Diablo III
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old.Tohtori
FH is my second home
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Got a legendary staff myself, can't remember the name, but it did have a nice 1.5% damage increase twardso champion mobs (and lifesteal and whatnot) 
Sells for about 50k, so it's a nice thing to have in the box, until i plop t on my wizard and die a horrible death
So far though, not one death *knock penis* in my whole diablo 3 career. Just the 37 DH, monk and barb in act 1 and witch-hunter wizzy in act 2. It's coming and it's going ta hurt
Sells for about 50k, so it's a nice thing to have in the box, until i plop t on my wizard and die a horrible death
So far though, not one death *knock penis* in my whole diablo 3 career. Just the 37 DH, monk and barb in act 1 and witch-hunter wizzy in act 2. It's coming and it's going ta hurt
BloodOmen
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Taken from a blue post - so they've basically admitted Inferno damage is to high finally.
Inferno
"Inferno is intended to be extremely difficult, but with some specific skills, a few classes were simply able to progress far more easily than intended. This made the classes, which were about where they were supposed to be, seem very underpowered. It also created the perception that the classes doing well were intended to rely on specific runes in all their builds, and the other classes were just broken. This is the opposite of what’s true. If any single skill or rune feels absolutely required to progress, it means that skill is working against our goal of encouraging build diversity -- and those “required” skills need to be corrected. We know these hotfixes snuck up on people, and it took us a day or so to communicate that they had gone live. However, our intent moving forward is that when there are circumstances where a hotfix is necessary, we’ll communicate changes that could impact your ability to play your class through ‘Upcoming Changes’ posts in the General forum. Ideally, we’ll let you know as soon as we even have the idea that we want to make that kind of change.
That said, we also wanted to let you know we’re keeping a close eye on Inferno. The intent of incoming damage is that it should be a very consistent drain on your health, and mitigating that drain is a major part of what makes Inferno mode difficult. Right now, there’s a lot more damage “spikiness” occurring than feels right, and that’s one major area we’re looking to adjust in patch 1.0.3. While we don’t have any specifics yet, our design goals are to support and promote build diversity; continue to ensure that a mix of champion packs, rare packs, and boss fights are the most efficient way to acquire the best items in the game; and ensure that all classes are viable in Inferno.
From a high-level perspective, we think a more fundamentally fun way to approach difficulty in Inferno isn't seeing how much incoming damage you can avoid or mitigate, but rather to see how efficient you can be while voluntarily taking on a challenge that pushes you. For anybody who's ever died because they chased a Treasure Goblin too aggressively, you know what we mean; dying because you got greedy or overconfident can actually be a lot of fun. Now that the skills mentioned above have been brought more in line, we’ll be keeping a close eye on balance.
We've also seen some people saying our intention with Inferno is just one-shot you to make it difficult. While damage is a bit spikier than we'd like, we're actually seeing a pretty significant number of people attempting Inferno without sufficient gear. There's a good chance that returning to the previous Act to farm upgrades will do the most to help you survive. That said, we’d like to shift some of the focus away from survival and more toward using a variety of offensive tactics to succeed. Survival will still be important, but finding ways to maximize your damage while staying alive is more exciting. We’re not particularly concerned with whether or not a boss is “beatable,” though it should feel epic and challenging to defeat it. We’re more concerned with ensuring that acquiring 5 stacks of Nephalem Valor and taking on as many Champions and Rares as you can remains the most challenging and rewarding way to play."
Items
"On to items! One of the biggest pieces of feedback we’ve received regarding items is the relative power of Legendaries. This isn’t a simple issue to address, as it involves some intentional design decisions as well as expectations built by other games. First and foremost, Legendary items are not designed to necessarily be the best items in the game. They’re just one additional type of item as you level up, and they are not meant to be the primary items you’re chasing at the end-game. They can -- and should -- be exciting to find, but they’re not supposed to serve as the single driving force of the item hunt. Rare items, for example, have the possibility to roll up “perfect” stats that can, if you’re lucky, outpace the predetermined stats of a Legendary. That’s by design.
One problem we’ve seen -- and intend to correct quickly -- is players comparing high-level Magic (blue) items to lower-level Legendary items as “proof” of an imbalance. To help correct misconceptions of the actual stat budgets allocated to items, we’ll be exposing item levels (ilvl) of 60+ items in patch 1.0.3. Comparing an ilvl 63 blue to an ilvl 60 Legendary will hopefully make a bit more sense afterward. In addition, we’re planning to just straight-out buff Legendary items in a future patch, likely the PvP patch (1.1). These buffs will not be retroactive, and so they’ll only apply to new Legendary items found after the patch. In the long term, we’re looking at simply expanding the affix diversity and unique bonuses of Legendary items, and we’ll be able to share more details after the PvP patch."
