It's a saying that gets tossed around on a regular basis, an old anecdote with a simple lesson: patience produces incredible things. Granted, the Roman empire crumbled some time after some smartass spouted that sentence off, but the lesson still remains.

Looking at the Diablo forums and all the rage at Inferno mode, you would almost think that there isn't a single person in there that has heard of that saying.

Diablo 2 was the kind of game where people were playing it for a solid decade and still finding awesome things inside of its many intricacies. A little close to two weeks after its release, people seem to believe that not beating Inferno mode at this point is a goddamn world-ending travesty. They complain about how they HAVE to build this way or HAVE to build that way, and it's rather nerve-racking to see.

Then I have to tell myself the following: "for many of them, Diablo 3 is their first Diablo". Whether we all realize it or not, Diablo 2 is twelve years old. That would mean that most of the 18-year-olds and 21-year-olds that are picking this game up now, playing Diablo for the first time...there were 6...or 8...or 9. They don't understand how difficult it gets, how you have to look outside of the box when it comes to your build. They have lived through a time of gaming where entitlement is handed to them directly in almost every situation. They don't realize that you can't just stand there and hold the left-click, expecting everything to die.

Many people I've seen complaining are Barbarians, crying about how they are too gear dependent and they need to rely on buying items from the auction house rather than from pick-ups. For the most part, they are absolutely correct. In Diablo 2, we didn't have the convenience of an auction house available to us. Instead, we had to randomly just into games and hope that we could find people that would be willing to trade. We didn't have a chat option like we now have in Battle.net, where we could link items to our friends and say "hey man, is this better than what you have?".

"...but Josh, the auction house prices are over-inflated. It's bullshit."

Welcome to free market trade, where the community determines the price. The difference between this free market and a real life free market is that in-game gold is free to farm and endless to pick up. Real money is not. Moreover, if you think 300,000 gold is a lot...or even 1 million, then you've got a lot of Diablo 3 to play still. I've personally burned through 2.3 million on the auction house, and I'm sure that won't stop anytime soon. At the same time, I've made at least 1 million from the AH (as I lowball prices on things in order to guarantee a sell as well as offer up some decent gear to those needing it).

If anything, the auction house has now added a new meta to the game. I'll be interested to see how the real money auction house pans out, whether it will be a success or not. If it works, you could easily see things like this being implemented into free-to-play MMOs as a way to fight against the farmers and such.

However, people continue to complain. They will kick and whine and scream about how they aren't getting what they want right now at this second and that they have to practice patience, grind and farm, actually WORK for things in their game.

I'm currently sitting on farm status with Act 1 Inferno. I'm a sword and board Barbarian (as I'm always a pure tank in every RPG I play - it's what I love to do). My stats right now are something like this:

• 39k HP
• 7k damage
• 500 resist to all
• 26% block
• 13% dodge

My build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WSRVkP!bVe!ccbccZ

I'm pretty sure I'm going to play around with that build a little bit more, try to work Rend/Bloodlust into it. Nonetheless, I'm enjoying myself. Act 2 is a steep brick wall, but I WILL climb over it.

No. Rome wasn't built in a day...and if I had to venture a guess, Diablo III wasn't built to only last two weeks.

I hope your adventures in Sanctuary have been as delightfully fun as mine. I wish the best to you all on your treks through Inferno.

Until next time, piece.

Good post. I'm actually starting to make some progress through Act II with my barb. Normal mobs aren't giving me any difficulty, and I can deal with half of the elites/champions. I'm currently at around:

• 44k HP
• 20k DPS (Maniac + Berzerker Rage)
• 500-600 resists (Warcry)
• 10k armour (Warcry)

Using this build. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WVkXRP!cbV!cccabZ

None of my gear was fed, all of it was purchased from the AH using gold from sales to the AH. People who are complaining about prices on the AH probably haven't delved a little deeper using the search fields. You can find lots of gear at very reasonable prices.

@ichthy: Indeed. I've found all of my gear for under 200k at any given point. Are you using a 2H, dual wield 1H, or 1H/shield. I would assume that it's a 2H with that much DPS.

I'm using a 1H/shield, but it's just the way I personally like to play. Like I said in the original post, I play a pure tank in every RPG. It's what I like doing. However, I've been wondering if 2H is viable with enough armor/resists.

Thanks for the build as well. I've contemplated using Leap with the armor increase. I might have to try it out just to see what I think.

So what people are complaining the hardest difficulty in the game is too hard? What?

I'm currently in Act II of hell and just unlocked zombie bears for my witch doctor. Combined with 300% mana recharge, zombie bears are my favorite thing in this game so far. Diablo 3 is a game that just keeps on giving.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#fdjTQP!ZcU!cZbZbb

Mastered D2. Working on building up gold stores to upgrade all my equipment to get through act 2 in inferno. Only real complaints is that it's almost a must to go sword/board. Really does limit the options, and therefore fun for me. A question though: are there specific good places in Act 1 to farm? Never had to farm before now, so I'm not even sure where to start or just run the whole act

@benspyda: I've got a friend that is playing Witch Doctor, and his favorite thing is "da bears". He actually says that every time he casts them, in a very silly way, as "a tribute to dem Chicago Bears". lol

Yes. People are complaining about the hardest difficulty, but specifically that they think it needs to be nerfed because so many people are stuck at the brick wall that is Act 2. Meanwhile, those of us who are logical human beings can look at it and say "Act 2 Inferno is a serious gear check" and work our way to progressing forward.

