It isn't Diablo or Diablo 2. Comparisons are great, but D3's mechanic not being D2's mechanic isn't inherently bad; they're separate games.
Agree.
Real-money AH: I'll be playing with friends and don't care about PvP. Couldn't care less what everyone else does.
Always online: have played MMO's before. Doesn't bother me.
CAN't ASSIGN STAT POINTS!! : wasn't a meaningful choice in either of the other games, unless you wanted to hobble yourself somehow. No great loss.
The art style: *shrug* seemed fine to me.
Voice acting: Uh... I dunno, it's a game, not a movie.
Real money AH means nothing to me because I'm the same as you, but the always online sucks when the servers are down... the other two points, I couldn't care less.
Crafting beats gambling hands-down. I get to pick what I want and know exactly what I'm getting? Yes please.
Classes seem much more varied, even from the short time I had to try them all.
Individual loot drops mean no one can take the stuff I see on the ground. Best change in the game.
This is a big one: The party dynamic changes, sometimes drastically, depending on the classes and their active skills. D2 felt like a bunch of people solo'ing in the same place. My strafe amazon didn't care what the whirlwind barbarian was doing, or the frozen orb sorceress, or traps assassin, or blessed hammer paladin. D3 had me actively watching what other people were doing so I could kill better. When someone else used a snare skill, that was a prime cleave target for a barbarian.
The randomly-occurring events like quests and mini-dungeons were great. Den of the Fallen, the old well, the mass grave, and Jar of Souls were my favorites.
The boss seemed to use different tactics based on who was fighting him. Multiple melee classes = he did heavy AoE melee damage more often. Ranged = charged the ranged classes more often. Balanced = he did the summon minions/teleport combo the most. As this is the "tutorial" part of the game, I do hope later bosses get more devious and brutal about their attack choices.
The crafting is always better than drops part kind of pissed me off. There was no point even looking at loot I got because the crafted gear was always better. If I made dex armor on my mage, I'd just stick it in the shared box and let my monk/DH use it. I felt a little disenchanted by the fact that my mage could wear the same armor as my Barbarian (because all the armor I saw this weekend was "Generic Chest Piece of Blah" and when you dropped it on the ground it looked like different armor depending on who you were (mage/barb/witch doc) As a programmer, I think this was probably the biggest "cop out" to itemization I've seen in a long time. I loved that plate in D2 required strength and anyone with proper strength could wear it... of course, this means more models, etc... but they had what, 3 years to make this game?
Group dynamic? It depended on the goal. I soloed all the stories because it was much quicker for me to just do it without having someone tag along and grouped for the grinding to 13. Everyone was solo. No items were being traded ("Oh hey, you are a Barbarian... this might be awesome for you" ... instead it was silent. The only chatter in party chat was a rare "here" [the way to the next level] but you didn't even need that. You saw your quest update, gate to town, click on the banner.)
As far as bosses changing tactics. I didn't see it and I ran the king many... many times. (I got all achievements this weekend.) What I did see with the king was players (like myself) that would freeze/stun the boss before he would cast those skills because the animation leading up to it was well known. This is kind of neat that you can easily pick out the animations and prevent them in most cases, but I think it better describes why you may have seen what you saw?
Elective mode on the skill menu seems a bit clunky when I have to tab through every tree to find the skill I want.
The "hit boxes" for targeting loot and some monsters seem a bit big. It was less annoying compensating for mobs than having to dump the gray trash-quality gloves I kept picking up when running for gold. I think there were options for loot highlighting that I didn't try out though. A simple toggle would fix it.
There seems to be a limited number of mix-and-match dungeon components, such that all the cathedral areas in the demo looked the same. I assume this won't be as noticeable when I'm not forced to run the same area so many times in a row.
I didn't see much point in bringing the templar follower with me, as his damage is pathetic and his abilities are lackluster. May be more useful as the game progresses. I still like it better than then enforced aura-bots from D2 though. Babysitting isn't what i play these games for.
In short, I really enjoyed it. I did get a bit of the old "go beat up monsters with your friends" nostalgia that made D2 great (in spite of D2's numerous shortcomings), so I'll call it a win. Looking forward to release.
Elective mode is/was the only way to go with some of the classes, IMHO. Some of the skills were crap.
Hit boxes were really jacked up. I felt like I had to hit high (aim for the head) and trying to walk around without using your primary skill was a PITA... but I guess you can unbind the primary and make it another key (never tried) so that may be a solution.
Yeah, by the end, I could tell you every dungeon tile and every possible exit/entrance to it. Some were even so obviously rare that you knew that had to be the way to the next level.
Agree on Templar. Pretty pointless so far.
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Saying all that, it was a fun game, but I wouldn't have called it Diablo. The sounds, story, and names are the only thing Diablo-Like.
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Topic: Diablo 3 (Read 111323 times)