MattyC wrote on Jun 13, 2013, 07:44:
I don't know, I rather like how skills work. Playing with different combos on the fly (yes, you o lose your NV) is actually one of the things I really like about D3. To me that is way better than a largely locked system like PoE. I just view that as antiquated and boring. Leveling 2 characters of the same class to max just to see the difference in a minor build variation doesn't sound like a game to me. That sounds like work.

Now the loot in D3? Yes that does need work.

Yeah no I agree, I actually ended up liking the ability to switch skills at will in the end. It allows you to change up your build for something more party friendly when playing MP vs alone etc. Though there isn't really much to do here at present. They missed out on tonnes of opportunity to create class/skill synergies here. "Partnering up with a Wizard? Ok I'll go with this" etc. What little is there at the moment seems purely accidental.


What I meant by broken skill system was how all your skills are basically powered by your damage. Combined with almost every single high-powered build out there being based around crit procs to either lower a cooldown or keep a skill running. This results in all classes needing exactly the same gear (+crit, +ias, and +chd), which is why the so-called trifecta gear is so ludicrously expensive (and with drop rates being what they are, almost impossible to find on your own).

I don't know, I rather like how skills work. Playing with different combos on the fly (yes, you o lose your NV) is actually one of the things I really like about D3. To me that is way better than a largely locked system like PoE. I just view that as antiquated and boring. Leveling 2 characters of the same class to max just to see the difference in a minor build variation doesn't sound like a game to me. That sounds like work.

Now the loot in D3? Yes that does need work.

Golwar wrote on Jun 12, 2013, 10:05:

Pigeon wrote on Jun 12, 2013, 09:29:
Inferno act-II was where I hit the wall. I could either grind for gear that didn't drop for days or go to the AH where anything worthwhile was exorbitant. Maybe that's changed now, but unless I log in and the monsters start spraying useful loot, its going to be hard to keep me interested.

Golwar wrote on Jun 12, 2013, 08:48:
After I didn't touch the game for more than a year, I came back last week ... and stayed. 1.08 is a far better game than 1.05 was. Or was it 1.04?

I first finished Nightmare and Hell with my DH and was prepared to leave the game again when I'd reach Inferno. But I could afford some decent gear and currently do 67k dps and am well protected. I appreciate that I can exactly specify what kind of item I'm looking for. And that I don't have to waste hours, days and weeks to talk to greedy traders. Sorry if that makes me a bad gamer. ;p

Act 2 is where I currently am and that's my character: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Golwar-2180/hero/4385096
I bought every part of the gear within the last 3-4 days, besides the gloves that someone gifted to me. And all I had left from last year was something around 1.5m gold.

Trust me, I have not slightest problems in act 2. Currently I'm bidding on several amulets, next I will aim for a better Manticore with higher average damage and 2 slots. I can rightly say that I currently enjoy D3. No idea for how long this will last though.

Yep, the current game is way better than it was a while back. Inferno difficulty is a lot easier by default than it was, though it can be made much harder with monster power for well-geared players, like /players xyz in Diablo 2 basically. It's a nice way to allow people to progress at the speed they want.

You get ilvl63 items in all acts now, so it's no longer the case that you need to buy items found in act3 off the AH to advance through act2 (especially as a melee char) like it was initially. You also have paragon levels past 60 now, which actually add up to quite a bit of extra survivability and damage after after about 10-20 of them.. Basically, the whole WoW spreadsheet design philosophy of "you need X gear level to do enough damage to kill Y" is now mostly gone, and "how efficiently can I run this route" is back.

The new monster density increase also helped with the fun factor. Nothing like crushing face through one pack of 80 zombies+ in a party, with so many spells and damage numbers going off on screen that nobody can see a thing. And item-wise, there are some easily attainable craftables (hellfire ring and the new account bound craftables) that will give you an instant and significant boost way beyond anything you can hope to find or purchase on the AH within reason (or without resorting to the RMAH).

And yet, items are still inherently broken; the core of any loot oriented ARPG like Diablo. All your stuff still comes from the aforementioned craftables, or AH purchases. Forget about finding stuff yourself for very long, because the drop rates are so ridiculously low it's not even funny. Besides craftables, none of my chars are using anything I've found myself, and I have 3-400 hours in the game since launch... So then your focus becomes farming gold, which is considerably less fun than seeing something good drop at good intervals. The stuff you find, and the stuff you can by, generally falls into the category of dirt cheap or ludicrously expensive, with prices really skyrocketing once you get closer to "Best in Slot" potential. I'm talking at least 100 mill for a single item, with the very best stuff hitting 1-2bill.. Not even the 100 mill range is attainable for a normal player (without resorting to RMAH gold or getting a ridiculously lucky drop that you can sell), so most infermo farmers have to settle for lower-hanging fruit in the 5-20mill range, which is still a considerable amount of cash for any normal player.