@jakob187 said:

@benspyda: I've got a friend that is playing Witch Doctor, and his favorite thing is "da bears". He actually says that every time he casts them, in a very silly way, as "a tribute to dem Chicago Bears". lol

Yes. People are complaining about the hardest difficulty, but specifically that they think it needs to be nerfed because so many people are stuck at the brick wall that is Act 2. Meanwhile, those of us who are logical human beings can look at it and say "Act 2 Inferno is a serious gear check" and work our way to progressing forward.

In a loot based game I see no problem with that.

Yeah I know what you mean.. I was getting a fair bit pissed at feeling so weak as a monk in inferno. But after screwing around a bit with battle tactics and spells I'm doing waaaaay better. Finding some decent stuff now too. I can make progress in act 2. But most elites still fuck me up.

A bit bored though. The friends I play with are two barbs and a DH. Both barbarians are just biiiiiitchin their hearts out at TEH UNDERPOWER. It's just no fun with them anymore. And I don't play this game to solo, though it's been a bit fun trying to beat Act 2 alone.

@jakob187: Sword and shield. The 1-hander I bought for over a million due to a fortunate Tal Rasha armour drop. However for awhile I was using much cheaper 2-hander that had a similar DPS to farm Act 1. That was using a Seismic Slam build with EQ and WotB though.

Well, the difficulty in act 2 is pretty insane, especially when you can not avoid elites or rares. The only way for me to finish the cave in the "Blood and Sand" quest chain was by relogging until I didn't get spiders with illusions, lava, and invincible minions... I have no idea how to deal with them as a wizard. Actually there are a whole lot of ability combinations which make enemies so strong that there's no way to kill them and you can't get past them either, no matter what you do. 
 
Apart from these problems I'm loving inferno so far. It's hard, unforgiving (starting with act 2), and you really need to know how to play your class to progress. 
 
 
My wizard's stats: 

• 24.2k HP
• 18.7k DPS (no glass cannon, no magic weapon)
• 300 resist to all

I thought we still lived in a world where gamers thought games were too easy?

Ps: I want to show the guy who said Diablo was a casual game with hardcore paint this thread.

Finally a well spoken and thought-out post, I was beginning to think that the entirety of the 3 million + people that bought the game hated it.

I'm still in Nightmare. I'm still a new father and it takes a little bit of maneuvering to get myself to sit down for longer than 15-30 minutes to complete anything. I can easily say there are still a couple packs of mobs in Act II Nightmare that give me trouble, so I can't imagine what it will be like afterwards.

I am just glad Blizzard fixed their net code for the most part (at least on my end) so I know the deaths are my fault. I plan to pour a lot more hours into this game and cannot wait for the expansion and possible DLC.

EDIT: I think what we need to be afraid of is Blizzard's reaction to all of this. I have been playing World of Warcraft since it's humble beginnings, and I can easily say that Blizzard listens to a lot of the wrong people. I appreciate the things they do, and understand the reasoning behind them, but sometimes they really take the core reason behind playing their video games and rip them apart. I do not want to see the game's difficulty decreased because of these children whining on the forums, but sadly it has a chance of happening.

Let's just hope it doesn't.

A thread about Diablo that isn't claiming that Blizzard's working some conspiracy angle or is a shitty game production studio? Flagged, clearly trying to drive traffic to another site.

Everyone who's upset about the difficulty ramping up is probably like me. I played a shit ton of Diablo 2 - but all in normal difficulty. I got far enough to see all the abilities but I didn't like hitting that brick wall in hell/inferno. I've made it a goal to get to 60 and break my way through the rest of the game. Most of the motivation from that has come from me telling my friends I'd play meat shield for them though, so I salute you as a fellow tank sir.

@jakob187:

Dude - you argue for building games for the 1%. Just like in the real world, a game rigged for the 1% sucks major dickballs, and the defenders of such practices are the worst.

Progression in Inferno is broken for the 99%. Hey - you got Act I on farmstatus? Good for you. I beat it the same session I beat Hell difficulty. Natural progression would be for me to transition organically from beating Act I to making similar progress in Act II. That's not the case though. Difficulty spikes unnaturally, where-in you are forced to farm the shit out of Act I until your stats suffice. You'll not be grinding for loot specifically, but rather to make money to buy upgrades in the auction house. Having basic trading skills and patience will accellerate this progress a lot. Essentially we are working off a statistical debt to Blizzard's balancing for the 1% crazy dedicated people.

