Thoughts on Diablo III?

[Wolfbeckett]

I'm not sure how it ruins the game. They are probably referring to the real money version. I won't comment on that as I haven't used it. I thank god for the AH, or I'd never be able to survive hell. I get absolutely 0 drops that are useful to my character. My main thing is making money so I can buy something useful in the AH. But I do occasionally find items useful to other characters, and can make some money on the AH.

That's exactly what I'm saying ruins the game for me. I played Diablo 2 for the awesome feeling I got when I saw a rare piece of loot drop for my character. Finding loot for other characters, selling those, then using the money to buy gear for me is not even remotely the same feeling, and not one that I'm willing to spend $60 on. I never really played Diablo 2 multiplayer, I'm not interested in Diablo 3 as a multiplayer game beyond sometimes playing with friends. Being forced into using the multiplayer systems that have been put in place in order to make progress is a bad design decision in my opinion, it results in a game that I don't want to play.

 

[Target MC]

Diablo III is a sad disappointment.

I truly think that Blizzard doesn't particularly care about adding in new, innovative features into their games anymore. More of a scheme to cash in and give something to fret about as their finances increase with every year.

Tried Diablo III the other week, just about as disappointing to me as Starcraft II was.

I haven't even mentioned how you have to be online at all times to play 'Single Player' in Diablo III. What gives?

Don't even get me started on the servers.

 

[Rub'Rum]

At this point I'd probably give it a 7.5/10. I have some stuff to say about it and might do a proper write-up at some point. Most of my complaints have nothing to do with the servers or the always-online thing, I don't really care about that, except what relates to the side-effects of the auction house on gameplay (boring loot). I'd say the game just doesn't feel much like Diablo. Sadly. I've still played it over 50 hours at this point and will probably keep being a decent back up game for every day "Well I got an hour to kill".

 

[Birdjaguar]

All this sad talk about lack of loot and having to buy stuff just to keep up, will keep me from buying the game anytime soon. I had been really looking forward to it. I guess Skyrim and G&K will have to keep me busy for a while though.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Inferno is too easy?

Rofl. Whatever.

Anyone who started late when blizzard already patched and nerfed everything. Or slow gamers like me and Mobboss who took a month to reach level 60 and now have run into the wall that is Inferno Act 2.

 

[codepoet]

Let me first say I am having fun with Diablo 3 at the moment... and this is because of dungeon crawling with friends and chatting on Mumble as I do so. Diablo 3 captures the more or less "mindless" fun experience that the others had. I like many of the changes and additions and so far I like the mix of the classes and how their abilities can work together in groups. So keep that in mind while I breakdown what I see as the deficiencies of Diablo 3.

I really don't think the AH is the cause of D3's problems... it's just a symptom IMO:
1. Everything that drops is 5 levels below where you currently are as you level. This changes at 60 when with 5 Nephalem buff stacks, you get a mix of 55 items and actual level 60 items in Hell difficulty. In D2 it was common for me to have something drop and I needed to compare it to an existing similar item I had equipped and decide whether I wanted to use it immediately or not. Especially once I had all rare items equipped.
2. The Legendary items simply are not. They're always a let down. Want proof? Go to the auction house... ignoring price, compare the rare items to an equivalent level legendary. You'll always be able to find a rare that is better. In D2, it was also true that rares could be better than a unique (legendary)... but these items were really rare. Super rare. But better than legendary is very common in D3 actually. In D2 I used to have targeted unique items I wanted as part of a list. If a unique dropped I was ecstatic, especially one from my special list. I'd started leveling classes because of specific uniques I found while looking for other things.
3. Legendary items are too generic. They need to be reshuffled with benefiting specific classes in mind... some do, most don't. Uniques had bonuses you could not get on a rare as well... or bonuses in an armor slot that normally could not be had... and noticeable bonuses to specific spells. And I know they don't have runes or runewords (saved intentionally for an expansion no doubt), but these were buildable uniques that one could build goals around.
4. Its like they've ignored or abandoned the concept of allowing players to establish mini-goals... D2 had this in spades... and it was fueled by there essentially being no level cap (yeah I know 99... but not really realistic), no limit to the level of a spell (+X to All Skills items were coveted!). Even with their Nephalem buff concept (which is fine, I like the idea to push people away from super repetitive Meph runs that D2 had, as is I can treasure hunt any act really), but in the next patch they're already reducing the drops that bosses give and spreading that among elites encounters randomly in the word... their reasoning? They don't want you to necessarily stop at a boss. But step in the mind of a player: killing a boss in a treasure hunting run is how I am going to plan to end my run... it's the goal!

