Thoughts on Diablo III?

[Dell19]

Didn't dabble with the demon hunter much - she's with the barbarian on the level of boringness.

Probably true on normal but from then on the character becomes a lot more involving to play as picking abilities that synergise well is the only way to survive on hell. I haven't played any other characters yet but by playing with friends, the demon hunter seems to be one of the most challenging characters to play as on the higher difficulty levels.

 

[Thrawn]

Yeah everything I'm hearing suggests you have to start thinking alot more about your skills, which ones to use, how you use them etc on the higher difficulties. For instance, I've heard that single target becomes far more important, where in normal I just run around aoe'ing everything to death without any trouble.

Blizzard have blatantly said that normal is designed to be easy, so anyone complaining about that is kind of silly.

 

[Disgustipated]

Keep in mind normal in D2 was pretty easy too. At least Act 1 was. I still haven't made it to act 2 in D3 yet, so I can't say if it gets more difficult. So far pretty easy. I have never been below 1/4 health. One time I got close to 1/4 and used a potion.

If anything, they should have changed this game even more from D2. I'm not sure if this type of gameplay is really that fun in 2012. I find myself getting kind of bored. Hopefully it gets more interesting as time goes on. I may have to play multiplayer, because single player is dragging on.

I'm in the 4th level of the Cathedral, but I think I'll quit for the night. It looks like I have a long way to go for this dungeon. And I tire of getting full from loot all the time. Why even use waypoints when my town portal seems to have no cooldown though?

I find it disturbing that the only way my character can figure out to search bookcases/shelves is to knock the whole thing down.

 

[GrayingGamer]

Actual difficulty levels in D3:

Normal = Easy. Put on whatever gear you find, AE everything down, pay attention once in a while to survive. Bosses can be rough but there's lots of wiggle room to learn the basic strats.
Nightmare = Normal. Start paying attention to gear, make your life easier by buying a nice (but not too expensive) weapon on the AH. Use your abilities properly to survive, a few elite packs may manage to take you out. This is the level where most experienced gamers feel like they have to start trying.
Hell = Challenging. Time to start obsessing about everything - gear, skills, technique. Start trying different builds / synergies. Elite packs range from tough to brutal, dying becomes common. Character progression transitions to being virtually entirely gear-based part-way through this difficulty.
Inferno = Super hard. Haven't gotten here yet, but I hear it's hard =) I'm still thoroughly enjoying hell mode.

 

[CommonKnowledge]

Seems everyone else is just getting on with it but is nobody else bothered by the fact that if you want to play on a harder difficulty the only way to do so is to play the game through multiple times? I can't see how that makes any sense; it would be like me wanting to play a game of Civ IV on monarch but before I can having to win games on settler, chieften, warlord, noble and prince. I completed the game yesterday and didn't want to play it again since I already knew how it pans out and where the story goes - in the same way that when I finish a book I don't immediately read it again with one eye closed to spite depth perception.

It's hardly new that games have been adding difficulty levels after you complete them, even the original quake had a fourth difficulty setting if you hit the wall with your axe in the first level. The only reason I can think of doing such a setup is because difficulty itself is item and level based rather than skill. It makes sense the hardest difficulty would require extra help in the form of items and could only be accessed having already completed the game, but having to consecutively re-play three times to get there boggles me.

However after I unlocked nightmare difficulty I thought "well at least I can try it with a new character and see how that... Are you kidding me? I have to replay normal EVERY time I reroll in order to unlock what I already unlocked?"

 

[Double A]

However after I unlocked nightmare difficulty I thought "well at least I can try it with a new character and see how that... Are you kidding me? I have to replay normal EVERY time I reroll in order to unlock what I already unlocked?"

What.

 

[CommonKnowledge]

What.

Is that meant to be a question or did I not make my post clear enough regarding my opinions on Diablos difficulty accessibility?

 

[Akka]

Yeah everything I'm hearing suggests you have to start thinking alot more about your skills, which ones to use, how you use them etc on the higher difficulties. For instance, I've heard that single target becomes far more important, where in normal I just run around aoe'ing everything to death without any trouble.

Blizzard have blatantly said that normal is designed to be easy, so anyone complaining about that is kind of silly.

Sorry, but what I find silly when I hear about this is that the "normal" mode seems faceroll-easy (which is already kind of idiotic, why not put an "easy" mode then ?), and more than anything that it's mandatory before being able to reach the actual real mode.
I don't see the problem with complaining that you are forced to finish the game in easy before being able to play normally.

 

[Disgustipated]

D2 was faceroll easy too. At least Act 1 in D2 was. Only Blood Raven and Andariel posed any serious threat to your character.

edit: oh btw, what the hell is a banner used for?

 

[Dell19]

edit: oh btw, what the hell is a banner used for?

Teleporting to other people playing in the same game. Useful if you've gone back to town to sell stuff whilst the rest of your party have played on a bit.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

Serious question for CommonKnowledge and Akka: Have either of you actually ever played a Diablo game before? This is the exact same way difficulty progression has always worked in this series. Complaining about it is like complaining that Call of Duty uses guns when you really prefer medieval settings with swords and bows. If you've never played Diablo before I can understand your confusion, but if you have then you should have fully expected this going in.

