If your previous playthrough was long ago enough, then it's probably because of the patches. Many new patches made the game a lot easier in quite a few places (a good thing in my opinion, as some things were frustratingly hard before). I know for sure Duriel was affected by some of the patches.

That sounds pretty exciting .

But did he do it only with gear he found himself?

Well, they do need to have huge gold sinks; otherwise there will be massive inflation as more and more gold enters the economy.

Hey! This could be a great economics experiment! Forced payment for health care comes to mind!

"Indestructible equipment"? Sounds like a noob's dream come true. I imagine that's pricey though ...

It would work the same way in a game if you're an incompetent boob, but the other players would suffer. OTOH, you'd have to have some sort of inefficient overhead to make it more like the real thing. Kind of like those gambling games that throw a lot of the weight on luck instead of skill, such as craps vs. poker, but the house gets its cut anyway.

But by most measures of success, I'm a miserable failure, so why should I believe that? And my father was a democrat who wanted to suck on the government tit, and resented successful neighbors who'd started with nothing. I was so embarrassed then...

Exactly how do you define success? Owning a bunch of overpriced status symbols, or being proud of your life?

Yeah, I've already had a 42k repair bill. However, the patch has made inferno vastly easier (mobs literally do half their previous damage), so I'm able to farm act 3/4 solo with hardly any deaths. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the game is a little too easy now, but then I do have exceptionally good gear.

My DH friend is having a horrible time since the patch - he was built as a glasscannon, so even with the mob damage nerf, he gets one-shotted. Also, attackspeed and a nerf to his primary attack means he has half the mobility, and half the damage. He is quite upset.

The fact that they are halving the damage of this-and-that makes it sound like the game is still in beta. Those are some pretty serious balance changes. It suggests that the balance was either completely wrong when they launched the game, or that they just have no idea what they are doing. (or both)

I've concluded that they just like to mix things up. How could a game that is generally so well balanced get attack speed so wrong that it needs to be nerfed by 50%?

I was wrong about my repair bill by the way

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Act II inferno is where the masses tend to have problems. It was a bit annoying on my first time through, but in my current gear I'd need to fall asleep at my keyboard to die.

But yeah, the white bugs at the start of act II are much too hard if you're not well geared. It's a steep upward slope in difficulty from act II onwards, apart from the occasional easy boss (like Maghda).

The game's difficulty is lazily implemented - instead of new mechanics, they've just made things hit harder and have more health, although I do think that the elites difficulty is well balanced at endgame - at the moment it's quite fun for me because I can take out any elite packs in act3/4, but many will kill me if I'm not paying attention.

Earlier in the game, there were times where the difficulty felt completely broken simply because of my gear. Up until level 40, I didn't use the AH, and so my weapon was 20 levels behind, making bosses virtually impossible.

Anyway, I had good loot this evening: a legendary ring that I've already sold for 12 million, and another rare ring that should go for 30+ million! :O

On a separate note (as this is now becoming my D3 dump): I can't wait for PvP. My gear is currently off the scale - even with infinite money, it would not be possible to buy gear as good as mine without also spending a solid week scanning the AH and waiting for good pieces to appear. What's more, I've also experimented and tailored my set for what I believe will be perfect for PvP based upon my Arena / L.o.L. experience. So I'm expecting to have a load of fun facerolling over other players when PvP begins. I love unfair advantages.

If you have an unstable internet connection (or Blizzard's servers get unstable) you can't play HC though, since any disconnect means you have to start over...