Crafting
"Other areas of concern have been both the gem combination system and Blacksmith leveling and crafting costs. The intent, especially with the Blacksmith, is that he’s leveling with you, you’re able to use him as an alternate source for upgrades. Our design goal is that once you get to level 60, his recipes are actually good enough to help fill a character’s potential itemization gaps. To correct these issues, we’re looking to adjust the Blacksmith costs for training (gold and pages) and crafting from levels 1-59, and reduce the cost of combining gems so that it only requires two gems instead of three (up to Flawless Square). Both of these changes are scheduled for patch 1.0.3.
Of course, these are just a few of the more prominent issues we wanted to let you know we’re working on. In addition, we’ll be addressing a number of specific game bugs and other issues through future hotfixes and patches. We’re going full steam ahead on the PvP patch, which will also include a number of game changes unrelated to PvP, and we look forward to sharing more about that as we get closer to opening up a PTR, where you’ll be able to test out our changes -- and enjoy mercilessly slaughtering one another in the PvP arena."
Inferno
"Inferno is intended to be extremely difficult, but with some specific skills, a few classes were simply able to progress far more easily than intended. This made the classes, which were about where they were supposed to be, seem very underpowered. It also created the perception that the classes doing well were intended to rely on specific runes in all their builds, and the other classes were just broken. This is the opposite of what’s true. If any single skill or rune feels absolutely required to progress, it means that skill is working against our goal of encouraging build diversity -- and those “required” skills need to be corrected. We know these hotfixes snuck up on people, and it took us a day or so to communicate that they had gone live. However, our intent moving forward is that when there are circumstances where a hotfix is necessary, we’ll communicate changes that could impact your ability to play your class through ‘Upcoming Changes’ posts in the General forum. Ideally, we’ll let you know as soon as we even have the idea that we want to make that kind of change.
That said, we also wanted to let you know we’re keeping a close eye on Inferno. The intent of incoming damage is that it should be a very consistent drain on your health, and mitigating that drain is a major part of what makes Inferno mode difficult. Right now, there’s a lot more damage “spikiness” occurring than feels right, and that’s one major area we’re looking to adjust in patch 1.0.3. While we don’t have any specifics yet, our design goals are to support and promote build diversity; continue to ensure that a mix of champion packs, rare packs, and boss fights are the most efficient way to acquire the best items in the game; and ensure that all classes are viable in Inferno.
From a high-level perspective, we think a more fundamentally fun way to approach difficulty in Inferno isn't seeing how much incoming damage you can avoid or mitigate, but rather to see how efficient you can be while voluntarily taking on a challenge that pushes you. For anybody who's ever died because they chased a Treasure Goblin too aggressively, you know what we mean; dying because you got greedy or overconfident can actually be a lot of fun. Now that the skills mentioned above have been brought more in line, we’ll be keeping a close eye on balance.
We've also seen some people saying our intention with Inferno is just one-shot you to make it difficult. While damage is a bit spikier than we'd like, we're actually seeing a pretty significant number of people attempting Inferno without sufficient gear. There's a good chance that returning to the previous Act to farm upgrades will do the most to help you survive. That said, we’d like to shift some of the focus away from survival and more toward using a variety of offensive tactics to succeed. Survival will still be important, but finding ways to maximize your damage while staying alive is more exciting. We’re not particularly concerned with whether or not a boss is “beatable,” though it should feel epic and challenging to defeat it. We’re more concerned with ensuring that acquiring 5 stacks of Nephalem Valor and taking on as many Champions and Rares as you can remains the most challenging and rewarding way to play."
Items
"On to items! One of the biggest pieces of feedback we’ve received regarding items is the relative power of Legendaries. This isn’t a simple issue to address, as it involves some intentional design decisions as well as expectations built by other games. First and foremost, Legendary items are not designed to necessarily be the best items in the game. They’re just one additional type of item as you level up, and they are not meant to be the primary items you’re chasing at the end-game. They can -- and should -- be exciting to find, but they’re not supposed to serve as the single driving force of the item hunt. Rare items, for example, have the possibility to roll up “perfect” stats that can, if you’re lucky, outpace the predetermined stats of a Legendary. That’s by design.
One problem we’ve seen -- and intend to correct quickly -- is players comparing high-level Magic (blue) items to lower-level Legendary items as “proof” of an imbalance. To help correct misconceptions of the actual stat budgets allocated to items, we’ll be exposing item levels (ilvl) of 60+ items in patch 1.0.3. Comparing an ilvl 63 blue to an ilvl 60 Legendary will hopefully make a bit more sense afterward. In addition, we’re planning to just straight-out buff Legendary items in a future patch, likely the PvP patch (1.1). These buffs will not be retroactive, and so they’ll only apply to new Legendary items found after the patch. In the long term, we’re looking at simply expanding the affix diversity and unique bonuses of Legendary items, and we’ll be able to share more details after the PvP patch."
