Maybe the difference is you never actually possess it, even in a digital format. Like if you buy a song off Itunes at least you then own that and have the data that represents your purchase sitting on your hard drive or ipod or whatever, but with something like the RMAH you're paying real money for Blizzard to shift around a few bytes of data on their servers.

I dunno though, its a slippery slope. I think the law against it is pretty stupid though, and I've got nothing against the RMAH. If you don't like it, don't use it, its not like Diablo is a professionally competitive game anyway. If you don't like people who have "paid to win" then just don't play with them.

I don't like government intervention in marketplace s***, if its a s*** idea it will die.

Does this mean they can no longer buy warcraft ponies or hats on steam?

Got my monk comfortably farming up Inferno act 1. Act 2 is just lollerskates.

I don't think I have the commitment just yet to bother with act 2 so I'm gonna keep running act 1 inferno for loot and cash and play some alts. The witch doctor tickles my fancy.

Pretty much in the same boat. I can breeze through act 1 solo/grouped with the rare exception (usually invincible minions + fast + something else).

The quality of loot seems very low though. I think I've sold a couple of things for 100k, but so far no real money makers / upgrades for myself. Have cleared the first couple of missions of act 2, but its too hard to get 5 nv stacks for farming and killing act 2 elite packs tends to involve many deaths.

Gonna start a monk while I wait for 1.03 which should at least improve the loot available in act 1.

Yeah armor drops arent too bad, but the weapons are f***ing useless :(

I did manage to snag a legendary and sell it for 2.8 mil. IM RICH!

The quality of loot seems very low though. I think I've sold a couple of things for 100k, but so far no real money makers / upgrades for myself.

Yeh wait for 1.03 for farming imo.

The problem is that you are competing with iLvl 62 and 63 which don't drop in Act 1, so unless you get a lucky set drop you won't find amazing gear. In particular weapons are almost universally worthless.

In 1.03 iLvl 63 (the highest possible gear level) will drop in Act 1, albeit 4x as slowly as Act 4. But it will drop, as will 63 and 62 gear. This makes progression less of a gold farm to buy Act2-3-4 gear (or take the die-a-lot option) and a more feasible farm of act 1 to make act 2 doable.

Early Act2 should also be less brutal as they are evening out the mob difficulty curve rather than loading act2 and getting a punch in the nuts straight up.

I'm really, really keen to kill Belial before 1.03 though, anyone wanna give it a go in a group?

hogfather i'm keen, what's your gamer tag?

hogfather i'm keen, what's your gamer tag?

Khel made a thread somewhere, Hogfather#1995

Its linked in the original post of this thread, I just don't think anyone ever looks at page 1 of this thread anymore :P

I've done Belial but I'd be happy to help you through it.
I think it took me 80+ attempts before I just joined a 4 play pub and got it 2nd go.

I finished hell mode last week so onto Act 1 inferno now. Just need to find time to play!

Also pigme hunting in act 2 is far easier than farming act1. There are almost always 2 in set locations. Thats what I have been doing lately. Far less expensive than trying to kill elites in act 2.

Under no circumstances should you leave your d3 account unattended for any amount of time...

http://i.imgur.com/GReM1.png

Followed by:
http://i.imgur.com/yGKDz.png

I wish I had played my alts more now. RL HC sucks, over 100 hours on the character :(

Hahaha

That 4 year old kid has died.
His deeds of valor will be remembered.

4 year old kid or wife?

Unauthorised account access!

http://i.imgur.com/cwFaj.png

Got given this bad puppy by some fagot mate of mine (sorry my d3(d)) hates screenshots for some reason

http://casa.nowuckingforries.com/DHjweapon.png

1080 deeps
232 dex
75 vit
socket (currently 70% crit dmg increase cos im too jew to upgrade)

basically upgraded my unstacked damage by 20K :)

last edited by casa at 22:52:17 18/Jun/12

Kid probably deleted character because he forgot what his father looked like.

found this the other night

http://trog.qgl.org/up/1206/innas.png

Kid probably deleted character because he forgot what his father looked like.

Oh God you've forgotten the face of your father.

holy s*** hogfather :(

Got given this bad puppy by some fagot mate of mine (sorry my d3(d)) hates screenshots for some reason

f*****s.

If someone lost their HC character they had built up for 1+ years.. I hate to think what some peoples reactions would be..

found this the other night

Queue 'Glory in your pants' jokes.

Anyone clearing Act 3 with a Barb?

Act 2 is basically on farm for me now:

34% Block
9400 armor - 10 600 Buffed
420 - All Resist (600 + Buffed) with 742 Physical resist.
18% Melee Damage reduction
10500 Damage
1000 Life on hit
400 Life per second

I really need to work on my IAS, to get my weapon speed up to get my life on hit up, but other than that im kind of stuck. Each upgrade is going to cost me 2mill or more with minor upgrades.

Im running my defensive skills still:

Leap (Armor Rune)
Revenge (Provacation Proc Rune)
Iron Skin (Life on hit rune)
War Cry (Resist Rune)
Frenzy (With Axes rune, for more hits = more life)
Ground Stomp (With pull closer rune)

Act 3 I am only lasting 20 seconds against most champs. Anyone got any suggestions or specs or gear choices I should be chasing?

IAS is going to take a massive hit (I think I read 66% ?) in the 1.03 patch...You might want to wait till after that fallout to see if it's really worth it.

Heh. Comprehension.

http://i.imgur.com/STYPZ.png

Edit: ANMNNNNNDDDdddd that's all she wrote it seems :((((((

http://i.imgur.com/ffL1a.png

http://i.imgur.com/K1szm.png

I'm not sure I have the will to relevel and regear another level 60 Inferno character, my closest alt is only level 20. After recently spending a couple mill on my main I only have 500k left.

Ah, we're such a tight-knit bunch here.

Happy to help you level once you get closer to inferno hoggy. Let us know if u need a hand.

Happy to help you level once you get closer to inferno hoggy. Let us know if u need a hand.

Thanks ... but will see what's going for a bit, prolly gonna unplug and think about it. Not sure I want to grind it up again.

Sent blizzard a final message, I think they finally broke me, no longer a fanboy, so that's something some of you will find good in all of this :p

f***en lol:

I'm sorry for the trouble you ran into with a deleted character on your Diablo III account. I noticed that you are a WoW player as well, so you might be aware that situations like this are something we can usually assist with in that game.

Diablo III is a different beast though. Customer Support does not have the ability to undelete a character. A built in mechanism was put in place to undelete characters and we simply don't have a button to do as you ask.

In my personal experience, the ability to restore characters or items is not something I expect in this type of game, regardless of the company behind it. At least I am not aware of any non-MMO type game where I would expect to be able to recover a deleted character through customer support.

I can't think of any non-MMO game like this where the characters are stored on the f***ing server either.

This would be less funny if I hadn't spent so much time recently defending their online-only model..

no longer a fanboy

Excellent :)

I don't see why they're so fussy with roll-backs (is there a technical reason for this, or are they trying to limit abuse of the system?), especially since they can verify if the deletions were the last two actions on your account and that you haven't added a new character since. i.e. that you're not exploiting anything.

Funny that a game so many people were begging for ultimately lead them to stop liking blizzard (me being one of them). Oh well blizzard have their RMAH and people paying 100's of dollars on single items so they get to have money fights at the office now. Well, that about wraps up all the series now from them since I wasn't that much of a starcraft or warcraft fan (suck at RTS games hard)

last edited by DM at 14:14:52 19/Jun/12

Holy s***, my post survived the nuclear holocaust. How the hell did that happen? Maybe I'm just a cockroach :(

In my personal experience, the ability to restore characters or items is not something I expect in this type of game, regardless of the company behind it. At least I am not aware of any non-MMO type game where I would expect to be able to recover a deleted character through customer support.

Tell them "That might be true for any single-player game which isn't played online..."

last edited by Raven at 14:15:39 19/Jun/12

I don't see why they're so fussy with roll-backs (is there a technical reason for this, or are they trying to limit abuse of the system?), especially since they can verify if the deletions were the last two actions on your account and that you haven't added a new character since. i.e. that you're not exploiting anything.

They can roll back an account to a point in time. This is used to restore accounts compromised by hacks etc - its entirely doable, they are refusing to do it.

The most damning thing IMO is that this policy exists alongside their failure to implement any sort of serious confirmation for deletions. Click bottom right, press enter, character GONE, you can empty an account in seconds.

For some reason its not important in d3 (where deletion is permanent) to have to type 'DELETE' but in wow (where as he says you can get them back anyway) you need to.

One of the things I once brought up is that you don't need to backup your characters because they are all in the cloud. Wish I could have now.

Surely having it prompt for the account password would be a no brainer

Surely having it prompt for the account password would be a no brainer

No, far better to tell customers who have bought hundreds of dollars of your product that you can't help them to restore data for their online-only game.

Not because you don't want to, its not possible. Unless it was a hack. If you have s***ty account security that's fine.

It seems massively retarded that there isn't better mechanisms in place to not only prevent character deletion (like a confirmation step), but also to allow the customer service guys to restore characters. Especially now that people could have sunk real dollars into improving their character, you'd think having systems in place to secure and recover those characters would be a bit of a priority.

I think once you hit 60 with one character you should be able to roll as many alts as you want starting at level 60 with no gear. Its not an MMO

Khel, please stop posting such nonsense. :)

It seems massively retarded that there isn't better mechanisms in place to not only prevent character deletion (like a confirmation step), but also to allow the customer service guys to restore characters. Especially now that people could have sunk real dollars into improving their character, you'd think having systems in place to secure and recover those characters would be a bit of a priority.

