Üblicherweise sind die US-amerikanischen Battle.net Foren der Ort, wo Blizzards Community Manager zu wichtigen Fragen der Diablo 3 Community, Stellung nehmen. Da sich die Fragen der US-Community deutlich von den Themen die uns Europäer interessieren, unterscheiden, hat Blizzard nun auch interessante Fragen europäischer Spieler beantwortet.

Ein Spieler bemängelt, dass er 4500 Elite-Packs und 300 Schatzgoblins getötet hat und kein, dadurch, gefundenen Gegenstand für seinen Charakter, sinnvoll, verwenden konnte. Blizzard hat, aus eigener Sicht, mit dem Anheben der Dropchancen auf diese Problematik reagiert und wird dies durch die Verbesserung der Legendary-Items, auch in Zukunft tun.

With over 4500 champion packs killed and like 300 goblins, it’s just plain obvious how this game is completely designed around pulling out your creditcard. We were unable to progress without using the AH, fine. We’ll use it and then use the bought gear to farm Act 3 or so to get to Act 4.

The problem is NOTHING of use drops. NOTHING. My friend got 8 legendaries in those hours, I got one. Of which exactly 9 were useless. Alot of rares drop, one was useful so far after buying AH gear. Now we’ve reached the new patch which was supposed to fix alot of stuff and it increased repair cost.
Nakatoir: We will be applying hotfixes which will be further buffing the drop chances of higher level loot in Inferno difficulty, keep an eye on our “Diablo III Hotfixes – June” blog to see what the new drop chances will be. On the topic of your legendary drops, we are planning a strong buff to legendary items that will make them flat out better than blue items; however this will sadly not be retroactive.

Ein anderer Spieler lobt Blizzard für die Abkehr von stupiden Bossruns, wie sie in Diablo 2 üblich waren, hin zu dem Nephalem-Buff-Elite-Pack System, wie es derzeit in Diablo 3 implementiert ist.

The point of Diablo was never to kill Diablo, it was to grind for gear. I’ve had hundreds of hours of fun while doing that in D2. The idea of killing champions instead of doing a million mephisto/diablo/baal runs for items was pretty good, I liked it. Nephalem stacks, pretty good too (to some degree).
Nakatoir: It’s great to hear how you like the system of the Nephalem buff and having to explore the world for champion packs instead of simply killing a single boss many, many times. This is much better to me as well than the constant boss runs in Diablo II. It gets me exploring and searching for the champion packs and each time it is different as the area you encounter the champion pack in, the affixes they have and the monster type they are will make me approach each one differently.

Das Co-op Spielen wird derzeit nicht ausreichend honoriert, oft ist es sinnvoller alleine zu farmen. Der Meinung ist auch ein Spieler, der zudem noch die, zum Teil frustrierenden, Affix-Kombinationen der Elite-Packs kritisiert, die nach nach langen, schweren Kämpfen oft nur qualitativ niedrige Gegenstände droppen. Leider geht Blizzard nicht auf die Co-op Problematik ein und rechtfertigt den, oft zu schlechten Loot, mit Ausnahme-ilvl-63-Gegenständen, die die Motivations-Kurve wieder nach oben schnellen lassen würden.

Now to speak of co-op. Co-op is a punishment in Diablo 3. Elite packs with over 6.4 million health. Packs with invulnerable minions, horde, vortex, arcane, plague, molten and so forth. I’ve just had a pack with arcane, plague, molten and mortar and I honestly laughed. Some combinations are just redicilous. But who cares, atleast they drop something worth the 20 minutes it took to kill them right? If you wonder, they gave me ilvl 55 wrists with health regen and indestructibility. Hooray.
Nakatoir: The luck of the affixes you get landed with can sometimes be very frustrating but it’s part of the challenge; I remember getting a vortex, invulnerable minions, horde, extra health and it was so hard to kill 🙁 But the great feeling of eventually overcoming such a pack is fantastic. Sometimes it can be saddening to see that effort results in poor loot, but when that you find a Ilvl 63 rare that rolls near perfect stats you do not forget the feeling!

In einer weiteren Stellungnahme dementiert Blizzard, das Diablo 3 um das Echtgeld-Aktionshaus designed wurde.

But the idea of designing D3 around some crappy system which should be OPTIONAL for the rich or spoiled called the RMAH, is fatal.
Nakatoir: The RMAH is not what Diablo III is designed around and it is fully optional, it is never forced upon you to use it. I myself have not used it yet, neither for selling or buying but I may some point in the future. It is simply an additional service that you can utilize if you so decide, the same goes for the gold AH.

Es letzter Spieler fragt sich, warum Blizzard durch das viel zu oft frustrierende Spiel-Konzept, mit zu schweren Elite-Packs und zu schlechtem Loot, naturwissenschaftliche Studien, die sich mit dem Verhalten von Menschen beschäftigen, so konsequent ignoriert. Blizzard sieht nicht Frustration als Teil der Herausforderung, die die Spieler motivieren soll, sondern die Schwierigkeit der Kämpfe mit den Elite-Packs an sich.

Part of the challenge is to feel frustration???? You are fritter away a century of psychological research about behaviourism.
Nakatoir: I believe you misinterpreted the meaning in my comment. My statement was simply that those difficult packs are part of the challenge, not that feeling frustration was a part of the challenge.