Hawkn's Beta Thread [Update, 5/12/12] Streaming Again

[hawkn]

Update 2, my conclusions so far.

Well, originally I was planning on doing something more. But honestly, there's not much to say other than the game is great. Sure there are bugs (occasionally), and some balance issues (nerf those damned shadow glaive champions in Elite), but the game is still amazing. Multiplayer is a ton of fun. Honestly, I really doubt I will be using any mods that tweak things for balance, like in TL1. The only mods I will likely use will be re-skins, stuff that adds new loot, or total conversions (DotA, etc).

As it stands, my only problem is the fact that ranged classes have such a huge advantage over melee in Elite. I've leveled 9 characters through Elite, and every time I played a ranged character, I could easily solo the last boss. When I played melee, it was "go in, do some DPS, die, repeat". I'm sure they'll be tweaking some numbers, but I really hope Elite isn't just ranged characters, since they're all that's viable.

Anyways, this is probably all you'll be seeing me write until I take the time to play PoE (ewww...), then write a comparison article between TL2, PoE, and D3's betas, and what it points toward with their release. I may hold off on publishing it until people start to get to Inferno in D3. Either way, you'll be able to read it here.

Update 1, concerns, praise, etc.

• Passive spells: Remember spell scrolls in Torchlight one? Well now there are some cool scrolls that you can learn, and forget about. They can improve potion effectiveness, gold find, magic find, etc. It's a great addition, since I hate short duration buffs that you have to keep refreshing.
• Pets are great - until Elite, when they become useless. You'll just hear a ton of "Your pet is injured". Even if my pet is going to be fleeing the whole time for balance issues, I don't need to be told this every five seconds. Before Elite though, they can both do decent damage, and make great healers (with a heal all spell scroll).
• Going off of my previous point, I am sick of hearing "I'm out of mana". I get it. I don't need to hear that every 5 seconds.
• Some enemies need tweaking in Elite. Swarms of spider babies, and shadow glaive Champions will easily insta gib you. I can understand "Get better noob", but it's only possible to dodge so many glaives of 1 shot, when there are 9-12 on the screen at a time.
• Some trees feel like they can't hold up to other trees - specifically, ranged AoE trees do much better than single target trees. This is probably due to the fact that most of the boss fights involve a lot of adds.
• Again, a good ranged player will typically outlive a good melee player, all the while using fewer pots.
• Let us buy more stash tabs with gold! It's a gold sink, and it works out for us unique hoarders.
• Allow us to respec every 10 levels, not just up to level 10. Also, include stat respecs. It's very irritating to have to re-roll because you built into a "good" Elite setup, only to find it sucks. I've already leveled 3 Outlanders to 21, trying to get the "perfect" build. I won't be doing that to 100 once the game launches (I'll use mods if I have to, but it's a pain). It sucks to put a point into a tree only to find that tree sucks, and now your main ability is 6/15, when it could have been 7/15. Same goes for stats - going for a 2/3, 2/2/1, or 4/1 build may end up sucking, and you may have been better off with dumping all 5 into Str or Dex. Again, you'd have to level a new char to fix it.
• ADD A CONFIRMATION FOR SOCKETING GEMS. I'd rather click "Yes" a few times than completely lose an item or gem due to a misclick.
• Farming for Blues/Uniques is a lot of fun. Blues feel powerful. Unique gems are amazing - you'll be farming these to make your perfect build. They are very powerful (but not OP), and add stuff better than just "+X Fire Damage", such as "+1m to weapon range", or "+150 HP on armor" (since gems have different effects depending on if they are on armor or weapons). Blue gems have some great (But a bit more rare) abilities too, such as mana leach.
• Enchanting is well done, and is a good gold sink. The only thing that either seems to be missing, or I may just not have understood, is the system that was talked about in November - enchanters have specific types of enchants (Fire damage, sockets, etc), and it seems you can only enchant an item once. A dev's explanation here would help.
• I was disappointed with the Outlander's summons via the Sigil tree. They felt a bit hard to "control" (they were difficult to trigger at will), and the summon durations felt short for the fact that they were pretty hard to get. I liked them more in November when you had a swarm of short lasting minions, even if they did less damage.
• Charge mechanics are a bit hard to understand through the game. I'm still not completely sure how the Outlander's charge works. The Embermage and Berseker have pretty straight forward mechanics, while the Engineer's system has a slightly steeper learning curve.