I know my shit. I got a solid build. I got the playerskill. Hell - if I was okay with grinding my soul to dust by throwing my corpse at the Act II progression wall - I got the gear to do that too. It's simply no fun to me. How you can defend 'farming Act I Inferno with my Barbarian' until my numbers and skill synergies match Act II... it's beyond me. That's not how modern games should be. There's too much stuff out there for any one game to take itself that seriously. Not even Blizzard games.

There's nothing to defend here really. Blizzard knows it's too hard and unfun for a majority of their playerbase (most of which won't be anywhere near Inferno Act II), and the only fun the 1% whom have progressed past Act II are having, in all honesty, is likely the feeling of 'being elite'. The act of doing so is still a horrid slog, but you gain self-satisfaction and IRL attitude - most of which are imaginary qualities we carry as a shield to protect our tender selfs. Fact is, you'll have your skill synergies and your ressource pool - you'll spool down your cooldowns the best you know - you'll likely die, but if you're worth your salt, you'll have done a bunch of damage, rince and repeat - and that's how you come by progress on Inferno. That isn't fun to me, it shouldn't be fun to anyone, and it's certainly not good gamedesign.

The difficulty nerf will inevitably come, and it will be okay. I'm already sick and tired of Diablo III anyways. All I want is to satisfy my pride, beat Inferno, and put the genie back into the bottle. Seriously - it's like 5 hours of content, short-circuited into an endless grind. That's cool and all, but it also should be fun. It currently isn't to me. It likely isn't to a majority of players whom have reached Act II. Diablo III ain't gonna stay the way it is. The loud and proud 1% get their time in the limelight, the 99% will get a much more accessible Inferno mode soon enough.

And it certainly ain't about age. You're more likely to dislike a needless grind, if you are older. Young people feel like they've all the time in the world. The older you get, the less that rings true. I'm pretty much done running anything through a Diablo III act. Inferno or otherwise. Been there, done that. Enough dark. Time for some blond. Or brunette. Chocolate. Mocha. Latte.

The thing is with auction houses in games like WOW, and Diablo is that money will always be added and items will continue to inflate in price.

Mastered D2. Working on building up gold stores to upgrade all my equipment to get through act 2 in inferno. Only real complaints is that it's almost a must to go sword/board. Really does limit the options, and therefore fun for me. A question though: are there specific good places in Act 1 to farm? Never had to farm before now, so I'm not even sure where to start or just run the whole act

Belial phase 3 is about execution. Most of Inferno mode ain't about execution. Progress by grind. In Act II, most elite packs are literally beaten by grinding them down, death by death.

Item grind. I see the appeal. I know it well. I'm just not game anymore for such devices. Especially if it still comes down to throwing my corpse at shit over and over again, and that passes as legitimate progress.

In my book, that's the very definition of poo gamedesign.

Just like in WOW this is end game content for the people who WILL grind for loot. It gives them something to do in the endgame and more meaning to the AH. It's not the same kind of barrier for entry like WOW where you needed 30 man raids and epic gear to see the cool stuff. I just Solo'd in WOW so I can essentially get more out of Diablo soloing than I could ever get in WOW.

Even just running through the first 3 difficulties is enough fun to justify the price of entry and inferno is really just a bonus for hardcore anyway.

@Seppli said:

@jakob187:

Dude - you argue for building games for the 1%. Just like in the real world, a game rigged for the 1% sucks major dickballs, and the defenders of such practices are the worst.

Progression in Inferno is broken for the 99%. Hey - you got Act I on farmstatus? Good for you. I beat it the same session I beat Hell difficulty. Natural progression would be for me to transition organically from beating Act I to making similar progress in Act II. That's not the case though. Difficulty spikes unnaturally, where-in you are forced to farm the shit out of Act I until your stats suffice. You'll not be grinding for loot specifically, but rather to make money to buy upgrades in the auction house. Having basic trading skills and patience will accellerate this progress a lot. Essentially we are working off a statistical debt to Blizzard's balancing for the 1% crazy dedicated people.

I know my shit. I got a solid build. I got the playerskill. Hell - if I was okay with grinding my soul to dust by throwing my corpse at the Act II progression wall - I got the gear to do that too. It's simply no fun to me. How you can defend 'farming Act I Inferno with my Barbarian' until my numbers and skill synergies match Act II... it's beyond me. That's not how modern games should be. There's too much stuff out there for any one game to take itself that seriously. Not even Blizzard games.

There's nothing to defend here really. Blizzard knows it's too hard and unfun for a majority of their playerbase (most of which won't be anywhere near Inferno Act II), and the only fun the 1% whom have progressed past Act II are having, in all honesty, is likely the feeling of 'being elite'. The act of doing so is still a horrid slog, but you gain self-satisfaction and IRL attitude - most of which are imaginary qualities we carry as a shield to protect our tender selfs. Fact is, you'll have your skill synergies and your ressource pool - you'll spool down your cooldowns the best you know - you'll likely die, but if you're worth your salt, you'll have done a bunch of damage, rince and repeat - and that's how you come by progress on Inferno. That isn't fun to me, it shouldn't be fun to anyone, and it's certainly not good gamedesign.