Yeh its weird, I know I'm the guy with the sore ring at the moment but this seems sensible.

Worse, its totally possible to do a rollback. They do them constantly for hacks.

If you can't do a character restore, then why not give one rollback for non-hacks and give a warning that this is it, smarten up and be more careful because you only get one? Why have Blizz gone down the f***-the-customer path, there is a function that can fix it and keep me playing and howling about their virtues, isn't that the main game for them!?

I also posted this on reddit, trying to attract the hive mind to my cause. Mistake! I got 2 votes, the guy who said delete my kid's character in diablo4 got 40, and 15 or so people told me off parabol-style! c***s.

yeh no 'please type delete' confirmation popup is just retarded, they should definitely restore the toons

Funny that a game so many people were begging for ultimately lead them to stop liking blizzard (me being one of them).

yeh this game has made me turn pretty sour on blizzard, I now get the s***s about all the little things that I'd endured from them as minor negatives previously

The thing is, if they rollback for anything that's not hax, they open themselves up to all sorts of rollback cases and issues. Not the least of which is issues resolving rollbacks and auctioned items.

The thing is, if they rollback for anything that's not hax, they open themselves up to all sorts of rollback cases and issues. Not the least of which is issues resolving rollbacks and auctioned items.

Why is it rollback-able if someone actually steals the s***, a case where dupes will actually happen?

Why not make it harder to actually delete characters, especially level 60 ones?

Why doesn't the client time out properly if you aren't playing?

(test that out, it will sit on char select for a long f***ing time)

To be honest I think Blizzard just doesn't care.

They look at the complaints they get. Then they look at the large volume of money flowing into their bank account on a daily basis and come to the conclusion that they have made the right choices and that people with complaints aren't that important. Otherwise the money wouldn't be flowing in, right?

I'm probably going to uninstall the game tonight. Played D2 to death in HC mode, when the loot drops (and other design decisions) weren't tampered with to maximise use of an alternative revenue stream (i.e. RMAH). Can't really justify playing this game anymore due to this.

To date I have had pretty minimal problems with D3 other than the odd server lag and scheduled maintenance which is inconvenient with my play time.

However, reading the way they trreated hoggy is pushing me to bin the entire game and company all together. Not because of hoggys (now beaten) kid deleting his character, but because of how their customer service team responded. Pretty piss poor.

Why is it rollback-able if someone actually steals the s***, a case where dupes will actually happen?

This threatens the integrity of the service somewhat. People need to feel secure about "playing the game" which includes all the facets. A rollback because someone f***ed up their account is different, and it becomes harder to recognise someone trying to exploit the system.

Why not make it harder to actually delete characters, especially level 60 ones?

I definitely don't disagree with the idea of making it harder to accidentally or deliberately delete characters. I do feel sympathy for you as regards to losing your character, but I don't agree that the barrier for roll backs should be set lower.

I guess for me it's an attitude thing anyway. I see any game as temporary anyway. It's not as if you _invest_ time and you get something equal in value to your time at the end of it. If you don't get your fun playing it, then maybe you're doing it for the wrong reasons.

Blizzard's attitude reflects this, in the way that they treat the data, in the way that they treat the game (Ask HC players whether they'd love to get rollbacks when the servers lag and they die), making changes to core elements of the game that can/do change the economy markedly. Even though they want to siphon money out of the community over a long period of time. If you have a different attitude, you really should be looking elsewhere to spend your time.

A rollback because someone f***ed up their account is different, and it becomes harder to recognise someone trying to exploit the system.

But it is a rollback because someone f***ed with my account!

Blizzard's attitude reflects this, in the way that they treat the data, in the way that they treat the game (Ask HC players whether they'd love to get rollbacks when the servers lag and they die), making changes to core elements of the game that can/do change the economy markedly. Even though they want to siphon money out of the community over a long period of time. If you have a different attitude, you really should be looking elsewhere to spend your time.

I don't play HC because I don't want to have my character disappear... you might not be phased but it does irk me. There's a big difference between IAS nerfs and losing your whole character and all his gear. What if I'd spent a hundred bucks on the RMAH?

Are you really saying that every person playing who would be upset if their char was wiped is doing it wrong, and that its OK if Blizzard's db collapsed and we all went back to level one, that anyone who didn't like that is doing it wrong?

Why not just make the whole game HC, if nothing is intended to last, and you shouldn't feel invested in your character over time?

Bring on Torchlight 2!!

Bring on Torchlight 2!!

Starting to agree more and more with this. Even before the hoggy kid episode, I've been losing interest a little bit more and more each time I play D3, and it dropped a bit once I finished hell.

They look at the complaints they get. Then they look at the large volume of money flowing into their bank account on a daily basis and come to the conclusion that they have made the right choices and that people with complaints aren't that important. Otherwise the money wouldn't be flowing in, right?

In many ways this is why a MMO payment model is better for consumers - don't like it, unsub. There's an ongoing financial incentive that way for Blizzard to fix things.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5837135682

We will be performing scheduled maintenance for Diablo III starting tomorrow at 3:00 a.m. PDT in order to deploy patch

1.0.3. We anticipate that maintenance will conclude and that all services will be available by approximately 1:00 p.m. PDT.

Important: Please note that you will not be prompted to download patch 1.0.3 until the patch is live in your home region. If you are logging in from a European or Asian client, you will need to wait for this patch to release in that region before it can be installed. Additionally, if your home region is the Americas, you will be unable to log into Europe or Asia using Global Play after patch 1.0.3 is live until those regions have also patched.

For reference, here are the scheduled maintenance times for each region:

The Americas: 3:00 a.m. PDT (6/19) to 1:00 p.m. PDT (6/19)
Europe: 6:00 p.m. PDT (6/19) to 4:00 a.m. PDT (6/20)
Asia: 1:00 p.m. PDT (6/20) to 11:00 p.m. PDT (6/20)

Please note that these times are subject to change. For time zone assistance, please visit: http://everytimezone.com

Why is it rollback-able if someone actually steals the s***?

this is crazy. i contacted support saying i had lost some equipment after i first killed diablo since it was equipt on my followers. unbeknown to me that the followers would be waiting in town later on. anyways, i asked them to cancel my request but 3 days later they ask i wanted a roll back to get the gear. stating that 2 roll backs per account were possible.

from bliz

Diablo III is only allowed 2 rollbacks per license. You may use these if you would like to, however, we will not be able to gaurantee that we can do this for you, as they are usually reserved for compromise situations.

Post a thread on /r/diablo hoggy with details and get qgl to upvote!!

First page material imo.

I gave it a go, like this thread there's lot of varying opinion on what's right here so I doubt it will get the momentum for front page material.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/v843y/my_son_deleted_my_characters/

TBH I'm a bit meh over the whole thing now. Torch 2 maybe .. :(

There's a big difference between IAS nerfs and losing your whole character and all his gear. What if I'd spent a hundred bucks on the RMAH?

What if you'd spent a hundred bucks on the RMAH on IAS gear and they nerfed it?

Are you really saying that every person playing who would be upset if their char was wiped is doing it wrong, and that its OK if Blizzard's db collapsed and we all went back to level one, that anyone who didn't like that is doing it wrong?

Considering the way Blizzard was always going to, and has, treated the game, I think feeling invested in your char is always going to lead to pain. Yes, I am really saying that.

They dropped the ball without some kind of special "delete" requirement. I agree.

Blizzard isn't pretending to run a democracy any more than is necessary to get people on board with the game. They have the ultimate power in their world. If you do not like it, you should not play. There are many who will play regardless.

CS are just being asses now after writing back and forth on why they can or can't rollback.
If you're only allowed two rollbacks per license to stop rampant rollback abuse (and CS valuable time & effort) and it's worth enough to you to consume one of them to get the awesome char back then why should they care enough to fight it?

Funnily enough, if it WAS wow and they didn't have functions to undelete characters that would actually make more sense than a f***ing single player game.

What if you'd spent a hundred bucks on the RMAH on IAS gear and they nerfed it?

I'd still have the item, it just wouldn't be as valuable. Tough s*** and completely different.

Blizzard isn't pretending to run a democracy any more than is necessary to get people on board with the game. They have the ultimate power in their world. If you do not like it, you should not play. There are many who will play regardless.

They also are running a business, and poor customer support should never be excused.

CS are just being asses now after writing back and forth on why they can or can't rollback.
If you're only allowed two rollbacks per license to stop rampant rollback abuse (and CS valuable time & effort) and it's worth enough to you to consume one of them to get the awesome char back then why should they care enough to fight it?

Because they are being arses. A suit has decided that they need to play hardball on this I guess.

Haha, that sucks Hoggy. You'll be laughing about this in a couple of days.

Also, it's weird how WoW can have stuff restored from waaaaaaaaaaaaay back but they can't with Diablo. I guess it goes to show WoW is the better game.

8-)

Anyone wanna buy 6 CEs? Mint condition.

Seriously considering selling them...

I'll give you $20 for the pet code to use in WoW. That's if it's not bound to the Battlenet account when installing Diablo.

