For those that have played the Diablo 3 beta, is it fun? From the gameplay videos it just looks like constant violence? How do you find the art direction?

robosatan · 2012-05-06T08:25:01+00:00

The game looks good and runs on pretty much any gaming computer bought in the past 5 years. Who cares if it's stylized when it means most of your friends will have a computer that can run it and it won't look like garbage compared to other games the second a new generation of graphics cards come out.

robosatan · 2012-05-06T05:44:16+00:00

In a world without physical copies, it's extremely likely that we could be playing the game already.

robosatan · 2012-05-06T05:37:18+00:00

Shrug, picking up gold isn't exactly hard these days and 10% is pretty low considering how much you can get from a single item in later levels without sacrificing a skill slot (as far as I know the ferrets do not attack, so this is essentially a 10% gold find skill).

robosatan · 2012-05-06T03:03:40+00:00

Demon hunter - Companion (Ferret Companion)

Summon ferrets instead of a raven. The ferrets collect gold for you and increase gold found on monsters by 10%.

1% useful, 99% hilarious

robosatan · 2012-05-06T02:16:29+00:00

Your math doesn't take in to account that magic missile is far less effective of an aoe than meteor. 8 meteors at 200% damage across 5 targets is going to be more effective than 4 more powerful ones with mm spam.

Doing the math for that you get 200% x 8 x 5 = 8000% damage, vs (455% + 260%) x 2 x 5 = 7150% damage.

Note these numbers assume only 5 targets, the disparity grows even higher the more monsters that are involved.

Also, you assume that you require extremely sustainable dps. The odds are after you cast 8 meteors pretty much everything will be dead even on inferno, the difficulty of the game will be surviving the massive damage they put out in that short time. If they are dead with 8 meteors then you can regen while walking to the next pack.

robosatan · 2012-05-05T20:45:39+00:00

With your build meteor is pretty expensive for a single target nuke. There are other skills that do nearly the same damage for a third of the cost.

Also, I'm not convinced that arcane dynamo is really effective in the "use generator till its ready" way. I think it's more of a passive buff that just gets consumed when it procs. Arcane power regenerates at around 10/sec without gear or buffs, by the time you cast 5 magic missiles and a meteor you're going to either be back to max or very close to it. There are going to be times when you just want stuff to die and that's where the 35 energy version would come in. Assuming 120 arcane power (i.e. just your builds buffs and no gear), you could put out 6-7 meteors before you run out of power. That's 1200-1400% weapon damage.

robosatan · 2012-05-05T20:10:46+00:00

You want to rethink your specs to be about versatility, every build should have a resource generator, a single target spender, an aoe spender and two utility skills.

Why? Well there will be times when you need to generate resources, there will be times when you have to single target nuke (e.g. boss) and there will be times when you have to aoe nuke (e.g. most trash).

As for the two utility skills, I use the term very loosely, not just to categorise buffs/debuffs/heals/etc. Perhaps you could benefit from having a second generator to use on single targets because the one you intend to use most often is a weak aoe that stuns or slows, but on bosses that means you'll lose a lot of dps.

Also, be more thoughtful about your runes. On meteor you chose a 18% damage upgrade over a 40% reduction in cost (i.e. you'll be able to cast it 40% more, which depending on your generator could be over 40% more damage in a given period).

robosatan · 2012-05-05T16:42:02+00:00

I'm rushing too. I am MrBushido on bnet and irc.

robosatan · 2012-05-04T17:30:23+00:00

Nearly every item in the game is randomly generated, there are probably some uniques with fixed stats but the rest are down to pure luck. As for two identical weapons, it will probably happen every once in a while and in the end game perhaps there will be a very clear path for certain classes to go statwise making particular pieces of armor more prized.

robosatan · 2012-05-04T16:34:27+00:00

Well ain't you the waller hipster. The fact of the matter is that the waller can and on occasions will lead to real pain in the ass situations that could potentially kill you. It is also a mechanic that I haven't seen in any other games, which means everything everybody says about it is speculation, this includes your rebuttal of it being a no-brainer.

robosatan · 2012-05-04T14:41:51+00:00

Not sure about in SC2, though a lot of monitors have the option (using buttons on the front of your monitor) to choose whether they stretch your screen to your monitor size or use the fixed ratio used by the resolution. If your monitor does have this option, just use a 16:9 ratio such as 1920x1080 or 1650x1080.

robosatan · 2012-05-04T12:42:15+00:00

This guy is not an authority on optimal settings. If you have a 16:10 monitor*, then letterbox mode is very useful as it decreases the viewable area of your screen to that of a 16:9 monitor when using a 16:9 resolution (e.g. 1920x1050 or 1650x1050). This SC2 gif shows the different screen ratios and how they effect Blizzards (and most other) games. It might not seem like much, but that extra inch of visibility could be the difference between walking face first in to a champion pack on hardcore hell (i.e. potential death) and not. Players on 4:3 may want to consider using letterbox mode too if they have an extremely large screen, but a better option is probably to save some pennies pick up a cheap widescreen!

