After wallowing in indifference towards Diablo 3 for a while I can finally see a tiny light at the end of the tunnel. Blizzard has announced that they are working on some nice changes for the Auction House. Instead of pasting that stuff here, I'm going to direct you to Incgamer's post.
Lately I haven't even bothered to sell stuff on the AH. I suspect that the market is shrinking and sales aren't as forthcoming. But then again, I don't have so many items to sell because I haven't been playing seriously over the past weeks. The changes that they are proposing, though, are very exciting and exactly what I would have done to improve the AH. Here's my take on this.
Increase the attribute filters from 3 to 6
This change can't come soon enough. Everybody has been asking for more filter slots from the beginning. It will make searches so much more precise.
Cancel auctions without bids
Something that I was dearly hoping for. If I could just cancel my bid-less auctions I would be so much happier. I could lower my buyout successively and re-post if the item doesn't sell, perhaps once a day.
Detailed stats in the auction log
I can't believe how nearly useless the auction log is currently. There's no way to tell what stats the items you sold or bought in the past had. You can't tell what price your unsold items were posted at. It's really frustrating because it makes it hard to price your items correctly in the future, unless you keep detailed spreadsheets of every item sold.
One other thing that I'd like to see
While these changes are leagues ahead of what we already have, and should have been in the game from the beginning, I'm still hoping for one extra thing. I would like the ability to use the AH in game. I know that Blizzard said that the AH interface has no place in the world of Sanctuary but that's bullshit. No one cares about the thin story of D3 anyway. So why not make it convenient for us to use the AH without having to leave a game if we don't want to? It would be nice to keep those NV stacks, right? The way I propose they do it is to be able to access the AH only in town. This way there won't be any possibility of being killed by monsters due to inattention.
D3 was released in an unfinished state but these AH improvements go a long way towards making the game better, even if it won't be perfect. This patch can't come soon enough.
Showing posts with label GAH. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GAH. Show all posts
Friday, August 3, 2012
Saturday, June 16, 2012
It's raining legendaries
Well, chance is fickle indeed. I played Diablo 3 for a month for countless hours, leveled my Monk to 60, grinded a lot of Hell and a tiny bit of Infeno with > +100% Magic Find and I never saw a legendary item drop. And then, on my noob Barbarian I get 2 legendaries a few days apart, with 0 Magic Find (read that again: ZERO MAGIC FIND). A few days ago I got this legendary amulet. Today, at level 51, I got this sword in Act 1 Hell from a random elite boss:
The Ancient Bonesaber of Zumakalis. Now the first question that needs to be asked is who the hell is Zumakalis? Leaving that aside (because we all know it's some random name that Blizzard slapped on this item), the second question is what to do with this sword?
To me this looks like a very good weapon for a Monk. At level 45 120 DPS is not too shabby. Slap a Ruby on it and you cat get a lot more out of it. Attack speed is decent and it looks like there's quite a bit of life leech on it. That's cool. My Barbarian certainly can't use it at level 51 because it isn't itemized for Barbarians and besides he's already got a more powerful weapon, and my Monk is 60 so it's definitely useless to him. The only remaining option is, of course, to sell it.
Luckily, the RMAH is now functional so I can make some good money with this sword. Or can I? Though I was kinda expecting it, I was dismayed to find out that I can get somewhere between $1.70 and $2.00 for it. Oh, minus Blizzard's $1 fee, that would be in fact $0.70 or $1.00 tops. Yikes! Of course, I understand that this is simply a leveling weapon that will be replaced as soon as possible so it can't hold its value very well. On the other hand it has to be better than the yellow weapon I sold the other day for $1.25.
The sad truth is that competition on the AH is bound to be fierce and people will undercut each other viciously. Now, of course, I could try to sell this on the Gold Auction House but I would get between 50K and 70K for it. Not too tempting. That would value gold at 29K-35K per $1 (before Blizzard's tax) or ~70K gold per $1 after Blizzard's tax. It is obvious to me that even after Blizzard takes their cut, I'd still be better off selling this for the minimum of $1.70. I highly doubt you'll be able to buy less than 100K gold for $1 when commodity auctions are enabled. In fact I predict that prices will go down to 1M / $1 or even less, but that's another story.
So it's settled then, I'm going to try to sell this for a maximum of $2. It's sad but necessary. I can't let it gather dust in my inventory because I can't use it (unless I decide to level a second Monk but I doubt that will ever happen).
I've read a blog post somewhere (sorry, can't remember the blog) where the poster argued that it might be better to keep legendaries unidentified in your inventory until the big "legendary patch" is released (probably 1.1), which buffs legendaries going forward. But this assumes items are assigned attributes at the moment of identifying them, and not when they drop. That's certainly possible but we don't know that and I simply don't want to risk waiting until this item is completely worthless.
Should I sell it then after gold trading is enabled? That would allow me to value this item better in terms of gold per dollar. What do you think?
The Ancient Bonesaber of Zumakalis. Now the first question that needs to be asked is who the hell is Zumakalis? Leaving that aside (because we all know it's some random name that Blizzard slapped on this item), the second question is what to do with this sword?
To me this looks like a very good weapon for a Monk. At level 45 120 DPS is not too shabby. Slap a Ruby on it and you cat get a lot more out of it. Attack speed is decent and it looks like there's quite a bit of life leech on it. That's cool. My Barbarian certainly can't use it at level 51 because it isn't itemized for Barbarians and besides he's already got a more powerful weapon, and my Monk is 60 so it's definitely useless to him. The only remaining option is, of course, to sell it.
Luckily, the RMAH is now functional so I can make some good money with this sword. Or can I? Though I was kinda expecting it, I was dismayed to find out that I can get somewhere between $1.70 and $2.00 for it. Oh, minus Blizzard's $1 fee, that would be in fact $0.70 or $1.00 tops. Yikes! Of course, I understand that this is simply a leveling weapon that will be replaced as soon as possible so it can't hold its value very well. On the other hand it has to be better than the yellow weapon I sold the other day for $1.25.
The sad truth is that competition on the AH is bound to be fierce and people will undercut each other viciously. Now, of course, I could try to sell this on the Gold Auction House but I would get between 50K and 70K for it. Not too tempting. That would value gold at 29K-35K per $1 (before Blizzard's tax) or ~70K gold per $1 after Blizzard's tax. It is obvious to me that even after Blizzard takes their cut, I'd still be better off selling this for the minimum of $1.70. I highly doubt you'll be able to buy less than 100K gold for $1 when commodity auctions are enabled. In fact I predict that prices will go down to 1M / $1 or even less, but that's another story.
So it's settled then, I'm going to try to sell this for a maximum of $2. It's sad but necessary. I can't let it gather dust in my inventory because I can't use it (unless I decide to level a second Monk but I doubt that will ever happen).
I've read a blog post somewhere (sorry, can't remember the blog) where the poster argued that it might be better to keep legendaries unidentified in your inventory until the big "legendary patch" is released (probably 1.1), which buffs legendaries going forward. But this assumes items are assigned attributes at the moment of identifying them, and not when they drop. That's certainly possible but we don't know that and I simply don't want to risk waiting until this item is completely worthless.
Should I sell it then after gold trading is enabled? That would allow me to value this item better in terms of gold per dollar. What do you think?
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
F*cking finally!
So commodity trading has finally been enabled! How long has it been? 2-3 weeks?
It's all good now, especially since things seem to be much improved. The AH interface feels much more responsive and much less laggy.
The only problem is that this little hiatus has cost me a few hundred thousand gold. I'm wondering if Blizzard can be sued for this sort of thing once the RMAH is released. Not that I would sue them myself, but I'd be very pissed if I were to base some gold-making strategies around one aspect of the Gold Auction House, only to have them take it offline for a couple of weeks.
It's all good now, especially since things seem to be much improved. The AH interface feels much more responsive and much less laggy.
The only problem is that this little hiatus has cost me a few hundred thousand gold. I'm wondering if Blizzard can be sued for this sort of thing once the RMAH is released. Not that I would sue them myself, but I'd be very pissed if I were to base some gold-making strategies around one aspect of the Gold Auction House, only to have them take it offline for a couple of weeks.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Wanna buy some gold?
Over the past week I've been watching in horrified fascination how the black market for Diablo 3 gold evolved. I can't help noticing. I like to join the Trade chat channel because occasionally I see a good deal. I have yet to buy something that was advertised there, but I remember the days of WoW when you could get your hands on some very sweet deals if you paid close attention to Trade.
Unfortunately, just like in WoW, the chat channels are flooded with gold spammers. I hate these guys and what they represent with a passion. I'm not going to judge the players who buy gold from these sites (though my opinion of them isn't very high) but the spammers and gold sellers are baaaaaad.
It's about damn time Blizzard released the Real Money Auction House. The economy will go to shit if they don't do it soon. Already gold is losing value with each passing day. On the other hand more and more people are farming Inferno which makes for cheaper high-end items so these two cancel each other out to some extent.
What's interesting (and maybe worrisome) is that the unofficial price of gold has been dropping a lot over the past week. When I first noticed the spammers, they were offering 1 million gold for $30. Prices dropped successively to $25, $20, yesterday $15 and now a little over $13.
I wonder how far they will continue to drop. I wonder what the "official" rate will be during the first day the RMAH is released. I wonder how far the rate will drop during the first 24 hours, and then again during the first week. I wonder at what level it will stabilize. I really, truly, honestly hope it won't be something like $1 for 1 million gold. If that's the case, I might be tempted to just pull out my wallet and buy myself some Inferno farming equipment.
I always thought that I wouldn't spend a single cent on the RMAH. But if gold prices are low enough, it might make more sense to simply buy my way into Inferno instead of approaching it the hard way. I think I would hate myself if I did that.
Any thoughts?
Unfortunately, just like in WoW, the chat channels are flooded with gold spammers. I hate these guys and what they represent with a passion. I'm not going to judge the players who buy gold from these sites (though my opinion of them isn't very high) but the spammers and gold sellers are baaaaaad.
It's about damn time Blizzard released the Real Money Auction House. The economy will go to shit if they don't do it soon. Already gold is losing value with each passing day. On the other hand more and more people are farming Inferno which makes for cheaper high-end items so these two cancel each other out to some extent.
What's interesting (and maybe worrisome) is that the unofficial price of gold has been dropping a lot over the past week. When I first noticed the spammers, they were offering 1 million gold for $30. Prices dropped successively to $25, $20, yesterday $15 and now a little over $13.
I wonder how far they will continue to drop. I wonder what the "official" rate will be during the first day the RMAH is released. I wonder how far the rate will drop during the first 24 hours, and then again during the first week. I wonder at what level it will stabilize. I really, truly, honestly hope it won't be something like $1 for 1 million gold. If that's the case, I might be tempted to just pull out my wallet and buy myself some Inferno farming equipment.
I always thought that I wouldn't spend a single cent on the RMAH. But if gold prices are low enough, it might make more sense to simply buy my way into Inferno instead of approaching it the hard way. I think I would hate myself if I did that.
Any thoughts?
Thursday, May 24, 2012
D3 Marathon - Day 9
Though my progression in terms of levels gained has slowed down, I am fairly satisfied with what I accomplished on day 9.
The Monk is level 55 and he has just finished Act 1 in Hell. I beat the Butcher without major issues (also at level 55), on the first try. Before reaching 55 I also spent a few hours farming Azmodan on Nightmare for XP.
When I logged out for the day, the Monk had 3400 DPS and 21K hit points (with the Earth Ally rune for Mystic Ally). Not bad at all. I started Act 1 Hell with about 2200 DPS and I was having a hard time burning down certain groups of champions/rares fast enough. There was a lot of running and kiting involved.
Eventually, I decided to shop a little on the Auction House and I found these two beauties. I'm sure they were being sold by the same person.
Remember yesterday's weapons? The new swords improved my DPS by over 800 (from 2359 to 3221) and health by 1000. The truth is that these cost me 50K gold each but they were worth every penny. This is certainly the most expensive upgrade I have bought so far but just look at those stats! The rolls are almost perfect, if it wasn't for Intelligence on both of them.
Thanks to these new weapons, I've got Act 1 Hell pretty much on farm mode. There are, of course, situations when I come across groups of champions/rares with bad affixes and I either spend 5 minutes kiting them carefully or just quit the game and start a new one. While dying isn't expensive at this point (thanks to my relatively crappy gear), I don't want to die if I can help it.
Speaking of Hell, I love seeing weapon drops with 200+ DPS on them and I also love the frequent 600+ gold stacks. I even saw a 800+ gold stack once.
Auction House woes
I'm very pissed at Blizzard and their crappy Auction House. Commodity trading is completely screwed up. Thanks to this I lost a few hundred thousand gold over the past few days. It was partly my fault because I should have skipped trading until they fixed the damn thing but still... if this happens with the RMAH, I smell some lawsuits.