I'll talk about each class more in depth once I have more level 21 characters, with builds I'm happy with.

[Neverr]

nice stream but i want to see some engineer action, why are you guys mostly playing embermage and outlander? xD

[amb2010]

Hawkn streamed pretty much the entire day yesterday as an Engineer using a cannon so you just missed it

[Neverr]

QQ!!! ): im missing all the engineer streamings.

[Jackalhead]

Hawkn kicked major butt with that cannon. On elite mode, he hardly died at all.

[hawkn]

Yeah, I wish I could say the same about my mage.

Anyways, I'll post/stream more later.

[hawkn]

Self bump. Time to go play some more, then I'll post another update.

[Ulvaak]

How many slots do we have for spells and scrolls? 4 like TL1? or more?

Doom mentioned the pet has 4 slots now. I'm hoping the player can have 6-8 slots since after passives and utility spells (TPs, IDs, Heals), I might actually want to cast a fireball or a elemental resist or something...

[UncleJim]

How many slots do we have for spells and scrolls? 4 like TL1? or more?

Doom mentioned the pet has 4 slots now. I'm hoping the player can have 6-8 slots since after passives and utility spells (TPs, IDs, Heals), I might actually want to cast a fireball or a elemental resist or something...

You have 4, and your pet has 4 spell slots for found spells I think.

[adoomgod]

Ulvaak, player has only 4 as well. I'd like 6.

Hawkn. Agree with most everything so I'll post disagreements:

Tiny spiders don't need a nerf. You should never run into the fray in elite, especially hardcore. Maybe consider making them do 5% less damage. Maybe remove their collision so you can walk over them. But I like them as they are. Its a real slap of awareness: you are vulnerable! Adapt!

They never killed me after the first time.

Also, berzerkers pwn elite if you build them right. Helps that I found a unique berzerker ring that's super good, but I'm not even strong enough to use it yet. While I agree melee gets punished more early game I think they quickly become extremely powerful when built right.

I think outlander could be toned down before berzerker is toned up, honestly.

*edit* also on pets:

Pets are viable in elite... Until the final act 1 boss.

Built right with good rare tags and putting a "pet mastery skill scroll" on both u and ur pet really helps. My pet did pretty damn good but I agree it should be doing a bit better. In hard my pet thrived in elite it dies a lot unless uber geared. I think pets should have a tad bit more survivability, but no more boost in damage.

[Ulvaak]

How many slots do we have for spells and scrolls? 4 like TL1? or more?

Doom mentioned the pet has 4 slots now. I'm hoping the player can have 6-8 slots since after passives and utility spells (TPs, IDs, Heals), I might actually want to cast a fireball or a elemental resist or something...

You have 4, and your pet has 4 spell slots for found spells I think.

Yeah I was kind of thinking the same...was hoping this was still up for tweaking...I'd really like to have 6-8. I don't know what I'll put in there but it's just nice to know I have that kind of flexibility...

[hawkn]

Why? Only 1 Outlander tree is really good, and the other 2 are meh.

Again, it's an issue of melee just sucking vs ranged, and not ranged being OP. The number of HPots I have to use with a dual wielding Berseker sucks, and even then I can easily be one shot (since you can only run so far away when a boss telegraphs). Playing in Elite as melee is only viable if you use a shield, and stack a ton of Vit, and even then it's still not as good as a Mage or Outlander, since they don't have to worry about being smashed in the face, they can dump all Dex or Focus. In fact, my all Dex Outlander is my most powerful char atm. Compared to my Str/Vit melee Engie, my poorly build Cannon Engie is way better.

