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This is now kinda leaving a bad taste in my mouth, but hmm... *SPOILERS*
The overall design of this game is flawed.
First off, the story is full of so many plotholes:
Cain survives a "meteor" (obviously Tyrael by this point) and falls into the depths of the Cathedral and survives 6 days, and yet is killed by a little swarm of butterflies that Maghda throws at him. lol
Tyrael is the Archangel of Justice, yet in the cutscene he's all like, paraphrased, "if our precious LAWS bind you all to inaction, then forget you guys, I'm outtie." I don't care if he was changed and all by that Nephalem farmer, but how are you gonna tell these angels off for the laws when you've been the main judge for however long? Christ.
Leah seeing all these undead and demons of Hell, growing up with Cain, etc, yet she is the biggest skeptic? How could she travel across the fucking world with his guy, seeing everything he sees, seeing the 'fallen star" smash into the cathedral and almost kill her uncle, seeing all the stuff she sees throughout even just Act 1, and she just never believes a goddamn thing? Christ, after all the crap happens, Cain is killed my Maghda, etc., she's just like, "Uncle Deckard only saw what he wanted to see, he was so senile."
Belial is the Lord of Lies, yet he does a horrible job of it and EVERYONE can easily see through his disguise, and then... boom, kill him, whatever.
Azmodan is the Lord of Sin, but also the greatest war strategist in all of Hell, yet he tells you every goddamn thing he does as he's doing it and is just like "You may have done this, but you'll NEVER stop me from doing THIS! Which I'm doing right now by the way -- better get moving."
Even Diablo, supposedly the smartest and strongest of them all does nothing majorly exciting, and talks you through the final act.
Yada yada. There's a bunch of other stuff, but screw it, you get the point. I know they've always said the story is second to the gameplay, but this is such a blatant slap in the face to fans of the series. They hold your hand through the whole thing and leave nothing to the imagination. FANS have dashed off stories revolving around the basic concepts of this game that far surpass the story of this game. Chris Metzen needs to go. They need new talent.
Beyond the story...
The itemization is piss poor. The AH in general is such a major problem and Blizzard decided to focus entirely on it rather than focusing on finding the drops yourself. All stats being completely random is just awful. Hell, there's even +experience gear on level 60 gear dropped in Inferno! What the hell is that?
While getting to Hell, you can easily find gear yourself if you want to, but once you get to Hell, it seems like it's the AH or nothing. The drops don't happen in a way that allows you to progress well post-Nightmare, and especially in Inferno, it seems all the drops you need to beat an act don't drop until the next act or later, so there's no way to gear up well without the AH, but all the really good stuff is so fucking expensive that it's gonna take forever to farm the gold needed for even one piece of good gear. In the end though, all the end-game is is farming gold to get gear off the AH, and thus, is why the game is no riddled with gold selling assholes that are now clogging up the general chat since Blizzard changed it to be on by default for everyone upon logging in.
Crafting is absolutely useless as far as I can tell. I'm halfway through level 8 Blacksmith and I haven't used a piece of crafting gear since about level 20. There's just nothing good worth crafting so far. You're better off saving for good gear on the AH except if you want the acchievements for leveling up the Blacksmith. Jewel crafting is expensive as hell, and socketed gear isn't even overly worth it compared to the other stats necessary once getting to Inferno, so it's a waste of time overall as well, unless you want the achievements. A major disappointment so far, but possibly something good comes out of it at level 10? Hmmm? Someone tell me yes?
Inferno limits your abilitiy to choose a skill build that's actually fun and forces you to choose specific builds that are most useful and to focus on specific gear to get by. As a Barbarian, I don't want to use a one handed weapon and shield, but I'm absolutely forced to to get by. I also don't want to focus on specifically stacking vitality, all resistance, physicial resistance, and taking the skills that increase my ability to take damage rather than give it, but that's just how this game was terribly designed to be. They didn't put any thought into this whatsoever. Or fi they did, they chose to go with the way that is least fun overall, and I seriously hope they change things up.
This game is in no way about skill. Skill builds don't equal skill, stacking resistances don't equal skill. There's is absolutely no skill required, just how much you can pay out on the AH for great gear.
Hmm... I'm sure there's a lot more, but screw it.
Online...
The game being online only has the game constantly going down for maintenance, and Blizzard always says it's "scheduled" maintenance even when they decided just to bring it down spur of the moment for whatever reason.
They're having long 8 hour+ maintenance on a non-MMO, and even then, they can never stick to an ETA, and every time it goes down it seems to get extended for whatever reason. They were gonna extend the maintenance on Tuesday that was like hours during the day by another 2 hours or so I think on Tuesday, and within 30 minutes of that announcement there were over 100 pages of pissed off people complaining so they brought it up within a half hour instead.