The thing is, if they rollback for anything that's not hax, they open themselves up to all sorts of rollback cases and issues. Not the least of which is issues resolving rollbacks and auctioned items.

they've managed to work around those kinds of issues in wow with character restorations

we're using the terminology 'rollback' in this conversation which can have several technical implications depending who you are, but it might not be technically what happens in the backend when they restore a deleted character

It sounds to me like thats the problem though, they have no capability to just restore bits and pieces separately in Diablo (which seems like a ridiculous oversight). As I understand it they take a snapshot of everything on your account every few days and the best they can do is roll back to the last snapshot.

While not exactly related to hoggy's misfortune, this is another reason i'm disliking blizzard. This. TL;DR version is, guy sells item for $100 on RMAH, then blizzard fails to deliver him the money or the item after a week of being told to wait, because

we are unable to tinker with Auction House issues as Game Masters have very limited functionality when it comes to supporting Diablo III

The f*** is the point of the GMs then if they can't do simple s*** like return items or characters when an error or child induced error happens?

Hoggy, you should just set your computers date and time back a week and see if your characters appear!

2 dudes just beat Hardcore Inferno Diablo

Massive Laggggggg

Yay, forced break time!

no eff you downtime!

https://7chan.org/rnb/src/133943601684.png

Haha

10 hours downtime


http://www.members.optushome.com.au/gpahl/downtime.jpg

http://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/controversial/

Top post!

Concerned that length of the down times is going up not down!

I like the part where downtime has actually increased since launch, not decreased.

edit: amirite, f2b

last edited by reload! at 20:26:11 19/Jun/12

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5837135682

We will be performing scheduled maintenance for Diablo III starting tomorrow at 3:00 a.m. PDT in order to deploy patch

1.0.3. We anticipate that maintenance will conclude and that all services will be available by approximately 1:00 p.m. PDT.

Important: Please note that you will not be prompted to download patch 1.0.3 until the patch is live in your home region. If you are logging in from a European or Asian client, you will need to wait for this patch to release in that region before it can be installed. Additionally, if your home region is the Americas, you will be unable to log into Europe or Asia using Global Play after patch 1.0.3 is live until those regions have also patched.

For reference, here are the scheduled maintenance times for each region:

The Americas: 3:00 a.m. PDT (6/19) to 1:00 p.m. PDT (6/19)
Europe: 6:00 p.m. PDT (6/19) to 4:00 a.m. PDT (6/20)
Asia: 1:00 p.m. PDT (6/20) to 11:00 p.m. PDT (6/20)

Please note that these times are subject to change. For time zone assistance, please visit: http://everytimezone.com

I posted this 5 hours ago.. You all had warning! Maybe you'll cop a gobby off the missus or get a decent nights rest this evening :)

well it does also tell you in the game when you launch it

I'm not sure that reading about it 5 hours ago or 5 minutes ago makes it any less annoying deve

Anyone wanna buy 6 CEs? Mint condition.

why did you buy 6 CE's?

Remind me again why they need 10 hours for the maintenance. That's a mind-bogglingly long time, especially in 2012 when all other companies in the world have grasped the basics of I.T.

Do they physically fly their servers across the US mainland to their off-site backup location's city for a direct cable transfer of data, then back again for the 5 minute patching?

Sounds like they are getting cockier by the week with their lack of care about their customers.

On another note, D3 has the fastest uninstaller I've ever used. Took about 200ms to nuke the game. Good riddance.

http://users.on.net/~deadsimple/images/d3u.png

last edited by parabol at 21:09:23 19/Jun/12

^ Wonder if you keep posting in D3 threads..

why did you buy 6 CE's?

World of WarCraft
World of WarCraft: The Burning Crusade
World of WarCraft: Wrath of the Lich King
World of WarCraft: Cataclysm
StarCraft II
Diablo II

I was a serious Blizzard fan.

They are implementing a patch tonight aren't they? I haven't been following for a week or two, been busy playing DayZ and other titles.

I bet you'll still get Heart of the Swarm though hoggy :P

World of WarCraft
World of WarCraft: The Burning Crusade
World of WarCraft: Wrath of the Lich King
World of WarCraft: Cataclysm
StarCraft II
Diablo II

I was a serious Blizzard fan.

oh i thought you had bought 6 diablo 3 CE's. this makes a bit more sense.

I'm not sure that reading about it 5 hours ago or 5 minutes ago makes it any less annoying deve

Definitely annoying.

I have all WoW CEs, but have done nothing more than activate the second and third expansion. My best chars aren't even level 70.

^ Wonder if you keep posting in D3 threads..

Just for you, as you agro easily :)

For those of you still playing (not right now obviously), how has the RMAH been going. Are people still selling stuff off at ridiculous prices? I'm interested to see how the RMAH will fair in the long-term, as it will undoubtedly shape Blizzard's direction for their next game if it becomes a good revenue stream.

They are implementing a patch tonight aren't they? I haven't been following for a week or two, been busy playing DayZ and other titles.

Yep 1.03. Quite a big shake up by the looks of things. An IAS nerf being the biggest one.

MF changes though and some of the rebalances look quite good. I'm wondering if there will be a change to the damage done in Act 4 Inferno. I got Diablo down to 33% but the final clone got off a last ditch shot while in its death animation that nailed me.

Just for you, as you agro easily :)

Well done you got a reaction from someone having a s*** day, that's some masterclass forum hero s***.

I bet you'll still get Heart of the Swarm though hoggy :P

Shut up.

Gah.

For those of you still playing (not right now obviously), how has the RMAH been going. Are people still selling stuff off at ridiculous prices? I'm interested to see how the RMAH will fair in the long-term, as it will undoubtedly shape Blizzard's direction for their next game if it becomes a good revenue stream.

Unless you're farming act 3-4 Inferno, you won't make much on there. Stuff that sold like hot cakes 1-2 weeks ago isn't worth a cent anymore. Haven't spent a huge amount of time on the RMAH. Made about AUD$4, then found out that if you want to play the RMAH properly, go to the USD one (haven't played enough with this yet).

Lolcats at that dude on the Blizzard forums contacting the FBI over his missing $99.

Sounds bad though, I still haven't played this yet.

Patch 1.03. Aka: what d3 should have been at launch

Some terribad changes in that patch. Some that have me questioning whether to even play the game once I'm done with the storyline (still in Act 2).

- Magic Find will no longer be considered when looting objects in the environment such as chests, barrels, vases, pots, and corpses
- Unique monsters in Hell and Inferno difficulty are no longer guaranteed to drop two Magic items when slain
- Weapon racks will no longer drop weapons 100% of the time
- Destructible objects no longer have a chance to drop items, and will only have a small chance to drop gold when destroyed

Yeah the weapon racks drop s*** weapons most of the time anyway. also

- The rewards provided for replaying quests has been reduced

I don't really care, as farming destructibles is an annoying waste of time. I hardly ever check weapon racks too, what scuzzy said.

I always destroy everything, I think it's a fun addition. And I have skills that make it easy. Hope they up the Gold drop amount if they're taking away the items...

Magic find having no affect is stupid too, it's 'Magic Find'. Not 'Magic find when killing mobs'.

I'll have to see how the IAS nerf goes, I think it's going to hurt my Monk bad... might have to rethink gear/skills... again.

I agree - of it moves, shoot it. If it looks like it can be blown up, shoot that too.

Ruh roh

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/117978-Diablo-III-Patch-Prevents-Players-From-Gaining-XP

Dazhel Yeah it's strange that resetting your password is the "fix" http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5883928416

I haven't had a problem with gaining experience since the patch.

Oh my god I went from 50k+ damage to 32. My items are now pretty much worthless.

haha, wtf? 32k damage, or 32 damage?

What happened?

I can't remember what the magic find tooltip says, is it "xx% chance of getting a magical item when killing a monster" cos the gold find tooltip specifically says "xx% more gold when killing a monster", not killing a vase.

Either way I'm not fussed, I'll still destroy everything, cos its fun to destroy everything. I never do it cos I'm farming for items, I do it just cos I love breaking s***.

I thought, but don't quote me, it's "%d better chance of finding magical items".

It's worth noting though that it doesn't affect how good the items are, just that you'll find them.

So if you're constantly getting level 23 drops at level 33, it's not going to make them any better, you're just going to get more s*** to DE.

last edited by Raven at 10:51:48 20/Jun/12

32k but thats almost half. I can't even kill a pigme now. Like before I could do it with ease but have no chance now.

32k but thats almost half. I can't even kill a pigme now. Like before I could do it with ease but have no chance now.

You had an IAS gear build?

whats IAS standfor? im sure it's mentioned somewhere previously but the threads too big now

Improved Attack Speed (say, 15% Improved Attack Speed).

All IAS modifiers were halved in the patch : http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5869897212

Yeah i know a few people with IAS heavy gear that are gonna be pissed.

Yeh the lesson here (and with other nerfs) is to try not to put too many eggs in the same basket.

If a single attribute is so strong that its all you seek (to the point where its as good or better than your primary stat) then you're gonna have a bad time.

Oh my god I went from 50k+ damage to 32. My items are now pretty much worthless.

I noticed a damage drop too, but I'm not level 60 or anything, just from 2,000 to 1,8000

Well that's interesting. Pre 1.03, the weapon that my wizard is using (damage 1049, 1.30 APS) was going for about 1 mil on the AH, could probably even pick it up in 800k if you're lucky. It has that damage on it without an attack speed bonus. Looking on the AH now, similar weapons are going for 12-15 mil. Score :)

last edited by Morax at 11:21:25 20/Jun/12

Yeh the lesson here (and with other nerfs) is to try not to put too many eggs in the same basket.

If a single attribute is so strong that its all you seek (to the point where its as good or better than your primary stat) then you're gonna have a bad time.

