Blizzard don't give a fuck and neither do I.

I'll be playing games worth my money and time and not this gateway to a cash auction house.

@SamFo said:

@jakob187:" just because the community doesn't like it doesn't mean it's wrong."

Um... Yes it does. It's different if it was a handfull of players complained but when it's the vast majority of customers then yes, something's definitely wrong.

They should have kept repair costs the same, but made health regen on special mobs better.

@SeriouslyNow said:

Blizzard don't give a fuck and neither do I.

^

I will admit though, I initially thought this thread was nothing but hyperbole- until I noticed the mention of the drop in public games and saw this confirmed on several other sites. The drop in public games is interesting in that it actually lends some credibility to the Diablo 3 exodus being an actual thing- rather than a pipe-dream of always-angry internet forum-goers.

Time will tell if this is as major as it seems to be- for if it is, Blizzard will probably react in a matter of days.

It'll probably take more than this to make them abandon Diablo 3's RMAH-centric design philosophy though. They'll just try to kiss up to the fans- and then make another attempt at returning the RMAH to a dominant position in a different manner.

This game reeks of wow-style gameplay. That is, time progression. Spend enough time at a mob/elite pack/raid boss and you'll get it down. If you still can't beat it, go back and spend time earning money/gear in a different part of the game and then go try again. There appears to be no learning curve, or difficulty scaling, just how much time you're wiling to spend fighting something, or making money to buy appropriate upgrades.

It also cements that viability is a disadvantage, and that there should only be one "correct" build for your character, whichever one uses that time most efficiently, not what is the most fun. Verbal complaints on the forums are founded, if you simply look at the numbers. Nerfing IAS while not compensating any other attribute was a kick in the nuts, and part of the problem. Peoples' solutions? Stack more IAS (and sacrifice other stats), or find an entirely different (read: boring) style of play.

I think at this point Actiblizzard is just trying to go out with a bang.

@Ulain said:

I think at this point Actiblizzard is just trying to go out with a bang.

They're not trying to do that- they're using Diablo 3 as an experiment on purpose.

They've seen the Free-to-play model, and want to see just how far it can be milked in combination with the standard retail model. A partial Frankenstein of business models as it were. :O

So what if the lab blows up on them once or twice and they lose their consumers test subjects in the process? They'll just kiss up to the surviving old ones, or probably be able to round up a new set of test subjects to continue the process. :P

Its a pain in the ass because armor also takes damage when you dont die, now previously profitable runs are barely breaking even

@jakob187: I must say that I never thought I would give up on a game so darn quickly. I mean, I got my numerous hours and dollars worth out of the game, but as soon as I started to get into the harder parts of Inferno, the game lost all of its lustre. As a gaming culture, we are spoiled for choice when it comes to games, that in this case, I regard it as tantamount to negligent for us to continue to play a game that I perceive to be as counter-fun as D3 in favour of all of the other games we are blessed with.

@Cataphract1014 said:

How to not get high repair costs: Die less.

It's Bashiok, ladies and gentlemen. Round of applause for the troll.

It's not about dying. It's about the general repair costs of actually fighting. Right now, an auto attack costs you an average of 50 gold. If you are a wizard...and cast a spell, it costs your durability as well. YOU ARE CASTING A SPELL, MAKING MAGICAL ILLUSIONS POP OUT OF THIN AIR! The idea that you literally have to decide a build based on how much damage you are causing your gear because you are just playing the game is ridiculous!

@groin said:

@Jack268 said:

@Subjugation said:

@Jack268 said:

I'm definitely rolling barbarian now. Seems like the most OP class.

Hahahahaha

Really. If their design goal is that people aren't supposed to kill bosses any more and only kill stupid mob packs, Barbarian does that job better than any other class. With Act 2-4 being nerfed to 50% damage (which is still enough to one shot most other classes running typical builds except monk) they can go through the entirity of inferno in crap gear. All the people complainig about the game "being so easy that it's not fun to play" because "enemies don't deal damage any more" are playing barbarians.

Barbarian's are only op when you have 40+ million gold invested into your gear. Good luck earning that much gold without using other classes to farm. The other classes can do a lot more with less gear. I managed to solo Inferno with a barb before the 1.0.3 patch because I had help from other people to make farming easier.

I've spent way less gold on the auction house for gear to my barb then what I've used on my DH. I also spent 120 hours to get to act 3 with my DH while I got to act 3 with my barb after 80 hours of playing.