Now that Blizzard has pre-announced an announcement for an expansion, how are you taking your current riches and plotting to double, triple and/or quadruple them?

We frequently speculate on commodities and the like when new patches are arriving, are you stockpiling anything in particular?

Here are some of my thoughts:

1. New classes? If there is, won't it likely be Strength based? Or at least one of them? New STR class, need for STR, Rubies look attractive. STR based gear might be attractive, but with loot 2.0, who knows.

2. Mystic. If we can now upgrade items, what are we going to use in the recipes? Hard to predict, but it's hard to imagine tomes, essences and demonic essences won't have a place.

3. In D2 we could upgrade an item from elite to exceptional (ex. Goldwrap from level 30 to level 60) to give it more armor. What if we can take the old legendaries, add a few mats and make them ilvl 63? Take a harder look at how good that Pride of Cassius is......

Thoughts?

If I were to guess then the expansion will also give a level cap raise. (Not sure how they would implement it along with the paragon system) but I still think there will be level cap raise.

With the level cap raise they will introduce a complete new line of items. SO absolutely everything you have now will become worthless. Thats more or less how each WOW patch works right. Don't see why blizz will do it different for diablo.

So in short, gems and levelling gear is pretty much the only things worth stockpiling in my opinion.


Edit. Ok.... I actually don't know how they would actually do this... because there is a massive DPS range on lvl 60 chars. Anything from 10k to 500k DPS. So either a lot of new items won't actually be upgrades for the guys with super gear, or there will be a massive DPS requirement to be able to play expansion. *scratches head*

@Bort

I have to disagree with you. Currently godly items will still be good. I think it's naive to assume there won't be better gear across the board, but it's also naive to assume all current gear will be useless.

I think loot 2.0 intends to open up HUNDREDS of viable alternative builds. I don't think the ultimate goal is making everything else worthless. Although to some extent I'm sure it will.

I think the goal is to have players make choices. Frostburns become viable, so then do you want a trifeca, or do you want to buff all your cold damage spells? Either will do as much damage as the other, but you have to use cold spells. I think this is the direction they are going in.

However I do agree with you on one point: gems/mats will be what is worth stockpiling.

@Anuiran I'm definitely not betting against you.

@nuhertz... well, look, I hope I'm wrong. Because it would suck if all my current items suddenly becomes totally useless. I was basing my statement on prior WOW experience. Were you are pretty much back to square 1 every time an expansion, or even sometimes just a content patch hits.

I think Blizz has a tough job coming up with a diablo expansion that will keep people happy.

On the one hand they sit with people that have P100 chars. So if they don't add more levels / paragon levels these people won't play much, because (like currently if you hit P100) people won't feel a sense of progress.
Most of these guys have gear falling out their ears. So they expect something real hard, and want a ton of shiny new gears.

On the other hand they have lots of people with pretty much entry level infeno chars who won't play the expansion if its too hard.

And yeah, I get that monster level takes care of this.

If you compare current lvl 60 (ilvl 59 to 63 I think) to anything below that, I think you will find that most of the ilvl 61 and lower stuff is total junk. SO, if they raise level cap, then they will raise ilvl of gear, and all old gear will become useless.

arrgh... its late and I had a point when I started typing... but its lost now. Will try and make a better point at some other time. :)

I hope current gear does not get flushed to shit, Il be really upset. Only thing I really want from an expansion, maybe a lobby or something to interact with more then 33 people in a General Chat and if you play a lvl 100 Paragon toon, some exp should go to your other toons at a much slower rate if you actually would lvl the normal way.

I have started. Bought a few thousand flawless square rubies. Had a viewer spend 400m on perfect squares. I'm not a fan of anything above flawless squares because its a 15% gold tax on crafting costs. More profit to be made at flawless squares.

I also bought a thousand of each of the inferno crafting mats. Not buying too much because I don't like weekend prices.

@Bort I was looking through Diablo 2 uniques, helms specifically, and only two of the uniques dropped before 1.0.9. But the tarnhelm, one unique that dropped prior, is still a viable item since it had more MF than any other item if rolled correctly.

