Vaguey back on topic.
Do the people who played the game at release (and for a few patches after that) think the game is significantly better now? Please only reply to this if you're playing it currently in the new patch/update, be the opinions for or against it (and whether you're a long term player, just started, or a recent returner is slightly relevant).
I've stated why I didn't enjoy D3. Have there been enough differences made in ,leveling, progression and loot stats/variety in the last year or so to make me think of repurchasing it? I currently figure "no", but I'm basing that on gut feeling and previous experience. I felt it wasn't good back in the beginning, I still feel that it's not, but I might have missed what's drawn some people back to it (even a low price tag to retry it is a valid reason).
I'd like to hear current player's opinions, positive or negative.
I played enough on release to get one class to Act II in (what was then) Inferno. It was grossly imbalanced and I kinda burned out getting all the other classes to 60, then when I started bashing against the poor itemization and realized that the auction house was more than optional, I put the game down.
I played again once they brought out the first big re-balancing of Inferno difficulty to even up the difficulty curve. It was closer to acceptable then, but the itemization still sucked and AH inflation made self-finding gear impossible, so I didn't stick with it long. When I heard their promises of "loot 2.0" and the changes for the expansion, I thought they were pretty decent in theory, and booting the old team lead sounded promising enough. So I came back a week or two ago to try out the new stuff that came out before Reaper of Souls.
Here's your caveats about me and why I play the game/my opinions may differ from others here, followed by lists of the current bad (and good!) of what the game has to offer.
Diablo I was one of the very first games I ever played, from a demo disc in PC Gamer I believe. It was my first online experience, with character editors and townkill rezzes and all that. Diablo 2 was fun in an actiony way, and I don't miss the plodding drudge of D1 at all. That said, D2 was in no way, shape, or form a masterpiece. The plot was cliche, the loot was poorly balanced, the characters were terribly defined, and a large number of skills were non-functional from the second they came out til today. Skill points were crap. Synergies were worse crap. Stat points were fake customization that only ended up crippling your character unless you knew exactly what you were doing. Grinding a new character to try a new build is something I just don't want to waste time on anymore.
At it's base, D3 fixes a lot of my issues (skill trees/synergies pigeonholing you into pre-approved setups, stat points being identical for every class, more than half the available skills for any given class being junk at all levels, garbage endgame), while dropping the ball on a few that I never really cared about (plot, PvP, Ladders even though that may be changing, runewords).
That said, here's how I feel about the new patch (and Reaper of Souls-specific items will be marked with (RoS) to keep them separate)
-The story still is what it is, I guess. There are options to auto-skip every cutscene now, and spacebar clears pop-up cartoon heads.
-Gear-wise, Trifectas are (at 60) hypothetically the best for general-purpose builds. Alternative gearing and builds are vastly expanded, see in Good.
-Currently, 2-handed weapons are not viable except for niche builds at level 60. The data for (RoS) level 70 seems promising, but I can't comment on that without playing it.
-Some classes still have "must-take" abilities. You *need* Pierce the Veil on Witch Doctors, there's simply no reason not to take that bonus. Demon Hunters without Vault are almost crippled in a few situations.
-High-end gear trading is gone, if you liked that kind of thing. I didn't, but a lot of people do.
-In vanilla there's not that much of a gold-sink anymore, and gold can no longer be traded.
-There's a ton of new viable skill setups. Some are enabled simply by the new loot modifiers, others can come into play with game-altering Legendary equipment, and a few pieces of that can show up as early as level 10.
-Conversely, the old go-to powerhouses like Critical Mass/Wicked Wind have been nerfed or removed. The drop in overscaled player damage came with re-tuning of monster damage as well. Even my fragile Demon Hunter hasn't been one-hit-killed in level-appropriate areas since the patch dropped.
-Targetted loot makes it almost certain that loot drops you find will be for the class you're playing. If you want to gear alts...
-(RoS) the new Mystic NPC lets you re-roll a single affix on an item. If you DO find loot for your alt that rolls Int or whatever, you can switch it to Strength.
-Leveling characters are guaranteed four legendary items in normal play, one for each act boss. Targetted loot drops mean it's going to be something at least applicable to your class. No more Int quivers or dex mighty belts.
-No more need to play through the whole game 3 times. You can set your own pace via difficulty levels, and once you've finished the campaign once, you're free to go to any act you wish, on whatever quest you want.
-(RoS) Adventure mode excises quests from the game entirely. Once you've beaten the full game, every character can access every area in the game from waypoints starting at level 1, with randomly chosen objectives. You can even save up gambling currency for level 70 while you level a character from 1 in this mode. You can switch from Story to Adventure mode at any time, it's not a Hardcore/Softcore distinction.
Summary: I don't have a nostalgic attachment to D2, because I know it was a buggy, broken mess. The latest version of D3 feels more "right" to me in the strictest gameplay sense. I feel it hits the right mindless slay-n-loot balance while still having more depth and theorycraft potential than some other imitators (TL2 comes to mind. Haven't played PoE yet.) I feel the current patch hits close to the gameplay mechanic core of Diablo, far more than the "wanna be different" release state did.
If there's something specific you want more details or clarification on, feel free to ask.
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Topic: Diablo III and Why You Shouldn't Buy It (Read 55663 times)