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[nenjin]

Weird, I thought I posted in response to LASD.

Couple things that really turned me against what they'd done.

#1: Character advancement simply isn't interesting. You've got few choices beyond gear for what you want to do. Skills don't "grow" like in D2, which was a huge motivator to continue playing. Instead they just "are", and the runes just "are." They don't scale very well, which the most recent patch makes clear since some abilities have or will get MASSIVE damage boosts. Your character simply hit a wall in D3 after 60 and then it was only loot you had left to care about. They've tried to remedy that with the Paragon System...unfortunately it really comes across as another gerbil wheel, with token perks like stats that mean little on a per level basis....and a fancy portrait.

#2: Itemization is just completely boring to me. Interesting attributes like Freeze on Hit, Stun on Hit, Thorns....all of those values are pegged so low in comparison to the other stats that you have to sacrifice a lot to build them up to the point where they feel like they have any impact. They've arranged the game so that only 4 stats really matter (damage, HP, armor and resists.) So each piece feels like a small, incremental upgrade. They ensured the itemization was farmable....but at the cost to me of making it interesting. I attribute that to the AH although I know others disagree. The fact Legendaries were a joke and to some extent, still are, said to me that they weren't interesting in making cool gear....they were interesting in a farming framework to keep people occupied for as long as possible. So I have friends that just repeatedly farm the same act in Inferno, getting excited about a piece that has X more damage or Y more HP....and I just find it hard to care. Especially because none of that applies to builds, at all. Everyone wants damage. Everyone wants resists. Everyone wants HP. They even said essentially this same thing during the dev period. Since everyone wants the same stats, gear should just be about fixating on those stats. For some people, that's worked. For me, I look at hours of farming Inferno for marginal upgrades to the be worst kind of gerbil wheel.

Kind of like how they not only nuked several classes of gems, but also nuked several of the property types that gems had. No more elemental damage on hit. Some of teh traits for red gems (until recently) only applied to sub 60 characters. Who the fuck would gem for extra experience in a game that's designed to have you cap out sometime in your 3rd playthrough? It's consistent choices like that, of streamlining and designing mechanics with ulterior motives in mind, that just made it hard for me to get deeply invested in the game.

And lastly....the game just flew by and then you're recycling the same acts OVER and OVER and OVER again. To the point where I get physically ill playing in areas that I've already farmed the shit out of. D2 felt like a large game that you played through, regardless of what difficulty you were on....D3 feels like a compartmentalized game where you farm the same area until you either a) go insane b) quit playing or c) get the drops you need so you can survive to farm the next area.

Those two things, character development and itemization, are what really contributed to me being unable to play or care about the game after Hell. Even getting through Nightmare felt like a grind, toward something I already wasn't finding all that fun or engrossing. And the irony to me is that, they messed with the two things that were most important to long-term interest in the game....and I feel like they did it without really appreciating what it was going to be like after 100 hours, 200 hours, 400 hours and on.

[LASD]

First of all nenjin, great post! Well thought out and actually made me falter a bit on my stand against the haters. But here goes my response:

#1: Character advancement simply isn't interesting. You've got few choices beyond gear for what you want to do. Skills don't "grow" like in D2, which was a huge motivator to continue playing. Instead they just "are", and the runes just "are." They don't scale very well, which the most recent patch makes clear since some abilities have or will get MASSIVE damage boosts.

Great point. The counter-point is that Diablo 2 is almost unbeatable by someone who is just playing the game without builds as your damage output just won't be enough in Hell if you have "wasted" your skillpoints. This problem was "fixed" in Diablo 2 only last year by skill point resets, but it is pretty unsatisfying as a mechanic.

I really like having everything available to me in Diablo 3, but I absolutely see how that makes things a lot more static.

#2: Itemization is just completely boring to me. Interesting attributes like Freeze on Hit, Stun on Hit, Thorns....all of those values are pegged so low in comparison to the other stats that you have to sacrifice a lot to build them up to the point where they feel like they have any impact. They've arranged the game so that only 4 stats really matter (damage, HP, armor and resists.) So each piece feels like a small, incremental upgrade. They ensured the itemization was farmable....but at the cost to me of making it interesting. I attribute that to the AH although I know others disagree. The fact Legendaries were a joke and to some extent, still are, said to me that they weren't interesting in making cool gear....they were interesting in a farming framework to keep people occupied for as long as possible. So I have friends that just repeatedly farm the same act in Inferno, getting excited about a piece that has X more damage or Y more HP....and I just find it hard to care. Especially because none of that applies to builds, at all. Everyone wants damage. Everyone wants resists. Everyone wants HP. They even said essentially this same thing during the dev period. Since everyone wants the same stats, gear should just be about fixating on those stats. For some people, that's worked. For me, I look at hours of farming Inferno for marginal upgrades to the be worst kind of gerbil wheel.