It's like the designers of the game are picturing all players sitting and playing through all four acts everytime, each session. Diablo is supposed to be that game you can drop into when you have 30-60 mins to kill and you can roll the dice on a quick magic find run. Feels like BLizzard is actively designing this mindset/playstyle out IMO.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Not mentioning that it has lost this weird/dark "mystic gothic" feel I associated Diablo with. The art doesn't match what the game was at heart. Although neither does the presentation of the story. I mean the story is not very good in itself, but what makes it terribad is the presentation. Clown-like apparitions from boss monsters that telegraph their arrivals with stupid speeches "Ah ah, do you recognize your old lieutenant!?" What? Shut up! You're not even in the room! Azmodan's ridiculous image that keeps popping up to taunt you. What is this? Don't you have anything better to do? Just... No. In previous games, you were vaguely looking for, say, Mephisto in a dark jungle at the bottom of a dungeon, and BAM he's there. Holy crap. Not telegraphing. Forgotten about the classic "Ah fresh meat" from Diablo 1? (what's in this room? AAAAH)... Leah being terribly childish and annoying in Diablo 3. Etc. Also the geography is really poor and doesn't make me feel like I'm anywhere particular.

 

[Eat_Up_Martha]

At this point I'd probably give it a 7.5/10. I have some stuff to say about it and might do a proper write-up at some point. Most of my complaints have nothing to do with the servers or the always-online thing, I don't really care about that, except what relates to the side-effects of the auction house on gameplay (boring loot). I'd say the game just doesn't feel much like Diablo. Sadly. I've still played it over 50 hours at this point and will probably keep being a decent back up game for every day "Well I got an hour to kill".

Let me first say I am having fun with Diablo 3 at the moment... and this is because of dungeon crawling with friends and chatting on Mumble as I do so. Diablo 3 captures the more or less "mindless" fun experience that the others had. I like many of the changes and additions and so far I like the mix of the classes and how their abilities can work together in groups. So keep that in mind while I breakdown what I see as the deficiencies of Diablo 3.

I really don't think the AH is the cause of D3's problems... it's just a symptom IMO:
1. Everything that drops is 5 levels below where you currently are as you level. This changes at 60 when with 5 Nephalem buff stacks, you get a mix of 55 items and actual level 60 items in Hell difficulty. In D2 it was common for me to have something drop and I needed to compare it to an existing similar item I had equipped and decide whether I wanted to use it immediately or not. Especially once I had all rare items equipped.
2. The Legendary items simply are not. They're always a let down. Want proof? Go to the auction house... ignoring price, compare the rare items to an equivalent level legendary. You'll always be able to find a rare that is better. In D2, it was also true that rares could be better than a unique (legendary)... but these items were really rare. Super rare. But better than legendary is very common in D3 actually. In D2 I used to have targeted unique items I wanted as part of a list. If a unique dropped I was ecstatic, especially one from my special list. I'd started leveling classes because of specific uniques I found while looking for other things.
3. Legendary items are too generic. They need to be reshuffled with benefiting specific classes in mind... some do, most don't. Uniques had bonuses you could not get on a rare as well... or bonuses in an armor slot that normally could not be had... and noticeable bonuses to specific spells. And I know they don't have runes or runewords (saved intentionally for an expansion no doubt), but these were buildable uniques that one could build goals around.
4. Its like they've ignored or abandoned the concept of allowing players to establish mini-goals... D2 had this in spades... and it was fueled by there essentially being no level cap (yeah I know 99... but not really realistic), no limit to the level of a spell (+X to All Skills items were coveted!). Even with their Nephalem buff concept (which is fine, I like the idea to push people away from super repetitive Meph runs that D2 had, as is I can treasure hunt any act really), but in the next patch they're already reducing the drops that bosses give and spreading that among elites encounters randomly in the word... their reasoning? They don't want you to necessarily stop at a boss. But step in the mind of a player: killing a boss in a treasure hunting run is how I am going to plan to end my run... it's the goal!