It was supplanted by the shako, which had more +skills, but if you couldn't afford a shako, a tarnhelm was a good alternative. This is the type of upgrade I expect to see.

They better knock this one out of the ballpark.

Posted by DHAdmin at 08/17/2013 01:35 PM

My main curiosity is about how much content we will be getting. I will be disappointed if it's only an extra act.

PvP and other game modes please.

I hope there is extra content (for dungeons maybe?) for all of the existing acts, otherwise everyone will just play the new act... or completely ignore it. I like the ubers format, collect stuff to forge to access sweet bosses... it's just the rewards are kinda invalid now.

They need to come up with something sweet to get players back into the game. It needs to be a lot more than an itemisation patch that's for sure!

Flawless squares dropped to 1700, bought 42k of them.

Waiting for the next drop below that to pick up more.

A new class, new act and new items will keep me occupied for another 500 hours at least. I will definitely agree that some more content would be great though.

I know there's lots of feedback out there, here's hoping we get to see some of it!

I have several 100k of topaz and rubies taking up almost all my AH stash space on 2 accounts. Bought them all a while back for around 400-700 and 1100-1400 respectively. I'd be quite happy if rubies approached 25k again :) Oh, and I have a 2.5million-ish tomes that were all bought below 400 as well. Hopefully the next announcement drives up the prices for the gems like they have historically.

Posted by DHAdmin at 08/17/2013 01:35 PM

My main curiosity is about how much content we will be getting. I will be disappointed if it's only an extra act.

PvP and other game modes please.

There seems to be a lot of assumptions that there's only going to be 1 expansion. It's reasonable to believe they could have released a Diablo 2 expansion in 2010 and gotten a ton of sales. Now that the RMAH provides additional revenue, there's still a good reason to continue to release multiple expansions or DLC mini-expansions.

They could easily be planning an expansion for 2014 that includes 1 additional Act, 1 new class, 2 character slots and Lot 2.0 for this expansion. Then they also announce there will be DLC launching throughout 2014 which could add other things we've been clamoring for.

Instead of waiting for a full expansion in 2015-2016, they releasing DLC Packs every 3 months. April 2014 is a $5 Act 5.1 Endless Dungeon, July 2014 is extensive PvP modes (equipment restrictions, formal support for entr fee tournaments, etc). 2015 could include a separate SC Ladder server with exclusive content non-transferable to the other servers - same way they split SC/HC.

I think offering DLC going forward would provide Blizzard with an additional revenue stream, but without the same upfront long-term capital expenses.

@ecocd
Yeh DLC is an interesting idea, problem is it won't bring an influx of new players or bring old players back but just draw out the existing players lifetime. So if the player base is good now (it isn't but it's loyal) then maybe it's something they'll go for.

I'm pretty suspicious that there will be an announcement for expansion at GamerCon since Blizzcon is just around the corner. I mean shizer, maybe it's a new book or action figure I won't buy?

@moloch154 I was going to ask why you haven't sold, but looking at your profile, I'm not sure what you'd buy!

Saving up to splurge on new items come loot 2.0?

@nuhertz That is basically it. I will be starting my WD soon and will need gold/$$ for him, but I have been building up my rmah balance slowly but surely. I also have not touched my Barb since the beginning of the BoA patch (1.0.6??) and I am waiting for 2.0 to re-gear him.

As for the gems, I have been following the same pattern with them for every patch since 1.0.3. Basically buy in the middle of patches when gems hit near bottom and just sit on it until the next patch comes out. Sometimes months. When the prices sky rocket inevitably upon patch release, I sell. Just take a healthy profit and not try to time everything just perfect. It has been working so...

Posted by nuhertz at 08/16/2013 09:55 AM

2. Mystic. If we can now upgrade items, what are we going to use in the recipes? Hard to predict, but it's hard to imagine tomes, essences and demonic essences won't have a place.

One thing that I have been speculating on is high end weapons with no sockets. I have been buying them up whenever an opportunity presents itself. If the Mystic allows for socketing, I will be pretty happy.

I've heard Blizzard knock the socket quest enough that I'm pretty confident it won't happen. Not to say it's impossible, but they've said they don't like a mandatory quest to complete an item. I have to agree.