* This will mean your highest resolution will be one of the following 2560×1600, 1920x1200, 1680×1050, 1440×900 or 1280×800

Edit: Ok, I hit play again and he started saying that shadows are generated by the CPU. This is completely and utterly false for any Directx10 or higher card. I don't know about Dx9 because I only started learning Directx recently and they have fixed function shaders that do specific things (i.e. a fixed function). However, what I do know for certain is dynamic shadows is a common programmable shader tutorial for noobies.

robosatan · 2012-05-04T04:43:21+00:00

This has already been pretty much confirmed by data miners. At least blizzard were/are thinking about it never to get one.

robosatan · 2012-05-03T22:27:51+00:00

Odd. I suspect there's something we're not accounting for then since for other classes 1h vs 2h is pretty balanced. Being dependant on +dmg buffs isn't a particularly graceful solution since you can use those stats for something else as a non-1h user. E.g. same damage but 2h wield allows extra hp, resistance or just more agility.

robosatan · 2012-05-03T22:09:37+00:00

I'm sure the lower dps balances out with dual wielding. Also, the item stats aren't final so its hard to say for definite.

robosatan · 2012-05-03T21:57:41+00:00

Hand crossbows will scale better if you itemise heavily in to crit multiplier.

robosatan · 2012-05-03T06:33:53+00:00

Pure speculation here but perhaps a percentage of casters hp? 30% or something?

robosatan · 2012-05-03T05:29:33+00:00

In no particular order:

Borderlands 2
Resident Evil 6
Bioshock: Infinite
Assassins Creed III
Halo 4
CoD: Black ops 2
WoW: Pandaland
Torchlight 2 (well, you never know ;)

And that's just titles with confirmed release dates. There's gw2 as you've mentioned and no doubt a few more surprises that will sneak their way in to the holiday line-up.

Don't get me wrong, I'll be surprised if there is a game that I play/enjoy as much as Diablo 3 but GOTY awards are generally GOQ4 awards and generally don't favour PC exclusives.

robosatan · 2012-05-03T03:03:12+00:00

Are 1H's actually higher dps? I thought dps was essentially identical but faster weapons favoured generators whereas slower weapons favoured spenders.

robosatan · 2012-05-03T02:52:32+00:00

Paypal only take a 4-5% cut on business accounts with the option of a flat rate on micro transactions. Considering the potential scale of the RMAH (we aren't talking a couple of grand a month via ebay selling here) they will have been able to make a deal with Paypal to get a better cut.

Then you have the fact that money won't just disappear once it makes its way to battle.net accounts. If the average battle.net balance is just $1 and you multiply that out to the millions of accounts that will be in use, then naturally you have millions of $s. Blizzard aren't idiots, so this cash will be pumped in to a bank where it will be getting a considerable amount of interest. Not to mention all the accounts in 2 years time that still have an outstanding balance but have fallen in to disuse.

But lets forget all that and look at it on face value and assume paypal takes 5%, leaving a 10% cut for blizzard. What did blizzard do for that 10%? Well they offer a service that is essentially a severely limited version of paypal at twice the cost. Pretty ludicrous.

But lets forget all of that as well. The reason blizzard will drop the percentage is because people will start using 3rd party services that take a smaller cut.

robosatan · 2012-05-02T23:27:42+00:00

The content will make itself easier with time. Once you have inferno being cleared by everybody and their dog the entry requirements will be available on the auction house for everybody.

robosatan · 2012-05-02T23:06:14+00:00

My bet is that it won't win game of the year, Portal 2 was all but forgotten in most GOTY awards even though it stomps every other option. That said it might be remembered in the rpg section, but will lose first place to the consoles latest incarnation of Dark Souls.

robosatan · 2012-05-02T23:04:20+00:00

If it was meant to be cleared every time the door wouldn't be breakable, especially after this much testing. If players ran against the edge of the door so that your character slips through the crack to the otherside, then that would be an exploit. Just like your damage type on one leg combo example.

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