Help, why am i so bored with D3 already?

[Kefka]

Okay. Let me start by saying, I've accepted that D3 is what it is. I think it was Thy that made a very good point about how D2 was a legendary game that changed THE WORLD (basically...).

I have two higher level characters with crap damage (56 wiz, 54 dh). but i've become bored with trying to get them to 60. I realize that i need to grow out of the D2 mentality, but in d2 ( ) If i sucked, i could look forward to getting a level or two and could then have a skill that was better by 1-2 points and could get me an act further (sometimes). This feels like the old level 25-30 "middle of act 3, but not to travincal yet" part of D2. where you prally aren't cranking out damage, even twinked, and are just running LK and UK repeatedly just to up your awarded exp. but there is no end in sight.

I feel like my res and vit are high enough, but i get mauled by act 1+ hell champs or elite packs, not because they're awesomely powerful, but by way of attrition. All i do is run around in pubs or solo, get nominal exp, and then die suddenly or over the course of a minute. I never find anything useful. ever. Atleast after 1000 AT runs at p1/p5 I'd find something worthwhile. I've killed Hell Azmodan atleast 100 times (not easy for my sallies), with a relatively low MF%, he's produced nothing that would even sell on the market.

can someone tell my why i'm so darn bored with d3? Am i missing something? Can anyone offer advice on anything they did to make the game more enjoyable?

thanks,
Kefka

[Syxalis]

I think you should ask yourself what you enjoyed about D3, up to the point your at and then find what has changed.

I've barely progressed through the game myself. At the rate I play, I have a couple hours left to finish Normal on my DH, if that. But, I'm having a total blast. The game simply looks amazing. The level of interactivity with the environment is quite stunning and took me completely by surprise. Enemies dropping out of the air, popping up out of the ground, crawling up along the sides of cliffs.... it all just floors me.

The monsters seemed much better designed, instead of simply doing tons of damage or being impossible to kill. Drawing you to them, scaring you away, creating walls to restrict your movement, trapping you... totally awesome! Annoying at times, sure but great none-the-less.

Such novelties will wane, I'm sure. But I cannot say why I may or may not enjoy the endgame, until I've experienced it.

[Doctor Clock]

I feel like my res and vit are high enough, but i get mauled by act 1+ hell champs or elite packs

Then they aren't high enough.

I've killed Hell Azmodan atleast 100 times (not easy for my sallies), with a relatively low MF%, he's produced nothing that would even sell on the market.

Nothing of market value really drops until Inferno. You can find high ilvl stuff in the later parts of Hell, but it really isn't worth it. If you want to be able to sell stuff, get up to 60, and gear up enough to run Act 1 Inferno. Just about everything can drop there and un-ided ilvl 63 items can be sold for profit. Entry level Inferno gear is pretty cheap these days so it shouldn't be too hard.

can someone tell my why i'm so darn bored with d3?

This might be why.

I have two higher level characters with crap damage

Like I said, entry level Inferno gear is pretty cheap. Search the GAH and set the max buy out at a low price, 10-50k. There should be some bargains.

[SnickerSnack]

Okay. Let me start by saying, I've accepted that D3 is what it is. I think it was Thy that made a very good point about how D2 was a legendary game that changed THE WORLD (basically...).

I have two higher level characters with crap damage (56 wiz, 54 dh). but i've become bored with trying to get them to 60. I realize that i need to grow out of the D2 mentality, but in d2 ( ) If i sucked, i could look forward to getting a level or two and could then have a skill that was better by 1-2 points and could get me an act further (sometimes). This feels like the old level 25-30 "middle of act 3, but not to travincal yet" part of D2. where you prally aren't cranking out damage, even twinked, and are just running LK and UK repeatedly just to up your awarded exp. but there is no end in sight.

I feel like my res and vit are high enough, but i get mauled by act 1+ hell champs or elite packs, not because they're awesomely powerful, but by way of attrition. All i do is run around in pubs or solo, get nominal exp, and then die suddenly or over the course of a minute. I never find anything useful. ever. Atleast after 1000 AT runs at p1/p5 I'd find something worthwhile. I've killed Hell Azmodan atleast 100 times (not easy for my sallies), with a relatively low MF%, he's produced nothing that would even sell on the market.

can someone tell my why i'm so darn bored with d3? Am i missing something? Can anyone offer advice on anything they did to make the game more enjoyable?

thanks,
Kefka

Have you been trying every new skill you get as they become available?

Have you played either of the melee classes? A change of pace might be good for you.