In the end, I think the upcoming itemization patch may help, but to truly fix this game they need to completely redesign how skills and gear works, rather than simply iterating on the broken foundation they have now.

hang on let me revise this post.

I am not surprised to see an expansion.

Krovven wrote on Jun 12, 2013, 17:24:
If all people are going to do is make comments regarding things that have long since changed/improved, then yes, their comments hold no weight and are meaningless.

Maybe like me, they have played the game in its patched form and still don't like it. This shouldn't be a difficult thing to imagine, the game was a large disappointment to a pretty massive chunk of players, many of whom have probably reinstalled to check it out and didn't like what they found.

As you can see, there are several people that have posted that they have returned to D3 lately and are stating it's much better.

I see just as many posts saying the opposite all the time so this doesn't really say anything. I don't really care how other people feel about it, I've played it myself and judge it inferior to the current Path of Exile in just about every respect except animations and art. You can certainly go trash talk Path of Exile, I don't really care since its a video game and it really speaks for itself. Diablo 3 can do the same.

Redmask wrote on Jun 12, 2013, 17:09:
Acting like people can't judge a game unless they have played the latest patch revision is really disingenuous. I gave Diablo 3 a lot of chances and I'm a big Blizzard fan but in my opinion it is simply an inferior ARPG title compared to games like Path of Exile.

If all people are going to do is make comments regarding things that have long since changed/improved, then yes, their comments hold no weight and are meaningless.

I didn't like Paths of Exile when I tried the early beta. I hear it's changed. One of these days I'll give it another go. In the meantime, I don't go into every thread regarding the game trashing it based on my experience with it from about a year ago. To do so would be ignorant.

As you can see, there are several people that have posted that they have returned to D3 lately and are stating it's much better.

And my reply was to nin, whom unless I'm mistaken never played the game at all, but goes out of his way to make snide comments in basically every D3 thread.

Acting like people can't judge a game unless they have played the latest patch revision is really disingenuous. I gave Diablo 3 a lot of chances and I'm a big Blizzard fan but in my opinion it is simply an inferior ARPG title compared to games like Path of Exile.

nin wrote on Jun 12, 2013, 14:04:

But what if the expansion sells a crap-ton? Can we really still use the same excuse that people are buying it 'blind' based on D2?

I think there's plenty of movie sequels after sequels that get horrible reviews, yet people keep going to see...

Also plenty of idiots that continue to trash talk those movies without having ever seen them. Or in D3's case, plenty of idiots that continue to trash talk the game when they haven't played it since the first week.

The number one complaint is the itemization and with good reason. 1.09 should fix that. But I play the game because the gameplay is solid and responsive. After the coop and monster density changes in 1.08, it's easily the best ARPG gameplay out there.

This comment was edited on Jun 12, 2013, 16:09.

Alamar wrote on Jun 12, 2013, 13:23:
But what if the expansion sells a crap-ton? Can we really still use the same excuse that people are buying it 'blind' based on D2?

There is no "if" about it. It will sell millions of copies. Apparently, for reasons not known to me, the masses are much less discriminating than we are.

But what if the expansion sells a crap-ton? Can we really still use the same excuse that people are buying it 'blind' based on D2?

I think there's plenty of movie sequels after sequels that get horrible reviews, yet people keep going to see...

So here's a thought...

As most of us know, Blue's News curmudgeon's don't meet the same demographic as just about any genre of games these days...

Plus, there has been a LOT of bitching on here about how much of a flop D3 was. There has been a lot of excusing D3 sales numbers because of the annual WoW thingy, and people's expectations based on D2.

But what if the expansion sells a crap-ton? Can we really still use the same excuse that people are buying it 'blind' based on D2?

-Alamar

Pigeon wrote on Jun 12, 2013, 09:29:
Inferno act-II was where I hit the wall. I could either grind for gear that didn't drop for days or go to the AH where anything worthwhile was exorbitant. Maybe that's changed now, but unless I log in and the monsters start spraying useful loot, its going to be hard to keep me interested.