The difficulty nerf will inevitably come, and it will be okay. I'm already sick and tired of Diablo III anyways. All I want is to satisfy my pride, beat Inferno, and put the genie back into the bottle. Seriously - it's like 5 hours of content, short-circuited into an endless grind. That's cool and all, but it also should be fun. It currently isn't to me. It likely isn't to a majority of players whom have reached Act II. Diablo III ain't gonna stay the way it is. The loud and proud 1% get their time in the limelight, the 99% will get a much more accessible Inferno mode soon enough.

And it certainly ain't about age. You're more likely to dislike a needless grind, if you are older. Young people feel like they've all the time in the world. The older you get, the less that rings true. I'm pretty much done running anything through a Diablo III act. Inferno or otherwise. Been there, done that. Enough dark. Time for some blond. Or brunette. Chocolate. Mocha. Latte.

I really don't understand this at all. You're bitching and moaning about the difficulty and constantly repeating it's about the 1% completing it. Well fuck that's the point.

The game is meant to be difficult. The game isn't meant for a natural linear difficulty curve and to be done with within a week. Also, might be a crazy question but, if you don't enjoy the difficulty than why feel so compelled to complete it?

I really fucking hate this attitude to. The game can be completed easily on any other difficulty's and the highest difficulty was meant for a challenge for people who enjoy the game. Why the fuck do you feel so fucking entitled that you think the whole game should be changed so you can finish it, fuck off to another game and leave the rest of us with a shallow experience.

So to sum up, the game shouldn't be changed for idiots like you who throw tantrums because they can't progress, even when it was repeatedly said inferno was going to be fucking difficult.

Going into something being told is hard, then complaining about the difficulty just boggles my mind. Crazy.

@Seppli: I'm pretty sure that Blizzard directly stated that Inferno was meant for the 1%. Where did I hear that from? Hrmm...oh yeah...GAMESCOM 2011!

It's not me defending it. It's me pointing out that people forgot how difficult games can be. If someone doesn't want to beat their head against a wall, then fine. You don't have to. If you want to, then go for it.

Saying that they need to nerf the difficulty TWO WEEKS after the game's release is ridiculous. Literally...ridiculous. If they lowered the difficulty, then congratulations - Diablo 3 has become every other game out there and you can walk through it in two weeks. Whatever happened to having a challenge? Yeah, the shit hits hard. Yeah, you have to grind and buy new gear. If that's not something you are in for, then no one is forcing your hand to play. You already said it yourself: you're bored of Diablo 3. Me? I've still got four other classes to play and max out, and that's not even including all of the other repeat classes I want to make with crazy builds that shouldn't be viable but are made viable. For instance, I'm glad to see that Throwing Barbarians are still viable to play in Diablo 3:

I'm also pretty excited to know that there are a lot of people proving that Barbarians ARE NOT underpowered, but instead are being played wrong, built wrong, and expected to do things that they don't do. You know what's funny? Most people that are playing Diablo 3 right now don't even understand what the basic standard of a Barbarian in the world of something like D&D even entails: high resistances, high natural AC, wielding a big ass weapon and beating the shit out of everything. Guess what? Nothing has changed. You can absolutely do a high strength, high resistance, high natural AC along with armor AC, and high dexterity build with a ton of dodge chance...and it's fully viable. My brother is doing the shit right now as I type this. He's in Act 2 having fun, getting ready for Act 3.

Part of my only reason to be in Act 2 still is because it's my long week at work (which means seven days of work in a row, very little time to dedicate to the game). Nonetheless, I've chosen a specific path for my character, and I will hold true to that path. It's "role-playing".

Nonetheless, to say that Inferno is overly difficult...is EXACTLY the point. This idea of self-entitlement that people get of "hey, I paid $60, give me all of the content" is stupid. You paid $60 for a game that is meant to challenge you by the time you get to the end. If you can't hold up to that challenge, if you can't handle what that entails and what needs to be done, then why the hell did you buy Diablo 3 in the first place?

So I'm sorry. I don't sympathize with your sentiments. Then again, I'm the guy that loves Shinobi, Dark Souls, Demon's Souls, Super Meat Boy, Trials, and all kinds of crazy hard video games. I enjoy a challenge, as ridiculous as it may be.

@haffy: No need for the hostility, man. Also no need for name-calling. The Giant Bomb forums are better than that.

@Dagbiker: I can't say that I've paid a ton of attention to the WoW auction house recently. However, with many games that I've played in recent time, the auction houses seemed pretty settled in to what the actual economy of the game is. The Old Republic, Dungeons & Dragons Online, and Rift are the three examples I would use in this case. My only real concern is that the Real Money Auction House is going to cause a spike in possible account theft due to Paypal's being linked to them. Moreover, I'm curious if Blizzard will follow Paypal standard protocol (unlike Microsoft has done with Xbox 360 Marketplace) and require you to enter your Paypal account information before making a purchase with it for that extra layer of security.