As far as items go, you either have to rerun areas many times grinding for gear or you have to use the GAH. Single pass simply will not get you the upgrades you need to progress; at some point you'll hit a wall and have to grind for items. D3 has much less emphasis on skill progression than D2. In D3 skills do progress, but in a predetermined way. It's the items that you need to focus on for your character to have novelty.

I have a 60 wizard, a 60 barb, a 55 monk, a 34 demon hunter, and a 20 witch doctor. I just got my barb to 60 yesterday, but the wizard has been 60 for weeks. I've found several upgrades for him clearing areas in Act 1 inferno, and most of my barb's gear was found by the wizard. I also bought two pieces on the GAH for the barb. I considered crafting, but the GAH is simply faster. I limit my price range to the cost of crafting a given item and I can still find a decent upgrade with the affixes I want. I could go and blow a million gold on upgrades, but then it could be months before I find another upgrade. I like finding upgrades. So, I'd recommend that you use the GAH sparingly, just enough to get by, or you might find yourself getting bored again.

[TheReadMenace]

Have you played either of the melee classes? A change of pace might be good for you.

With some hesitancy, I'd agree with Snicker here. That said, I'm not sure as to whether you enjoy melee combat/characters in D2. ...Sorry, it's been a while.

Regardless, I couldn't help but notice that your two chosen characters are based very much on staying at range and not getting hit. As D3 progresses this tactic becomes quite challenging; my personal experience tells me that it can be very difficult to clear Hell easily with a solo DH since her crowd control & damage mitigation are very poor. At least, that's being said by someone who goes self found and won't use the AH.

Perhaps the reason you're bored is because you're seeing too much of the same thing. Areas, monsters, skills, the regularly useless item drops... they all get repetitive. Combine that with the frustration of dying constantly, and I'd probably get pretty sick of D3, too. Maybe what you need is a good dose with another character class, get a feel for what it's like when you're not afraid to stand your ground instead of running for your life in every fight.

Or maybe you need to change up your skills. I don't say this out of a way to alleviate boredom, but more out of a need to survive. Not knowing your skill set-ups I may be wrong, but once hitting Hell I realized that I needed to focus a LOT more on my defenses than I did my offense. My Monk, for example, had four attack skills when he entered Hell. Now that he's in Inferno, he has a grand total of ONE direct damage skill; everything else is either for healing, crowd control, and/or damage mitigation. And I need every single one of those defensive skills to survive.

But really... well, as people who have played D2 to death, while it's healthy to keep in mind that D2 and D3 are not the same game, I personally feel that there's plenty of reason to make comparisons between them since one is the spiritual successor to the other. And frankly, D3 is flawed in some ways where D2 is not.

No stat or skill points to invest, meaning you're not invested in your character. No need to remake two classes of the same kind since there's nothing different between them besides gear. And speaking of, the gear is lackluster. In D2, you could spend hours and thousands of runs looking for that one set or unique that would improve your character. "Ahh, Windforce!! If I had you, the monsters of Sanctuary would tremble at the mere sight of me!!" At this point in D3, you're not looking for a specific piece of equipment; instead, you're looking for some random item with random properties. D2 had the carrot-on-a-stick regarding items; D3 got rid of the carrot and decided to beat its players with the stick over and over.

The ultimate goal of any serious D3 player is to beat Inferno, but it's the circumstances of HOW someone becomes capable of gaining the ability to do so is what really stinks. Since the items are massively disappointing, there's way too many people who aren't farming for items. Instead, they're farming for gold, which will then be used to buy the most exceptional items on an AH. How more broken could the item system be where people stop looking for the items?! Theoretically this may change once they start to boost s/l items, but if they don't also tune the drop rates then the balance of desired items will swap; sets and legendaries will legitimately cost an arm and a leg instead of being pricey by way of solely their uniqueness.

I guess what I'm getting at is that my guess is you need to start looking at new things. And if a new character doesn't alleviate your boredom, maybe another game will. Let's be honest; D3 is flawed, and we're all hoping that patches and expansions will improve it over the next couple/few years. But taking it at face value, it's not a complete game yet... at least, not a fully realized game. If you find it boring, I wouldn't blame you at all. No need to try and force D3 into your life if it isn't fulfilling what you want of it. I'd love if you found a character class that suits your style and got it to a point where the game is challenging yet still rewarding. But if that's not gonna happen, well... there are lots of other games out there. What's more, there's no need to beat yourself up if the game stops being fun. That's what happens with pretty much every game eventually... it's just that D3 didn't last as long as you'd hoped.