Crafting
"Other areas of concern have been both the gem combination system and Blacksmith leveling and crafting costs. The intent, especially with the Blacksmith, is that he’s leveling with you, you’re able to use him as an alternate source for upgrades. Our design goal is that once you get to level 60, his recipes are actually good enough to help fill a character’s potential itemization gaps. To correct these issues, we’re looking to adjust the Blacksmith costs for training (gold and pages) and crafting from levels 1-59, and reduce the cost of combining gems so that it only requires two gems instead of three (up to Flawless Square). Both of these changes are scheduled for patch 1.0.3.
Of course, these are just a few of the more prominent issues we wanted to let you know we’re working on. In addition, we’ll be addressing a number of specific game bugs and other issues through future hotfixes and patches. We’re going full steam ahead on the PvP patch, which will also include a number of game changes unrelated to PvP, and we look forward to sharing more about that as we get closer to opening up a PTR, where you’ll be able to test out our changes -- and enjoy mercilessly slaughtering one another in the PvP arena."
Ctuchik
FH is my second home
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They have always said inferno was to difficult. They even said it was so difficult that the developers themselves couldn't beat it. They just needed more data from peoples play sessions before they could start to balance it properly, like what skills made all the difference and stuff like that.
/edit: and yeah, FUCK YOU TREASURE GOBLIN!
/edit: and yeah, FUCK YOU TREASURE GOBLIN!
old.Tohtori
FH is my second home
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No word on HC and the enrage timer, bah. I'm hoping someone at Blizz will notice that an unannounced hard-timer is not a cool way to lose a character.
Now bosses and elites/champs getting harder as the fight goes on
Now bosses and elites/champs getting harder as the fight goes on
old.Tohtori
FH is my second home
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In hell/inferno, after a certain amount of time(that changes 
), when fighting agaist champion etc mobs, you'll get a debuff "out of time" and start losing health.
From following youtube video;
"Out of Time
Combat against an elite monster has grown more difficult. You are taking damage over time.
It starts at about 430 damage every half second. It appears to ramp up and by the time I die to it, it's ticking for 600-700 instead."
View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSnkwiLalF0
It's basically a gearcheck, but in HC there's no gearcheck, there's just death
Also bosses have an enrage timer which makes them hit harder, but since yuo can't escape...well.
), when fighting agaist champion etc mobs, you'll get a debuff "out of time" and start losing health.From following youtube video;
"Out of Time
Combat against an elite monster has grown more difficult. You are taking damage over time.
It starts at about 430 damage every half second. It appears to ramp up and by the time I die to it, it's ticking for 600-700 instead."
View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSnkwiLalF0
It's basically a gearcheck, but in HC there's no gearcheck, there's just death
Also bosses have an enrage timer which makes them hit harder, but since yuo can't escape...well.
Keitanz
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I just gave it a go.. got level 8 on a Wizard I think... I didn't really enjoy it that much.. some of the spells so far are cool and stuff (that's quite nice at an early level) and I thought the combat would be a lot more boring etc .. but if I want good fun combat I'd play Tera.. I'm not really drawn in yet but I'll give it another go tomorrow I guess..
I'd buy it if it was £15 like Torchlight 2 but sadly Blizzard want more monies to upgrade their hamsters running their servers to gerbils or something..
I'd buy it if it was £15 like Torchlight 2 but sadly Blizzard want more monies to upgrade their hamsters running their servers to gerbils or something..
old.Tohtori
FH is my second home
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Well considering blizzard 24/7 customer support costs them 300mil/year....
Good that you're giving it a go, if ti's not for you, then it's not. It's not like everyone has to sell their soul to the devil(har).
old.Tohtori
FH is my second home
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Keitanz
Can't get enough of FH
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300m a year?... sounds a bit ottWell considering blizzard 24/7 customer support costs them 300mil/year....
did you add two extra zero's by accident? or is that chinese yen though they make over £1billion a year from WoW alone so I guess so I say good things about the game and people still cry at me
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old.Tohtori
FH is my second home
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Yeah, hard to get rid of a "trolly" infamy
That customer support may have had an extra 0, but anyway
Starcraft 2 cost around 100mil to develop, i'm thinking diablo 3 might be higher as it had an inhouse engine that needed to be done from scratch. The game sold 5mil copies(that's excluding the free wow copies), which comes to around 300mil.
So if diablo 3 cost 150mil, they don't make that much out of it. Well, 150mil, but still not that much if it only covers the cost of the next game.