Beyond that, I highly doubt that people are going to be too stupid with the RMAH. The gold auction house might see a spike, especially since you can buy gold from the RMAH...but I doubt it'll stay that way for long. If it does, then oh well. Again, it's a free market and this is how things work. Just look at EVE Online. = /

So Rome took a long time to establish as a prominent power... which equates to Diablo 3 being a game with a long lifespan. Hrm?

How about, "It took several millenia for Japan to finally bow to a foreign power?" Yeah, it doesn't roll of the tongue as well, but it's a better metaphor. We'll work on the phrasing later.

@Paul_Is_Drunk said:

So Rome took a long time to establish as a prominent power... which equates to Diablo 3 being a game with a long lifespan. Hrm?

How about, "It took several millenia for Japan to finally bow to a foreign power?" Yeah, it doesn't roll of the tongue as well, but it's a better metaphor. We'll work on the phrasing later.

Yeah, that was kind of the problem I was facing...so I just said "fuck it".

@jakob187:

Dude - you argue for building games for the 1%. Just like in the real world, a game rigged for the 1% sucks major dickballs, and the defenders of such practices are the worst.

Progression in Inferno is broken for the 99%. Hey - you got Act I on farmstatus? Good for you. I beat it the same session I beat Hell difficulty. Natural progression would be for me to transition organically from beating Act I to making similar progress in Act II. That's not the case though. Difficulty spikes unnaturally, where-in you are forced to farm the shit out of Act I until your stats suffice. You'll not be grinding for loot specifically, but rather to make money to buy upgrades in the auction house. Having basic trading skills and patience will accellerate this progress a lot. Essentially we are working off a statistical debt to Blizzard's balancing for the 1% crazy dedicated people.

I know my shit. I got a solid build. I got the playerskill. Hell - if I was okay with grinding my soul to dust by throwing my corpse at the Act II progression wall - I got the gear to do that too. It's simply no fun to me. How you can defend 'farming Act I Inferno with my Barbarian' until my numbers and skill synergies match Act II... it's beyond me. That's not how modern games should be. There's too much stuff out there for any one game to take itself that seriously. Not even Blizzard games.

There's nothing to defend here really. Blizzard knows it's too hard and unfun for a majority of their playerbase (most of which won't be anywhere near Inferno Act II), and the only fun the 1% whom have progressed past Act II are having, in all honesty, is likely the feeling of 'being elite'. The act of doing so is still a horrid slog, but you gain self-satisfaction and IRL attitude - most of which are imaginary qualities we carry as a shield to protect our tender selfs. Fact is, you'll have your skill synergies and your ressource pool - you'll spool down your cooldowns the best you know - you'll likely die, but if you're worth your salt, you'll have done a bunch of damage, rince and repeat - and that's how you come by progress on Inferno. That isn't fun to me, it shouldn't be fun to anyone, and it's certainly not good gamedesign.

The difficulty nerf will inevitably come, and it will be okay. I'm already sick and tired of Diablo III anyways. All I want is to satisfy my pride, beat Inferno, and put the genie back into the bottle. Seriously - it's like 5 hours of content, short-circuited into an endless grind. That's cool and all, but it also should be fun. It currently isn't to me. It likely isn't to a majority of players whom have reached Act II. Diablo III ain't gonna stay the way it is. The loud and proud 1% get their time in the limelight, the 99% will get a much more accessible Inferno mode soon enough.

And it certainly ain't about age. You're more likely to dislike a needless grind, if you are older. Young people feel like they've all the time in the world. The older you get, the less that rings true. I'm pretty much done running anything through a Diablo III act. Inferno or otherwise. Been there, done that. Enough dark. Time for some blond. Or brunette. Chocolate. Mocha. Latte.

I didn't get stuck at all until act 2 of inferno, I thought Hell and inferno act 1 were pretty easy actually. I've hit a brick wall now though and I might be done with the game. At least I get to play some other stuff now!

@Skytylz: Fuck all that noise. CLIMB THAT WALL, MAN! YOU CAN DO IT!

@haffy said:

@Seppli said:

@jakob187:

Dude - you argue for building games for the 1%. Just like in the real world, a game rigged for the 1% sucks major dickballs, and the defenders of such practices are the worst.

Progression in Inferno is broken for the 99%. Hey - you got Act I on farmstatus? Good for you. I beat it the same session I beat Hell difficulty. Natural progression would be for me to transition organically from beating Act I to making similar progress in Act II. That's not the case though. Difficulty spikes unnaturally, where-in you are forced to farm the shit out of Act I until your stats suffice. You'll not be grinding for loot specifically, but rather to make money to buy upgrades in the auction house. Having basic trading skills and patience will accellerate this progress a lot. Essentially we are working off a statistical debt to Blizzard's balancing for the 1% crazy dedicated people.