Blizzard is not doing well with their online only design, and the game is often laggy and my friends and I, as well as streamers on Twitch and whoever else are constantly complaining of rubber banding and lag, and i feel bad for anyone who chooses Hardcore mode at the moment.
Everything's not all bad...
Even though I'm ripping on the game right now, I have high hopes that Blizzard will listen to the playerbase and change things up to the point that it's challenging and fun, rather than just big numbers with an added affix for champions. They appear to be on the right track, but if the RMAH comes out and is going to make them money, I wonder if they'll make the right decisions to make this game fun, or if they'll make the decisions that net them the most cash.
The game is fun. The combat is great from Normal through Hell, the graphics are nice (if not quite as dark as I'd like, but I hear there's a mod for that) and overall the game looks great, and the ideas put forth are great but greatly needed to be expanded upon -- there are just so many flaws that need to be worked out, and it's just not up the standards that Blizzard used to set for themselves.
There's no fixing the absolutely shitty story, but I believe Blizzard can fix the rest and make this game fun all the way through. Whether or not this belief is misplaced is yet to be seen.
Good luck, Blizzard! This game will likely not break you if you fail, but I sincerely hope you're up to the challenge of fixing this mess.
TL;DR - Get an attention span longer than two seconds and read the damn thing.
Comments
I got D3 through the Annual Pass but if I'm completely honest I feel it wasn't worth it, I'd rather have had any other game than this dogpile.
It's essentially a shittier Diablo II.
If I had bought it cash then then I'd really want a refund, couldn't have one, & be even more unhappy about this lame duck pile of crap. I know a lot enjoy the game but I haven't, even if I take the retarded amount of Error 37 downtime out of the equation I've not enjoyed the game even half as much as Diablo II & I wasn't massively into that title to begin with.
This franchise is pretty much dead to me after this game, if they don't take it into completely different territory I definitely wont buy a 4th installment.
The writing for the story is worse than ever before, the gameplay is too heavily influenced by the RMAH and it may as well throw a stupid overpriced cash shop in there then make the game require purchases from it & call it a day because this title is already hamstrung.
Pretty much sums up my complaints as well, especially the story bit. If they had been more succinct like they were in D2, it might have done them better instead of.. plot twists like Cains death, needless dialogue etc.
Though in all fairness d2 had a bit more than d1.
I do think that the RMAH is part of the whole deal. Becase of it, inferno will never change in the gear respect. What they can change, however, like you mentioned, is the viability of other builds. There's no reason to have those restrictions with good game design.
Diablo was never really about a great story. Blizzard just hacks stuff together for their games.
As far as the AH goes, I'd rather it be there than have to use the trading system of D2. I'm also glad to see d2jsp left out of the loop.
I am definitely disappointed with having to farm A1 inferno in hopes of getting something halfway decent to sell in order to buy an upgrade. In D2 there were definitely worthwhile items to get in NM mephisto, Diablo and Baal. The current itemization stinks as my barb needs items with str, vit and all resist.
Online only is what it is. I'm not going to get upset over it unless bots run rampant or dupes start showing up. I tried HC and died when my cable modem had a hiccup. I won't be returning to HC.
Diablo I and II was a huge hulking beast...In III he's a lanky fellow with C cup boobs....Why?
Maybe path of exile is the true successor of Diablo 2 .
http://mmohuts.com/videos/path-of-exile-early-look-at-the-shadow-class-high-level-gameplay-commentary
Check it out, it seem worth the time.
Diablow 3, it sucks ...
POE is a POS. It really isn't a good game. It has zero story and boring art direction. It's online only as well. The combat is boring. the skill tree is a PASSIVE tree and the socketed skill system is just poorly designed. It's a hub system and so you can't make named games to have people come in and trade. You need to /invite them. It's a game that's stuck in the past.
TL2 and Lineage Eternal are the better options on the horizon.
Game is good. But its so far below anyone expectations for sequel of Diablo , for a mega budget invested , for 12 years of production - and especially for friggin Blizzard !
As someone said - WOW is in slow and steady decline - and blizzard are aware.
Diablo 3 was supposed to be their next big thing ...
And they give us this ?
When WOW was released it was really actually few notches above everything else. And they kept ramping it up.
On other hand D3 is launched with many many planned features simply removed (look at old developer previews)
And some of crucial gameplay mechanic is broken completely - itemisation for one.
Not to mention online problems...
So what this means for Blizzard ?
