Diablo III: Inferno and the Auction House

I used to think of the Auction House as a curiosity, a backdrop of microtransaction static that, after the still-missing real money version goes live, could serve as a way for me to make small sums of cash by selling any absurdly rare items. Through Normal, Nightmare and Hell difficulties I found I developed a resentment of the Auction House, as it undercut the powerful sense of reward associated with finding items on my own. When a legendary Fjord Cutter dropped on my screen, it wasn’t some random Fjord Cutter, it was Fjord Cutter. Even if it wasn’t even as powerful as the epic fiery club I was using, I stored the Cutter in my stash. It was a trophy, proof of my growing heroic legacy, and not something I wanted to throw out for others to bid on, to turn my success into an unremarkable sum of gold that lost its identity as soon as I combined it with the rest of my funds.

So I interacted with the Auction House sparingly, tossing magic items up for sale for in-game gold, but staying away from obsessively searching for reasonably priced items with Barbarian-appropriate affixes, and snatching any absurdly low priced items to flip for a profit. Then I hit Inferno, and my self-reliant approach to item acquisition was no longer possible.

Even the starting area zombies hit hard, and the first wretched mother killed me in a flash. The armor I’d accumulated through drops in Hell difficulty suddenly seemed like napkins. I still had a level 32 chest piece, my helmet had higher intelligence bonuses than strength, and my shoulders didn’t even increase vitality. I was a mess, doomed to cycles of death and ceaseless repair penalties. I could have returned to Hell to farm better items. Maybe I’d find them in five minutes, maybe five hours, maybe five months -- such is the uncertainty of randomness. Perhaps I’d find a sword with higher damage, but to have a chance of fighting anything aside from the standard enemies in Act I of Inferno, I needed the higher damage and the right stats.

There was no way around it, I needed money. Alongside a dozen or so rare items, I sold my Fjord Cutter. From the Auction House I picked up a new spear with life restore on hit and big strength and vitality buffs. I upgraded to a double-socketed level 60 chest piece with life regeneration and a helmet that gave extra resistance against physical damage. It cost nearly all the gold I had, and suddenly I was able to hop right into the middle of a zombie pack and whirl, slice, kill and repeat with little downtime. I was back in rhythm, but my victories weren’t as complete, as it felt like I bought my success. I didn’t deserve to make progress.

The disappointment of the near-mandatory use of Auction House interaction at Inferno difficulty setting lingered, but several new mechanics presented themselves to offset the sense that I’d somehow cheapened my experience by buying relevance. Elite-level champion packs and unique monsters, for instance, were still immensely challenging even with a few upgraded pieces of gear. On Inferno they have four unique attack modifiers, so they can be fast with extra health, leech health and periodically drop frozen bombs all across the battlefield. These modifiers can sometimes arrange themselves in combinations that make the elite monsters seem invulnerable. Even though I’d upgraded myself, there was still so, so much room to improve.

I could have simply snuck past the elite enemies until I reached the next area, but there are powerful bonuses associated with defeating them. After level 60, killing a rare monster or champion pack earns a Nephalem Valor bonus, which boosts gold find and magic find ratings for 30 minutes. Killing another elite monster resets the timer and stacks the bonus. Unlike Diablo II, which rewarded repeated boss runs with showers of rare and set items, Blizzard encourages you to actually play the whole game in Diablo III for the best chance of finding rare, useful items. Chaining elite kills then proceeding to a boss fight is then the best way to go, assuming  you don’t reset your active skill set and a random disconnect from Battle.net doesn’t wipe out your bonus.

In addition, Inferno’s level of challenge makes it feel as though I’m truly playing the game for the first time. That’s a ridiculous thing to say after over 80 hours of gameplay, but precise movement, proper skill use and rune selection have never felt so important, where the possibility for failure exists with nearly every click, and where overcoming a crackling pack of electrified, venom-spewing, shielded champion enemies with mortar attacks feels more rewarding than anything I’d achieved all throughout my time in Normal and Nightmare modes. Even Hell feels kind of tame by comparison.

Even so, I can’t quite shake the notion that I could steamroll the rest of the content with a few Auction House purchases, and that the real reason I continue plunging back into dungeons is to earn money to spend on items found by others. I feel like I need to maintain a balance between buying omnipotence and just enough, ensuring the degree of challenge is steep but, with dedication and skilled play, conquerable. Inferno is Blizzard’s pre-made setting, but in many ways it’s my responsibility to fine-tune the difficulty.

The issue of the Auction House is perhaps more noticeable to me in Diablo III than in the many MMOs that feature similar systems because few games I’ve ever played relay a sense of evolving personal power as effectively as Diablo III. The designs of weapons , armor and individual potions, the detail in larger stacks of gold, the artisans’ carts, the designs of your AI-controlled followers’ gear – with extended play, elements not only becomes more significant statistically, but in appearance as well. With the exception of a number of reused item models, form and power rise alongside each other evenly on an incredible scale, starting from the lowly rags and leather of Normal into the fearsome spiky plate armor found in the depths of Inferno. It’s easy to dismiss statistical increases as you swap in new gear in other action-RPGs as trivial, but in Diablo III the changes are often easily noticeable, in the numbers that pop from enemy heads to the rapidity with which a once seemingly invincible foe is obliterated by the might of high-end gear. The occasional trip back to Normal from Hell to one-shot demons who used to instill fear is worthwhile simply to feel how far you’ve progressed.

As soon as Diablo III loses its forward momentum and starts to feel like an endless farming field I doubt I’ll continue to log in. I know the moment will arrive, eventually, but I’m not quite ready for it yet. The apparent necessity of the Auction House in Inferno was, hopefully, merely a one-time thing, and the rest of my journey can progress without a need to pay virtual currency to avoid the slog of excessive farming or spending a fortune to spin the reels of the blacksmith slot machine. With Nephalem Valor to aid me and, ideally, a stream of item upgrades and additional elite monster behaviors from Blizzard in the months to come, I’m hopeful the gameplay will stay interesting enough to keep me hooked and searching for the next best item and, more importantly, let me feel like I earned my power. If I fail to kill an enemy, I can accept it’s because I lack the required skill, but am uncomfortable with the idea that it’s because my virtual wallet simply isn’t big enough.



Source : http://www.ign.com