feel that increasing boss difficulty might have been neccesary to make items more valuable and hold their value in the long run but increasing overall difficulty might have been a bit over kill.

These are just my two cents. Take them for what they are worth which is probably not much. The only reason that I comment on things like this is that I represent your solo player base and sometimes it feels like we cater to the group players. Keep up the good work and thank you for the new shiny lootz

it is a balance there was alot of skill changes that help kill bosses quicker. I had no issue going through the steps in order to get to end game content. it takes time and effort, we dont need to be end game gear ready right away!! there is so many great drops in pits now that will get you to tackle lich king like last season!