On the positive side, I discovered a surefire and risk-free method of making easy gold, something that I also used to do in WoW. Sorry, I won't disclose what it is because the competition this time is everyone on the US server. You'll have to discover it on your own.
Build and skills
My build has changed little from the previous day.
Build @ level 55 (available at 53)
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#aZXgQj!ZYX!ZZZaac
The only difference is the access to the Earth Ally rune for Mystic Ally at level 53. This rune is pretty cool for survival because it gives you a 10% health boost, as long as your Ally is up.
Next, I will try to move slowly into Act 2 of Hell and will probably shoot for level 57 at the end of the day. Or, alternatively, I can go back and farm Act 4 Nightmare or Act 1 Hell.
Follow the D3 Marathon
The Monk is level 55 and he has just finished Act 1 in Hell. I beat the Butcher without major issues (also at level 55), on the first try. Before reaching 55 I also spent a few hours farming Azmodan on Nightmare for XP.
When I logged out for the day, the Monk had 3400 DPS and 21K hit points (with the Earth Ally rune for Mystic Ally). Not bad at all. I started Act 1 Hell with about 2200 DPS and I was having a hard time burning down certain groups of champions/rares fast enough. There was a lot of running and kiting involved.
Eventually, I decided to shop a little on the Auction House and I found these two beauties. I'm sure they were being sold by the same person.
Remember yesterday's weapons? The new swords improved my DPS by over 800 (from 2359 to 3221) and health by 1000. The truth is that these cost me 50K gold each but they were worth every penny. This is certainly the most expensive upgrade I have bought so far but just look at those stats! The rolls are almost perfect, if it wasn't for Intelligence on both of them.
Thanks to these new weapons, I've got Act 1 Hell pretty much on farm mode. There are, of course, situations when I come across groups of champions/rares with bad affixes and I either spend 5 minutes kiting them carefully or just quit the game and start a new one. While dying isn't expensive at this point (thanks to my relatively crappy gear), I don't want to die if I can help it.
Speaking of Hell, I love seeing weapon drops with 200+ DPS on them and I also love the frequent 600+ gold stacks. I even saw a 800+ gold stack once.
Auction House woes
I'm very pissed at Blizzard and their crappy Auction House. Commodity trading is completely screwed up. Thanks to this I lost a few hundred thousand gold over the past few days. It was partly my fault because I should have skipped trading until they fixed the damn thing but still... if this happens with the RMAH, I smell some lawsuits.
On the positive side, I discovered a surefire and risk-free method of making easy gold, something that I also used to do in WoW. Sorry, I won't disclose what it is because the competition this time is everyone on the US server. You'll have to discover it on your own.
Build and skills
My build has changed little from the previous day.
Build @ level 55 (available at 53)
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#aZXgQj!ZYX!ZZZaac
The only difference is the access to the Earth Ally rune for Mystic Ally at level 53. This rune is pretty cool for survival because it gives you a 10% health boost, as long as your Ally is up.
Next, I will try to move slowly into Act 2 of Hell and will probably shoot for level 57 at the end of the day. Or, alternatively, I can go back and farm Act 4 Nightmare or Act 1 Hell.
Follow the D3 Marathon
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
D3 Marathon - Day 8
On day 8 of my D3 marathon I went on a roll on the Monk and managed to level from 44 the previous day to 51. My DPS also jumped by a lot, from 900 to 2200. Current health is 14K.
I'm afraid he's an ugly-looking bastard at this point, with that nasty helm and hodge-podge equipment he's wearing. Oh well, good looks don't kill monsters.
I also finished Nightmare on my own and beat Diablo easily on the first attempt (also at level 51). I can tell you that 2200 DPS really makes a difference. I wouldn't have been able to plough through the last two acts in Nightmare if it hadn't been for the dagger/sword I am now wearing. I found both of these on the AH for about 6K each. I slapped some Rubies on them and there you have it: uber-DPS.
I have moved on into Hell but I'm still at the very first quests in Act 1. What's interesting is that the monsters aren't that hard to kill but their hit points have jumped up significantly. Also, when they hit, they hit hard. Luckily, those zombies at the beginning are slow as molasses and hit once in a blue moon. I'm pretty sure that, in order to beat Hell, I'm gonna need a lot more than 2K DPS, perhaps more along the lines of 5K-10K.
Speaking of weapons, I much prefer 1-handed fast weapons to the 2-handed polearm I was wearing yesterday. The Monk becomes a machine-gun with these fast weapons.
Now, the cool thing is that I got Azmodan (Act 3 boss) on farm mode in Nightmare. From levels 47-50 I farmed this dude exclusively. The reason why this works so well is that when you pick the quest "Kill Azmodan" and complete it, you get two different quest credits (along with XP and gold rewards). One is right after killing Azmodan, while the other is after going back to town, speaking to the guard dude and then climbing on the ramparts.
So the "farming" part is solely for the XP. Azmodan himself doesn't drop anything of worth, nor does he give much XP. But I also take the time to clear the mobs in the zone leading up to him. Another cool thing about this quest is that the zone that spans from the waypoint to Azmodan's lair is static. You could even rush through it without engaging mobs, if you can stun/slow them somehow. But I wanted to kill them each time, both for XP and items/gold.
It's pretty cool, if I start having difficulties in Hell I'm definitely going back to farm Azmodan for some more XP. At level 50 you need about 3 of these runs to gain a level. Pretty nifty. A run shouldn't take more than 10-15 minutes, depending which champions/rares you run into. It happened that I came across some nasty Arcane enchanted mobs with another dangerous affix, and instead of risking dying (I knew they would be trouble), I simply started a new game after porting back to town.
Auction House adventures
If it hasn't sunk in already, I highly recommend looking for bargains on the AH. It's a very easy way to increase your damage and survivability and it shouldn't cost you a lot. After all, that's how I bought my two nice weapons, as well as other upgrades. I paid a total of 17K for these two weapons. Totally worth every little penny.
Build and skills
My build has continued to evolve, little by little. Now I just run with a single build instead of having a grinding and a boss build. Things have become tougher and I am trying to play more defensively. It amazes me sometimes how the Monk can escape some very hairy situations.
Build @ level 51 (available at 39)
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#aZXgQj!ZYX!ZZZaab
(Sorry about linking it this way, I'm still having trouble with linking the build properly)
The main highlight is that I picked the Sweeping Armada rune for Lashing Tail Kick because it helps a lot with those nasty mobs. If I get surrounded or my health is dangerously low or if I'm facing champions/rares with dangerous affixes, I can just kick them away and they are thrown much farther thanks to the rune, not to mention that their speed is also slowed for 2 seconds. This allows me to regroup/escape/heal or simply pick them off one by one.
I'm keeping Mystic Ally for now because this little dude continues to impress me. First, I don't have to micro-manage him. Second, he seems very tough and very often can take more damage than me. For example in Act 4 there are some huge monsters called Mallet Lords. These dudes can kill me in 2-3 hits, despite my Monky Zen and they also have a lot of health. But with the Mystic Ally, I can use him as a meat shield. I will stay back, let him engage, and then rush to engage the monster myself. My dude will take 2 hits and die while in the meantime I can whittle the monster's health down to 50% or so. Then I can pop a Serenity and finish him off.
So that's about it for now. I'll be fighting my way through Hell, next.
Follow the D3 Marathon
I'm afraid he's an ugly-looking bastard at this point, with that nasty helm and hodge-podge equipment he's wearing. Oh well, good looks don't kill monsters.
I also finished Nightmare on my own and beat Diablo easily on the first attempt (also at level 51). I can tell you that 2200 DPS really makes a difference. I wouldn't have been able to plough through the last two acts in Nightmare if it hadn't been for the dagger/sword I am now wearing. I found both of these on the AH for about 6K each. I slapped some Rubies on them and there you have it: uber-DPS.
I have moved on into Hell but I'm still at the very first quests in Act 1. What's interesting is that the monsters aren't that hard to kill but their hit points have jumped up significantly. Also, when they hit, they hit hard. Luckily, those zombies at the beginning are slow as molasses and hit once in a blue moon. I'm pretty sure that, in order to beat Hell, I'm gonna need a lot more than 2K DPS, perhaps more along the lines of 5K-10K.
Speaking of weapons, I much prefer 1-handed fast weapons to the 2-handed polearm I was wearing yesterday. The Monk becomes a machine-gun with these fast weapons.
Now, the cool thing is that I got Azmodan (Act 3 boss) on farm mode in Nightmare. From levels 47-50 I farmed this dude exclusively. The reason why this works so well is that when you pick the quest "Kill Azmodan" and complete it, you get two different quest credits (along with XP and gold rewards). One is right after killing Azmodan, while the other is after going back to town, speaking to the guard dude and then climbing on the ramparts.
So the "farming" part is solely for the XP. Azmodan himself doesn't drop anything of worth, nor does he give much XP. But I also take the time to clear the mobs in the zone leading up to him. Another cool thing about this quest is that the zone that spans from the waypoint to Azmodan's lair is static. You could even rush through it without engaging mobs, if you can stun/slow them somehow. But I wanted to kill them each time, both for XP and items/gold.
It's pretty cool, if I start having difficulties in Hell I'm definitely going back to farm Azmodan for some more XP. At level 50 you need about 3 of these runs to gain a level. Pretty nifty. A run shouldn't take more than 10-15 minutes, depending which champions/rares you run into. It happened that I came across some nasty Arcane enchanted mobs with another dangerous affix, and instead of risking dying (I knew they would be trouble), I simply started a new game after porting back to town.
Auction House adventures
If it hasn't sunk in already, I highly recommend looking for bargains on the AH. It's a very easy way to increase your damage and survivability and it shouldn't cost you a lot. After all, that's how I bought my two nice weapons, as well as other upgrades. I paid a total of 17K for these two weapons. Totally worth every little penny.
Build and skills
My build has continued to evolve, little by little. Now I just run with a single build instead of having a grinding and a boss build. Things have become tougher and I am trying to play more defensively. It amazes me sometimes how the Monk can escape some very hairy situations.
Build @ level 51 (available at 39)
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#aZXgQj!ZYX!ZZZaab
(Sorry about linking it this way, I'm still having trouble with linking the build properly)
The main highlight is that I picked the Sweeping Armada rune for Lashing Tail Kick because it helps a lot with those nasty mobs. If I get surrounded or my health is dangerously low or if I'm facing champions/rares with dangerous affixes, I can just kick them away and they are thrown much farther thanks to the rune, not to mention that their speed is also slowed for 2 seconds. This allows me to regroup/escape/heal or simply pick them off one by one.
I'm keeping Mystic Ally for now because this little dude continues to impress me. First, I don't have to micro-manage him. Second, he seems very tough and very often can take more damage than me. For example in Act 4 there are some huge monsters called Mallet Lords. These dudes can kill me in 2-3 hits, despite my Monky Zen and they also have a lot of health. But with the Mystic Ally, I can use him as a meat shield. I will stay back, let him engage, and then rush to engage the monster myself. My dude will take 2 hits and die while in the meantime I can whittle the monster's health down to 50% or so. Then I can pop a Serenity and finish him off.
So that's about it for now. I'll be fighting my way through Hell, next.
Follow the D3 Marathon
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
D3 Marathon - Day 7
On day 7 I'm becoming even more comfortable with my Monk. At the end of the day he is level 44, with about 1.1K DPS and 7K+ health. This may not seem enough but I can explain.
I was playing with this Demon Hunter who was lower level than me. I asked what his DPS was. Mine was 900 at the time and I was feeling pretty good about it. He surprised me when he said 1600. But then he said that he spent a bunch of gold on the Auction House buying upgrades. Fair enough.
Regardless of DPS, the Monk feels just right. I run a defensive build, with a lot of passive and active healing and it seems to work very well so far. I will detail the build shortly.
Here's my Monk, at level 44, with his new polearm. I gave up a shield for now, but I'd like to take one up again, for the extra armor. Also, I prefer a faster weapon, but this 2-hander was very cheap on the Auction House and it gave me a very nice DPS and health boost.
Also notice that I changed my banner. Yeah, ok, banners are not so bad after all.
I'm tempted to play with some armor dyes but I realize it would be a waste of gold right now so I'm putting it off until much later, after the RMAH is released.
Build and skills
I love how my build evolves slowly from one day to the next. Today I'm using a slightly different build than on day 6.
Grinding build @ level 44 (available at 39).
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#aZXfQj21aYaaaaaaaaab!ZYX!ZaaZab
The main highlight is that I replaced Crippling Wave (regretfully) with Fists of Thunder runed with Lightning Flash. The reason is twofold: first, it generates more Spirit; second, it increases my Dodge by 16% as long as I'm hitting stuff with Fists of Thunder.
The other thing is that I replaced the Water Ally rune for Mystic Ally with Air Ally. While the little dude seems to do slightly less damage, occasionally he gives me a huge Spirit boost thanks to the rune.