Posted by nuhertz at 08/19/2013 04:04 PM

I've heard Blizzard knock the socket quest enough that I'm pretty confident it won't happen. Not to say it's impossible, but they've said they don't like a mandatory quest to complete an item. I have to agree.

The context that I read that statement originally in I believe had to do with why that feature was pulled from the initial release and was in regards to why it was not already in the game. Before all the itemization fix talk. Which in my humble opinion is a very lame excuse. Name anything we need to do in the game and you could make the same argument. Now, if they were to say that arbitrary delays in crafting/identifying felt forced and mandatory, I would wholeheartedly agree. One could make an argument that gathering Keys, to make devices, in order to harvest organs, for the chance to make an item (which you need to find the plans for) at an NPC may kind of fit this same profile. But all that is just my opinion on that specific excuse they roll out as needed.

With regards to sockets, mystic and loot 2.0, I believe in one of the their recent interviews with fan sites, or reddit or in some medium I came across a statement that sockets could possibly be on the table, along with other Mystic item modifications that would make pimped up gear BoA. I am fairly certain it was in a loot 2 context. I will try and find that.

All that being said, it would not surprise me at all if it were not in there :)

Rewarding Self-Found Play

Any ideas for incentivizing people for finding gear that they use themselves?
Wyatt: I can't comment on that, but I will acknowledge some of the suggestions that have been made, which have all been very cool, and talked about and considered. I know that sometimes on the forums we don't respond to every suggestion made, but I wanted to confirm that yes, we've seen them. We've seen people say, "wouldn't it be cool if I could enhance items that I've found myself, to be 25% better?" I saw that one last week. Or people would say, "what if you brought add socket back, and you could only add a socket to something you found yourself?" All sorts of suggestions like that, and they've been tossed around. Like I said, I don't want to comment on anything specific, but it is something that is discussed.

Travis: For example, adding a socket to an item as the result of a one-time quest reward feels really awesome, but over time it starts to become more of a burden instead of a benefit. When you have to level a new character through the entire game just so you can socket the new cool weapon you want to use, the shine starts to wear off really fast.

The first quote is from the interview with Archon, the second quote is from the second part of the itemization Ask the Devs.

You're thinking of the first, I'm thinking of the latter. I have to agree with Travis. If it were BOA it wouldn't be AS bad, but I would still feel like I needed to do it with a bunch of items across all my characters.

Perhaps they could introduce a pricy recipe to imbue +1 random stat on an item.
The added cost of course, is the item will bind on account.

Posted by nuhertz at 08/20/2013 06:54 AM

You're thinking of the first, I'm thinking of the latter. I have to agree with Travis. If it were BOA it wouldn't be AS bad, but I would still feel like I needed to do it with a bunch of items across all my characters.

@nuhertz 100% on the money and great work digging that up. I was just sitting down to do that and saw you found it. Nice find!

For me personally, questing to add a socket to an item is something I would not mind doing. I am sure it would get old over time (like ubers), but I still think it is something I would enjoy.

On a silly sidenote from me. I just realized that @nuhertz has the multi box twitch stream :) I have watched as a guest a few times. Very nice show and well done.

@Bloodbathe I think you're probably closer to what we will get. That's what I'd expect, and I'd love to know what materials we will use to make it. I'll be stocking up on everything.

@moloch154 Thanks for the kind words on the stream! It's a lot more fun to put on a show rather than just farm. I should probably change my name here or there to match, huh?

I also agree on the socket quest. Another way to make me more powerful, another item on the to do list every time I log in, it would add some longevity. I just took Travis' comment as they were trying to avoid it at all costs.

Personally the two things I want above all others are more viable item choices and the ability to change the appearance of a piece of gear to another piece of gear.

Ever since I started running higher MP levels every WD I run into looks exactly the same as mine except for the weapon. I have the Zunimassa set because its pretty much a requirement at that level, my favorite armor so far though is the doom armor with the tentacles. I'd love to be able to have that appearance with my current stats.

Plus the fact that everyone is going after the same 1 or 2 items per slot just makes it prohibitively expensive for some people to compete. I'm still a long way away from my goal of 200k unbuffed DPS because all my upgrades cost so much at this point.