The only problem was that Monks and Demon Hunters HAD to stack IAS in order to be somewhat good in hell/inferno. This nerf has however decreased the likely hood of survival and now people will have to figure out another way to survive.

Don't take this as me complaining at a nerf, I don't really care as I don't play any more, however it is saddening to hear how much gear has become less useful now by a simple stat change.

They made inferno easier though in this patch didn't they? Its kind of obvious though that if a stat is that good that people are stacking it to the exclusion of most others, that its going to get balanced out.

They made inferno easier though in this patch didn't they? Its kind of obvious though that if a stat is that good that people are stacking it to the exclusion of most others, that its going to get balanced out.

Oh most definitely, if a stat is that mandatory in-order to progress through a game then they need to balance it, however I'm wondering if they also balanced other stats to be more attractive.

f*** this is amazing, the RMAH is just such a crazy new thing that its going wrong in crazy ways :)

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5888889005

Player1 buys IAS item on the RMAH
Item is nerfed.
Player1 requests a chargeback on the transaction.
Both accounts (buyer and seller) get suspended.

haha!

I had like 3 items with attack speed but I always went for +intel first and attack speed was a bonus. The thing I am not happy about is the weapon I had I paid real money for(the only time I used the rmah) and now it's worthless).
Went from 945dps to 820dps. But it has +261 to intel but still it went from being one of the best items in the game to being practically worthless.
Is what Bliz have done even legal?

Is what Bliz have done even legal?

Who knows, its a mess :)

How are you guys finding the repair costs since 1.0.3?

I was toying with the idea of selling all my gear a few days ago because I feared this was going to happen but I didn't think legally they could do it.

lol at the s*** storm. this is the reason why valve didn't remove set bonuses from hats when they were first introduced. they didn't want to have to deal with all the s*** from the people that had bought the hats.

Hurrah! My DH is now useless. Between the nether tentacles/caltrops nerfs and reduced IAS I am now forced to go back to farming, as my build is now useless.

went from 130k dps to 100k, oh well

Hurrah! My DH is now useless. Between the nether tentacles nerf and reduced IAS I am now forced to go back to farming. Or stop playing.......

Not trying got be a smart arse, but weren't you farming before the patch? Is there some sort of alternate non-farm endgame I'm missing? :)

ps the ball lightning rune for elemental arrow does the same damage as nether tentacle and still hits multiple targets, you just dont get the heal from it is all.

Was just about to post that Hogfather! Heh pretty crazy how the RMAH is bringing more negative actions instead of what they hoped for.

Not trying got be a smart arse, but weren't you farming before the patch? Is there some sort of alternate non-farm endgame I'm missing? :)

I got to inferno act II without needing to farm, but I was using the AH pretty regularly (although I've only spent ~300K across the whole game) Act II was a pretty hard wall to hit, and yesterday evening I thought it was about time to start backtracking. I was going to start farming in Act I Inferno, but now I can't :S

casa - I think nether tentacles still hit multiple targets, they just don't repeatedly hit the same target. Either way, they now do the same dmg as ball lightning.

I can't even farm anymore. I will have a run through act 3 tonight but I think I will just sell all my s*** and go back to dota2 or the real world. 50% nerf for IAS seems overkill.

Aww DHs actually have to farm now? I had to farm heaps of Act 1 inferno to even be able to set foot in Act 2 as a Barbarian. Now with the patch i actually have a chance.

Like before I could do it with ease but have no chance now.

The tears are beautiful. My barb does 10K dps and im not even tanky.

f*** this is amazing, the RMAH is just such a crazy new thing that its going wrong in crazy ways :)

weapon stats changed? better get a credit card charge back! http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5889158971

Only reason I bought my weapon was because I was sick of farming act1. I had been farming it for over a week solid and I hated act1 before that.

Why would anyone pay real money for an in game item is beyond me.

You have finished the game 3 times.. then you pay $100+ (after you've already paid for the game) just to finish it for that 4th time.

At the time I had no intention of keeping it. In fact before the nerf the item was worth more than what I paid for it. now I'll be lucky to get $20 for it.
Also I weighed up my options. I could work for 1 hour and make that money or I could farm for 50 hours to acheive the same result. My time is better spent work and then buying the item IMO.

f*** this is amazing, the RMAH is just such a crazy new thing that its going wrong in crazy ways :)

lol, seller accounts end up getting banned because the trio of Buyer, Blizzard and CC company have a dispute?
what a hilarious mess. :D

That's a good enough reason for me to stay away from the RMAH, if I want to keep playing D3.

weapon stats changed? better get a credit card charge back! http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5889158971

Yeh there's a fair bit of that going on at the moment, a few institutions will be calling some suits at Blizzard I reckon :)

There's an EULA fo sho, but its never been tested in court. Its pretty standard consumer law in most countries that you don't get to change the item you're selling after you sell it!

For example I'd get kicked in the face if I sold unlimited email accounts and then decided that was a bad idea and made them limit 5 per customer without issuing refunds or providing a grandfather period for existing customers. No amount of "but you agreed to this!" would save me.

The reality of the RMAH is that its a commodity trading market of sorts, where the value of what you buy may rapidly change. This is fine when you're using fake money. But for lots, and lots of reasons these sorts of markets IRL are heavily regulated. Huge can o worms is open.

lol, seller accounts end up getting banned because the trio of Buyer, Blizzard and CC company have a dispute?
what a hilarious mess. :D

I know right, I can't help but laugh.

Prolly not such a bit deal that u lost ur toon now because you would probably be mad right about now?

The seller's account gets suspended cos it could be someone running a scam. Get two accounts, sell a $250 item on one, buy it with the other, then get a chargeback. Presto, free $250.

But yeah, its a mess

so what was the reason they nerfed IAS anyway?

people getting inflated damage from it?

so what was the reason they nerfed IAS anyway?

people getting inflated damage from it?

I'm guessing people were using it as a staple stat and Blizzard didn't like that so they nerfed it. Since they nerfed the stat by half, a lot of gear has become useless, and thus people are pushing chargebacks to get their money back. This causes both buyer and seller to get banned from what I presume is a security method, and now we have one massive pile of a mess.

Presto, free $250.

But it's a virtual item not a physical item though so Blizzard are in full control - to stop scams like that from occurring if a chargeback occurs on a buyer account they can simply delete the item from that account. From there, give it back to the seller (or not, depending on rollbacks)

I'm starting to think the South Koreans were onto something when they banned their RMAH launch.

Prolly not such a bit deal that u lost ur toon now because you would probably be mad right about now?

Do you want to know the secret?

HOG SMASH

I don't think they are concerned about the item disappearing, it is more so that you get a free $250 from performing a chargeback.

Account A puts a item up for $250
Account B buys that item for $250 but the money isn't moving anywhere because you own that money
Account B then performs a chargeback, thus giving them another $250 for free

At least, that is what I'm presuming, no clue if it would work.

The reality of the RMAH is that its a commodity trading market of sorts, where the value of what you buy may rapidly change

I agree to an extent, but the value is not based solely on natural market forces or what's popular at the time, etc.

The item is arbitrarily created by and manipulated by the same entity that takes a cut of the transactions. Ths can only cause grief :/

I'm guessing people were using it as a staple stat and Blizzard didn't like that so they nerfed it. Since they nerfed the stat by half, a lot of gear has become useless, and thus people are pushing chargebacks to get their money back. This causes both buyer and seller to get banned from what I presume is a security method, and now we have one massive pile of a mess.

yeah i get the implications of the nerf, just wasn't sure why in the first place with regards to actualy game play

you'd think they would learn by now that people always find these little loophole type things and all jump on the bandwagon, it has been the same right through diablo 2.

the next big thing will pop up and people will all start stacking whatever stat it might be, are they just going to keep nerfing it each time?

I agree to an extent, but the value is not based solely on natural market forces or what's popular at the time, etc.

The item is arbitrarily created by and manipulated by the same entity that takes a cut of the transactions. Ths can only cause grief :/

Oh absolutely! There's all sorts of market shenanigans that would make regulators pale. The nature of the online game nerf cycle is that people are going to be buying the best items for a particular class / build, Blizzard rides the crest of that price bubble and then after they get their cut, deliberately prick the asset class bubble!

Its f***ing mental and its like watching a disaster movie unfold, this is the bit where people start to complain about weird noises and tremors.

There's also s*** like this:

Legendary items with the +Attack Speed bonus will now correctly provide a bonus to attack speed. Please note that this fix will only affect new Legendary drops. Existing Legendary items will be addressed in future patch.

So there's NO WAY to tell if the legendary item you are buying with your moolah really has the stat on it? What the hell lol?

http://i.imgur.com/FUYSp.jpg man that sure is a lot of money to put into a non refundable battle net balance.

Account B then performs a chargeback, thus giving them another $250 for free

wut? A chargeback isn't free money from nowhere, it gets deducted from the merchant account and sent back to the customer account. It's a transaction reversal.

If you're both the merchant and customer zero money moves but nothing changes hands (less fees) so the only benefit I can see is presumably item duping (maybe via seller account rollback somehow) so you could then sell both items to someone else.

wut? A chargeback isn't free money from nowhere, it gets deducted from the merchant account and sent back to the customer account. It's a transaction reversal.

Ahh but that's the thing - the merchant is Blizzard being charged back the $250 when the seller can have already withdrawn the $212.50 from the sale from their Blizzard wallet.