I know my shit. I got a solid build. I got the playerskill. Hell - if I was okay with grinding my soul to dust by throwing my corpse at the Act II progression wall - I got the gear to do that too. It's simply no fun to me. How you can defend 'farming Act I Inferno with my Barbarian' until my numbers and skill synergies match Act II... it's beyond me. That's not how modern games should be. There's too much stuff out there for any one game to take itself that seriously. Not even Blizzard games.

There's nothing to defend here really. Blizzard knows it's too hard and unfun for a majority of their playerbase (most of which won't be anywhere near Inferno Act II), and the only fun the 1% whom have progressed past Act II are having, in all honesty, is likely the feeling of 'being elite'. The act of doing so is still a horrid slog, but you gain self-satisfaction and IRL attitude - most of which are imaginary qualities we carry as a shield to protect our tender selfs. Fact is, you'll have your skill synergies and your ressource pool - you'll spool down your cooldowns the best you know - you'll likely die, but if you're worth your salt, you'll have done a bunch of damage, rince and repeat - and that's how you come by progress on Inferno. That isn't fun to me, it shouldn't be fun to anyone, and it's certainly not good gamedesign.

The difficulty nerf will inevitably come, and it will be okay. I'm already sick and tired of Diablo III anyways. All I want is to satisfy my pride, beat Inferno, and put the genie back into the bottle. Seriously - it's like 5 hours of content, short-circuited into an endless grind. That's cool and all, but it also should be fun. It currently isn't to me. It likely isn't to a majority of players whom have reached Act II. Diablo III ain't gonna stay the way it is. The loud and proud 1% get their time in the limelight, the 99% will get a much more accessible Inferno mode soon enough.

And it certainly ain't about age. You're more likely to dislike a needless grind, if you are older. Young people feel like they've all the time in the world. The older you get, the less that rings true. I'm pretty much done running anything through a Diablo III act. Inferno or otherwise. Been there, done that. Enough dark. Time for some blond. Or brunette. Chocolate. Mocha. Latte.

I really don't understand this at all. You're bitching and moaning about the difficulty and constantly repeating it's about the 1% completing it. Well fuck that's the point.

The game is meant to be difficult. The game isn't meant for a natural linear difficulty curve and to be done with within a week. Also, might be a crazy question but, if you don't enjoy the difficulty than why feel so compelled to complete it?

I really fucking hate this attitude to. The game can be completed easily on any other difficulty's and the highest difficulty was meant for a challenge for people who enjoy the game. Why the fuck do you feel so fucking entitled that you think the whole game should be changed so you can finish it, fuck off to another game and leave the rest of us with a shallow experience.

So to sum up, the game shouldn't be changed for idiots like you who throw tantrums because they can't progress, even when it was repeatedly said inferno was going to be fucking difficult.

Going into something being told is hard, then complaining about the difficulty just boggles my mind. Crazy.

I was pretty much about to post something like this, and I don't think I could add much.

It kind of makes me think why Blizzard even made difficulty levels if the 99% of their audience is going to hate it.

Normal - Casual, introduction.

Nightmare - Getting your feet wet.

Hell - Alright, that hurt's a little.

Inferno - You mean I actually have to think about my actions?

Pretty much from what Seppli (and 99% :rollseyes: of the population) is saying is that all the modes should be equal to Hell or below. What the fuck is the point of Inferno than? It seems they just want content tailored to their attention level (which is relevant to the user) so that at the end of the day they can feel accomplished without putting much effort into it. The idea that people want to be finished with Inferno by now, full of loot and year, not two fucking weeks after the release, is mind boggling.

I think the thing that fascinates me the most is the idea that people actually believe 99% of the users who play this game are active enough to post on the forums.

I'm technically stuck on Belial. I could probably solo him but I'd have to try like 20 times. Not really feeling it. I'll wait until some friendly barb hits critical mass and just doesn't take any damage from him.

Just soloed Belial with a barb wearing Act 1 gear, except for weapon. Total time stuck in Act 2...five days.

@jakob187: @ck1nd:@haffy:

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news then, because you are 'shit out of luck'. Inferno will get nerfed. At the very least Act II. Soon. That much is known.

Act I Inferno is the natural progression of Act IV Hell. It's harder for sure, but it's the same ballgame. Act II though demands ridiculous stats-stacking, and very singular minded builds. Progression is suddenly no longer about gameplay, but about work. Working for millions upon millions of gold, to grab the gear with the right stats for the build you have in mind. To a certain degree that's okay. I've ran Act I Inferno like 4 times, doubled my DPS and increased my Vitality - so my skill synergies are enough to kill Act II elites.

The very act I've worked for so hard to achieve though, it's simply no fun - shitty game engineering - because it involves inevitable death. Most elite packs from Act II on out will kill you, and then kill you some more. The very act of killing elite packs is a soulcrushing grind. Throwing your corpse at them. Death by death. Bullshit corpserun by bullshit corpserun. Over and over again. Nope - that's not fun to me, and it's indefensible gamedesign. Blizzard knows it. Pretty much admitted to it - and the a balance patch is forthcoming.