[adoomgod]

Why? Only 1 Outlander tree is really good, and the other 2 are meh.

Again, it's an issue of melee just sucking vs ranged, and not ranged being OP. The number of HPots I have to use with a dual wielding Berseker sucks, and even then I can easily be one shot (since you can only run so far away when a boss telegraphs). Playing in Elite as melee is only viable if you use a shield, and stack a ton of Vit, and even then it's still not as good as a Mage or Outlander, since they don't have to worry about being smashed in the face, they can dump all Dex or Focus. In fact, my all Dex Outlander is my most powerful char atm. Compared to my Str/Vit melee Engie, my poorly build Cannon Engie is way better.

I will seek to prove you wrong with my elite berzerker when I get a chance to play with him. Shadow burst is an amazing self heal spell. I grant you one thing:

I feel dual-wielding berzerkers have little chance in elite, UNTIL MID-ENDGAME, like past the beta's cap of lvl 21. U just get hit too hard even with self heals. Though with the gastly set's 10% reduced damage taken and my 17 armor super unique ring (rings normally don't even have armor), I think I'll stand a chance.

Glaive throwers def need be toned down. Maybe just slower glaives and elite glaives have more delay between them. Like instead of shooting 3 at once he shoots one at a time and they are also slower.

[hawkn]

Yeah, I'm hoping Travis will let us respec both stats and skills at lvl 21, if only for the beta.

Still, the fact that the DW Zerker on Elite has such a hard time, even with all dex (for crit), that dual wielding skill (can't remember the name) that you start with at level 1, the passive that heals with crits, and Shadow Burst (self heal) should be a slight issue. I can understand if dumping all Dex isn't viable, but even if I went all Vit, I'd lose out on the heals from crits, and still be one shotted in the last dungeon of act 1, where some things will hit for 2k+.

[adoomgod]

My zerker is being built claw/knucks + shield. Remember that dualwielding doesn't boost your attack speed, thus the amount of crits I get doesn't change.

I'm building primarily str, then dex and vit are about equal, changing depending on which I need for a good equip, then lastly focus. It, works great. I'm only at mordrox but the farther I get the better I'm doing.

Shadow rush, or whatever has 100% chance to break shields is OP, sadly. It also heals me for 6% of my life for each enemy I pass thru, increasing 1% per rank. It aint mana expensive either.

[turnipz]

We could give melee characters a bonus to their pets health, then their pets could tank for them as well giving a bit more survivability. Might be sort of fun.

[Jerich]

I found an enchanter that went up to three enchants in a dungeon. I also found a socket and poison enchanter. The one in town only does one.

[Seer]

Nice feedback Hawkn, especially that about the skill system and respecs.



However, I'm not sure about the socket item confirmation. It kind of breaks the flow of the game, to have a window show up in your face, everytime you socket an item (and from what I've seen, the player does that all the time). Maybe there's a more elegant way, something other than a confirmation window.

I have the same issue with fishing. You catch a fish and then a giant window gets thrown into your face telling you that you caught x, and then you have to make it go away. I'd much prefer it if there was a less intrusive UI solution.

[ombra]

Nice feedback Hawkn, especially that about the skill system and respecs.



However, I'm not sure about the socket item confirmation. It kind of breaks the flow of the game, to have a window show up in your face, everytime you socket an item (and from what I've seen, the player does that all the time). Maybe there's a more elegant way, something other than a confirmation window.

I have the same issue with fishing. You catch a fish and then a giant window gets thrown into your face telling you that you caught x, and then you have to make it go away. I'd much prefer it if there was a less intrusive UI solution.

To many prompts disturb me as well.

Yes showing the fish for 1-2 seconds and fade away would be a better solution.

[gold163]

To many prompts disturb me as well.

Yes showing the fish for 1-2 seconds and fade away would be a better solution.

This is an excellent idea. Monster Hunter Tri does this. "You caught a tuna!" right in the middle of the screen but it's transparent and you can move around immediately after the animation for catching the fish finishes.