AccountA: puts $250 in wallet.
AccountB: lists $250 item.
A: buys item, B gets 212 in wallet.
B transfers money to bank account.
A charges back, gets the 250.

If A and B are the same person, they're up $212. Blizzard is the merchant and stuck with the bill.

Its f***ed, lol :)

Hrmm, I thought the max you could have in there was $250?

wut? A chargeback isn't free money from nowhere, it gets deducted from the merchant account and sent back to the customer account. It's a transaction reversal.

Wheres it going to come from though? When you sell something, money goes into your "Battlenet wallet" or whatever, and then you transfer it out of that into paypal and from there into your accounts.

So you sell the item, get the money, transfer it out of Blizzard's system and thats it, its gone, its yours. Then you do a chargeback and get that money too. Blizzard then foots the bill.

But there's three parties, the cash isn't going directly from the buyer to the seller, and I very much doubt any item's are going to be returned.

But there's three parties, the cash isn't going directly from the buyer to the seller, and I very much doubt any item's are going to be returned.

Yeh but the chargeback is to the merchant (Blizzard as the middleman).

If you've already withdrawn the money Blizz would need to hunt you down. They can't, its too expensive to chase $200, so they shut down both accounts.

Meanwhile the people who legitimately sell IAS gear before patch for market price and have the transaction charged back log into a big f*** you!

so yeah,

Real Money Auction House

what a sick idea

i wonder if they thought it would turn into such cluster f*** when they decided they were going to implement the idea. surely they must have had some inkling

Ahh, I getcha now. Because of the Blizzard wallet intermediary multiple transactions need reversing across a myriad of payment providers and that's causing nightmares for them so they just take the simple option and hit the nuke button on both accounts.
They've effectively exposed themselves to credit card fraud by acting as a bank without the anti-fraud resources a bank would have at it's disposal.

i wonder if they thought it would turn into such cluster f*** when they decided they were going to implement the idea. surely they must have had some inkling

Prolly went something like this:

"How the f*** are we going to pay for online only without a subscription?"
"We could release regular content as DLC? Sort of like mini expansions"
"... Take too f***ing long. Besides, this is Blizzard, for some reason we make it really hard to alter our games and patch s***. Also, work. Surely there's an easier hustle?!"
"Why do we-"
"More ideas?"
"What about if we had a real money auction house?"
" .... "
"f*** me, that's amazing!"
"But what ab-"
"Would it be hard?
"Nah, just replace gold with money lol"
"You're getting a pay rise! We'll be rich!"
"But wha-"
"Hmm we need to make the end game really f***ing hard so people get frustrated and buy s***."
"Hey, I ju-"
"Yeh, hey, that's cool, we can pimp it out as some sort of uber mode! An epic challenge or something?!"
"MONEY MODE YOU MEAN!"
"haha!"
"but-"
"Can someone get rid of this guy? He's annoying."
"Money! Money!"
"WOOOO RMAH!!!!"

^-

"Quick, outsource it Bangalore for development!"

softcore is a clusterf***.. hardcore is where its at.. no rmah.... for now...

after this mess i can guarantee it wont be introduced

I would hate to be the consultant who designed the RMAH process

i wonder if they will remove the ability to transfer your money to paypal.

The only way the RMAH would of been ok and sensible is if they put a cap on the items you were selling, like $5 or $10 at most. Is anyone surprised that the people who were selling items for like 30m for a 1000dps weapon are now asking like $50+ for the same thing? I havn't even touched D3 in like 2 weeks or something and I seriously doubt I will again.

softcore is a clusterf***.. hardcore is where its at.. no rmah.... for now...

Yeh I'm considering HC now, at least that way I would have started from northing anyway :p

in other news inferno hardcore has been beaten.. the community manager first said that this was not a world first.. but then stated it was..

The Vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaDA7GxAtXM


The confirmation
https://twitter.com/#!/Bashiok

I have been following Kripp for awhile now and was able to watch it live.. grats guys

I also put this in a separate post since I think its news worthy

40k to repair is a bit harsh, 95% of my deaths are due to server lag!!

i wonder if they will remove the ability to transfer your money to paypal.

They might, but then it just becomes "Blizzard Bucks" and is just another virtual currency. If they do that, they are just indirectly selling gold (since items can be converted to gold via the GAH) which is probably a safer idea than the RMAH but presumedly was discarded during development as something they didnt want to do.

The best part about this thread is Hogfather back peddling his love for diablo 3.

The best part about this thread is Hogfather back peddling his love for diablo 3.

1700 posts and THAT's your favourite bit?

is he backpedalling his love for d3 or blizzard?

I reckon it's justified to back pedal on a love for Blizzard if their customer service team refused to provide service because of some stupid arbitrary rule.

If I were you Hoggy, I'd call the d3 support phone number (
1-800-041-378 is it?) and ask to speak to a team leader or manager.

Sounds to me like they can do the rollback, but the casual plebs answering your tickets have mixed info as to whether or not they can actually do it.

Though it's been a while, I guess you might already be over it.

1700 posts and THAT's your favourite bit?

yes, your tears are delicious.

yes, your tears are delicious.

Seriously, some of you really are jerks. I'm all for a piss take and argy-bargy but I don't understand why you'd point and laugh at someone who lost their main char the way I did.

Think I might just take a break from QGL a while, this has bummed me out a bit.

Hog I know it's s*** what happened but it's ultimately your fault.

Laughing at other peoples misfortune? Welcome to the internet..

1. Gamers are a******s
2. Banks are a******

Why on earth anyone thinks real money trading between gamers is a good idea is beyond me.

Micro-transactions are fine whatever, but gamers are fickle self centered drug f***ed morons for the most part.

hoggy he didn't even say he was laughing at your character being deleted, he said it was at your turnaround in blizzard love. I too find it funny that for ages whenever someone else has been posting in this thread to complain about things you've been all 'lol new idea lol' and now all you're doing is complaining.

it's ok maen, d3 really is a giant steaming turd!

I loled at this

http://i.imgur.com/EjxTW.png

haha

Found this interesting:

IAS is nerfed more than 50%. 50% nerf is the best case scenario. For most items its around 60% and for weapons it is higher (as high as 75%).

Can find a whole list of undocumented changes over here, some are quite severe.

That list seems a bit off cos

Mythic potions drops nerfed? Could be related to destructible items

Seems to be the opposite to what I was just experiencing. I was just playing and was getting more mythic potions than I have in the past and was thinking "I wonderr if they increased the drop rate".

I think its just that patch day syndrome where people imagine a lot of things to have secretly changed based on their experiences straight after the patch. The old "Onyxia deep breaths more" syndrome.

Elite mob that used to spawn to right of Dahlgur Oasis is now purple monster that does not grant NV

This is a kick in the balls for me. That was my best farming run :(

That list seems a bit off cos



Seems to be the opposite to what I was just experiencing. I was just playing and was getting more mythic potions than I have in the past and was thinking "I wonderr if they increased the drop rate".

I think its just that patch day syndrome where people imagine a lot of things to have secretly changed based on their experiences straight after the patch. The old "Onyxia deep breaths more" syndrome.

Well it is an unofficial post, so it is based purely on speculation. There are some that seem to be true, and other that might just not be documented properly.

I found act 1 MUCH easier despite a 4k drop in my DPS due to the IAS nerf (luckily I only had it on 3 items). Gonna grab my barb mate tonight and give act 2 ago since the progression is supposed to be a bit more linear.

I lost about 1/3 of my already s*** dps, resulting in a lot of deaths on content I used to blaze through for farming - this in turn resulted in the loss of a lot of gold. hope the cost of gear comes down soon

I found act 1 MUCH easier

Yeah same. I only played it a little bit last night, but I was taking down elite packs with invulnerable minions and elite packs with mortar (even with the new change where mortar can shoot furthur) quite easily and without any deaths.

Granted its only Act 1 and I know the difficulty ramps up substantially in later acts of Inferno, but pre-patch I was still struggling in Act 1 and last night I was breezing through.

i was making my final push for level 60 last night after the servers shut down the night before, iinet f***s out last night and i ended up going to bed

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGE

Overall most the changes seem ok. For me it has made the game harder and repairing is killing me. I can take a few more hits now vs champ packs but the lack of damage is a pain in the arse.
What I am pissed about is all these changes should have been like this on release and not a month after the games release.

I found act 1 too easy but act 2 is still a bastard not because ur dying more it's just because repairs cost per death is way too much.

I think it's time to have a break from D3. I wanted so much for this game to be great, but it just isn't. After this amount of time spent playing, I want my char to feel powerful; right now it just feels like a squealing worm on a hook.

Myself and Exi killed Azmodan last night on the third attempt, after 20 wipes on Cydea.

Adrenaline rush when Exi died on Cydea @ 25% and I had to kite the mobs, get off my AOE stun and res him. Finally got her down. Azmodan is a cakewalk. ACT 4 BITCHES

I'll post this in here so the other thread doesn't have to get bumped:

Dazwah#6995

Finally staring to pick up some decent drops,sick of goin to AH to get something decent.cheers

If ur dying consistently you need to look at your play style / gearing. Then spend some time farming the correct items, dont just disenchant blues either.

I by no means have great gear, but I do have around 3 gear sets hanging in my stash, and i never sell anything that I think I may use. That way I can change gear / specs all the time to suit what I am doing.

With my barb last night on inferno Cydea (Boss before Azmodan) I had to change specs completely and run a double stun, group survivability spec, as well as run less All Resist and more HP and armor. This allowed me to stun the adds she spawns for 8 seconds or so when they spawn while my wizard DPS's down. Then had Ignore pain with the group rune to use if wizard got stuck in sticky situations.