The main reason for these changes is that I kept finding myself starved of Spirit. I need a build which could generate lots of Spirit, especially since spending Spirit also heals me thanks to the Transcendence passive. This build is an improvement but still not perfect. If you have any suggestions on how to improve my Spirit generation even further, I'd be grateful.
Boss build @ level 44 (available at 39).
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#UZXgQj21aYaaaaaaaaab!ZYX!ZaZaab
The boss build remains almost unchanged, except for the Mystic Ally rune. The other minor change is that I'm now using Breath of Heaven with Circle of Life instead of Circle of Scorn, for even more healing. Truth be told, I'm not even sure this last change is warranted. With this build I'm not taking enough damage from act bosses to make the extra healing mandatory.
I can see myself later on replacing Mystic Ally with Inner Sanctuary runes with Safe Haven or Consecration or Circle of Protection. So many choices. This would make for the ultimate tank.
Auction House
Speaking of the Auction House, I have become a convert. Not that I wasn't before, but I didn't expect I would end up searching actively for upgrades. I decided to upgrade some lousy pieces of equipment I had and in short order bought, for a total of 6K gold, 3 rare pieces which boosted my DPS by over 100, as well as my health and other stats. Was it worth it? Hell yeah! I can make 6K in less than 5 minutes on Nightmare.
The polearm/pike thing you see in the screenshot was also purchased for 6K gold and this alone improved my DPS by an additional 200.
I have also discovered an easy method to search for the best deals on the AH, but I will have to write a standalone article on the subject. UPDATE: never mind. Great minds think alike. Meldora posted the exact same thing, along with a video showing how it's done, on d3artisans.
A friend from Europe has also mentioned he was using the AH for upgrades. I'm telling you, if you want to rely solely on items you find on your own, that's fine. But in Nightmare things are getting hairy and you might suffer greatly for it. My friend's Wizard has 2K DPS and 12K health at level 47 but still struggles in Nightmare Act 3. Now, this is very subjective because, in comparison, my Monk has a bit over half his stats but he doesn't have a lot of problems, also in Act 3 Nightmare.
Auction House bugs
The AH might be great for finding item upgrades but it suffers from some serious bugs, currently. First, there's a major bug that prevents you from selling high(er) level gems. This is especially true of Perfect Square and Radiant Square gems. Basically you post the gem on the AH but other players can't buy it. I don't even think they will see it, even if it is the lowest priced. There's an elaborate trick involved that seems to fix this issue but such workarounds are ridiculous and shouldn't be needed at all. Damn you Blizzard, fix this right now!
Apart from that, I got some serious errors when trying to purchase some Tomes of Secrets. These are reagents for crafting some higher level gems. I spent over 20 minutes trying to buy 6 lousy Tomes. After placing the buy order I waited for several minutes while the order was "processed". Then, each time I got an error that my request failed. Problem was, the gold was deducted from my account. In the end, I found that I had purchased 2 stacks of 6 Tomes each, instead of just 1 stack, but there was a lot of gold missing (about 100K or so). Each time I clicked "Buy" my gold seems to have disappeared into a black hole of some sort.
It is possible that I will get a refund of all that gold. Last night when I went to bed I didn't see it, but I'm hoping today, after their damn maintenance, I will.
So yeah, be very careful when buying certain commodities. If you get a very long delay when placing an order and then an error message, stop buying.
Crafting
I managed to sink a couple hundred thousand gold in leveling my Jewelcrafter. My intentions were good. Studying the gem prices on the Auction House it became clear that I could make a profit by crafting the highest level gems available so far in the game. Currently these are Radiant Square Rubies. Well, Rubies seem to be the most profitable.
There were two problems with this strategy. First, I lost all that gold trying to buy Tomes of Secrets. Second, no one can buy the first gem I crafted because I forgot that the trick I linked above involved exactly 2 gems. So now I have 2 choices: take a loss and use the gem myself on my Monk's weapon (which would give him yet another DPS boost), or risk crafting a second gem. In the meantime, prices may drop even further, nullifying any profits.
I'll see how it goes after the game is back online. But the outlook is grim. I don't understand why it's so hard for them to fix these serious AH issues. I can't even imagine if shit like this happens with the RMAH. Either way, this is inexcusable. Gold will translate very shortly into real money. So if the system eats my gold, it is essentially eating my hard-earned cash.
Items and farming
In Nightmare Act 2 you will start seeing Perfect gems drop. In Act 3 you will see Radiant gems.
I did a tally of how much gold I can "farm" in an hour and it comes to about 50K per hour in Nightmare Act 2. 30K are from picking up gold and vendoring blue/rare items. The rest are from the value of gems and pages of crafting which I find in an hour and sell on the AH. Not too shabby. I'm sure that amount would be even more if I focused exclusively on farming, but now's not the time. Gotta get to 60 first.
While killing stuff in Act 2, my Monk found this really nice 117.6 DPS bow, the first weapon with more than 100 DPS. He, of course, passed it on to the Demon Hunter whereupon the latter's DPS rocketed up to about 1600. And by the way, these are exactly the stats I'm looking for in a DH item: Dex and Vit. This bow has plenty of both.
Another Scoundrel piece of wisdom
In closing I will leave you with another lol moment, courtesy of the Scoundrel follower.
Follow the D3 Marathon
I was playing with this Demon Hunter who was lower level than me. I asked what his DPS was. Mine was 900 at the time and I was feeling pretty good about it. He surprised me when he said 1600. But then he said that he spent a bunch of gold on the Auction House buying upgrades. Fair enough.
Regardless of DPS, the Monk feels just right. I run a defensive build, with a lot of passive and active healing and it seems to work very well so far. I will detail the build shortly.
Here's my Monk, at level 44, with his new polearm. I gave up a shield for now, but I'd like to take one up again, for the extra armor. Also, I prefer a faster weapon, but this 2-hander was very cheap on the Auction House and it gave me a very nice DPS and health boost.
Also notice that I changed my banner. Yeah, ok, banners are not so bad after all.
I'm tempted to play with some armor dyes but I realize it would be a waste of gold right now so I'm putting it off until much later, after the RMAH is released.
Build and skills
I love how my build evolves slowly from one day to the next. Today I'm using a slightly different build than on day 6.
Grinding build @ level 44 (available at 39).
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#aZXfQj21aYaaaaaaaaab!ZYX!ZaaZab
The main highlight is that I replaced Crippling Wave (regretfully) with Fists of Thunder runed with Lightning Flash. The reason is twofold: first, it generates more Spirit; second, it increases my Dodge by 16% as long as I'm hitting stuff with Fists of Thunder.
The other thing is that I replaced the Water Ally rune for Mystic Ally with Air Ally. While the little dude seems to do slightly less damage, occasionally he gives me a huge Spirit boost thanks to the rune.
The main reason for these changes is that I kept finding myself starved of Spirit. I need a build which could generate lots of Spirit, especially since spending Spirit also heals me thanks to the Transcendence passive. This build is an improvement but still not perfect. If you have any suggestions on how to improve my Spirit generation even further, I'd be grateful.
Boss build @ level 44 (available at 39).
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#UZXgQj21aYaaaaaaaaab!ZYX!ZaZaab
The boss build remains almost unchanged, except for the Mystic Ally rune. The other minor change is that I'm now using Breath of Heaven with Circle of Life instead of Circle of Scorn, for even more healing. Truth be told, I'm not even sure this last change is warranted. With this build I'm not taking enough damage from act bosses to make the extra healing mandatory.
I can see myself later on replacing Mystic Ally with Inner Sanctuary runes with Safe Haven or Consecration or Circle of Protection. So many choices. This would make for the ultimate tank.
Auction House
Speaking of the Auction House, I have become a convert. Not that I wasn't before, but I didn't expect I would end up searching actively for upgrades. I decided to upgrade some lousy pieces of equipment I had and in short order bought, for a total of 6K gold, 3 rare pieces which boosted my DPS by over 100, as well as my health and other stats. Was it worth it? Hell yeah! I can make 6K in less than 5 minutes on Nightmare.
The polearm/pike thing you see in the screenshot was also purchased for 6K gold and this alone improved my DPS by an additional 200.
I have also discovered an easy method to search for the best deals on the AH, but I will have to write a standalone article on the subject. UPDATE: never mind. Great minds think alike. Meldora posted the exact same thing, along with a video showing how it's done, on d3artisans.
A friend from Europe has also mentioned he was using the AH for upgrades. I'm telling you, if you want to rely solely on items you find on your own, that's fine. But in Nightmare things are getting hairy and you might suffer greatly for it. My friend's Wizard has 2K DPS and 12K health at level 47 but still struggles in Nightmare Act 3. Now, this is very subjective because, in comparison, my Monk has a bit over half his stats but he doesn't have a lot of problems, also in Act 3 Nightmare.
Auction House bugs
The AH might be great for finding item upgrades but it suffers from some serious bugs, currently. First, there's a major bug that prevents you from selling high(er) level gems. This is especially true of Perfect Square and Radiant Square gems. Basically you post the gem on the AH but other players can't buy it. I don't even think they will see it, even if it is the lowest priced. There's an elaborate trick involved that seems to fix this issue but such workarounds are ridiculous and shouldn't be needed at all. Damn you Blizzard, fix this right now!
Apart from that, I got some serious errors when trying to purchase some Tomes of Secrets. These are reagents for crafting some higher level gems. I spent over 20 minutes trying to buy 6 lousy Tomes. After placing the buy order I waited for several minutes while the order was "processed". Then, each time I got an error that my request failed. Problem was, the gold was deducted from my account. In the end, I found that I had purchased 2 stacks of 6 Tomes each, instead of just 1 stack, but there was a lot of gold missing (about 100K or so). Each time I clicked "Buy" my gold seems to have disappeared into a black hole of some sort.
It is possible that I will get a refund of all that gold. Last night when I went to bed I didn't see it, but I'm hoping today, after their damn maintenance, I will.
So yeah, be very careful when buying certain commodities. If you get a very long delay when placing an order and then an error message, stop buying.
Crafting
I managed to sink a couple hundred thousand gold in leveling my Jewelcrafter. My intentions were good. Studying the gem prices on the Auction House it became clear that I could make a profit by crafting the highest level gems available so far in the game. Currently these are Radiant Square Rubies. Well, Rubies seem to be the most profitable.
There were two problems with this strategy. First, I lost all that gold trying to buy Tomes of Secrets. Second, no one can buy the first gem I crafted because I forgot that the trick I linked above involved exactly 2 gems. So now I have 2 choices: take a loss and use the gem myself on my Monk's weapon (which would give him yet another DPS boost), or risk crafting a second gem. In the meantime, prices may drop even further, nullifying any profits.
I'll see how it goes after the game is back online. But the outlook is grim. I don't understand why it's so hard for them to fix these serious AH issues. I can't even imagine if shit like this happens with the RMAH. Either way, this is inexcusable. Gold will translate very shortly into real money. So if the system eats my gold, it is essentially eating my hard-earned cash.
Items and farming
In Nightmare Act 2 you will start seeing Perfect gems drop. In Act 3 you will see Radiant gems.
I did a tally of how much gold I can "farm" in an hour and it comes to about 50K per hour in Nightmare Act 2. 30K are from picking up gold and vendoring blue/rare items. The rest are from the value of gems and pages of crafting which I find in an hour and sell on the AH. Not too shabby. I'm sure that amount would be even more if I focused exclusively on farming, but now's not the time. Gotta get to 60 first.
While killing stuff in Act 2, my Monk found this really nice 117.6 DPS bow, the first weapon with more than 100 DPS. He, of course, passed it on to the Demon Hunter whereupon the latter's DPS rocketed up to about 1600. And by the way, these are exactly the stats I'm looking for in a DH item: Dex and Vit. This bow has plenty of both.
Another Scoundrel piece of wisdom
In closing I will leave you with another lol moment, courtesy of the Scoundrel follower.
Follow the D3 Marathon
Saturday, May 19, 2012
D3 Marathon - Day 4
On day 4, because my Demon Hunter was having some difficulties in Act 4, I decided to trade some Dexterity for Vitality. It was very risky going with only 1600 HP. Even though my DPS dropped, my survivability improved.
Performance metrics
At the end of day 4 my Demon Hunter was level 38. On this day, I had only played 6 hours on the DH, for a total of 26 hours 15 minutes. On the other hand, I did put in some time on my Monk, that I leveled to 15, as well as the Witch Doctor (10) and Wizard (9).
My Demon Hunter's DPS went from 406 to 690.
My gold is now 465K, and that's after buying the remaining space in my first shared stash tab for 20K.
Inventory management
My inventory was becoming a big problem. The shared stash was full and I had to make frequent trips to town on my Demon Hunter to sell stuff. Eventually I took the time to create 4 more mule characters (for a total of 5) and successfully transferred all the crap that was taking up space in the shared stash. I will probably do a post on this aspect of inventory management alone, because I think it is a fairly organized way to do it.