Golwar wrote on Jun 12, 2013, 08:48:
After I didn't touch the game for more than a year, I came back last week ... and stayed. 1.08 is a far better game than 1.05 was. Or was it 1.04?

I first finished Nightmare and Hell with my DH and was prepared to leave the game again when I'd reach Inferno. But I could afford some decent gear and currently do 67k dps and am well protected. I appreciate that I can exactly specify what kind of item I'm looking for. And that I don't have to waste hours, days and weeks to talk to greedy traders. Sorry if that makes me a bad gamer. ;p

Act 2 is where I currently am and that's my character: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Golwar-2180/hero/4385096
I bought every part of the gear within the last 3-4 days, besides the gloves that someone gifted to me. And all I had left from last year was something around 1.5m gold.

Trust me, I have not slightest problems in act 2. Currently I'm bidding on several amulets, next I will aim for a better Manticore with higher average damage and 2 slots. I can rightly say that I currently enjoy D3. No idea for how long this will last though.

Diablo 3 is just so horrible, to the point that it has erased all fondness of this franchise from my mind. What do these tools think, that I'm going to replay this shitty WOW excerpt story over again only to play Act 5 of the expansion, where only there it might divert to a new alternate story? Fuck everything about that, excuse my language.

I'll be busy playing other games, such as Grim Dawn, Banished, Simcity (version 10.0 hopefully with a functioning RCI, GT6 on the PS3 (fuck yes), Leisure Suit Larry remake, COH2, Plants vs Zombies 2, Watch dogs, GTA V, Driveclub on PS4, some PSEye 4 combat games with the kids, Total War 2, Command & Conquer (a.k.a Generals 2)online, P.O.Exile (final release)

just to name a few. There is no more time for diablo3 during that stellar gameplay library. even if those games weren't coming, I'd just be playing guitar on the porch instead.

Blizzard, just stop everything you're doing right now, with Diablo3, and get to work on Diablo 4 with a fucking proper storyline for those 12 million of us that pay your fucking salaries, you bunch of spineless jellyfish. Only once you do that, will you gain me, and your other 9 million defected fanbase. Look at my friends list (75 members), ALL OFFLINE since 256 days ago.

/moderate this .|. you bean counters.



This comment was edited on Jun 12, 2013, 10:09.

I got my fix of hardcore ARPG from Path of Exile. I played the demo of D3 and made it to lvl 8 before logging out in disgust. And based on the frequent news reports on the ongoing train wreck, I'm glad I missed it...

Diablo 3 was awesome. Diablo 3 end-game was pointless due to AH. Too bad the end-game experience should ideally make up 80% of your time spent (at least). AH defeated the purpose of hunting for gear which was what I remember most fondly from D2.

That and the skill system made your character just like everyone elses'

Inferno act-II was where I hit the wall. I could either grind for gear that didn't drop for days or go to the AH where anything worthwhile was exorbitant. Maybe that's changed now, but unless I log in and the monsters start spraying useful loot, its going to be hard to keep me interested.

Golwar wrote on Jun 12, 2013, 08:48:
After I didn't touch the game for more than a year, I came back last week ... and stayed. 1.08 is a far better game than 1.05 was. Or was it 1.04?

I first finished Nightmare and Hell with my DH and was prepared to leave the game again when I'd reach Inferno. But I could afford some decent gear and currently do 67k dps and am well protected. I appreciate that I can exactly specify what kind of item I'm looking for. And that I don't have to waste hours, days and weeks to talk to greedy traders. Sorry if that makes me a bad gamer. ;p

I went back to the game after several months off, and I believe its much better. At Para 90 now. The legs drop a lot and getting into MP games with full players at a para level you want is really cool now. The XP bonus on MP10 is +1000%.(at least with helper gear)

That said, I will grind out the last 10 levels, but it does sorely need an expansion pack.I have fully outplayed the same 4 areas to sickness.

Julio wrote on Jun 12, 2013, 06:37:
Blizzard can take their sweet time, not many people really want this.

It will sell millions of copies.

After I didn't touch the game for more than a year, I came back last week ... and stayed. 1.08 is a far better game than 1.05 was. Or was it 1.04?

I first finished Nightmare and Hell with my DH and was prepared to leave the game again when I'd reach Inferno. But I could afford some decent gear and currently do 67k dps and am well protected. I appreciate that I can exactly specify what kind of item I'm looking for. And that I don't have to waste hours, days and weeks to talk to greedy traders. Sorry if that makes me a bad gamer. ;p