 

[Akka]

Serious question for CommonKnowledge and Akka: Have either of you actually ever played a Diablo game before? This is the exact same way difficulty progression has always worked in this series. Complaining about it is like complaining that Call of Duty uses guns when you really prefer medieval settings with swords and bows. If you've never played Diablo before I can understand your confusion, but if you have then you should have fully expected this going in.

I've actually started on the Internet due to Diablo 1 excessive playing, so yeah, it's not really anything new for me
I haven't (and don't plan to) played D3, I was just saying that the reasoning behind the criticism is valid. D1 and D2 had a "normal" mode that was, well, "normal". It wasn't that hard, but you could certainly die (especially D1). D3 seems to be much easier at the "normal" level, and having a too easy mandatory first run is a totally valid complaint.

 

[CommonKnowledge]

Serious question for CommonKnowledge and Akka: Have either of you actually ever played a Diablo game before? This is the exact same way difficulty progression has always worked in this series. Complaining about it is like complaining that Call of Duty uses guns when you really prefer medieval settings with swords and bows. If you've never played Diablo before I can understand your confusion, but if you have then you should have fully expected this going in.

Quoting myself from the last page:

I haven't played any of the other Diablo games

Also I don't think your comparison is particularly apt as a games genre is completely separate to it's execution - you can have highly enjoyable games from different genres due to a good execution. I happen to think that I like all game genres (with the possible exception of Asian RPGs because I don't care for them aesthetically) but that doesn't have any bearing on how well a game is designed.

If Diablo III is meant to be a fan game then I guess it's not up to me to tell Blizzard how to do their job, but then again I don't see why they still insist on having such a pointless and blatant time sink as a core game mechanic. Personally I view a game as being an interactive story so that, when over, my interest in the game fades. Deciding to force the player to replay the game three times just to try the hardest difficulty on each character seems ridiculous since, apart from some percentage adjustments, nothing has changed.

Perhaps it's just the difficulty factor and the way people want to beat the game no matter how hard, but again; why do you have to play it three times in order to have a go at the hardest setting? To me, if I were to play it again, I would want to try something other than a Witch Doctor, but if I did that I would be forced to use normal.

Then again maybe Blizzard is just using Nintendo logic of "well we've been doing it this way for the last three decades so there's no point changing now." Come to think of it I felt this way when I tried Starcraft II and was baffled as to why after all these years of RTS innovation Blizzard had gone back to finite resources.

 

[Disgustipated]

I'll have to admit it's a little bit easier than D2 normal. But I did almost die today. I'm in the fields right after killing the skeleton king in Act1. Those trees die, and they release some kind of poison on the ground after they die. They take away your health real quick.

I tried some multiplayer, it makes the game a little more fun. But no one talked to each other. Seriously though, normal would be more fun if it was more challenging. I'm having trouble staying awake in this game. I got rid of my follower to make the game a little harder, but it hasn't changed much.

I have to agree. Just because D2 was a certain way doesn't mean D3 has to be that way. I can maybe see making you play nightmare again. But if Blizzard is going to insist on making normal so easy so the 10 year olds can enjoy this game, then at least give us the option to skip it after the first time through. I can't imagine doing this 5 times for all character classes. It's a pointless time sink. They aren't charging a monthly subscription, so there is no excuse for such a time sink.

 

[Double A]

Is that meant to be a question or did I not make my post clear enough regarding my opinions on Diablos difficulty accessibility?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FlatWhat

 

[CommonKnowledge]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FlatWhat

Again I don't understand what point you're trying to make but from that link I can only assume you meant this:

"What." You've just been witness to something so bizarre, so eye-crossingly stupid (or possibly so mind-crushingly terrifying as to put you beyond the capacity for rational thought), that your brain no longer has the cognitive faculties to put together a more articulate response.

If I'm incorrect about the difficulty issue then let me know since it would make the game more fun. Otherwise I don't see what the problem is.

 

[Double A]

That's pretty much it. From what I gathered, you have to play a Normal game either every time you want to unlock a different difficulty or want to temporarily unlock another one, and both of those scenarios are just plain ridiculous.

 

[Samez]

I am a bit annoyed by the different difficulty of characters. I both played a wizzard and a barbarian halfway through the third act on normal. While the wizard required permanent care for skilling and drinking potions to reduce dying the barbarian was ridiculously easy to play (I only died once because of lack of attention and consumed a total of 5 health potions, while not taking any care about skilling).

 

[sanabas]

I tried some multiplayer, it makes the game a little more fun. But no one talked to each other. Seriously though, normal would be more fun if it was more challenging. I'm having trouble staying awake in this game. I got rid of my follower to make the game a little harder, but it hasn't changed much.

Play hardcore?

 

[TheDanish]

The only real complaint I have is that you must start on Normal difficulty. Don't get me wrong, I'm still having a blast slaughtering my way through the Normal Acts, but it's a bit too easy.

Otherwise the game is fantastic.