Beat Normal
I finally finished Act 4 and the act's boss. OK, at this point it shouldn't be much of a spoiler if I tell you that the boss is Diablo. After all, the game is called Diablo, right? When you're solo, your follower is disabled before the last battle. He gets trapped in a bone cage. Not fair!
The fight has 3 phases and I died on the second phase. I realized that, due to the nature of the fight, I would have a very hard time completing this on my own. So, once again, I decided to join a group. A Barbarian and I managed to kill Diablo but we both came close to dying. It was the first time for both of us. I have to say, it's a tough fight. I wouldn't have stood a chance if I hadn't donned that Vitality gear, I can tell you that.
In the end, I finished Normal difficulty on my Demon Hunter at level 33 with 21 hours and 50 minutes on this character.
Zones and monsters
After I beat Normal, I couldn't wait to start Nightmare. Man, Nightmare is a lot harder than Normal, I can tell you that! Even at level 33 (which, I believe, is ahead of the curve) it was tough for me. Starting in Nightmare, I grouped up every time. The mobs are vicious, they have tons of HP and there are packs upon packs of rare bosses and champions, now with 2 modifiers. They kick ass so hard that I died a dozen times in the first half of Act 1. I wasn't alone in my predicament. Many of my group mates also died about the same number of times even though they seemed to be better equipped.
I was glad to be back in Act 1. After going through it again with the Demon Hunter and also my lower level characters, especially the Monk, I realized how much I like the design of this act. The zones are very varied and change often. The only repetitive zones are the Cathedral levels but that's ok. I seriously believe that Act 1 is the best act in Diablo 3. It feels leagues ahead of Acts 3 and 4 in terms of diversity and art.
Items and Gold Auction House
In Act 1 Nightmare flawless gems have started to drop. Also, there's been an abundance of Jewelcrafting and Blacksmithing pages of training. Guess what? I sold all of those (a few dozen of them) on the GAH. There's no point in using them right now because the prices are relatively high. I'm gonna sell them now and, if I need to, buy them later for much less. Besides, they sell almost instantly.
When I sell pages of training I look at how much 100 of them cost, not 1, not even 10. Whenever you look at the price of 1 unit (for commodities), you might be fooled into pricing your own items too low. That's why it makes sense to search for 100 pieces or even more.
One final thing about items is that the Skeleton King had some really crappy drops in Nightmare. Just 2 blue items! I guess that was the luck of the draw.
Oh, here's a funny item I found. Department of Redundancy Department? Yep.
Monk
I have started to level my Monk in groups and I am very impressed so far. I'm afraid he might steal the crown from my Demon Hunter. I just love the gameplay. Granted, he inherited a lot of good stuff from the DH, including some kick-ass weapons for his level. In 3-4 man groups he can kick ass on his own, and kick it real hard. But then again, at these low levels, on Normal, monsters aren't very challenging.
Excuse that piss-bucket my Monk is wearing on his head. It makes him look goofy but I'm sure it will be replaced soon. The claws, on the other hand, are wicked.
That's about it for day 4. I'm relieved I finished Normal so that I can now focus on leveling the Demon Hunter exclusively in groups. The monsters are much harder but the loot is also better, not to mention the gold which drops in higher quantities (200 gold stacks anyone?).
Follow the D3 Marathon
Performance metrics
At the end of day 4 my Demon Hunter was level 38. On this day, I had only played 6 hours on the DH, for a total of 26 hours 15 minutes. On the other hand, I did put in some time on my Monk, that I leveled to 15, as well as the Witch Doctor (10) and Wizard (9).
My Demon Hunter's DPS went from 406 to 690.
My gold is now 465K, and that's after buying the remaining space in my first shared stash tab for 20K.
Inventory management
My inventory was becoming a big problem. The shared stash was full and I had to make frequent trips to town on my Demon Hunter to sell stuff. Eventually I took the time to create 4 more mule characters (for a total of 5) and successfully transferred all the crap that was taking up space in the shared stash. I will probably do a post on this aspect of inventory management alone, because I think it is a fairly organized way to do it.
Beat Normal
I finally finished Act 4 and the act's boss. OK, at this point it shouldn't be much of a spoiler if I tell you that the boss is Diablo. After all, the game is called Diablo, right? When you're solo, your follower is disabled before the last battle. He gets trapped in a bone cage. Not fair!
The fight has 3 phases and I died on the second phase. I realized that, due to the nature of the fight, I would have a very hard time completing this on my own. So, once again, I decided to join a group. A Barbarian and I managed to kill Diablo but we both came close to dying. It was the first time for both of us. I have to say, it's a tough fight. I wouldn't have stood a chance if I hadn't donned that Vitality gear, I can tell you that.
In the end, I finished Normal difficulty on my Demon Hunter at level 33 with 21 hours and 50 minutes on this character.
SPOILER
Diablo seems to be a girl. Well, (s)he should be, considering. But it was hard to tell in the heat of battle. Problem is, the voice is male.
Zones and monsters
After I beat Normal, I couldn't wait to start Nightmare. Man, Nightmare is a lot harder than Normal, I can tell you that! Even at level 33 (which, I believe, is ahead of the curve) it was tough for me. Starting in Nightmare, I grouped up every time. The mobs are vicious, they have tons of HP and there are packs upon packs of rare bosses and champions, now with 2 modifiers. They kick ass so hard that I died a dozen times in the first half of Act 1. I wasn't alone in my predicament. Many of my group mates also died about the same number of times even though they seemed to be better equipped.
I was glad to be back in Act 1. After going through it again with the Demon Hunter and also my lower level characters, especially the Monk, I realized how much I like the design of this act. The zones are very varied and change often. The only repetitive zones are the Cathedral levels but that's ok. I seriously believe that Act 1 is the best act in Diablo 3. It feels leagues ahead of Acts 3 and 4 in terms of diversity and art.
Items and Gold Auction House
In Act 1 Nightmare flawless gems have started to drop. Also, there's been an abundance of Jewelcrafting and Blacksmithing pages of training. Guess what? I sold all of those (a few dozen of them) on the GAH. There's no point in using them right now because the prices are relatively high. I'm gonna sell them now and, if I need to, buy them later for much less. Besides, they sell almost instantly.
When I sell pages of training I look at how much 100 of them cost, not 1, not even 10. Whenever you look at the price of 1 unit (for commodities), you might be fooled into pricing your own items too low. That's why it makes sense to search for 100 pieces or even more.
One final thing about items is that the Skeleton King had some really crappy drops in Nightmare. Just 2 blue items! I guess that was the luck of the draw.
Oh, here's a funny item I found. Department of Redundancy Department? Yep.
Monk
I have started to level my Monk in groups and I am very impressed so far. I'm afraid he might steal the crown from my Demon Hunter. I just love the gameplay. Granted, he inherited a lot of good stuff from the DH, including some kick-ass weapons for his level. In 3-4 man groups he can kick ass on his own, and kick it real hard. But then again, at these low levels, on Normal, monsters aren't very challenging.
Excuse that piss-bucket my Monk is wearing on his head. It makes him look goofy but I'm sure it will be replaced soon. The claws, on the other hand, are wicked.
That's about it for day 4. I'm relieved I finished Normal so that I can now focus on leveling the Demon Hunter exclusively in groups. The monsters are much harder but the loot is also better, not to mention the gold which drops in higher quantities (200 gold stacks anyone?).
Follow the D3 Marathon
Friday, May 18, 2012
D3 Marathon - Day 3
It seems that I'm slowing down with each day. If on the previous day I managed 8 hours, on my 3rd day I only pulled 7 hours on my Demon Hunter. In my defense, I spent some time leveling a Monk and Barbarian to 11-12. I had to do that because their inventories were overflowing with items passed down from the DH.
Performance metrics
I have, so far, played my Demon Hunter for 20 hours 40 minutes. He's level 32 in Act 4. I don't know exactly where, but it must be past the middle of the act.
My DPS has increased from 228 to 406 but it's still quite low. Protip: buy the highest quality Ruby you can afford from the AH and socket it in your weapon(s), if they have slots. To give an example, at one point, with a Chipped Ruby which gives +2-4 damage, my DPS was 228. Switching to a Radiant Ruby (for which I paid about 12K on the GAH), which gives +12-24 damage, my DPS jumped to 277. That's a pretty big increase.
At the end of the day I had 265K gold, after buying another 10K worth of shared stash space.
Items and Gold Auction House
Rares are dropping quite often now. In fact, my stashes are overflowing with hand-me-down rares for my other characters. Many of them are useless and I simply vendor them off.
I had the chance to flip some items on the GAH, namely gems. For example, I found some Chipped Rubies posted for 50G, bought them immediately and sold them back for 800G. I also sold all the chipped and flawed gems I had found. It's much better this way because higher quality gems are much cheaper to buy on the GAH than to craft yourself so there's no point in hanging on to low level gems.
I also managed to sell a bunch of weapons/armor on the AH, many of them rare. To keep myself from being frustrated I decided to sell them for very low prices. So if you find decent level 10-20 rares at < 2000 gold, or even < 1000 gold, that might be me. Otherwise they just won't sell. Yeah, call me crazy but it's hard to sell stuff on the AH when everyone and their grandma is doing the same.
In Act 3 flawed gems start dropping and toward the middle/end of this act you will start seeing normal gems.
Story and followers
In Act 4 I decided to switch to the Templar. Survival became a lot harder and the Templar actually managed to save my life a few times with one of his skills which heals you instantly when you are close to dying.
When I was still running with the Scoundrel, I took these screenshots of some of his dialogue. This guy is so hilarious, I can't even describe it.
The story takes a nasty turn with a vicious plot twist, around the end of Act 3. Suffice to say, without spoiling it further, that...
Hmm, that's a mighty fiery Portal to Heaven.
Build and skills
My build at level 32 is almost the same as the day before, with the addition of the Bandolier rune for Spike Trap. This is a very cool rune because you can litter the place with traps, as long as you have sufficient Hatred.
Monsters and bosses
Here are some interesting sights you will encounter in Act 4.
I managed to kill the Act 3 boss (won't tell you who he is though you probably know by now) at level 31, 18 hours and 20 minutes into the game. The fight was one of the most entertaining so far. I didn't die on it but it was challenging. It kept me on my toes, constantly moving and avoiding whatever he threw at me. Actually, Act 3 has a couple more bosses that were very fun to kill.
In comparison, Act 4 is very annoying. I've started to become seriously frustrated with some of the monsters' mechanics. I don't mind enemies with interesting abilities but in Act 4 it seems that Blizzard's favorite monster mechanic is to have them materialize right on top of you and then hit you for 50% of your health, without the least warning. If you get "lucky" and get two of them instead of one, it's instant death.
If you ask me, this is poor design. I don't mind it if monsters are very quick or even if they teleport to you, as long as I can see them coming. But when they can pop up out of nowhere right on top of you and take a massive chunk of your health in an instant, that's not funny. And this is Normal difficulty! Do I really have to start stacking Vitality this early in the game?
Apart from this annoying mechanic, there was one boss that I couldn't tackle on my own. I won't say his name but he's very cool looking. You might have seen him in one of Blizzard's art showcases. He has a shark head and twin blades for arms. Anyway, this was a very frustrating fight. On my first attempt he killed me in 2 hits. This wouldn't be so bad if his main attack wasn't a charge with a hit at the end. So he charges and hits you in a fraction of a second. Traps or slowing debuffs don't work and, as a Demon Hunter, there was no defense against his charge. I did a pathetic attempt at kiting him but he charged me while I was running away and killed me.
On subsequent attempts I got killed in the same way. I decided to join a group for this boss. The first group I joined had already killed him so I just grabbed the quest credit. Later, I joined another group and found myself with a Monk, on the same boss. We managed to kill him together but even then, I came close to dying. So, I don't know, this seemed like another failed encounter design. Note to Blizzard: it isn't funny being 2-shotted without any possibility to defend against it, as a ranged character, on Normal.
Zones
I'm sorry to say this but I am starting to become disappointed in the zones as I progress through the game.
In Diablo 2 the acts got better as you advanced. In my opinion, Act 5 > Act 4 > Act 2 > Act 3 > Act 1.
In Diablo3, Act 1 > Act 2 > Act 3 > Act 4. I am actually finding that I am enjoying Act 1 more than all the other acts! Isn't that weird?
Seriously, Act 3 is very bland. Most of the time is spent around that fortress, on the ramparts or inside endless corridors. The little time spent outdoors is very boring. The scenery is drab and uninspiring. There's nothing to see there and the quests aren't even enticing. It's clear to me that Act 3 was designed to mimic Act 5 from D2, but in D2 Act 5 was really cool to be in. Here, I couldn't wait to finish the act. To be honest, the part inside the volcano wasn't bad, but a lot of it was repetitive.
