This is how end game works....

[mr punk]

Sounds to me like it will be, which of course is their entire philosophy for endgame and inferno action. "you will grind in hell before you can survive in act 1 inferno" I'm sure leads to "you will grind in act 1 inferno before you can survive in act 2" etc etc

pretty much. it comes with the terriroy in this type of game design. the player's success or failure is mostly going to be determined by gear, attributes, etc.

But on top of the gear check there is most likely a monster AI tweek, perhaps they let out a few more of the lethal affix combos, etc. that will require skill increase in addition to gear. What else can you really do to keep difficulty level up?

the difficulty is the gear check not the AI. if a player hits the brick wall of difficulty in a skill based game. he must develop his skill to bypass it. conversely, if a player get stuck in a game with a lot of abstraction like D3. he must grind for more levels, gear, etc.

[RazeBarb]

Does anyone know if the 16 tiers of sets we've seen are actual sets, as in getting set bonuses for wearing a complete set?

I ask this because the 16 sets we've seen have all kinds of names, but none are named after the 3 "true" sets from the game guide: Tal Rasha's, Immortal King's and Natalya's

I wonder how they will look.
Can't wait to see all the datamined item-models.

[cozmiccc]

pretty much. it comes with the terriroy in this type of game design. the player's success or failure is mostly going to be determined by gear, attributes, etc.
the difficulty is the gear check not the AI. if a player hits the brick wall of difficulty in a skill based game. he must develop his skill to bypass it. conversely, if a player get stuck in a game with a lot of abstraction like D3. he must grind for more levels, gear, etc.

We don't know about that yet. There can be a monster abilities that only appears in Inferno difficulty, or a deadly affix combination. D3 have defensive, debuff, movement, and escape skills for each class, something that D2 abilities don't have. I think there can be a much higher skill cap in D3, and smart play doesn't always involve gear stats, you'll also need to know how to best approach a certain monster pack, time your attack, and know when is the best time to use defensive or mobility skills, not just pure DPS attack...

[cozmiccc]

Does anyone know if the 16 tiers of sets we've seen are actual sets, as in getting set bonuses for wearing a complete set?

I ask this because the 16 sets we've seen have all kinds of names, but none are named after the 3 "true" sets from the game guide: Tal Rasha's, Immortal King's and Natalya's

I wonder how they will look.
Can't wait to see all the datamined item-models.

the current 16 tier that I meant is the WHITE base item, not a set. Of course these white items will also generate blue, sets, rare, and legendaries item of the respective tier which will have its own unique art and graphic.

Here is a quick example:

Tier 16 NORMAL chest armor:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/archon-armor
Tier 16 LEGENDARY chest armor:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/tyraels-might
Tier 16 SET ITEM chest armor:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/innas-refuge
Tier 16 SET ITEM chest armor: (another one)
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/blackthornes-jacket

Notice that they all have the same armor value. Unless modified by stats, that base armor gives an indication of its base item tier.

[ShadoutMapes]

You are contradicting yourself. In WoW, you would VERY rarely attack a mob which had +5 levels than you. You would almost never attack TWO+ mobs both +5 levels than you. Level IS VERY important in WoW. In D2 you just didn't care at all, except for MF. Level was SO unimportant in D2, that it WASN'T SHOWN.

I don't know how it is implemented in D3, but it seems it's somewhere in the middle between D2 and WoW approaches.

That is why I said hardly.
The point is; levels don't say much about the difficulty of an enemy. Enemies in WoW aren't difficult because they are a certain level. They only become difficult because of the stats Blizzard chose to place on them. The levels are mostly irrelevant.
I agree levels means even less in Diablo 2 and 3 though, that was kinda my point. Levels are just not a very important factor.

Which is why it was also silly when Inferno was announced and many people were like "Enemies will be higher level than you, omg it will be hard!" which is an illogical conclusion.

[capnlarge]

The concept of dozens of "armor tiers" is straight from WoW. There was no such thing in D2. IMO, there should be one "tier" per difficulty, like in D2.

There are many ideas borrowed from WoW in D3. For ex. monster level is very important. In D2, you never cared for monster level. In D3 you will. In D2 you didn't care for DPS. In D3 you will, etc. etc. etc.

-Just because idea was in WoW doesn't make it inherently bad. WoW had a lot of great ideas and Diablo is a fundamentally similar game in a lot of ways.
-Armor Tiers are just types of armor... The only thing different in D3 is how they are labelled. They are just base armors and still come in rare, unique and set.
-Monster level was just as important in D2. You're not gonna grind act 1 normal for Zod runes. The reason for this? Drops are based on monster level.
-With DPS, the only difference with D2 and D3 is that D3 is giving you MORE information. At the time of D2's release, DPS was not a popular term and D2 didn't show you this value. But it's absolutely something that's important. It's why your barbarian cared about faster attack speed or your sorc cared about faster cast rate. Showing damage per second is absolutely an improvement from D3 to D2 because your raw damage value is just not as useful of a number.

[Brak]

I don't know how it is implemented in D3

speaking of contradicting oneself

[riptide]

The concept of dozens of "armor tiers" is straight from WoW. There was no such thing in D2. IMO, there should be one "tier" per difficulty, like in D2.

You're right, they were called treasure classes and it was dependent on the act/area.

There are many ideas borrowed from WoW in D3. For ex. monster level is very important. In D2, you never cared for monster level. In D3 you will. In D2 you didn't care for DPS. In D3 you will, etc. etc. etc.

I did Baal, Nithalak, and Diablo Runs for charms so I could cube them, as they were the only mobs that could drop them with certain affixes. So, yes people did care. Just because you didn't know or think it was relevant, doesn't make it so.

Just so you know, WoW took way more from D2 than D3 has taken from WoW. In fact one could argue that Guild Wars was more of an influence on Diablo 3 than WoW was. In the end what matters is that Diablo 3 is still Diablo 3. Oh and that you didn't know what you're talking about.

[Apocalypse]

pretty sure d2 had armor tiers too they just didnt call them tiers. i mean going from plate to full plate is going up a tier


also if people dont want to play games cause they borrow ideas from wow then you might just wanna pack up your pc and call it a day cause when you are as big as wow people will take ideas. thing is most people dont notice them cause they come from a company not named blizzard

[RazeBarb]

the current 16 tier that I meant is the WHITE base item, not a set. Of course these white items will also generate blue, sets, rare, and legendaries item of the respective tier which will have its own unique art and graphic.

Here is a quick example:

Tier 16 NORMAL chest armor:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/archon-armor
Tier 16 LEGENDARY chest armor:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/tyraels-might
Tier 16 SET ITEM chest armor:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/innas-refuge
Tier 16 SET ITEM chest armor: (another one)
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/blackthornes-jacket

Notice that they all have the same armor value. Unless modified by stats, that base armor gives an indication of its base item tier.

Thanks for clarifying!
That's even better than I could have imagined. With that many different armor graphics, we will hardly ever see carbon copies (unlike in D2)