Besides, spending a good two months with a game is pretty awesome these days. Back when I was a wee TRM, it was the lack of games in my house that made me replay Bart vs. the Space Mutants over and over, not any particular love for the game. These days I've got 160+ console games, 100+ Steam games, plus however many old school games that can be played as ROMs available on the Internet. I'm lucky if I can devote a week to any one game before I get bored and move on. So two months? That's impressive.

I have to say that I went into D3 trying my best to keep expectations as low as possible. And yet I must admit that I'm still disappointed to think that it's also not the greatest game in the history of the universe. I do have hope that it'll get better as time passes. And yeah, I've felt my own sense of boredom from time to time, taking a couple days off here or a week there. The fact that I keep coming back means that I find something intrinsically good about D3, but I can also see its glaring flaws. Let's just see how many times I come back before either the game improves dramatically... or I put it back into the box and leave it on a shelf.

[BaronScarpia]

I have to say that I went into D3 trying my best to keep expectations as low as possible. And yet I must admit that I'm still disappointed to think that it's also not the greatest game in the history of the universe. I do have hope that it'll get better as time passes. And yeah, I've felt my own sense of boredom from time to time, taking a couple days off here or a week there. The fact that I keep coming back means that I find something intrinsically good about D3, but I can also see its glaring flaws. Let's just see how many times I come back before either the game improves dramatically... or I put it back into the box and leave it on a shelf.

I'm kinda at the same spot. I found out that, somehow, my gear is bad. The possible recent change on mf made it mandatory (rumor has that, the higher your mf is, more affixes for you on rares). I have almost zero mf on my chars.

Like I said before, I'm only playing this game because of GAH (long story short - I can do 1000+ andy runs looking for soj, but I have trouble doing 10 runs to look for "something good and random"). I was poor on the IAS days, I was just to busy levelling the 5 class to read about modifiers... I had some gold on the early crit days and that, alongside with lucky, made me able to gear up all the five classes (WD still is maybe, I'll find out today if his gear works).

Now, in order to progress I need mf. Everyone does (today). Look at the matchup forums. I want a MF friend with... 200 MF. After that, take a look at the GAH for MF gear... A single decent piece costs more than all my 5 chars together (ok, I didn't check it, but I will do it soon - Let's pretend it's true for dramatic reasons). When you look at MF, you're talking about rares with 5 affixes, with maybe a few exceptions (chest armor with sockets, ~130 vit, all res and mf can work), since you need to have crti chance, loh, etc.

To sum it up, my monk:
- dex
- vit
- crit chance
- crit dmg
- loh
- all res
- lightning res
- mf
- some ias/health globe extra life/etc.

8 affixes. To get everything at decent levels, you need to focus on rares with 5-6 mods. 6 "right mods" in order to, somehow, get everything you need at the righ mix. I bought it from AH... Except for MF... All things considered, I need to find rares with at least 5 right affixes in order to reach good breakpoints to be a good farmer... Buying them on AH is a little out of question, since I have only 3 affixes to search and the items cost millions of gold. And I'm not looking for individual gear pieces, I'm looking for a combo of affixes. If one affix is there, but it's low, I need to do a few backflips on AH to sell it, farm for a couple million gold to make up for the 15% gold fee and buy what I need... If it's there...

Yes, I want to find all the RW and Tyrael's might on d2. I know it will take a good number of years. I don't know if I'll finish it. But I know I need one damn piece of armor and 1 Zod, X Jah, etc. I can track my progress. I can be happy with my findings, and yes, maybe it'll take ten years, but I know how far I'm.

On D3: I don't know how long it will take to find everything and if they decide to nerf crit damage, I'll have to look for some random stuff again. On D2: Tyrael's might is bad. I want one. If I find one, I'll keep it - end story.

I won't quit D3, but after finishing my WD, I won't play a lot until they fix it. I really don't mind on they telling how I should play the game. If they plan to do so, they should tell, or I'll feel I'm wasting time. It's hard to set goals on a game with low rewards that changes on almost weekly basis (Will crit be nerfed? And what will happen to MF?). Like I said, I'm not quitting, but I'm def. waiting for things to settle down. I don plan to spend/waste hundreds of hours looking for gear with "dex vit AR Lres Mf X" just to see blizzard go out and nerf one with everything, nerf crit, put a cap on mf, etc. Right now, It feels my gaming time will be better spent on D2.

Imo, if you don't have a char farming act 1 inferno/treasure goblins at decent speed with 100/200 MF or farming some serious gold/day (via GAH, GF, etc.), it's very ok if you feel like waiting a few weeks/months to see what will happen on the next patches. I'll do it, on D2.