Unfortunately, Act 4 feels even worse. Endless walkways and marble columns and halls. Granted, I haven't yet finished Act 4 and I have hopes that the scenery will improve, yet I feel a bit let down that the zones, instead of improving as you advance, become more boring.
On day 4 my goal is simply to finish the game on Normal. From there on I can finally start grouping up and perhaps some of the frustrations with certain monsters will end.
Follow the D3 Marathon
Performance metrics
I have, so far, played my Demon Hunter for 20 hours 40 minutes. He's level 32 in Act 4. I don't know exactly where, but it must be past the middle of the act.
My DPS has increased from 228 to 406 but it's still quite low. Protip: buy the highest quality Ruby you can afford from the AH and socket it in your weapon(s), if they have slots. To give an example, at one point, with a Chipped Ruby which gives +2-4 damage, my DPS was 228. Switching to a Radiant Ruby (for which I paid about 12K on the GAH), which gives +12-24 damage, my DPS jumped to 277. That's a pretty big increase.
At the end of the day I had 265K gold, after buying another 10K worth of shared stash space.
Items and Gold Auction House
Rares are dropping quite often now. In fact, my stashes are overflowing with hand-me-down rares for my other characters. Many of them are useless and I simply vendor them off.
I had the chance to flip some items on the GAH, namely gems. For example, I found some Chipped Rubies posted for 50G, bought them immediately and sold them back for 800G. I also sold all the chipped and flawed gems I had found. It's much better this way because higher quality gems are much cheaper to buy on the GAH than to craft yourself so there's no point in hanging on to low level gems.
I also managed to sell a bunch of weapons/armor on the AH, many of them rare. To keep myself from being frustrated I decided to sell them for very low prices. So if you find decent level 10-20 rares at < 2000 gold, or even < 1000 gold, that might be me. Otherwise they just won't sell. Yeah, call me crazy but it's hard to sell stuff on the AH when everyone and their grandma is doing the same.
In Act 3 flawed gems start dropping and toward the middle/end of this act you will start seeing normal gems.
Story and followers
In Act 4 I decided to switch to the Templar. Survival became a lot harder and the Templar actually managed to save my life a few times with one of his skills which heals you instantly when you are close to dying.
When I was still running with the Scoundrel, I took these screenshots of some of his dialogue. This guy is so hilarious, I can't even describe it.
The story takes a nasty turn with a vicious plot twist, around the end of Act 3. Suffice to say, without spoiling it further, that...
Hmm, that's a mighty fiery Portal to Heaven.
Build and skills
My build at level 32 is almost the same as the day before, with the addition of the Bandolier rune for Spike Trap. This is a very cool rune because you can litter the place with traps, as long as you have sufficient Hatred.
Monsters and bosses
Here are some interesting sights you will encounter in Act 4.
I managed to kill the Act 3 boss (won't tell you who he is though you probably know by now) at level 31, 18 hours and 20 minutes into the game. The fight was one of the most entertaining so far. I didn't die on it but it was challenging. It kept me on my toes, constantly moving and avoiding whatever he threw at me. Actually, Act 3 has a couple more bosses that were very fun to kill.
In comparison, Act 4 is very annoying. I've started to become seriously frustrated with some of the monsters' mechanics. I don't mind enemies with interesting abilities but in Act 4 it seems that Blizzard's favorite monster mechanic is to have them materialize right on top of you and then hit you for 50% of your health, without the least warning. If you get "lucky" and get two of them instead of one, it's instant death.
If you ask me, this is poor design. I don't mind it if monsters are very quick or even if they teleport to you, as long as I can see them coming. But when they can pop up out of nowhere right on top of you and take a massive chunk of your health in an instant, that's not funny. And this is Normal difficulty! Do I really have to start stacking Vitality this early in the game?
Apart from this annoying mechanic, there was one boss that I couldn't tackle on my own. I won't say his name but he's very cool looking. You might have seen him in one of Blizzard's art showcases. He has a shark head and twin blades for arms. Anyway, this was a very frustrating fight. On my first attempt he killed me in 2 hits. This wouldn't be so bad if his main attack wasn't a charge with a hit at the end. So he charges and hits you in a fraction of a second. Traps or slowing debuffs don't work and, as a Demon Hunter, there was no defense against his charge. I did a pathetic attempt at kiting him but he charged me while I was running away and killed me.
On subsequent attempts I got killed in the same way. I decided to join a group for this boss. The first group I joined had already killed him so I just grabbed the quest credit. Later, I joined another group and found myself with a Monk, on the same boss. We managed to kill him together but even then, I came close to dying. So, I don't know, this seemed like another failed encounter design. Note to Blizzard: it isn't funny being 2-shotted without any possibility to defend against it, as a ranged character, on Normal.
Zones
I'm sorry to say this but I am starting to become disappointed in the zones as I progress through the game.
In Diablo 2 the acts got better as you advanced. In my opinion, Act 5 > Act 4 > Act 2 > Act 3 > Act 1.
In Diablo3, Act 1 > Act 2 > Act 3 > Act 4. I am actually finding that I am enjoying Act 1 more than all the other acts! Isn't that weird?
Seriously, Act 3 is very bland. Most of the time is spent around that fortress, on the ramparts or inside endless corridors. The little time spent outdoors is very boring. The scenery is drab and uninspiring. There's nothing to see there and the quests aren't even enticing. It's clear to me that Act 3 was designed to mimic Act 5 from D2, but in D2 Act 5 was really cool to be in. Here, I couldn't wait to finish the act. To be honest, the part inside the volcano wasn't bad, but a lot of it was repetitive.
Unfortunately, Act 4 feels even worse. Endless walkways and marble columns and halls. Granted, I haven't yet finished Act 4 and I have hopes that the scenery will improve, yet I feel a bit let down that the zones, instead of improving as you advance, become more boring.
On day 4 my goal is simply to finish the game on Normal. From there on I can finally start grouping up and perhaps some of the frustrations with certain monsters will end.
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Thursday, May 17, 2012
D3 Marathon - Day 2
MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD
(potentially)
This post contains potential spoilers if you haven't yet finished Act 2. I will have a special spoilers section at the bottom of the post. Be warned!
For my second day of playing Diablo 3 (and my first full day), I was a little disappointed to find out that my total play time was only 13 hours 40 minutes. This means that on my first full day I only managed 8 hours. I was hoping for at least 10. It's really weird because I thought I played more than just 8 hours. I guess real life managed to intrude on my play time more than I intended. But that's all right. I feel rested and ready to start the battle anew.
Performance metrics
At the end of these 13 hours 40 minutes, my Demon Hunter is in Act 3, right after the first quest. He's level 26. While yesterday I finished the game with 30K gold, I now have 108K gold.
It's not a huge amount by any stretch of the imagination but most of it is from drops. I didn't do much on the Gold Auction House. I did spend a few thousand on a couple of additional vendor rings and amulets which had some nice stats on them. These are a decent investment because I can pass them on to my other characters. I also grudgingly spent my first 10K enlarging my shared stash because it was a pain in the ass to switch between characters a dozen times to transfer items.
While at the end of the first day my DPS was 70, after the second day it reached 228.64 with Steady Aim, or 190.53 without.
As you can see, I even changed my banner. I regret not taking a screenshot when I was in Act 2 because I liked the background more.
Items
Once you get to Act 2 you will start seeing a lot more rares. I found so many rares that at one point I was just vendoring the crappy ones because they had bad stats on them and putting them on the GAH would have wasted a precious slot. I did save a bunch of them which I'm now wearing (including some sweet Demon Hunter 1H crossbows) and sent many of them to my other characters. Check out this sweet puppy below.
And here's another nice rare pair of gloves. It kinda mixes Strength with Dexterity but it's still pretty good for my Demon Hunter.
Yes, rares are a lot more abundant from Act 2 onward and I've had several occasions where 2-3 of them dropped in close succession from random monsters.
Apart from rares, you can also look forward to socketed items and gems. I already have a nice collection of chipped gems. Protip: don't waste gold combining gems with your Jewelcrafter. Just buy them from the GAH. Much cheaper that way. In fact, check the gem prices for the various qualities and you might find that you can turn a profit by simply selling chipped gems and then buying the desired quality from the AH.
Characters and followers
I won't spoil it for you at this point but there's an old NPC friend that you will meet again in Act 2. Apart from that, I now have access to all the followers, the third being the Enchantress, also encountered in Act 2. I am still enjoying the Scoundrel. He's barrels of laughs. His dialogue is priceless. Check out this little tidbit below.
It might not seem much but the deadpan way in which my Demon Hunter delivered that "No" had me falling off my chair laughing. Suffice to say that the Scoundrel is a womanizer and he hits on every female companion you happen to have in your party (yes, including Leah). I just love the banter between him and my character. For that reason, I don't really want to try the other followers. Oh and he also has a Multishot bow skill that seems to work well.
Sound
I would like to mention the game's sound, which is simply incredible. I'm not a sound man. I normally turn the music off in games so I can concentrate on the action. But this is the first game in which I'm listening to the music intentionally. And the score is amazing! No wonder - Blizzard employed a full orchestra in its creation. I love how it changes from zone to zone, or along with the action. Simply beautiful.
Monsters and gameplay
Maybe I'm growing old but I don't remember Diablo 2 being so hard on Normal. I died on the final boss in Act 1 and also a bunch of times in Act 2 from random groups of mobs. To those who were afraid that the game would be too easy, rest assured that it isn't. Gear does make a lot of difference but luckily the next upgrade is right around the corner. Yet, skill is very important here and if you concentrate solely on offensive skills you will end up hurting.
The monsters after the Skeleton King and especially in Act 2 are tougher and they use new skills and tactics. There are some very nasty ones which jump right on top of you or burrow under the earth to pop up beneath you or are very quick moving. I've encountered boss groups with some nasty attributes such as Waller or Jailer which can hurt you badly if you are not careful. Luckily, the Demon Hunter has a few tricks up his sleeve.
Build and skills
This is my level 26 Demon Hunter build as of right now. I'm pretty comfortable with this setup. Here's a breakdown of the skills.
Active Skills
Bola Shot runed with Volatile Explosives - I switched back to Bola Shot and I like it a lot. With twin 1H crossbows it fires very quickly. I've noticed that you can hit a monster with this several times in succession and each hit will explode individually, not just the first one that lands. Fired rapidly into a group of monsters will decimate them in a couple of seconds. The rune increases the explosion's radius. Bola Shot is also decent for kiting.Elemental Arrow runed with Ball Lightning - This is my main Hatred dump. The rune makes this skill very interesting. It shoots a blue ball of lightning that moves slowly in the firing direction and zaps each monster it passes. It's another great skill for kiting, or lobbing into a group of monsters because you don't need to aim it specifically at a monster. Just fire it in the general direction and let it do its thing.
Caltrops runed with Hooked Spines - Caltrops is invaluable for survival, especially with some of the fast monsters encountered later in the game. The rune is vital because it slows them down even more. I don't think I'd be able to play without this skill.
Vault runed with Rattling Roll - Vault is another skill which I find invaluable for the Demon Hunter. It has saved my skin a billion times already and I don't know what I'd do without it. It has also almost got me killed a few times and that's because occasionally I press the wrong key and find myself Vaulting inside a group of monsters instead of placing a trap in their midst. For that reason I have chosen this particular rune which stuns and knocks back the monsters at my destination. Now, when I have another of these oops moments, I won't be pummeled to death. The rune gives me just enough time to correct my mistake and Vault back out of danger.
Spike Trap - Spike Trap has rapidly become one my my favorite skills. It's simply amazing. The damage it does is very high and very often it annihilates entire groups of monsters. I like to place it inside groups of monsters at the edges of the screen, before I am detected, for example. One of my favorite tactics in Act 2 is to place 2-3 of these traps right under me. There are some nasty monsters that teleport right on top of you and hit you hard which is very painful if you are a ranged class. But now I can stand on top of a couple of traps and when these assholes teleport, they teleport right on top of my traps and are instantly killed. Apart from this, Spike Trap is obviously very useful for kiting.
Multishot runed with Fire at Will - Multishot is a very nice multi-target nuke. Very often it will clear a screen-full of monsters in one shot, or perhaps 2 if they have a lot of health. The only downside is that it uses a lot of Hatred so you have to use it sparingly. However, the rune halves its cost, which makes it twice as good.
Passive Skills
Tactical Advantage - For me this passive makes a lot of sense. I Vault a lot so the increased speed is a great advantage, both for moving quickly and for escaping a dire situation.Steady Aim - 20% increased damage when there are no monsters within 10 yards? Bring it on! For a ranged character this passive makes a lot of sense. Most of the time this condition will be met so you can count on the 20% extra damage buff to be up more often than not. I just wish there was a sort of buff icon that indicated when the skill was active.
SPOILER SECTION
Don't read beyond this point if you don't like spoilers.