It's like the designers of the game are picturing all players sitting and playing through all four acts everytime, each session. Diablo is supposed to be that game you can drop into when you have 30-60 mins to kill and you can roll the dice on a quick magic find run. Feels like Blizzard is actively designing this mindset/playstyle out IMO.

I agree with both of you. I find that the game is good, but not great. I have gotten my money's worth and I'm not regretting buying it, but it does feel like a bit of a let down after the honeymoon period has worn off. I don't think that they dropped the ball on any of the core game concepts, I like the new skill system and general 'feel' of the combat, and the plot is... serviceable (which is pretty good for a game like this). However, I think that AH and item drop issues really do bite into its ability to offer long-term enjoyment. It seems to me that most of the game playing at later levels is focused more on grabbing gold to buy items than actually hoping for a good drop.

I like how codepoet said that the AH is a symptom of the problem, not a cause. I agree completely. I don't think that Bliz really had a choice on the matter; real-money item trading already existed for D2, why not legitimize the process? People don't have to worry about scams, it's easy to use, and Blizzard makes a profit on sales.

I'm beginning to think that the real problem is with the fundamental concept of these types of games. Are they really compatible with long-term replayability? At the end of the day, the ONLY reason to keep playing D3 or similar games is to get better items. I'm sure that works for some people, but it seems incredibly shallow to me. It's even more empty of an experience when you're doing so in small groups, without the overall 'community' afforded by games like WoW.

 

[GrayingGamer]

I don't think that they dropped the ball on any of the core game concepts,

I disagree on this one point.

I think they made an enormous error in their decision to make hitboxes work the way they do in-game. I think it's gamebreaking. Sure, you might not notice it (or you just don't care) on lower difficulties, but that's just because they're easy. Once the game gets hard, you start noticing that stuff is taking off health even though it doesn't look like it's hitting you on the screen. You start noticing that you have to keep stuff virtually off the screen in order to not be hit. /sigh

Let me put it another way - if this were an old school game that described attacks in text, it'd go like this, "Raging Basilisk attacks you with a vicious bite! It misses! You take 43 damage!" This is how absurd this system is.

It's a graphical action RPG. And the graphics lie to you. There couldn't be a more fundamental flaw to such a game.

 

[Rub'Rum]

The hitboxes are one of the worst thing about the game. And it is considered working as intended. It's mindblowingly bad.

What frustrates me about the auction house is that they are justifying its use by basically saying that they'd rather control something that was "inevitable"... But really, the % of players who played the previous games and ever felt the need to partake in serious online trading was probably less than 10%. Maybe even less than 5%. The mass of people playing Diablo games weren,t necessarily hardcore players. They were hugely popular games, a lot of the players probably just played single player, or MP with friends. And just had fun and couldn't care less about the online market and whatnot. Now they end up with a Diablo 3 game that is balanced gameplay-wise to account for an auction house that is there to legitimize the game style of what used to be a minority of players.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

I disagree on this one point.

I think they made an enormous error in their decision to make hitboxes work the way they do in-game. I think it's gamebreaking. Sure, you might not notice it (or you just don't care) on lower difficulties, but that's just because they're easy. Once the game gets hard, you start noticing that stuff is taking off health even though it doesn't look like it's hitting you on the screen. You start noticing that you have to keep stuff virtually off the screen in order to not be hit. /sigh

Let me put it another way - if this were an old school game that described attacks in text, it'd go like this, "Raging Basilisk attacks you with a vicious bite! It misses! You take 43 damage!" This is how absurd this system is.