Soon not only singular minded individuals willing to suffer a second job - and degrading themselves by subjecting to broken balancing - are going to have fun playing Inferno. Btw. all but Jakob seem not even to be anywhere near Inferno Act II, but argue out of some wierd sort of hypothetical place of principle. Just get there, and check it out for yourselves. I guarantee it likely is just as little fun to you, as it is to me - because it sucks dickballs.

@ck1nd said:

The idea that people want to be finished with Inferno by now, full of loot and year, not two fucking weeks after the release, is mind boggling.

This.

The game was a complete walk in the park prior to Hell, god forbid you actually have to optimize your skill bar and grind out loot to kill standard mobs now.

@jakob187: I couldn't agree more with your post, dude. I'm finding online so far - that 99% of the players I play with are absolutely bloody awful at Diablo. No wonder inferno is murdering them. I also think Diablo is becoming a victim of the current generation of the reality TV show attitude, where if you don't like something, players think they can just 'vote to change it'. Lastly it feels like a lot of complaints are coming from WoW players who have now found out that WoW has taught them ZERO reaction time/twitch gaming skills.

I'm all for balance and improving the game past release, but I really hope they don't nerf the difficulty too much.

@Seppli: This is the same reasoning that caused the nerfing of raid bosses and welfare epics in WoW...amongst many other things. I wish that Blizzard would stick to their guns on this one rather than satisfying the fulfillment of all the people that just want shit handed to them. Right now, I haven't spent MILLIONS. Actually, I've only spent about A million, and I'm now at the point that I can start progressing through Act 2 just fine. If people are spending MILLIONS, then they need to start shopping cheaper and smarter. I find the gear I need on the regular for CHEAP. Hell, I just picked up some boots for 80k today that had 85 str, 140 vit, 45 resist all, 38 phys resist, and thorns. THESE TYPES OF THINGS ARE ON AH ALL THE TIME! If people don't want to use the filters and take the time to get the gear, that is THEIR problem, not Blizzard's. They made the game's final difficulty tough with steep curves as a way to say "hey, it's gear check and skill check time".

This morning, I hit 8.1k armor, 600 resist to all, 7.5k dps, and 32k health...and the regular mobs in Act 2 are now just challenging, not ROFLstomp bad. In turn, it just means that a little work is needed. Anyone unwilling to put in that work means that they need to reconsider the game they are playing most likely...well, except now, since whining and bitching in this decade gets you whatever you want...

Moreover, you keep talking about how only one type of build is viable in that mode. Did you even LOOK at the weapon throw Barb video I posted? That's an outlandishly crazy build, and the guy walked through Inferno like a boss. I've seen Demon Hunters with 1300 dex and 700 vit with 300 resist to all downing Diablo on Inferno. The excuse that you are cornered into one build is bullshit. The problem is that people just want to stand still and press left click like this was fucking Diablo 1, and it ain't.

There are videos ALL OVER YOUTUBE showing that this can be done, and with multiple builds!

Therefore, this cop out bullshit of "no, it's a brick wall that people can't jump over without spending millions" is crap. Besides, it's not like millions is DIFFICULT to make in this game! They practically throw gold at your face all the time, saying "hey, here, have 100k gold in no time". Then again, I'm guessing that people are incapable of doing that either. Let's just give everyone 1 million gold a day for free, right?

I'm sorry, but your argument is invalid to me when there is proof that it is NOT that hard. It just takes work, time, and patience. If people aren't willing to do that, then they wasted their $60 and should think twice before buying a game with difficulty.

@jakob187: I would suggest you stop wasting your time on @Seppli and his apple that looks like a butt.

The hardest difficulty should be too hard for most people. If you don't like the way it requires you to play, don't play it. You played through the game three times with that character already. Start a new character, go back to the part you enjoyed. No biggie. You could spend hundreds of hours just taking all five classes through Hell.

I should point that this is what Seppli was talking about - the changes in patch 1.0.3. It sounds like a bunch of "please don't run away from our game because we made it take commitment and patience" bullshit to me.

As someone who spent months bashing their face against HM Lich King in wow for 3 nights a week, 4+ hours a night, calling a few days of insignificant progress a "grind" rings hollow for me. When you finally crest that hill though, it feels great man. People are just impatient these days and have a "gimme gimme gimme" attitude. Heaven forbid you have to actually work, actually try on the hardest difficulty in the game. If it isn't people complaining about how games are "too casual" these days or "too easy", it's people complaining again once a difficult game comes out, something they were supposedly clamoring for.

@Subjugation said:

As someone who spent months bashing their face against HM Lich King in wow for 3 nights a week, 4+ hours a night, calling a few days of insignificant progress a "grind" rings hollow for me.

Imagine what it was like when the first news rolled around that they were nerfing BWL and MC. BWL was balls hard, and the idea of it being easier was something that people shuddered at. They WANTED it to be tough. It's the reason that we play RPGs: we want to defeat these difficult things through our own player/gear/skill progression and overcome the odds, dance on their corpse when it's dead, and ravage the women of our village because of our success afterwards.