I mentioned that I died on the Act 1 boss. As expected, the boss was The Butcher. Look at his ugly mug.
This is a fight which keeps you on your toes. You need to be constantly on the move, first to escape the burning sections of floor, and second, as a ranged character, to stay out of range of his grappling hook. Luckily there are the two healing wells that you can use to heal yourself if needed. In the end, this isn't such a tough fight. I hadn't read any tactics beforehand so I didn't know what to expect.
Now, if you listen to Cain's dialogue (I believe from one of the books you find around that section of the game) you will realize that this is not the same Butcher from Diablo 1. Instead, the Butchers are a class of demon. So there are potentially lots of them running around.
The other thing that was revealed was... drumroll...
Tyrael is a black guy! That was certainly unexpected, but very cool nonetheless. OK, did anyone suspect this before? He reminds me strongly of Laurence Fishburne for some reason.
BTW, I really like his story so far. Fallen angel and all, very cool.
The final thing, the Act 2 boss, Belial (as if you didn't know!) was a bit of a letdown. I tackled him at level 25. The fight itself was challenging but I killed him without dying myself. What I disliked was fighting in that cramped setting. For a ranged character who needs to be mobile, it was very frustrating. I couldn't use Vault to best effect and there wasn't a lot of space to escape to. Belial himself is practically stationary. I don't know, but I am sure they could have designed this encounter better. In the end he dropped 3 rares and a couple of gems.
So that's it for the second day folks. I hope you enjoyed this post. Stay tuned for day 3!
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Sunday, April 22, 2012
More open beta auction house adventures
The open beta this weekend has been both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because a lot more people have had the chance to play the game. A curse because the servers are very erratic and the Auction Houses (both Gold and Real Money) are more often offline than functioning.
Yesterday I talked about how the previous evening I managed to more than triple my Beta Bucks in about 10 minutes. All that action happened on the Real Money Auction House.
Yesterday and today I switched my attention to the Gold Auction House (GAH).
One strategy that worked really well is that I kept an eye out for some special rings sold by one of the vendors in the game, namely Radek the Fence on the north side. The best rings in the game are the ones with 2-4 damage and an additional stat. For me, personally, the additional stat that works best with all classes is 5% increased attack speed (IAS). However, other people prefer attributes that are beneficial to their own class.
I bought 4 rings with +5 Strength in addition to 2-4 damage, as well as 6 rings with 5% IAS in addition to 2-4 damage. Honestly I was expecting the IAS rings to sell better but I was wrong. One of them did sell quickly but the biggest (and quickest) sellers were the +5 Str rings. I assume that Barbarians were very popular this weekend.
I spent 2084G x 4 = 8,336G for all 4 rings. I sold them for a total of 31,122 (varying amounts each) but essentially under 10K gold. I decided not to be greedy because it seems most people try to sell stuff for insane amounts of gold (tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands). I turned a very nice profit of 22K gold.
Even the 5% IAS rings aren't a complete loss at this point. I sold a single ring but that one already made up for more than half the cost of all 6 rings. If I sell the other 5 at a loss I will still turn a profit, overall.
Rings are not the only thing I traded. I also sold a bunch of hand crossbows that the same vendor sells. Since vendor items are generated randomly, sometimes these crossbows can have very good DPS rolls on them, occasionally over 19 DPS. These are probably the highest DPS 1-handed weapons in the beta. No wonder they are very prized. Myself, I have a couple of 18.3DPS hand crossbows on my Demon Hunter. So whenever I found 17+DPS crossbows on the vendor, I bought a few on them and flipped them for a higher price on the GAH.
Finally, crafted shoulders also sold for a nice profit but again, shoulders don't drop from monsters in the game, so the only way to obtain them is via crafting.
When trading on the Auction House I try, as always, not to flood it. I will post 1 or 2 of the same item but not more. I've already noticed that there are hundreds of hand crossbows for sale so probably others have also figured the crossbow thing out.
I might have sold a lot more had the Auction House been stable. Alas, it was mostly down for me so I couldn't even check on my auction, much less post items.
While these are good Auction House strategies for the beta, I'm skeptical that they will continue to work in the full game, at low levels. That's because people will outgrow the early levels very quickly and items which seem powerful now will be underpowered in a few short levels. For now, I'm just enjoying these little ways of making some extra gold in the beta.
Yesterday I talked about how the previous evening I managed to more than triple my Beta Bucks in about 10 minutes. All that action happened on the Real Money Auction House.
Yesterday and today I switched my attention to the Gold Auction House (GAH).
One strategy that worked really well is that I kept an eye out for some special rings sold by one of the vendors in the game, namely Radek the Fence on the north side. The best rings in the game are the ones with 2-4 damage and an additional stat. For me, personally, the additional stat that works best with all classes is 5% increased attack speed (IAS). However, other people prefer attributes that are beneficial to their own class.
I bought 4 rings with +5 Strength in addition to 2-4 damage, as well as 6 rings with 5% IAS in addition to 2-4 damage. Honestly I was expecting the IAS rings to sell better but I was wrong. One of them did sell quickly but the biggest (and quickest) sellers were the +5 Str rings. I assume that Barbarians were very popular this weekend.
I spent 2084G x 4 = 8,336G for all 4 rings. I sold them for a total of 31,122 (varying amounts each) but essentially under 10K gold. I decided not to be greedy because it seems most people try to sell stuff for insane amounts of gold (tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands). I turned a very nice profit of 22K gold.
Even the 5% IAS rings aren't a complete loss at this point. I sold a single ring but that one already made up for more than half the cost of all 6 rings. If I sell the other 5 at a loss I will still turn a profit, overall.
Rings are not the only thing I traded. I also sold a bunch of hand crossbows that the same vendor sells. Since vendor items are generated randomly, sometimes these crossbows can have very good DPS rolls on them, occasionally over 19 DPS. These are probably the highest DPS 1-handed weapons in the beta. No wonder they are very prized. Myself, I have a couple of 18.3DPS hand crossbows on my Demon Hunter. So whenever I found 17+DPS crossbows on the vendor, I bought a few on them and flipped them for a higher price on the GAH.
Finally, crafted shoulders also sold for a nice profit but again, shoulders don't drop from monsters in the game, so the only way to obtain them is via crafting.
When trading on the Auction House I try, as always, not to flood it. I will post 1 or 2 of the same item but not more. I've already noticed that there are hundreds of hand crossbows for sale so probably others have also figured the crossbow thing out.
I might have sold a lot more had the Auction House been stable. Alas, it was mostly down for me so I couldn't even check on my auction, much less post items.
While these are good Auction House strategies for the beta, I'm skeptical that they will continue to work in the full game, at low levels. That's because people will outgrow the early levels very quickly and items which seem powerful now will be underpowered in a few short levels. For now, I'm just enjoying these little ways of making some extra gold in the beta.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
My beta auction house strategy
After playing with the Auction House in the beta for a couple of weeks, I have developed somewhat of a tentative strategy for making both gold and money, or rather Beta Bucks (BB). I will admit, I'm a little bit disappointed at this stage but I realize that the full game will be much different from the beta.
For one thing, the Auction House itself (whether gold or real money) is filled with bugs and errors, not to mention the fact that the interface is a complete mess. I am confident that Blizzard will clean this up by launch. After all, the Real Money Auction House is going to be their main revenue generator. They better not mess this up.
One of the biggest problems with the beta interface is that it's very hard to find items. Other bloggers have already mentioned this but it bears repeating: you are presented with a series of dropdowns which are supposed to "assist" you in finding items appropriate for your characters but this only serves to muddle things up. The most basic of elements, the free text search box, is missing. Until they implement that I'm afraid people will have a hard time finding the stuff they need.
A free text search box is the most basic of search tools. Only after that should dropdowns, checkboxes and other filters be added. I would be very happy to have something very similar to the WoW AH, with some refinements.
Another big problem with the beta AH is that results, although sorted by DPS, are still not sorted properly. Furthermore, when sorting by one of the headers, the list of results gets messed up.
But enough about the AH issues. I'm here to tell you how I made a bunch of fake money, aka Beta Bucks, BB or Bobby Bucks. It's not a large amount and I'm sure others have made a lot more than this. In my defense, I didn't set up to make tons of money. I mostly had fun killing monsters, with a little AH experimenting in between. Here's what I discovered.
Crating is useless
I am aware that some bloggers are apparently making lots of gold by selling crafted items. I tried that and it didn't work. Most of the time the attributes on crafted items are just not good enough, so I always end up salvaging the freshly-crafted item.
My opinion is that there's no point in wasting time crafting stuff in the beta. I'm sure the situation in the full game will be completely different but right now there are easier (and less time-consuming) ways to make a little money.
The Gold AH (GAH)
I'm sorry to say this but blue items are very poor sellers. I don't understand how people manage (or do they?) to sell blues for thousands of gold. Yeah, I get that some of these items have rare combinations of attributes on them but in the beta there simply isn't enough variation for these items to prove truly valuable. And besides, even with crappy gear monsters are still very easy.
I haven't tried selling any rare items on the GAH because I couldn't spare any.
What did sell on the GAH is Subtle Essences. I sold every single Essence I had. Instead of trying (and failing) to sell blues, I simply disenchanted each and every one of them and sold the Essences for gold.
The Real Money AH (RMAH)
It seems that no one will buy blue items on the RMAH. It's understandable. I didn't try selling any rares but I've noticed that people will bid on them if the starting bid is low. I have bid on a couple of them myself.
Crafting materials, likewise, do not sell so don't bother.
What does sell, of course, is gold. If you check the price for 1000 gold and then price your own gold at or below that price (don't go down more than 1 cent), it will sell. Using this method I sold tens of thousands of gold. On a couple of occasions I couldn't post the gold fast enough, as it was snatched immediately.
One other thing that worked was that I kept an eye out for under-priced gold and bought all of it. Several times I found gold at 3BB/1000 gold and once I found several stacks of 1000 gold for only 1BB. Later on I sold that at over 6BB.
That's about it. In summary:
- farm gold while having fun killing monsters (wear +Gold gear)
- salvage all blue items
- sell Subtle Essences on the GAH
- sell rares on the RMAH but set a low starting bid
- sell gold on the RMAH
- buy under-priced gold and sell it for its normal price on the RMAH
Using this strategy I made somewhere north of 500BB, perhaps 700 or so. I could have made a lot more had I farmed more, but I didn't. I also bought a couple of rare items that were decently priced, so that ate into my balance.
In the retail game I won't bother with crafting, at least not until I reach level 60 on my main character and not until gold and mat prices stabilize.
One quirky thing that I noticed in the beta is that apparently there's a 500BB limit. I might have read something to that effect but I don't remember if, when and where. Take a look at the screenshot below.
Notice the total at the top. It says 498.64. The proceeds from the sales highlighted with red simply disappeared. They never went into my balance. I assume that's because of the 500BB limit. All those sales that I highlighted would have pushed my balance over 500. For that reason, the game simply swallowed the proceeds and I never saw them reflected in my balance.
The sale at the top, for only 4BB was intentionally under-priced, so I could test if the system was actually eating my money. The 4BB went, indeed, into my balance and that's how I ended at 498.64.
The 500BB limit is the only explanation I can find for this situation. That, or there's a serious bug in the system. Has anyone else met with the same problem? How, then, are people expecting to sell items for more than 500BB or even thousands of BB?
This has to be fixed in the retail game. I mean, seriously. Just imagine: you already have $400+ in your balance and you hit the jackpot. Some random monster drops this super-duper-uber item that you manage to sell for $1000. But the game eats the difference between the selling price and the amount required to fill the gap to $500. Ouch!
This is not, I repeat, NOT, by any means the be-all end-all of money making strategies in Diablo 3. It's just a small experiment I made, to see if I can get comfortable with a particular strategy. While it isn't very ambitions, this strategy at least allows me to spend a minimum amount of time on the AH and instead spend most of it playing, not messing around with crafting or playing the market. Anyway, thoughts and ideas are much appreciated.
For one thing, the Auction House itself (whether gold or real money) is filled with bugs and errors, not to mention the fact that the interface is a complete mess. I am confident that Blizzard will clean this up by launch. After all, the Real Money Auction House is going to be their main revenue generator. They better not mess this up.
One of the biggest problems with the beta interface is that it's very hard to find items. Other bloggers have already mentioned this but it bears repeating: you are presented with a series of dropdowns which are supposed to "assist" you in finding items appropriate for your characters but this only serves to muddle things up. The most basic of elements, the free text search box, is missing. Until they implement that I'm afraid people will have a hard time finding the stuff they need.
A free text search box is the most basic of search tools. Only after that should dropdowns, checkboxes and other filters be added. I would be very happy to have something very similar to the WoW AH, with some refinements.
Another big problem with the beta AH is that results, although sorted by DPS, are still not sorted properly. Furthermore, when sorting by one of the headers, the list of results gets messed up.