It's a graphical action RPG. And the graphics lie to you. There couldn't be a more fundamental flaw to such a game.

It blows my mind that they thought this kind of crap was acceptable in a game that has both 1.) Hardcore permadeath mode and 2.) Monsters that one shot you on the highest difficulty level. If the hitbox issue is really as bad as I've heard it feels like playing Hardcore Inferno would basically just be rolling the dice each time, not good when permadeath is the result of rolling snake eyes.

 

[Disgustipated]

I like the game, but I'm starting to get bored of it by myself. But I still enjoy playing with my brother. I think the game was intended to be a multiplayer game, and let's just leave it at that. So I won't complain too much about online requirement. But I will say it's more fun playing with people you know rather than random people. My random groups have sucked so far. The lack of guilds (like in WOW) may be one reason for this. Grouping with random people just isn't fun. I tried playing yesterday by myself, and I was just getting sleepy.

I don't mind the AH, but I ask, is it really necessary? Why is it necessary to make it like an MMO? I'd rather they just have items that drop that are appropriate for your character class. Less randomization of stats on items (mojo with strength?- lame), and have items that your character can use. If that were the case, we wouldn't need an AH. You'd still want to make it so they have to work for those drops of course.

Somebody said they are reducing boss drops? Seriously? Boss drops are so lame in this game. I can't even get a rare from them (only on normal difficulty are you guaranteed a rare). It makes little sense the biggest baddest bosses in this game have the worst loot.

 

[GrayingGamer]

Somebody said they are reducing boss drops? Seriously? Boss drops are so lame in this game. I can't even get a rare from them (only on normal difficulty are you guaranteed a rare). It makes little sense the biggest baddest bosses in this game have the worst loot.

Bosses only drop rare loot the 1st time you kill them. After that it's all blues, until you hit 60 and start getting Nephalim buffs - 5 stacks usually yields a rare or two. I'd imagine this is what they're nerfing.

 

[Rub'Rum]

The last bosses I killed for the first time (Nightmare Diablo and Hell Butcher) both gave me 2 blue items 5 items level below my level. So exciting.

I just equipped my first Legendary item after 60 hours of playing... And that's because i got it cheap from the gold auction house. Because I never saw a single legendary drop in all these hours. Neither did I see a set item for that matter. All useless rares and blues.

In a more thematic oriented complaint:

Spoiler :

Sabatons, faulds, a cupola, a higoyumi and Tassets!? YOU DON'T SAY! Look I know you're running out of names for stuff, but this... I mean what are these things even. There were weird names in Diablo II also in the higher level stuff but... Because the graphic for each item was BIG in your inventory, you ended up associating an image with every name. I still remember what sabatons and a shamshir is, because I played Diablo 2 and I remember them being those boots and that scimtar thing. But in Diablo 3, the graphic in the inventory is too small. That doesn't help give the game flavor. And a thing I thought would be cool ends up increasing that problem: each class has a different style for the items in the inventory. So those sabatons have 5 different looks in the inventory depending which class is looking at them. A mindblowing complaint that I never thought I'd say... but there might be too many visual representations of each type of items. It's okay to have this variety once equipped (on-character look), but just the graphic in the inventory? ... Although the main problem might be the first thing I said; the icons are too small to really pay attention to them.

 

[codepoet]

Bosses only drop rare loot the 1st time you kill them. After that it's all blues, until you hit 60 and start getting Nephalim buffs - 5 stacks usually yields a rare or two. I'd imagine this is what they're nerfing.

Yup.
So the first time you kill a boss, you get normal drops (1-3ish rares and some blues.
Then when you run them after that it'll be all blues until you reach 60.
At 60, you'll start getting this buff called the Nephalem buff. This stacks 5 times and each stack gives you increased magic find and also increases the yields a boss can get back to the level as if it's the first time you kill them. You get a stack of this buff for each rare mob you kill. They persist through death, but get cleared if you change your spec or leave the game. So the idea is you do a magic find run by actually going through content, not by simply going straight to a boss.