Well apart from Enigma giving you Teleport and some runeword giving the Mana Regen aura on your Merc, I don't really remember the gimmicky modifiers being that big a deal in Diablo 2 either. They were there just for the potential fun people might have using them.

I just checked my items on my lvl 82 Druid I beat Hell with and the only things I cared about were: Resists, Armor, Tornado Skill levels and Faster Cast Rate, everything else was just a small bonus, so the item game doesn't seem that varied in Diablo 2 either.

And the Unique items in D2 are mostly pretty boring. I have a Jalal's Mane, which is for high-level Druids specifically and it is just a good item with nothing that special about it. Especially now D3 has a bunch of really cool Legendary items, though I'm sure there are some boring ones left still.

And lastly....the game just flew by and then you're recycling the same acts OVER and OVER and OVER again. To the point where I get physically ill playing in areas that I've already farmed the shit out of. D2 felt like a large game that you played through, regardless of what difficulty you were on....D3 feels like a compartmentalized game where you farm the same area until you either a) go insane b) quit playing or c) get the drops you need so you can survive to farm the next area.

Well, I agree that the story bits playing again and again and again gets a bit jarring, but so did Acts 1 and 2 of Diablo 2 too, especially on Normal. Finding that goddamn Summoner after 4 tries and descending through that useless Harem again and again. Though thank god you didn't need to do the Maggot Lair after the first playthrough.

I dunno how much you played of the really end game of Diablo 2, but that is absolutely just farming the same areas over and over and over again in hopes of finding something useful. Flayer Jungle, The Hole and Baal runs come to mind as the biggest "timewasters" I experienced.

Those two things, character development and itemization, are what really contributed to me being unable to play or care about the game after Hell. Even getting through Nightmare felt like a grind, toward something I already wasn't finding all that fun or engrossing. And the irony to me is that, they messed with the two things that were most important to long-term interest in the game....and I feel like they did it without really appreciating what it was going to be like after 100 hours, 200 hours, 400 hours and on.

I have to admit I really didn't enjoy the trek through Nightmare either. Everything was seen already and really wasn't that hard at all. It annoys me enough that my Demon Hunter is still stuck in Act 2, in account of me just not feeling like playing through that part as it feels like bit of a chore. On the other hand I do really enjoy the Level 60 farming game and Inferno. I finally have to play better, find better items, think through my playstyle and choose the appropriate skills to have a better chance at progress. That is precisely what I want Diablo to be and being able to easily sell items meant for other classes means I can get the money for some upgrades of my own.


I get the disappointment towards the game a bit better now, but I still don't think it deserves all the harsh words posted about it, especially as they will probably address some of these problems in the future with non-story farming areas and difficult end-game goals (also non-story, probably).

[nenjin]

Well apart from Enigma giving you Teleport and some runeword giving the Mana Regen aura on your Merc, I don't really remember the gimmicky modifiers being that big a deal in Diablo 2 either. They were there just for the potential fun people might have using them.

At the very least gear with +Skill attributes were available in normal even in the first acts. In D3 you only begin to see them at the end of Normal and the beginning of Nightmare. The same is true for other attributes. They trickle in at a very slow, very measured pace....and by the time you start seeing them, you've already been primed to only pay attention to Damage and Health and Resists. Sure, they didn't "make" the game in D2 either, but they were available and it felt like you could, if you wanted to, plan a build around them. In D3 they feel purely like token stats, that are rolled into itemization long after they would have had meaning.

And the Unique items in D2 are mostly pretty boring. I have a Jalal's Mane, which is for high-level Druids specifically and it is just a good item with nothing that special about it. Especially now D3 has a bunch of really cool Legendary items, though I'm sure there are some boring ones left still.