More normal build is nothing like that and my gearing is completely different.

Thats the thing though. This update is suited for barbs but nerfs wiz and dh to the point where it makes it much harder and more expensive to get through act 2 and 3.

lol! Forbes reports that Vivendi is looking to sell off Acti-Blizzard. I wonder if D3's tarnished reputation has anything to do with this?

Activision is Vivendi’s fourth largest company, and the second fastest growing, with $4.76 billion in sales last year, and share value outperforming both EA and Take Two, Bloomberg reports. All of which makes the possibility of a sale of the company puzzling to say the least.

Forbes.com link

Game over if EA buys it. The company will be gutted and reduced to 5 hour games with dubstep trailers.

Game over if EA buys it. The company will be gutted and reduced to 5 hour games with dubstep trailers.

Hey now! What's wrong with dubstep?

I wonder if D3's tarnished reputation has anything to do with this?

I doubt it, by the time the next WoW expansion or SC2 expansion comes out, people will have forgotten they were upset with Blizzard and the cash will keep rolling in. Activision is far more widley reviled than Blizzard ever will be, and it hasn't hurt their bottom line any.

As well of course as the 11 million or so people paying $20 a month every month to play WoW, thats a huge revenue stream to just throw away. And when you throw in Activision's COD games, its quite puzzling indeed, Acti-Blizzard would be a cash cow.

I'd also imagine they haven't really been *that* tarnished by the D3 stuff. Yeah theres plenty of whinging on the forums, but like in WoW, the vocal minority on the forums make up a very small percentage of the actual player base. I've got people on my d3 friends list who aren't "hardcore" gamers and don't follow gaming news and don't really give a s*** about any of the drama surrounding d3, they're still happily enjoying the game and loving blizzard.

Same way that we can sit here and slag off COD games, but they still sell millions and millions of copies because the vast majority of people either have lower expectations than we do as "hardcore" gamers, or they just don't care.

You guys are lucky us WoW players are keeping the SC and Diablo universes going.

You guys are lucky us WoW players are keeping the SC and Diablo universes going.

If we can reserve the right to whinge about your patches taking down our game, you can reserve the right to whinge about our patches taking down your game, deal?

I know that Tuesday nite will prolly be off limits for WoW. It's been happening for 8 years now. You can't break me damn it! The hilarious thing is seeing Diablo people getting upset about Tuesday downtime 8-)

That is a bit puzzling that Vivendi want to sell of Activision Blizzard, will be interesting what outcome is met.

The hilarious thing is seeing Diablo people getting upset about Tuesday downtime

Rightfully so. Why should a single player game, with minimal multiplayer features (4man co-op is nothing compaired to WoW) require weekly downtime for 8+ hours? Blizzard just cant run stable servers.

Thats the thing though. This update is suited for barbs but nerfs wiz and dh to the point where it makes it much harder and more expensive to get through act 2 and 3.

I think it just brought them in line.

schadenfreude makes the world go round

Farming has become easier and less boring... Instead of farming act 1 goblins , which I think was nurfed I can do 5 stack ghom/azmo runs

Funnily I spent the last couple of weeks racing to 60 to get into inferno whenever I could play but since then have barely logged in. All I've done in Act 1 Inferno is get to the first check point.

Over the past week I've contemplated playing but all of a sudden, I am being drawn back to SWToR particularly when the new patch goes up..

The hilarious thing is seeing Diablo people getting upset about Tuesday downtime 8-)

Nah the "hilarious thing" is that you happily accept one night a week of downtime as being normal and OK for a game you paid for, and in the case of WoW continually paying for.

It's not OK, and the joke is sadly on you.

I am being drawn back to SWToR particularly when the new patch goes up

Whens that happening? I'll probably play some more ToR when the patch goes live cos it has the LFG tool. Cos I really enjoy doing the flashpoints but getting groups together is just too much of a hassle, especially if you want to run a bunch of them.

Wonder if their LFG tool will cover operations as well, that'd be interesting.

It's not OK, and the joke is sadly on you

Why is the joke sad? I thought they were meant to be funny.

blizzard has been forced to give refunds in south korea

Has anyone done Ghom (larder) on inferno?
He seems impossible because the entire screen is filled with poison. I am guessing the trick is to walk him around the outside as slow as you can so you get a chance for the poison to die down.

After incurring a hefty repair bill and ragequitting I remember that bliz have added enrage timers.

So f***ing annoying >.<

Khel probably the same as you, once the new patch goes up and the LFG tool is in.

If you have an authenticator, I urge you to copy down the removal code. Going through the process now to get my one removed so I can add a new one, as I just changed phones from my old Desire HD to my Lumia 900 and completely forgot to get rid of it.

If you have an authenticator, I urge you to copy down the removal code. Going through the process now to get my one removed so I can add a new one, as I just changed phones from my old Desire HD to my Lumia 900 and completely forgot to get rid of it.

there is a sms recovery option for that, if you have it set up beforehand of course.

When I changed phones and forgot to remove the authenticator it only took ~24hrs for Blizzard to remove it once I proved that I owned my account. I think proof was a CD key from a game added to my Battle.Net account and a photocopy of some ID (license).

Speaking of authenticators. How long do the battery ones last and can you just open them and put another battery in when the old one goes flat? I bought mine back when they were released for WoW. I'm guessing it would last at least 5-6 years, maybe more.

Speaking of authenticators. How long do the battery ones last and can you just open them and put another battery in when the old one goes flat? I bought mine back when they were released for WoW. I'm guessing it would last at least 5-6 years, maybe more.

i don't think so. if they work like the RSA tokens they are synced with the server that keeps track of them before being sent out. that is how they know which number is coming up on your fob, because at the same time the same number is coming up on their server. once the battery is removed, the clock in the fob that they seed it with isn't going to be synced anymore.

Yeah don't think I set up SMS recovery, ah well I just sent a ticket with drivers license, though I'll have to find my Diablo 3 CD Key if they ask for that.

i don't think so. if they work like the RSA tokens they are synced with the server that keeps track of them before being sent out. that is how they know which number is coming up on your fob, because at the same time the same number is coming up on their server. once the battery is removed, the clock in the fob that they seed it with isn't going to be synced anymore.

And in the reverse if the server does have its clock in sync then none of the client can log in either, can happen a bit in vm environments where a retard has set it up and there is too much time drift..mind you its not just two factor auth effected there


Also started playing finally with a guest access pass currently DH lvl12 still farming to get my blacksmith upgraded and get myself to at least lvl 14 while I wait for payday to upgrade

Been cutting my teeth into Onferno for a little bit, was previously just farming Hell Whimsyshire / Act IV.
I'm at the point where I can do content and take down a few elite packs, Vortex+Plague+Arcane seem to screw me the most... Molten+Wall combo inside caevs seems to do some damage as well.

Pave joined for a bit which saw me using a lot more potions than normal... then Strik3r and his mate (?) came on and we took down Butcher, I think I'll be doing Act 1 for a little while though, untill I can afford some good Life on Hit and a better weapon...

Herbal, Blacksmith is (currently) a waste of money. Spend the Upgrade costs on the AH and you'll get much better equipment. I'd just save the money though, items that drop should be fine to get you through all/most of Normal/Nightmare/Hell. Then you have a nice chunk of change to buy some gear for Inferno so you don't get reemed by the first large pack of normal mobs.

BTW for all you guys leveling......

+ Experience. Load it up on every item you have and watch your EXP just tick. Make sure you get the + Experience % Gem in your helm aswell.

Got my WD from 19 to 34 in no time yesterday, after I spent about 50k on low level legendaries with + Exp on them on AH.

Yeah, the quicker you hit 60 the quicker you can... oh wait, you'll hit 60 before you reach Inferno anyway.

I just stack on Strength and Vitality onto my Barbarian, the guys a machine!

yeah that was working well for me too mosfxx, once you get to inferno you need to start thinking about other stats like defence and resistances which means i am now starting to sacrifice a bit int and vit for those other stats

My Monk has ~250 Resist (Resist all at max Trait) and I was reading where I should be around 700ish for Inferno Monk... woops.
Maybe Molten/Arcane/Plague wouldn't give me as much grief if I had Resist out the Wazoo.

Yer you bloody monks have it good with that passive.

I am at 500 all resist on my barb, (720 buffed or something) and Act 3 is still f***ed with Arcane / molten mobs.

Remember int gives you resistances as well. 10 points of int is roughly equivalent to 1 point of resistance (to everything)

The conversion of Int to Resist is horrid though, surely they need to adjust it to 5 int per 1 resist or something to make it somewhat slightly reasonable.

Circlet of Borg-crushing
+35% resistance to futility.

My Monk has ~250 Resist (Resist all at max Trait) and I was reading where I should be around 700ish for Inferno Monk... woops.

I havn't touched D3 in ages but last time I was in a group with a barbarian on inferno my resists were at about 1250 with his shout and it gave me like 80% resist all. Monks have it easy when it comes to gearing for resistance. A lot of my gear is +35ish arcane +70 resist all, so it's really +105 all per item. I went for arcane because I already had some items with it so it made gearing quicker. Without any other buffs except self ones, I run about 830 for all types.