What they're changing is that they're seeing that people get to a boss with full buffs and then just stop. They want to make it so that once you get a boss you would keep going rather than stopping.. so they're going to slightly reduce what bosses can drop from this buff and increase what non-bosses can drop.

So I understand what they're doing... but I'd still personally still rather be sure to have a climax type ending for a session of magic find runs...

 

[SewerStarFish]

Sabatons, faulds, a cupola, a higoyumi and Tassets!? YOU DON'T SAY! Look I know you're running out of names for stuff, but this... I mean what are these things even.

Thesaurus and wiki naming to sound cool:

Sabotons: (from Sabot as in sabotage: wooden shoe) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabaton. 15th Century armor

Faulds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabaton breastplate

Cupola: is a stretch -- the onion dome of East European churches that is shaped like a helmet are called cupolas. So it's an onion hat

Higo Yumi: Is a Japenese bow http://www.kyudo.com/asahiam-yumi.html

Tassets: Basically plate mail thigh pads http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tassets

 

[Rub'Rum]

Thesaurus and wiki naming to sound cool:

Sabotons: (from Sabot as in sabotage: wooden shoe) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabaton. 15th Century armor

Faulds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabaton breastplate

Cupola: is a stretch -- the onion dome of East European churches that is shaped like a helmet are called cupolas. So it's an onion hat

Higo Yumi: Is a Japenese bow http://www.kyudo.com/asahiam-yumi.html

Tassets: Basically plate mail thigh pads http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tassets

I knew most of that and could easily have found out about the rest if I wanted to. But I didn't REALLY want to know. It's not my point.

 

[SewerStarFish]

I knew most of that and could easily have found out about the rest if I wanted to. But I didn't REALLY want to know. It's not my point.

It wasn't mine either. Like you, I am a little disappointed in D3. Sadly the business end of PC game making has withered the ability to provide a truly deeper, more immersive game.

It's not that D3 is bad, it's that it isn't better than D2. And most of its flaws are due to its divergence from "Diablo" and its convergence with "WoW". The rest are the continued "lowest common denominator" theory of the gaming business. It is more a WoW Lite than Diablo 3.

It is surreal seeing the D3 official forum. It mirrors almost exactly the fury, fervor and subsequent pushback by D3 lovers that occurred with vs . (Dear God -- that's not an invitation to restart that argument here). Blizzard had disaffected a significant portion of the Diablo fanbase and the only thing to be seen is if the influx of new players offsets the next iterations loss of return players who loved D2 but hate D3.

I for one won't be burned again by them just as I haven't played since 2010. When and if there is ever a Civ 6, I certainly won't be jumping right in like I did for every other Civ. Disappointment in the past by these two game companies has bumped me from being a purchase leader: from here on out I'm only buying when the price is super low, if at all. It's the only tool I have to affect the trade.

 

[Disgustipated]

yeah but people complain about computer games no matter how good they are. People complained about Civ 4 when it first came out too. And Civ3. People complained bitterly about SMAC when it came out (I remember that's when I first got on the alpha.owo boards that eventually led me to Apolyton and here), and that game is considered a classic now. Haters gonna hate.

D3 is a good game, I'm still playing it with my brother. As a Co-op game it's pretty fun. But the lack of depth makes single player a yawn fest. I'm only doing single player hardcore normal run for the achievements, but normal at this point is so boring. I get complacent because it's so easy, I might actually die because I get lazy, and not paying attention.

My hell character never dies, but that's because I have spirit vessel. I'm sure I'll die eventually.

question: Should I consider staves for my witch doctor? So far no staff has been better than my dagger (or ceremonial dagger)/mojo combo. But I found a blue staff yesterday that while missing some of the stats of my rares, did have more intelligence and vitality than my dagger/mojo. It was tempting to use it.

 

[PhroX]

It's not that D3 is bad, it's that it isn't better than D2.

This pretty much sums up my thoughts - I am enjoying it, but when I tire of it, D3 will likely get uninstalled and forgotten, whereas D2 will continue to be my goto game for the odd bit of mindless monster killing.