This was from another forum, from a release by actibliizard;
"In the 2011 statement, the 3 months ending June 2011 to they spent:
213m on product costs (on game development)
116m on product development (technology development)
129m on admin expenses
90m on sales and marketing.
59m on WoW operating expenses
This is for both Activision and Blizzard, fyi.
It's very hard to predict the development costs for D3 because a lot of costs overlap. QA as one example, is paid for as an administration cost, over the whole company so it's impossible to say "They spent $x on QA testing for Diablo 3", because QA does more than just test D3."
That's ofcourse 2011, while diablo was in production for far longer and on to 2012. Also, blizzard employs a 7 metric sh*t-tons of people(7600 according to 2011), which all require pay, but aren't necessarily included in costs. Also i don't agree with the last point about QA(since i've worked in QA) and when QA works for a title they don't have time for other projects.
The nutshell of it all still is that they're not making that much money and most of it goes straight to making the players more games. So if they seem a bit "greedy" on some asspects, it's pretty much expected for a business this size and as i've said before; if they were really about greed, they'd have a hardcore real money auction house and no gold auction house
That customer support may have had an extra 0, but anyway
Starcraft 2 cost around 100mil to develop, i'm thinking diablo 3 might be higher as it had an inhouse engine that needed to be done from scratch. The game sold 5mil copies(that's excluding the free wow copies), which comes to around 300mil.
So if diablo 3 cost 150mil, they don't make that much out of it. Well, 150mil, but still not that much if it only covers the cost of the next game.
This was from another forum, from a release by actibliizard;
"In the 2011 statement, the 3 months ending June 2011 to they spent:
213m on product costs (on game development)
116m on product development (technology development)
129m on admin expenses
90m on sales and marketing.
59m on WoW operating expenses
This is for both Activision and Blizzard, fyi.
It's very hard to predict the development costs for D3 because a lot of costs overlap. QA as one example, is paid for as an administration cost, over the whole company so it's impossible to say "They spent $x on QA testing for Diablo 3", because QA does more than just test D3."
That's ofcourse 2011, while diablo was in production for far longer and on to 2012. Also, blizzard employs a 7 metric sh*t-tons of people(7600 according to 2011), which all require pay, but aren't necessarily included in costs. Also i don't agree with the last point about QA(since i've worked in QA) and when QA works for a title they don't have time for other projects.
The nutshell of it all still is that they're not making that much money and most of it goes straight to making the players more games. So if they seem a bit "greedy" on some asspects, it's pretty much expected for a business this size and as i've said before; if they were really about greed, they'd have a hardcore real money auction house and no gold auction house
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300m is probably not just support but WoW specific development, marketing, support, hardware and overheads. They make around 960,000,000 from subs a year (10m x £8 x 12) plus any box sales so that isn't a wild figure really. The rest goes to new game development, profit and whatnot.
With such massive subscriber/user figures comes huge overheads.
Edit, hadn't read all of Tohts post and cba to edit properly... or look up figures
With such massive subscriber/user figures comes huge overheads.
Edit, hadn't read all of Tohts post and cba to edit properly... or look up figures
old.Tohtori
FH is my second home
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Yeah, it is a massive help for blizzard, but also a liability if it goes titties skyward. When wow lost the, 1.3-1.7mil subs, instantly 600(i think it was) people got fired. The running costs, if we assume a low pay of 25k/person/year(multiplied by HR costs as 1.5), 37.5k x 7600, it's around 290mil/year on salary alone.
Those 600 fired(most) were from customer support, that's 22.5mil yearly reduction in customer support costs. So my 300mil might not be that off
Let's correct that statement a bit, because according to http://www.jobs-salary.com/blizzard-entertainment-jobs.htm the average pay is 86k/year(christ i need a job from the states...).
So, salary costs for blizzard / year; 653mil and the customer rep costs(that were fired) at 40 or so mil/year.
Those 600 fired(most) were from customer support, that's 22.5mil yearly reduction in customer support costs. So my 300mil might not be that off
Let's correct that statement a bit, because according to http://www.jobs-salary.com/blizzard-entertainment-jobs.htm the average pay is 86k/year(christ i need a job from the states...).
So, salary costs for blizzard / year; 653mil and the customer rep costs(that were fired) at 40 or so mil/year.
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eksdee
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Lucky biznitch. Are you using the helm on your Wiz?
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Nice drops but didn't you mention somewhere that you have had enough of the game now?
old.Tohtori
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Nice drops but didn't you mention somewhere that you have had enough of the game now?
He was done with the game, but then he got drops
BloodOmen
I am a FH squatter
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Nice drops but didn't you mention somewhere that you have had enough of the game now?
Roller coaster feelings, enough said
Not yet but I wouldnt sell it anyway
I want a full set for achievement, got helm/chest now I sold amulet the other day tho, should have kept it 