But enough about the AH issues. I'm here to tell you how I made a bunch of fake money, aka Beta Bucks, BB or Bobby Bucks. It's not a large amount and I'm sure others have made a lot more than this. In my defense, I didn't set up to make tons of money. I mostly had fun killing monsters, with a little AH experimenting in between. Here's what I discovered.
Crating is useless
I am aware that some bloggers are apparently making lots of gold by selling crafted items. I tried that and it didn't work. Most of the time the attributes on crafted items are just not good enough, so I always end up salvaging the freshly-crafted item.
My opinion is that there's no point in wasting time crafting stuff in the beta. I'm sure the situation in the full game will be completely different but right now there are easier (and less time-consuming) ways to make a little money.
The Gold AH (GAH)
I'm sorry to say this but blue items are very poor sellers. I don't understand how people manage (or do they?) to sell blues for thousands of gold. Yeah, I get that some of these items have rare combinations of attributes on them but in the beta there simply isn't enough variation for these items to prove truly valuable. And besides, even with crappy gear monsters are still very easy.
I haven't tried selling any rare items on the GAH because I couldn't spare any.
What did sell on the GAH is Subtle Essences. I sold every single Essence I had. Instead of trying (and failing) to sell blues, I simply disenchanted each and every one of them and sold the Essences for gold.
The Real Money AH (RMAH)
It seems that no one will buy blue items on the RMAH. It's understandable. I didn't try selling any rares but I've noticed that people will bid on them if the starting bid is low. I have bid on a couple of them myself.
Crafting materials, likewise, do not sell so don't bother.
What does sell, of course, is gold. If you check the price for 1000 gold and then price your own gold at or below that price (don't go down more than 1 cent), it will sell. Using this method I sold tens of thousands of gold. On a couple of occasions I couldn't post the gold fast enough, as it was snatched immediately.
One other thing that worked was that I kept an eye out for under-priced gold and bought all of it. Several times I found gold at 3BB/1000 gold and once I found several stacks of 1000 gold for only 1BB. Later on I sold that at over 6BB.
That's about it. In summary:
- farm gold while having fun killing monsters (wear +Gold gear)
- salvage all blue items
- sell Subtle Essences on the GAH
- sell rares on the RMAH but set a low starting bid
- sell gold on the RMAH
- buy under-priced gold and sell it for its normal price on the RMAH
Using this strategy I made somewhere north of 500BB, perhaps 700 or so. I could have made a lot more had I farmed more, but I didn't. I also bought a couple of rare items that were decently priced, so that ate into my balance.
In the retail game I won't bother with crafting, at least not until I reach level 60 on my main character and not until gold and mat prices stabilize.
One quirky thing that I noticed in the beta is that apparently there's a 500BB limit. I might have read something to that effect but I don't remember if, when and where. Take a look at the screenshot below.
Notice the total at the top. It says 498.64. The proceeds from the sales highlighted with red simply disappeared. They never went into my balance. I assume that's because of the 500BB limit. All those sales that I highlighted would have pushed my balance over 500. For that reason, the game simply swallowed the proceeds and I never saw them reflected in my balance.
The sale at the top, for only 4BB was intentionally under-priced, so I could test if the system was actually eating my money. The 4BB went, indeed, into my balance and that's how I ended at 498.64.
The 500BB limit is the only explanation I can find for this situation. That, or there's a serious bug in the system. Has anyone else met with the same problem? How, then, are people expecting to sell items for more than 500BB or even thousands of BB?
This has to be fixed in the retail game. I mean, seriously. Just imagine: you already have $400+ in your balance and you hit the jackpot. Some random monster drops this super-duper-uber item that you manage to sell for $1000. But the game eats the difference between the selling price and the amount required to fill the gap to $500. Ouch!
This is not, I repeat, NOT, by any means the be-all end-all of money making strategies in Diablo 3. It's just a small experiment I made, to see if I can get comfortable with a particular strategy. While it isn't very ambitions, this strategy at least allows me to spend a minimum amount of time on the AH and instead spend most of it playing, not messing around with crafting or playing the market. Anyway, thoughts and ideas are much appreciated.
Monday, March 26, 2012
PvP will be good for business
A few days ago I was talking about Diablo 3's PvP controversy and my conclusion was that I don't care about PvP at all and wouldn't give a hoot if it wasn't included in the game, yet I wouldn't mind it as long as it didn't affect PvE due to balancing.
Now that I'm actually playing the beta, I've had a greater opportunity to see things in perspective. Part of the pleasure of playing Diablo 3 will be the Real Money-making aspect. Hey, why not make a quick buck while enjoying your favorite game, right? Nothing wrong with that.
Until now I was looking only at the PvE aspect of the game. I figured that people will buy better gear so that they can equip their characters in order to perform better in PvE. Because, after all, the Diablo series is built around the PvE aspect.
But then I realized that, in fact, there will be plenty of people for which Diablo 3 will be the next e-sport. For these people, PvE is just a stepping stone to the real meat of the game: Player versus Player combat. Maybe some of them will enjoy leveling their characters but I'm sure many more will see this as an annoying phase that must be done with as soon as possible.
What happens when these people reach level 60 and want to jump right into PvP arenas? If they don't spend significant time farming Hell and Inferno to gather powerful equipment, they'll get thrashed immediately. So a lot of them will be eager to spend their hard-earned dollars on the RMAH. From what I understand, e-sport fanatics tend to spend a lot of money on the stuff they like. I'm betting that Diablo 3 will be no exception.
This has made me change my stance a bit. I still don't care to participate in PvP but I welcome it wholeheartedly now. I'm also fairly certain that in a couple of months after the game is released, when the PvP patch is implemented, there will be a flurry of activity on the RMAH. Keep an eye out for that. I know I will.
Now that I'm actually playing the beta, I've had a greater opportunity to see things in perspective. Part of the pleasure of playing Diablo 3 will be the Real Money-making aspect. Hey, why not make a quick buck while enjoying your favorite game, right? Nothing wrong with that.
Until now I was looking only at the PvE aspect of the game. I figured that people will buy better gear so that they can equip their characters in order to perform better in PvE. Because, after all, the Diablo series is built around the PvE aspect.
But then I realized that, in fact, there will be plenty of people for which Diablo 3 will be the next e-sport. For these people, PvE is just a stepping stone to the real meat of the game: Player versus Player combat. Maybe some of them will enjoy leveling their characters but I'm sure many more will see this as an annoying phase that must be done with as soon as possible.
What happens when these people reach level 60 and want to jump right into PvP arenas? If they don't spend significant time farming Hell and Inferno to gather powerful equipment, they'll get thrashed immediately. So a lot of them will be eager to spend their hard-earned dollars on the RMAH. From what I understand, e-sport fanatics tend to spend a lot of money on the stuff they like. I'm betting that Diablo 3 will be no exception.
This has made me change my stance a bit. I still don't care to participate in PvP but I welcome it wholeheartedly now. I'm also fairly certain that in a couple of months after the game is released, when the PvP patch is implemented, there will be a flurry of activity on the RMAH. Keep an eye out for that. I know I will.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
About cheating, RMAH and gold find
I just read three articles from different Diablo blogs in quick succession and they raise some very interesting issues. I have decided to respond to each of them in one large post of my own.
Cheating in Diablo 3
Meldora brings up the controversial topic of cheating. Will it be possible to cheat in Diablo 3? Meldora makes some very good points in the article. You should really check it out.
My opinion is that, generally, it is very hard to cheat in server-side games like WoW and Diablo 3. The reason for this is that the important calculations take place on the server, which only tells the client what to do. In other words, the server is the one that feeds the client (the player's computer) with information.
This is how I imagine things work. When you kill a monster, the client sends a message to the server: "player hits monster", along with the player's coordinates. The monsters are generated on the server side so their coordinates are already known. When a monster moves, coordinates are sent to the client which updates the graphics based on that.
Next, the server looks at the player's coordinates, pulls up the character's and monster's stats, calculates if there's a hit, whether it is a killing blow, and so on. In the case of a killing blow, the server sends the message to the client: "monster dead", along with a list of items that drop. The client draws the death animation and displays the items. This system can't be fooled easily because the loot was determined on the server and it was also stored on it. The server merely sent a list of item names (with their stats), and not the item itself, to the client.
This is an overly simplified and likely flawed description of how the server-client architecture works in MMOs such as these. However, the point is that the client has no means of duping items simply because the client doesn't have the capability to generate items. It can only read what the server feeds it.
In Diablo 2 the situation was different. Diablo 2 was a standalone single-player game, with an online multiplayer component. The client definitely had the ability to generate items and perform calculations, and there's no disputing that. For that reason, people were able to manipulate certain flaws in the system such that they could dupe items locally and then transfer them to other players they met online.
So my thought is that it will be practically impossible to dupe items in Diablo 3. Some beta testers have reported being able to dupe items by mistake but it seems that it was an issue with the Auction House, meaning that the duping most likely occurred on the server side, something that can be instantly corrected by Blizzard.
However, there might be other forms of cheating that players can engage in. Meldora mentions one of the most notorious: teleport hacks. These hacks also happen in WoW and other MMOs and the reason they are possible is because they are done by manipulating the player coordinates which are generated by the client. In essence, this allows the character to "teleport" or instantly move to any location on the map
I'm sure Blizzard is taking steps to combat this but short of strongly encrypting the client, I don't see how they could do it. Someone is bound to find a way to exploit this. Now, while in WoW teleport hacks were useful for the quick farming of resource nodes, I'm not sure what use they'll be in Diablo 3, since the point of the game is to kill monsters and not to run as fast as possible through the content.
Finally, there's the issue of botting. Botting in online games has always been controversial. It allows a player to program a character to automatically go through a series of complex, pre-programmed motions, killing monsters, farming nodes, fishing and so on, over and over again. I believe botting is unethical because it allows someone to make large sums of virtual currency while they are away from their computer.
Botting can be very detrimental to Diablo 3, when we consider the Real Money Auction House. This would, potentially, allow unscrupulous individuals to essentially create money out of thin air. I really, really hope that Blizzard will make botting impossible, though I fail to see how. They haven't succeeded so far in WoW and there's nothing to suggest they have a secret weapon against it.
So there you have it: some of the ways in which people could cheat in Diablo 3. Make no mistake, Blizzard will take cheating very seriously, much more than they did in WoW, because when there's real money at stake, there must be no way to tamper with that, otherwise we'd all be able to dupe the money in our bank accounts.
Will You Spend Any Money on the RMAH?
The second article is written by Oligopoly where he discusses whether players will spend real money on the RMAH or not.
Essentially players fall in two groups: those who plan to profit off of the RMAH and those who are eager to spend tons of cash to equip their characters.
From what I've heard, there are still players of Diablo 2 who spend hundreds of dollars for virtual items. That's crazy man! But that's just my opinion, one that is not widely shared. It's their money and who am I to tell them how to spend it?
I find myself on the other side of the fence, the side that wants to profit from this. My goal is to have lots of fun and also make some pocket change on the side. I don't think I'll be sweating it too hard but if the opportunity arises, I won't hesitate to make a buck on the RMAH.
Will I buy items from the RMAH? Most certainly not. I'm a thrifty person in real life and this is one area where I won't be spending my hard-earned money (of which there isn't a lot to start with). On the other hand, if I can see a good deal and I know for sure that I'll be able to turn around and sell it back for a profit, I will do it. But I won't load money into my account for that purpose. Anything I will accrue will be through sales of my own stuff.
Will there be more sellers than buyers? That's a very interesting question and it will become clearer in the months which follow the release.
How to Get +2,324% Gold Find
The final article, and one of the most fascinating, is again by Meldora. In it, he (she?) corrects the previously estimated figure of 541% maximum Gold Find that a character can potentially equip, to an even more astounding figure of 2,324%!
Wow, I was truly speechless when I read that. Now, of course, some assumptions are made, and chief among them is that the numbers that were data-mined from the beta are accurate and will scale accordingly to higher difficulties.
Somehow, even though this number looks very juicy, I doubt that Blizzard will allow that. There must be something wrong with those numbers. Either they are not final or Blizzard is toying with us.
Just imagine what you could do with +2300% GF! You wouldn't even have to farm Inferno or Hell. That's because you would be gimped to such an extent by wearing only GF gear that you wouldn't be able to survive those higher difficulties.
Instead, how about going back all the way to Act 1 in Normal? Gold drops in the beta, currently, can reach 90G. with +2300% GF that would balloon to over 2100 gold per drop! That's insane! Now, imagine if you increased the difficulty to Nightmare. You'd end up getting thousands of gold per drop.
Is this scenario realistic? Depends. Perhaps gold costs at max level and Inferno are astronomical. Maybe gold really is needed in huge quantities at these difficulties. Maybe a death will cost 1 million gold in repairs. But I tend to doubt that. Dealing in huge amounts of currency is never a good thing. It's better to keep gold relatively scarce instead of having to deal in billions of gold.