Even with like 80% resist all damage I still died in like 3 hits to bees pre-1.0.3. All that said there seems to be a serious drop off at 800+ levels. The difference between 800 and 1200 is really only like 5% or so, so once you hit 800 i'd say it'd be better to go for damage or something else.

last edited by DM at 13:44:44 25/Jun/12

Yeah I'm kinda stuck in act 1 hardcore since I only have around 450 all resist so I've been running rumford and collecting tomes to upgrade my gems... Not enough ppl play hc so the ah is empty

I got my monk to 60 on Friday night about 11pm.

By Sunday night I'd spent maybe 400K gold him, his stats look like this atm self buffed (healing aura with the +20% resistances and the all resists passive, mirror image guy that gives me 10% healt):

70K health
5K armor
5K damage
720 resist all
2.6% damage converted to life
800 life on hit (1.2 attacks per second on weapon)
800 health per second

I've found a few uber items over the weekend too, including a ring that has 70 resist all, 50 poison resist, 70 dexterity, 6-12 damage. Shame I'm stacking physical resistance at the moment.

Has anyone heard about any of the following changes? These are just things I would like to see changed.

- more filters on the AH i.e. 4-5 different stats instead of limit of 3
- ability to change the auction times (48 hours suck if no one wants to buy an item)
- remove the limit of 10 AH items at a time (I find more items to sell than my stash has space!)

Those are all good suggestions, 10 auctions is nowhere near enough.

I like the 10 auction limit, it stops people from listing every single piece of crap they find. I mean, theres already tonnes of useless crap on the AH, imagine how much more there would be if there was no limit.

Being able to change the listing time would be nice though, I'd much rather list for 24 hours and relist it if it didn't sell (and I wanted to keep trying).

I like the 10 auction limit, it stops people from listing every single piece of crap they find.

I don't really see a problem. When I used the AH, I used the filter 99% of the time to show only items with the minimum stats I was after - so junk never entered into the picture.

Yeah I'm kinda stuck in act 1 hardcore since I only have around 450 all resist so I've been running rumford and collecting tomes to upgrade my gems... Not enough ppl play hc so the ah is empty

whhhhat. there is plenty of econ to gear up for act1 inferno esp if you have a few mill in gold.

Funny video if Blizzard made SNES games

it's better if you just mute the sound and play a Mario Bros 2 song over the top. His voice over is so bad.

Those videos sucked hard Rev.

Someone tell that douche that Blizzard did make SNES games. Lost Vikings, Rock n Roll Racing, helllooooo.

On hc eu there just isn't enough ppl farming act 2+ to keep up with demand

Oh eu. No idea. Hc on us is pretty healthy. Def a slight inflation since 1.03 and a whole lot more people playing as well. Its a good time to level a new char on the us hc server.

d3 is aids, i quit. if i could sell my char i would. f***en aids i tell ya

just had an epic act 1 session with butcher down..

butcher now on farm...

act 2 bring it

Latest patch causes some of the 'flying' enemies from act 3 to become invisible until they attack, then even then you can't attack them back. Moving to the beginning of the map didn't make it go away. wtf.

I'm kinda at the point where I can farm Butcher. Butcher himself is easy, even with 1/2 my gold find gear on (had to flee to the door due to f***er Champion pack) however, as mentioned, I'm still having trouble with some Packs...

Vortex and FireChain + Moltenseem to be the really bad ones. Add waller to anything, even 'weak' packs, in the tight corridors, and I get f***ed pretty quickly as well.

Might come home to a new shield, which should help (26% Block, 9% Life and 1.2k Def) and I have enough money to get a 600+ life on hit amulet... well one of the cheap ones, with little frills... at the cheapest I've seen them. So I'll have to check/camp auctions in between farming.

After I get the Amulet I'm going to try do content in act 2 rather then farm Act 1. I tried Act 2 previously and just got spanked by any eliets. Bee's wern't as much trouble as I thought they would be though, they went down pretty easy.

elites in act2 are still a massive wall compared to act1, at least for a soloing wizard in s***ty gear
I go from melting face in act1 to kiting for miles in act2

I'm kinda at the point where I can farm Butcher.

I played him the other night, you can still stand in the bottom right corner and not get hit with the flames.

Yeah, Butcher isn't the problem, getting to him through packs sometimes is.

Just finished reading your issue (and reddit bsns) Hoggy, tough break!
(and MAN some of that reddit content was tedious to read as a 3rd party...)

I'd think it worthwhile asking (in a calm, fatherly manner) for Blizz to re-consider it, but yeah, if you've taken that path, and 'no' was the answer... 'Blizzard 1, Hogfather 0' I'm afraid.

I'd like to offer you some gear/cash to get started again (it's not a pity thing, more a 'get back up to running speed' thing) but yeah, that building of your character is realistically a large part of the game :\

Funny that a game so many people were begging for ultimately lead them to stop liking blizzard...

Blizzard is NOT the company it was pre-wow.

And the one thing VERY evident in the two franchises of theirs I play, is that their dev teams are verrrry different.
I f***in enjoyed the pixels out of Star Craft 2's SP game, and am looking forward to HotS (am even willing to pay for a 'full game' given it has the same amount of content that WoL had in its SP game) but Diablo 3 isn't likely to last anywhere near as long as I thought it should.

The 'content' within the game seems waaaay too short lived. I'll admit the game has been well engineered to make the replay experience reasonable, but I think that's a bit of a cop out.
Add to it the whole 'maintenance' routine for a 'pseudo-MMO' and game crippling lag; my patience to play it has worn VERY thin.


Gaming in the past 12 months has forced me to re-evaluate how I go about playing games. I'd racked up nearly 30 hours of BF3 within 7 days of launch (whilst working 40+ hours that week, and no Khel, that wasn't racking up hours @ work :P (if it was you (might have been Nerfy) with the cool boss etc).
That made me step back for a minute and try to identify why 'being competitive' in something ultimately with an 'off switch' really mattered to me. (that is to say... racking up so many hours in a game that someone else 'holds the keys to'... what do you think WOW users will do when Blizz finally put it to death.)

I like gaming, I like online gaming, but ultimately it winds up being a frustrating experience I (in my case) have been really burning myself to maintain and, in reality, nothing to show for it.

It's not that I don't like some of the mainstream games out there... but after racking up an obscene number of hours in Diablo 2, I ultimately stopped playing RPG's (let alone 'ARPG's) because the 'time vs enjoyment' comparison was stacking well into the 'time' and not at all into the enjoyment (it's not that I hate playing games, its more that in retrospect, I go into a trance, and mechanically smash my way through 10 hours of gaming in a single sesh, and looking back it's not all 'fun'.)

In other news, there are more and more indy games that really provide a satisfying experience, without the time sinkhole that mainstream gaming seemingly asks for (seriously... 'grinding' game mechanics need to f*** off and die a horrible death!).
I'll still subscribe to some of mainstream gamings offerings, but I think it might actually be me 'growing out of gaming'.

(that last sentence may not read very dramatically, but for a ~30 year old who's been playing [video] games for a quarter of a century, it represents a good portion of what I identify with.)

EDIT: on a less serious note... Raven, have you never played BlackThorne?!? that was an AWESOME adult platformer!

diablo 2 was as much of a grind as any

you couldn't walk through hell difficulty first time through like you can in diablo 3

is it that low character the level ceiling that is what does your head in, in diablo 2 level 99 was the highest level you could get to and f*** me i think i got a character to level 97 and the amount of exp to get to level 99 was soul draining

all they have really done is take the grinding part out of the game and stack it all onto the end of the game. so anyone who want to play through the game from normal to hell can and any of us neckbeard types can bash our heads against the wall grinding to try and get inferno

I'd racked up nearly 30 hours of BF3 within 7 days of launch (whilst working 40+ hours that week, and no Khel, that wasn't racking up hours @ work :P (if it was you (might have been Nerfy) with the cool boss etc).

You missed a right parenthesis.
I am therefore reading the rest of your comment as though it was background information. Consequently, paveway, you're a footnote too.

Also:
)

:P

Pave: From memory the experience required to go from 98 to 99 was equivalent to the experience required to go from 1 to 98 (i.e. double).

I got a character to 88 or so I think and said faaark this.

AND THEN you die and lose 10% xp and cry rivers of bloooooood!

10% durability? lol whatever. lose 1 week worth of xp!

Losing XP IMO is a pretty good system. Especially if you get your ass handed to you by a lower level mob.

AND THEN you die and lose 10% xp and cry rivers of bloooooood!

You never played FF11 I take it. That game was brutal for failure. Not only did you lose exp when you died, you could DELEVEL if you lost enough. Even though that game was so anti-single player it's the most fun i've had in an mmo. Best game to learn party tactics from imo.

I actually a group of players I was with found a Lv 75 botter killing 35ish level mobs, so we trained a long line of monsters onto him and kept ressing him over and over (since there was no accept button, you just got back up) and he would die in 1 or 2 hits. We made him drop 3 levels before I bailed.

last edited by DM at 16:01:43 27/Jun/12

So after a long period of nothing, I decide to boot up D3 and give it another go, see how things go. I've spent the past 25 minutes trying to patch and/or load the and getting nothing but freezes, non stop "updating tools" problems, you must install the game errors and even a please disable your anti-virus message. I give up. f*** you blizzard and your s***ty arse patching that can't work without massive issues.

I've never had any of those problems, maybe you should disable your anti-virus software?

I did. Now it hangs when I boot the game up at a black screen. I'll just go back to Tales of Graces f instead.

Eve death is fairly well up on the brutalness. First off you lose your ship and everything contained within, if you had implants then they are also gone too. Next up is if you didn't have a clone or the correct level clone you loose skill points.