D2 didn't need Legendaries revamped though, they were good and desirable from the outset. To me it seemed like they were afraid people would get drops that would invalidate what they thought the primary purpose of the game was: farming. It's a reasonable concern, but one they basically backed themselves into a corner worrying about. Because they cared more about the game being farmable in the long-term, and they expected far, far more people to do the end game grind than did in D2. They even expressly said that was their goal. Unfortunately, I think it came at the cost of most people not enjoying their first playthrough or feeling challenged.

I dunno how much you played of the really end game of Diablo 2, but that is absolutely just farming the same areas over and over and over again in hopes of finding something useful. Flayer Jungle, The Hole and Baal runs come to mind as the biggest "timewasters" I experienced.

It's true, I didn't do the true end game grind in D2. But that's because I didn't feel I needed to, to have a complete experience. A playthrough on Normal was challenging enough to me, paced well and I felt like it was a complete experience. In D3, Normal felt incomplete, like you couldn't really appreciate the game unless you were ready for 70 to 100 hours of grindage. So to me the D3 end game felt like an obligation....when really, a game should not ask you to play 2+ difficulties before you hit the "real game." The game should have been "real" from the outset. And it definitely didn't feel that way, for several reasons. It's not the game was amazingly deep and complex enough to warrant 4 Acts of Easy Mode, either. And that really rankled. I felt like my first playthrough was balanced for 10 year olds.

I get the disappointment towards the game a bit better now, but I still don't think it deserves all the harsh words posted about it, especially as they will probably address some of these problems in the future with non-story farming areas and difficult end-game goals (also non-story, probably).

This is going to sound really egotistical but....I expected better from them. I expected better from the top game developer in the world with the most money, the most freedom and the most fan support short of Valve. The only parts where I feel like a billion dollar dev house really delivered was in the visuals and the overall level of polish. But in terms of ideas, and the execution of those ideas, I feel like they delivered something very average. At one point in development runes sound fucking amazing. What we got was significantly less cool, and absolutely not open ended.

I remember reading developer blogs prior to release about how they iterated, and re-iterated, threw stuff out, tweaked and micro managed everything....and I felt like we ended up at a fairly linear game with an emphasis on the meta-system rather than the in-the-moment experience. Combat was really well done and tight (other than the completely non-necessary network lag for a SP experience), but just about everything else left me feeling underwhelmed. I might have even appreciated the rather chintzy and cliche story had I actually felt engaged in the story or the play experience.....but that was not to be. I felt more drawn to the aesthetic parts of D3, the wonderful area look, feel and detailing, than I did anything else in the game. And that lasted all of one playthrough before it too lost its appeal.

I accept D3 for what it is, but it's also the last Blizzard product I'll seriously consider buying. I'm only passingly interested in whatever expansion they put out just to see what they learned and because I still have friends who play D3 consistently. But the series is largely dead to me. Especially because there's other Diablo clones out there now, many, that aren't suffering from what I can only call group think and executive micromanagement. D3 feels, mechanically, like a game built by businessmen to me. Where I can't help but see a lot of artifice in the game systems that have very little to do with your play experience, and everything to do with what's going on outside of the game.

[BuriBuriZaemon]

Based on recent development, I hope now Bay 12ers can understand previous outrage about Blizzard and D3.

[Rez]

What recent events?  The company running the biggest MMO ever not being able to handle server security?

Or that David Brevik ZINGS the fuck out of Blizz for ruining a franchise he has an emotional investment in?

[BuriBuriZaemon]

Those things you mentioned were/are factual events that have been overlooked by some Blizzard fans. Recent development refers to the recent discussions in this thread.

[Vactor]

The best analogy I can give is that of food.

Diablo 2 was a restaurant that allowed you to order all kinds of strange combinations of food, and made you sit down and try to finish a 5 course meal, with each successive course a variation of your previous order.  Some times you created a mess for yourself, to the point where you couldn't choke down the garbage you ordered for yourself.  If this happened you had no choice but to wait until the next visit and try from scratch.

This was thoroughly analyzed over the course of a decade, and over this time the menu for the next restaurant was being devised.  To resolve this, the menu was scrubbed, and instead of building your own, a 5 star chef made the best meal he could, and gave you a handful of options you could add, and each course was served without any effect from the previous courses.  While the food is better, its not nearly as exciting to eat there, or as satisfying to get a good meal.

I did enjoy D3, It was a well made game, it just didn't hold my attention very long. (the non stop nagging and exposition by the evils was a bit much, rather than plating the dinner on elegant dishware, it was pushed out of a tube directly into your mouth)

[Neonivek]

I really don't get the hate against Diablo 3. Can anyone say something specific changes that would make the game better?