My take on this is that something must be wrong with those numbers. It's not the data-miners' or the theorycrafters' fault. It's simply something that, at this point, hasn't been made entirely clear and isn't even in finished stage. Perhaps that amount is indeed possible, in theory. What if, in practice, it will be virtually impossible to acquire the perfect combination of items that will make it possible? We shall find out. And it will be an exciting journey of discovery.
Cheating in Diablo 3
Meldora brings up the controversial topic of cheating. Will it be possible to cheat in Diablo 3? Meldora makes some very good points in the article. You should really check it out.
My opinion is that, generally, it is very hard to cheat in server-side games like WoW and Diablo 3. The reason for this is that the important calculations take place on the server, which only tells the client what to do. In other words, the server is the one that feeds the client (the player's computer) with information.
This is how I imagine things work. When you kill a monster, the client sends a message to the server: "player hits monster", along with the player's coordinates. The monsters are generated on the server side so their coordinates are already known. When a monster moves, coordinates are sent to the client which updates the graphics based on that.
Next, the server looks at the player's coordinates, pulls up the character's and monster's stats, calculates if there's a hit, whether it is a killing blow, and so on. In the case of a killing blow, the server sends the message to the client: "monster dead", along with a list of items that drop. The client draws the death animation and displays the items. This system can't be fooled easily because the loot was determined on the server and it was also stored on it. The server merely sent a list of item names (with their stats), and not the item itself, to the client.
This is an overly simplified and likely flawed description of how the server-client architecture works in MMOs such as these. However, the point is that the client has no means of duping items simply because the client doesn't have the capability to generate items. It can only read what the server feeds it.
In Diablo 2 the situation was different. Diablo 2 was a standalone single-player game, with an online multiplayer component. The client definitely had the ability to generate items and perform calculations, and there's no disputing that. For that reason, people were able to manipulate certain flaws in the system such that they could dupe items locally and then transfer them to other players they met online.
So my thought is that it will be practically impossible to dupe items in Diablo 3. Some beta testers have reported being able to dupe items by mistake but it seems that it was an issue with the Auction House, meaning that the duping most likely occurred on the server side, something that can be instantly corrected by Blizzard.
However, there might be other forms of cheating that players can engage in. Meldora mentions one of the most notorious: teleport hacks. These hacks also happen in WoW and other MMOs and the reason they are possible is because they are done by manipulating the player coordinates which are generated by the client. In essence, this allows the character to "teleport" or instantly move to any location on the map
I'm sure Blizzard is taking steps to combat this but short of strongly encrypting the client, I don't see how they could do it. Someone is bound to find a way to exploit this. Now, while in WoW teleport hacks were useful for the quick farming of resource nodes, I'm not sure what use they'll be in Diablo 3, since the point of the game is to kill monsters and not to run as fast as possible through the content.
Finally, there's the issue of botting. Botting in online games has always been controversial. It allows a player to program a character to automatically go through a series of complex, pre-programmed motions, killing monsters, farming nodes, fishing and so on, over and over again. I believe botting is unethical because it allows someone to make large sums of virtual currency while they are away from their computer.
Botting can be very detrimental to Diablo 3, when we consider the Real Money Auction House. This would, potentially, allow unscrupulous individuals to essentially create money out of thin air. I really, really hope that Blizzard will make botting impossible, though I fail to see how. They haven't succeeded so far in WoW and there's nothing to suggest they have a secret weapon against it.
So there you have it: some of the ways in which people could cheat in Diablo 3. Make no mistake, Blizzard will take cheating very seriously, much more than they did in WoW, because when there's real money at stake, there must be no way to tamper with that, otherwise we'd all be able to dupe the money in our bank accounts.
Will You Spend Any Money on the RMAH?
The second article is written by Oligopoly where he discusses whether players will spend real money on the RMAH or not.
Essentially players fall in two groups: those who plan to profit off of the RMAH and those who are eager to spend tons of cash to equip their characters.
From what I've heard, there are still players of Diablo 2 who spend hundreds of dollars for virtual items. That's crazy man! But that's just my opinion, one that is not widely shared. It's their money and who am I to tell them how to spend it?
I find myself on the other side of the fence, the side that wants to profit from this. My goal is to have lots of fun and also make some pocket change on the side. I don't think I'll be sweating it too hard but if the opportunity arises, I won't hesitate to make a buck on the RMAH.
Will I buy items from the RMAH? Most certainly not. I'm a thrifty person in real life and this is one area where I won't be spending my hard-earned money (of which there isn't a lot to start with). On the other hand, if I can see a good deal and I know for sure that I'll be able to turn around and sell it back for a profit, I will do it. But I won't load money into my account for that purpose. Anything I will accrue will be through sales of my own stuff.
Will there be more sellers than buyers? That's a very interesting question and it will become clearer in the months which follow the release.
How to Get +2,324% Gold Find
The final article, and one of the most fascinating, is again by Meldora. In it, he (she?) corrects the previously estimated figure of 541% maximum Gold Find that a character can potentially equip, to an even more astounding figure of 2,324%!
Wow, I was truly speechless when I read that. Now, of course, some assumptions are made, and chief among them is that the numbers that were data-mined from the beta are accurate and will scale accordingly to higher difficulties.
Somehow, even though this number looks very juicy, I doubt that Blizzard will allow that. There must be something wrong with those numbers. Either they are not final or Blizzard is toying with us.
Just imagine what you could do with +2300% GF! You wouldn't even have to farm Inferno or Hell. That's because you would be gimped to such an extent by wearing only GF gear that you wouldn't be able to survive those higher difficulties.
Instead, how about going back all the way to Act 1 in Normal? Gold drops in the beta, currently, can reach 90G. with +2300% GF that would balloon to over 2100 gold per drop! That's insane! Now, imagine if you increased the difficulty to Nightmare. You'd end up getting thousands of gold per drop.
Is this scenario realistic? Depends. Perhaps gold costs at max level and Inferno are astronomical. Maybe gold really is needed in huge quantities at these difficulties. Maybe a death will cost 1 million gold in repairs. But I tend to doubt that. Dealing in huge amounts of currency is never a good thing. It's better to keep gold relatively scarce instead of having to deal in billions of gold.
My take on this is that something must be wrong with those numbers. It's not the data-miners' or the theorycrafters' fault. It's simply something that, at this point, hasn't been made entirely clear and isn't even in finished stage. Perhaps that amount is indeed possible, in theory. What if, in practice, it will be virtually impossible to acquire the perfect combination of items that will make it possible? We shall find out. And it will be an exciting journey of discovery.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Hyperinflation in D3?
Watching the gameplay videos coming out of the beta, especially recent ones, lead me to ask myself if inflation, or even hyperinflation, might be a problem in Diablo 3.
A few patches ago there was a time when gold was fairly scarce and people were afraid that it would become very valuable due to the short supply.
There are still a lot of gold sinks, what with artisan training, repair costs and buying items and mats from the auction house. Yet, the last patch has made me wonder.
As you might know, gold drops have been altered in patch 14 and stack sizes have a much larger range. I've seen countless instances of 60-90 gold drops in the new areas that were discovered by beta testers. Those areas are barely more advanced than what's currently in the beta. This means that at a very low level players are already finding tens of gold in a single drop.
Contrast this to Diablo 2. If you remember, gold drops were rather small even at high levels. If we can get 90 gold in early Act 1 on Normal difficulty, I wonder how much will drop in Act 4 in Inferno, or even Hell. 500-1000 gold?
If that's the case, gold might end up not being too valuable after all. An important gold sink for most players will be the training of artisans. But if gold is so abundant, artisans will be trained in very short order and without a lot of effort.
In the end it's not really about inflation, but rather about the value of gold. In Diablo 2 players quickly reached a point where gold wasn't very valuable anymore, causing them to turn to alternative currencies such as Stones of Jordan. Will the same thing happen in Diablo 3? We shall see, but early indications point towards an over-supply of gold. Having said that, I won't be surprised if Blizzard has other gold sinks up their sleeves.
A few patches ago there was a time when gold was fairly scarce and people were afraid that it would become very valuable due to the short supply.
There are still a lot of gold sinks, what with artisan training, repair costs and buying items and mats from the auction house. Yet, the last patch has made me wonder.
As you might know, gold drops have been altered in patch 14 and stack sizes have a much larger range. I've seen countless instances of 60-90 gold drops in the new areas that were discovered by beta testers. Those areas are barely more advanced than what's currently in the beta. This means that at a very low level players are already finding tens of gold in a single drop.
Contrast this to Diablo 2. If you remember, gold drops were rather small even at high levels. If we can get 90 gold in early Act 1 on Normal difficulty, I wonder how much will drop in Act 4 in Inferno, or even Hell. 500-1000 gold?
If that's the case, gold might end up not being too valuable after all. An important gold sink for most players will be the training of artisans. But if gold is so abundant, artisans will be trained in very short order and without a lot of effort.
In the end it's not really about inflation, but rather about the value of gold. In Diablo 2 players quickly reached a point where gold wasn't very valuable anymore, causing them to turn to alternative currencies such as Stones of Jordan. Will the same thing happen in Diablo 3? We shall see, but early indications point towards an over-supply of gold. Having said that, I won't be surprised if Blizzard has other gold sinks up their sleeves.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Gold find even more viable?
Well folks, we may well be at the last beta patch before Diablo 3's release date is announced. In this latest patch there have been certain adjustments made to the game economy. The ones that look very interesting to me are: larger gold drops from monsters, an increase in training costs for artisans and a nerf to gold find equipment.
Though the net result seems to be a nerf, I will venture to say that in fact it is a buff, simply for the fact that gold drops have increased significantly. People have reported 80 gold single stacks, while previously this amount was much lower.
The nerf to gold find is to be expected if gold is to remain valuable. Blizzard wouldn't want level 20 characters running around with 300% gold find, would they? Combined with the increased drops, gold would soon become so abundant that it wouldn't have much value.
The cost of training artisans has also increased by a lot but it doesn't matter really. Why is that? Because training an artisan to max level is a one-time occurrence per account. No matter how much it costs, you will eventually get there and once you do, it's smooth sailing and you won't need to sink any more gold in artisans, except, of course, for recipes you might want to craft.
I'm sure that, with time, a character will be able to accumulate some decent gold find gear so that by the time it reaches 60, or Inferno, it will be able to farm gold like there's no tomorrow. If drops can reach 80 gold at levels < 13, I wonder how high they'll be at level 60. 500? 1000? We shall see.
For my part, my farming strategy will consist of as much gold find gear as I can gather, supplemented by magic find, with +speed boots and a good weapon. That would be the ideal case. Considering that the latest patch also made the monsters a lot tougher, it might not be possible to always fight at the highest levels with such under-performing equipment but one can always go back an act or two (or a difficulty or two), just to farm low level mobs quickly.
Of course, I will also do the magic find vs gold find experiment. It might be that magic find is actually more efficient for farming. My issue with this is that magic find seems more random than gold find. Magic items drop a lot less often than gold. Either way, it's going to be a pleasure to test all these strategies. I can't wait to put on my favorite podcasts while coasting through the acts, mindlessly killing monsters.
Though the net result seems to be a nerf, I will venture to say that in fact it is a buff, simply for the fact that gold drops have increased significantly. People have reported 80 gold single stacks, while previously this amount was much lower.
The nerf to gold find is to be expected if gold is to remain valuable. Blizzard wouldn't want level 20 characters running around with 300% gold find, would they? Combined with the increased drops, gold would soon become so abundant that it wouldn't have much value.
The cost of training artisans has also increased by a lot but it doesn't matter really. Why is that? Because training an artisan to max level is a one-time occurrence per account. No matter how much it costs, you will eventually get there and once you do, it's smooth sailing and you won't need to sink any more gold in artisans, except, of course, for recipes you might want to craft.
I'm sure that, with time, a character will be able to accumulate some decent gold find gear so that by the time it reaches 60, or Inferno, it will be able to farm gold like there's no tomorrow. If drops can reach 80 gold at levels < 13, I wonder how high they'll be at level 60. 500? 1000? We shall see.
For my part, my farming strategy will consist of as much gold find gear as I can gather, supplemented by magic find, with +speed boots and a good weapon. That would be the ideal case. Considering that the latest patch also made the monsters a lot tougher, it might not be possible to always fight at the highest levels with such under-performing equipment but one can always go back an act or two (or a difficulty or two), just to farm low level mobs quickly.
Of course, I will also do the magic find vs gold find experiment. It might be that magic find is actually more efficient for farming. My issue with this is that magic find seems more random than gold find. Magic items drop a lot less often than gold. Either way, it's going to be a pleasure to test all these strategies. I can't wait to put on my favorite podcasts while coasting through the acts, mindlessly killing monsters.
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