That's probably why every time I engaged in a fight it was the most nervous few minutes of the game!

Eve's problem is it basically doesn't have a level cap. To do anything decent in it now, you need to have been playing since the dawn of the game.

My brother basically paid for his holiday to Vanuatu by selling a single Eve character a few years back.

You never played FF11 I take it.

From history, and relevancy, D2 is far more correct to compare d3 to. D3 seems hard, but getting to 99 was impossible for most people because a slight mistake undid more than you achieved.

This isn't a pissing contest of what was worse, it's just a comparison of change.

Item droprates have been hotfixed:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6214196

- ilvl 61-63 droprate has been increased (blog article has the new percentages)
- bosses now guaranteed to drop 2 rares with 5-stack NV

D2 also seemed to have more replayability, i'm finding D3 really really boring atm.. especially with the massive lag spikes death which cause 4k+ per death

thought i'd chime in, people having issues launching after patch... try killing the agent.exe *32 process. Seems to be the golden fix for me.

Yeah lag is still f***ed.

Level 48 item i just found.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg195/skythra/holylevel48batman.jpg

The dumb thing is this won't sell because it'll never show up in a search for a level 48 item.

cos it's not a level 48 item
anyone with a clue looking for twink gear selects the reduced level attribute cos it's going to be way more important than any other stat

That and the fact that anyone that is searcing for gear (on character) only sees items they can equip.
So if a level 48-59 character searches it will be at, or near, the top of the list for them. When they ding 60, then the will see all the other lv60 gear they can equip.

I can breeze through Act 1 now, face-tank most packs... except Arcane... f***ers.

I can just barely down Packs in Act 2, but it takes a long time and often involves a few deaths first. Found a 904 DPS weapon, but it's a 2-hander, so I'll see how it sells. Hopefully give me enough to buy a LoH Amulet and Ring which should make Act 2 easier. The AH needs more then 3 filters though, when specing some gear for monk I want to be able to filter at least 4 but realisticly probably 5 stats...

Hey scooter, is that true? I don't remember seeing any equipment on my searches with lower level requirements at all before hitting 60 unless i SPECIFICALLY added that in my search. Even though that equipment was up to 600dps more than what i had equiped. I have two 60's and 2 mid 30's characters, though the 30's are too low so i can't really test..

I'm positive my DH had a Reduced Level Req Bow show up and not any that were above a level I could equip. Can't imagine why it wouldn't work for the staff as well. If you list it I can check tonight with my DH.

Keep in mind though while it is a good weapon, Solid DPS and a Socket to boot. Amazing weapon for 48-59 but people don't really need the best gear to get to 60... and most will want better gear when they reach 60. So I don't think it will sell for all that much reguardless. That and it's a 2-hander, from what I can tell most people seem to prefer Sword + Board...

Reduced level requirements stuff does NOT show up in a search for lower levels unless you specifically enter it as an affix. That doesn't mean it won't be found though; most people who already have a high level char will search for that for any new characters they're making.

Reduced level requirements stuff does NOT show up in a search for lower levels unless you specifically enter it as an affix. That doesn't mean it won't be found though; most people who already have a high level char will search for that for any new characters they're making.

Yeah just means that the total market is smaller, like scooter said, it's not an expensive weapon so it's not priced out of the range of first time players who have just hit 48.

It was listed cheaper than a similarly DPS'ed weapon of it's level, and it took 30 hours to sell @ 200 000g. My DH made more than 200 000g in about 10 levels between 20-30, of which i spent maybe 30 000 gearing him to the teeth.

There is no challenge anymore to gearing your lowbies, every 5-10 levels worth replacing everything and still earning a lot more than you spend.

My 749 dps 1hand crossbow that had 17 Reduced Levels (level 43 required) sold for 1.5 million. I thought that was a fair price for something that would be so totally awesome to level with. Whoever bought it is going to power so fast from 43-60.

People are "apparently" getting banned for using WINE on their Linux system to play Diablo 3

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5978861022

Jesus this is a repeat of WoW all over again. Blizzard don't learn s***.

http://slashdot.org/story/06/11/15/1652222/linux-users-banned-from-world-of-warcraft

For those still actually playing it looks like d3 is about to get another nerf in the magic find department targeting people who swap gear with MF gear towards the end of a boss.
I personally do it more so in the last week since I downed diablo on inferno on the weekend, there really isn't much more to do except farm. I tend not to bother switching unless I am soloing.
Keep in mind it is basically impossible to wear your MF gear 100% of the time in act 3 and 4.
My stats geared - 42k dps (pre buffs)/29k hp/950 all resist
My stats with MF gear - 32kdps /24khp/250 all resist.

I beleive it takes quite a bit of skill to switch gear considering the gear u switch to will make you get 1 shotted. Also doing this while kiting and trying to avoid being mortared/jailed/laser beamed/walled/vortexed or plain old raped can be quite difficult.

The past week however has been very fruitful in the items department and honestly has been the only reason I kept playing since completing it.
Most of the farming I did though was goblin runs and I was wearing MF gear 100% of the time so a nerf may or may not effect me.

Either way it seems instead of trying to fix their broken game and make it more enjoyable (i.e. make the end game enjoyable).

At the moment I am afraid of trying different builds fearing it will get nerfed. For example I'd like to try a crit build but it's safe to say it will get nerfed shortly.

I read a stat tonight that said x-fire was reporting 25% of the original diablo 3 activity (logins). So it is fairly safe to say that the general feeling of diablo 3 is that it is an epic failure. Everyone even the haters want it to succeed but it is a case of "we will just have to wait 6 months for Blizzard to fix it before we will try it again".

My feeling toward this game is how I felt about Duke Nukem Forever however it has taken a little mroe time to work it out.

last edited by Dodgymon at 00:22:13 04/Jul/12

Interesting stat and based off my own friends list, I'd probably agree that 3/4 of those friends haven't touched D3 for at least a fortnight when they were playing daily. Friends list is littered with "Last online 10+" days ago.

So now both my DH and Mage are at level 38, both just started or slightly in to Act 2 Nightmare.
This is gonna take ages to get to 60 ;p

Desperately need Tomes of jewelcrafting, I have an inventory full of gems.

Upgrading Shen seems to be a waste of money, as you can get gems on the AH for about the same amount as you can from him. Though it may be different for the high quality gems. I'm only using flawless squares.

yeah the price goes up a fair bit after square

Seems to be too big a step after square, and not enough of a step before that ... though I guess tomes are expensive.

IMO there really need to be more gem styles, a-la Diablo 1 :(
It seems that somewhere between the beta and release, they got rid of Diamond and Sapphire. As a result there's no cold damage/resist, or mana regen (Skull).
Surely Ruby should have been fire damage/fire resist? :(

Really not liking the D3 socketing system.

Also, WTF is with there being no cow level? Moo, ffs :(

Also, WTF is with there being no cow level? Moo, ffs :(

http://www.diablowiki.net/Whimsyshire

Squares drop pretty commonly in Inferno Act 1+2 as well., which a lot of people repeat farm.

Due to wide availability, gems on the AH are pretty close to the combining costs. Only the best two types require plans to make, and even those do not have a great ROI. Makes sense economically since just about anyone can do it.

1 of the awesome things drop for me was a plan for jewelcrafting for a perfect square emerald. At best I could have only made around 50000 gold per gem so it wasn't really worth keeping so I sold it for 2.5m

Also in a shock move it seems Blizzard are actually putting it out there in the community instead of forcing their rules upon us about the magic find issue.
They have posted 5 possible solutions on their website.

battlenet sauce

Personally I think a magic find cap set at %150-2oo% is the best way to tackle this and in fact I always assumed there was a 200% cap in place.

Its not listed on there thing, since its probably hard to implement, but I think the best solution would be for the MF to be recorded vs damage dealt to the mob. so if you do 95% damage while with 75% MF and the final 5% with 250% MF; then you would get effective magic find of .95 x 75% + .05 x 250% giving 83% MF for that kill.

Seems to be too big a step after square, and not enough of a step before that ... though I guess tomes are expensive.

IMO there really need to be more gem styles, a-la Diablo 1 :(
It seems that somewhere between the beta and release, they got rid of Diamond and Sapphire. As a result there's no cold damage/resist, or mana regen (Skull).
Surely Ruby should have been fire damage/fire resist? :(

Really not liking the D3 socketing system.

Also, WTF is with there being no cow level? Moo, ffs :(

Single resists only help 1 class, an area won't have frost mobs, they'll have mobs with 4 attacks, of which they could be 4 different damage types and cannot be only 1. The only class which benefits from a single resist is monk. There's no reason to build just one resist.

There is mana regen on some items, your mana isn't based on int in this game, so even at level 60 your skills don't require millions of mana's. In fact for my WD his mana spend is just a tiny bit less than mana regen by natural regen, so if i stacked a little bit of mana regen, then i'd be above 0 regen in combat. But with kiting i regen anyway so it's never bothered me.

Because the game ends at 60, no more levels, you don't have that multiplier to factor in. At 60, you have squaregems and a bunch more. Before 60 you don't. At 60 you have items too, which are about 3-10x beter than level 59 gear. The above square gems are similar to that, they just increase at a much faster rate than the pre-60 gems because the game isn't linear.

Also flawless squares are free, i've got more than 10 of each (30+ of some) spare in my bank, and because its a couple thousand gold to remove them i usually don't bother if im replacing gear, even if the gear gets vendored.