[Shagsbeard]

I didn't have as much time in D2 as I have in D3 before I got bored and quit playing it. I didn't even finish Nightmare. It wasn't until the expansion that D2 started to hold my interest. I see better things in D3 than I saw in D2, and D2 became a great game. So I have hope. It's really out of our hands, unless we can scrape up 8 billion to buy Blizzard. Play something else for a while. Come back and try a melee chacter. But keep an eye on the game... it might get a lot better.

[thefranklin]

Kefka: If you are using the ah, you should not be having a problem. Here is why:

1. You are playing ranged characters. You don't (really) need resistances. You might die, but everything will melt before they get to you. On the DH for sure use smokescreen!
2. Correct use of the AH. Put in level requirements of 60-60 and find the mod reduced level requirement and put in 4 or 6 (so it is equippable). Buy the highest dps for the budge you have, it may take couple of days but you should be able to get a 800+ 2 hander or 700+ one hander easily and cheaply. Or more for your budget.
3. Stack your primary stat using the AH. Feel free to use the reduced level requirement to check for high level gear you can wear now, especially if you want resists.
4. Armor is important, so keep upgrading as much gear as you can every few levels because the base armor is very helpful.

I have not played wiz yet, but it appears to be the same principles as the DH. I got a DH through hell w/o really dying even with careless play until in late act 3, but I had a 780 dps bow equippable at level 51. The "reduced level requirement" mod goes all they way to 18!!! so you could have the highest dps weapon ever at the end of nm. Basically it will be like a grief (until inferno act 2, that is). What skills is your DH using? That could be a problem when the game starts to get more difficult.

Baron: I am in your position now, but a few lucky buys on the ah have helped me. I am currently geared as a tank DH so I do have to have res and armor on just about every piece. I don't get benefit from stacking the same resist though, so I could see joy in that as well as frustration when you want to upgrade.

[Asmodeous]

I have to admit that at first, I was disapointed with Diablo 3. Now I am finding that my interest is increasing. But I will point out that I am no where as advanced as most players. My character list is levels 59, 51, 24 & 6.

The reason for the disapointment is the difficulty of hell if you don't use the AH. I could solo norm/nm ok with self found/black smithed items ok. at that point the only "taint" with my items was some gems given to myself by Joosh.

But then came Hell difficulty. My first foray into hell was with my level 50 sorceress who gets pwned on a regular basis. Figuring I sucked as a sorceress D3 player, I switched to a Barbarian. He did better, could handle the usual trash mobs but still went down to most boss packs.
By this time, I had maxxed out the blacksmith/jeweller as far as I could go and bought all three pages of stash.
With nothing else to really spend the gold on, it accumilated.
I reached the point of quitting. Figuring I wasn't having fun anymore with the constant dying with every boss pack. So with nothing to loose really, I wandered into the AH with my gold. Bought an entire green set, Aseara's?? (sorry, mind blank on the name atm), a 350dps sword, gold skin armor and a really cool belt.
Suddenly my Barb became an unstoppable tank. Near unkillable. His killing speed is a bit slow, "only" 6k dps @ level 58 now. But he rarely dies now, only to exceptional circumstances such as being frozen/feared and taking multiple hits from arcane sentry's or stacked pools of fire/poison etc.
Now, Im hanging out to hit level 60. Gold is filling my stash and once I hit the magical level, it's off the AH to see what a few hundred grand gp will buy for me.

My point is for me, I thought that the AH would ruin the game for me. I wanted to solo D3 all the way thru, self found, legit or trades with my fellow trusted D2'ers just like my D2 career. But it has turned out that the AH is the games savior for me. Go figure.
Hence the game is much more unjoyable for myself now.

[Painman]

I'm kinda disappointed with Inferno. But I find that Normal through Hell feel pretty well balanced.

I did have some trouble with Hell at first. Normal and NM can be a romp, but Hell requires more defensive gameplay and some farming if you're not well equipped. Well, it's Hell, after all. I got through w/o the AH, but I did have 3 characters each pushing as far as they could and feeding the other 2 any nice items found. Same with Inferno, though I'm kinda stalled out @ a third of the way thru A2.

But, I'm having some fun with the game again. I started up a WD, something I've been preparing for but putting off. I finally got bleary-eyed after looking at nothing but A1's fields and A2's deserts and ripping them up the same old ways.

As someone upthread offered, I would also recommend to anyone who's getting bored... if there's a class you haven't played yet, get to it. Get the heck out of Hell/Inferno or wherever you're currently mired, and breathe some fresh air.

My little WD is kickin' butt. lvl 29, just about to start down the path to Siegebreaker. Twinked w/only my pair of Lut Socks. I haven't seen A3 in weeks! And killing stuff with Puke from the Sky is pretty fun.