Well they could have focused a bit more on the story and actually made it into something better. I cannot get too specific because it is basically one continuous train wreck but lets go with the very first boss you see.

King Leoric. Now king leoric is a tragic king in the game who was slowly driven mad and eventually his undead remains still haunt Tristram. When you first see him in Diablo 1 he is chilling and the stories told in other people's perspectives were a nice touch, add in that he never spoke and you can feel the anguish he was obviously going through.

King Leoric comming back I had no problem with. He was undead he can come back (the butcher on the other hand... *eye roll*). But what they should have done is focus on the subtly and fill in a lot of the gaps that could have been filled in. They should have NEVER shown any scenes with Leoric in it unless it was pre-crazy. Instead allowing us to fill in this information ourselves. He should not have hired demons and crazy people... and most of all he should either remain silent or speak in a way matching him as a person.

Instead of being cacklingly evil, something even when he was totally bonkers he was not, he should have been mad with effort. You know, a boss who you would remember and not forget as soon as you fought it. There are reasons why people still remember King Leoric from the first game but cannot remember the names of even some of the major bosses in this one. Heck it all could have been about undoing the evil that King Leoric did in his insanity to allow him to finally rest.

Now this isn't the worst thing in the game (the worst thing in the game was the Dues Ex Machina "Why have I never heard of this before" device...)

Another thing they should have done is revamp the gameplay after Nightmare. Nightmare was a step up but was reasonable. But every difficulty afterwords just felt arbitrary like you were rolling a dice to see if you could defeat the next enemies. They could have either stopped the number of abilities enemies got or made sure they adjusted it so they don't get overly insane combinations (For a lot of people it isn't fun to fight super cheapo champions), as well adjusting it so some moves don't become outdated simply because enemies become immune.

They need to take several abilities and make them more viable. TO admit this isn't their fault. It is because the current move system is basically torn from the rotten corspe of the old one (No really)... but still...

Diablo 3 is probably the strongest weak game ever. It draws you in, pulls you in, but as soon as you step away you realise that you are empty. There is just no substance in the game.

[Meta]

Diablo 3 is probably the strongest weak game ever. It draws you in, pulls you in, but as soon as you step away you realise that you are empty. There is just no substance in the game.

This.

[Andir]

(always online doesn't count and it really doesn't matter much)

Maybe it doesn't matter to you... but I wouldn't say it doesn't count.

Great point. The counter-point is that Diablo 2 is almost unbeatable by someone who is just playing the game without builds as your damage output just won't be enough in Hell if you have "wasted" your skillpoints. This problem was "fixed" in Diablo 2 only last year by skill point resets, but it is pretty unsatisfying as a mechanic.

Totally disagree, my friends and I completed all difficulties of the game (including the expansions) without build helpers.  We've already discussed this, but you seem to be ignoring it to fit your argument.... or maybe you are just trying to redirect the complaints as if they don't matter to you like you do with always online?


The Auction House, period.  The game is about finding loot, not grinding money to buy precisely what you want.  It's a native part of the game, and therefore in the rule set / conversation.  One cannot simply say, "Don't use it," because that's a part of the game and part of what you paid the entrance fee ($60) for.  If the AH was not included, the game would be MUCH better.

[nenjin]

(always online doesn't count and it really doesn't matter much)

Maybe it doesn't matter to you... but I wouldn't say it doesn't count.

I have to concur. The lag alone was infuriating when I was playing solo. And because of the stupid checkpoint system, you'd enter the game in a combat area while you're lagging your balls off, and promptly die. Even townportaling right before logging off, an MMO habit, didn't prevent it.

The lag in combat due to being on the network also significantly soured me on anything having to do with Battle.net. The outages I could accept, even if the release day outages were freaking raeg inducing.

[Sordid]

Exactly. Just because you don't mind a problem doesn't mean it isn't a problem. Requiring constant connection in order to play singleplayer is objectively retarded.

[toomanysecrets]

I really don't get the hate against Diablo 3. Can anyone say something specific changes that would make the game better? (always online doesn't count and it really doesn't matter much)

He is also clearly really invested in making the game as good as he can, so your comment seems pretty unfair. What kind of apology would've you liked? At least he gave one.