So I'm almost done with act 2 inferno and the thing that bothers me about it is not that it's too hard. What bothers me about inferno is that you can't really grind for loot, you can only grind for gear to buy loot. Inferno so far for me and my friends has only dropped loot that is not good enough to actually play inferno with. It feels a bit off that you need to buy loot from inferno act IV to be able to play inferno act 2.

@TentPole said:

@jakob187: I would suggest you stop wasting your time on @Seppli and his apple that looks like a butt.

This.

@loldetaerleo: I have picked up a couple of drops that I have been using, but beyond that, you are correct.

Regardless, Blizzard blues have already owned up to the fact that drops are pretty crap in order to encourage people to hit up the auction house. I would be really offended and angered by that...except I'm not because I make about as much as I end up buying from the AH, thereby balancing the universe out for me. However, yeah, that is a fairly good point that I can wholeheartedly agree with. It's kind of silly.

@jakob187: I gave act 2 another go today and I made it all the way to Belial! I'm just getting massacred now though haha.

@jakob187: Amen. It's a love/hate relationship, but I just can't quit her. Some of us are spurred onward by a ridiculous challenge because of pride, and I count myself among that group. Respect for the Vanilla days man. I only jumped aboard during BC but I heard plenty of stories about what my fore bearers went through. I imagine the chemical high of success remained the same though. The mixture of adrenaline and euphoria was pretty great.

So I'm almost done with act 2 inferno and the thing that bothers me about it is not that it's too hard. What bothers me about inferno is that you can't really grind for loot, you can only grind for gear to buy loot. Inferno so far for me and my friends has only dropped loot that is not good enough to actually play inferno with. It feels a bit off that you need to buy loot from inferno act IV to be able to play inferno act 2.

So what? First they complain that the game is to easy, and now they complain that its to hard? Seriously fuck the Blizzard community. Whiney little brats.

@PhantomGardener said:

So what? First they complain that the game is to easy, and now they complain that its to hard? Seriously fuck the Blizzard community. Whiney little brats.

Yep.

"But no no, it's not that it is too hard, it's too hard the wrong way!!! You don't understand me :("

Urgh. If people don't want to grind then that's perfectly understandable. Those people just shouldn't play inferno then. But guys like Seppli, who feel like they're entitled to beating the hardest difficulty easily (yes, that's what he IS asking for in the end), fuck that.

Don't want to grind, don't play a game that is as loot focused as Diablo 3. There's still plenty of strategy and good play-skill involved, but loot is a damn big aspect.

The problem with being a melee character in a difficulty where enemies do 50,000 damage every hit is that, no matter your defense or armor, you will die in 3-2 hits from the first blue/yellow enemy that you see. Inferno is only possible if you are a wizard or a demon hunter. Anything else, including the witch doctor, will get you killed. It's about avoiding getting hit while giving enemies damage, not about taking damage while giving it also. Blizzard made this absurd difficulty mode so there is reason to pay money for the auction house. It's a business tactic that's going to work pretty damned well for the narcissistic and passionate folk that did Baal runs 24/7 in Diablo2 in a journey to reach level.99, mind me being off-topic.

@Tru3_Blu3 said:

The problem with being a melee character in a difficulty where enemies do 50,000 damage every hit is that, no matter your defense or armor, you will die in 3-2 hits from the first blue/yellow enemy that you see. Inferno is only possible if you are a wizard or a demon hunter. Anything else, including the witch doctor, will get you killed. It's about avoiding getting hit while giving enemies damage, not about taking damage while giving it also. Blizzard made this absurd difficulty mode so there is reason to pay money for the auction house. It's a business tactic that's going to work pretty damned well for the narcissistic and passionate folk that did Baal runs 24/7 in Diablo2 in a journey to reach level.99, mind me being off-topic.

There's a metric crapton of people beating the game with Barbarians and co already, only 2 weeks after release. What the fuck is wrong with that?

@NaDannMaGoGo said:

@Tru3_Blu3 said:

The problem with being a melee character in a difficulty where enemies do 50,000 damage every hit is that, no matter your defense or armor, you will die in 3-2 hits from the first blue/yellow enemy that you see. Inferno is only possible if you are a wizard or a demon hunter. Anything else, including the witch doctor, will get you killed. It's about avoiding getting hit while giving enemies damage, not about taking damage while giving it also. Blizzard made this absurd difficulty mode so there is reason to pay money for the auction house. It's a business tactic that's going to work pretty damned well for the narcissistic and passionate folk that did Baal runs 24/7 in Diablo2 in a journey to reach level.99, mind me being off-topic.

There's a metric crapton of people beating the game with Barbarians and co already, only 2 weeks after release. What the fuck is wrong with that?

On Inferno?

If so, then I'm wrong. But I find it a bad move on one's part to beat something like Inferno with a melee character. Avoiding damage from instant-killing enemies seems to be a smart move for those who want to dominate the difficulty mode.