I don't give the Diablo III team any extra credit just because they're "listening to the community." This is no excuse, for any type of company, for releasing a product that is not totally finished.  They should have released a quality product in the first place.

Instead of suggestions I am going to just bitch because you can't "suggest" a train wreck back into operation:

* The story is jaw-droppingly bad at some points, the game is way too short, it's way too fast to level up, each act seems progressively shorter and rushed through development.
* The music is obnoxious (especially act IV).
* You can never, ever, level up your abilities, and you pretty much have 2-3 options for skill builds once you get to inferno so no character is very unique.
* They clearly decided to not even try to implement any PVP any time soon. It's been over 3 months and at release they were talking like it would be fairly soon.
* Item drops are ridiculous. I know, they tweaked it and I have played some more since the patch and haven't noticed a difference yet.  You can get dozens and dozens of rares and not even get anything good. You have to vendor 'em cause you can't use them and you couldn't sell them on the AH for even a few thousand.  I want to be excited when a rare drops like in the old days. In DIII when a rare drops I think "vendor $$$$$." That shit ain't right. Blues are supposed to be (mostly) vendor trash. Not rares.
* Fighting an elite pack on inferno doesn't make me feel like mighty hero, it makes me feel like a terrified lunatic.  It's just a kite fest.  Trash mobs get mowed down like chumps, and elites sprint 100 mph.  Some of the elites are way, way too fast.  Do they need to 20x faster than your character? Wouldn't it be fast enough if they were 3x faster than you?
* Certain aspects of the game feel dumbed down and simplified to an extreme that really disappointed me.  I don't expect an MMO-type time sink, but they made the game way too easy in my view: Infinite town portals. Infinite free identify. Near-instant resurrection for you and the follower. The game is goes way overboard in telling you exactly where to go at all times. It's child's play.

Overall I just feel like most of the other old school Diablo fans, it was obvious as soon as I started playing that this game is aimed at teenagers with expendable cash who will waste real money on the AH. It was not targeted at old-school Diablo fans.  This was a business decision, and I understand it.  But, goddammit, I don't think I'm too irrational for wishing that game studios would just make a friggin game instead of catering to markets and allowing business strategy to determine game features and mechanics.

Oh, and I called Jay a windbag because I didn't really expect any apology.  A short statement would have been fine.  If he would have said "Sorry, I didn't know anyone was gonna see it" I wouldn't have said shit.  But this long, drawn out, obviously contrived essay was meant to be sentimental and make everyone feel warm and fuzzy again.  He could've just apologized to Brevik instead of trying to pull the DIII community's heartstrings.

[Ivefan]

Great point. The counter-point is that Diablo 2 is almost unbeatable by someone who is just playing the game without builds as your damage output just won't be enough in Hell if you have "wasted" your skillpoints. This problem was "fixed" in Diablo 2 only last year by skill point resets, but it is pretty unsatisfying as a mechanic.

So... That me and a friend rolled new characters during a local lan and beat Hell around lvl 60 didnt happen? Okay, so we didn't spread out skillpoints everywhere and just focused on a main tree except for utility skills... But that applies to any character building game.

It draws you in, pulls you in, but as soon as you step away you realise that you are empty. There is just no substance in the game.

Never really got drawn into the game and i agree that there is no substance. Me and a pair of friends played in a lan for a few days and i think that had i not been playing with friends, I would have quit before or in hell.

[LASD]

(always online doesn't count and it really doesn't matter much)

Maybe it doesn't matter to you... but I wouldn't say it doesn't count.

I have to concur. The lag alone was infuriating when I was playing solo. And because of the stupid checkpoint system, you'd enter the game in a combat area while you're lagging your balls off, and promptly die. Even townportaling right before logging off, an MMO habit, didn't prevent it.

The lag in combat due to being on the network also significantly soured me on anything having to do with Battle.net. The outages I could accept, even if the release day outages were freaking raeg inducing.

Exactly. Just because you don't mind a problem doesn't mean it isn't a problem. Requiring constant connection in order to play singleplayer is objectively retarded.

I agree, but what I meant by "doesn't count" is that the 'always online'- horse has been flogged to the ground a million times so there's no point arguing about it and the game works fundamentally with that system so there's hardly any way to update it away.

It is sort of dumb as most players play solo, but it is also a great way to stop cheating (and piracy, lame as it might be). And it isn't a problem for me as I played Diablo 2 on Battle.net, which is an almost identical "always online"-mode.