Major loss of reputation. Until now Blizzard enjoyed reputation "They cant do wrong"
And this is why they sold so many preorders and first week sales.
One they lose this its gone forever.
And they are now on the edge...
Now only question is what they are going to do about it...
1. They can "take the money and run" - meaning take huge profit they made and just leave the game as it is. Anyway there are no subs, why care ?
1a. Fix problems but only in new paid expansion
or
2. Actively fix and tweak the game. Its all it takes. The game is not broken, it only have some flaws that can be fixed.
If blizzard shows ongoing generous support to the game - they will wash their face. On other hand if they decide not to fix anything (or fix only in expansion) they will loose their face and most of the fans that matter.
I think the best summary of the differences in quality of Diablo 3 to it's predecessors as far as itemization is best summarized by this question for me.
Where is my horadric cube and runes/gems?
I mean seriously, they give you four...At least if you got the horadric cube recipe system back you could start crunching gear and recombining for new items with a bit more control, adding in sockets, and making yer own things.
Add to that the awesome rune and runewords and itemization would have still been a giant collector's game, but it would have had a lot more enjoyment and satisfaction to me.
As is all you do is gamble and farm for the one item you need to pop up or be bought instead.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
How does a few people not liking D3 equal Blizzard's demise?
Because that always seems to be the conclusion of people. I dont like the game, so Blizzard: beware!
Hah.
I certainly don't think it's blizzzard's demise, but I do certainly think they have continued to shift their values away from a gamer centric mindset to a consumer centric one.
And more than anything else that just depresses me.
EDIT: In other words. They are becoming Lord Vader to Bobby Kotick's Emperor Palpatine.
They just happen to still be some form of Anakin at the moment.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Bring on TL2
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
Well, sadly, it's more than a few. Compared to d2 and d1, d3 isn't that groundbreaking.
It's like you have an olympic champion gold medalist who has never gotten anything below gold not even qualify.
This is among most uninformed oppinion i stumbled upon.
In todays gaming reputation is everything.
Why do you think D3 sold 7 million in first week ?
If it was called Mephisto and was made by Firestorm studios , how much would it sell in first week ?
What do you think ?
Reputation is worth gold in this buisness. Blizzard knows this. Everyone knows this.
D3 is fun when playing with few friends, it is rather boring as a solo game. I was not really expecting a good story. In fact, I think Blizzard's stories have always been rather tacky and cliche. Their protagonists and antagonists are stereotypes that lack imagination. WoW is full of stories taken from famous books and movies, and often written badly. In classic, they had fewer those, and then they were kind of funny, but they are now overusing that trick. If you want a good story, play for example Witcher 1 & 2.
I am currently in Hell's second act with my main character and have to say that most of the items I have come from AH. My DPS would not be enough for elites and champions without using AH. However, I do not really think it is that bad idea. Instead of farming the same boss endlessly for that miniscule chance of getting something nice, you now farm gold and purchase those from AH. Occasionally, you might find something nice that you can sell for a fair price to boost your earning. I also think that availability of items for earlier acts in AH is going to change a lot once majority of players get towards the inferno. This is mainly because of the cap for items you can sell.
I agree about the online game. I think they should have allowed people to play Normal and Nightmare without having to play online. Once you reached Hell, the game could have required online access and AH would become available. In AH, you could only sell gear gear that has is ment for Hell difficulty.
My biggest issues with the game come from the online problems. Blizzard is doing a piss poor job communicating about these issues nor are they fixing them fast enough. Considering the development time of the game and their experience with online gaming, this is really pathetic.
I would rate D3 around 8 or 8.5. Its an ok hack & slash RPG, but does not improve the genre or improve its predecessor that much. The new skill system is better than in D2 and graphics have been updated. Playing online with friends is also rather mindless fun, when it is working. My rating would have to be lowered around 6.5 or 7.0 due to the online problems. These are not minor issues, but game breaking.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
Please don't play any RPGs and especially MMORPGs (which are the very definition of absolutely zero non existant skill, no skill whatsoever to play MMORPGs, just faceroll your keyboard). You don't need to buy anything from AH. I never use it and I am on Act 3 Inferno.
Quoting myself again.
This I don't understand. I've seen seen this complaint quite a few times now. People complaining that difficulty is scaled by upping stats in an RPG is a bit ridiculous. Mobs are slighly smarter in the later difficulties and they get a few extra affixes. This plays exactly the same as Diablo 2. What do you want the game to throw at you? Solve a maths equation to win? I am very curious as to why he compared D3 to D2 in all his videos but this one. Because D2 was exactly the same but much easier. No one ever complained about this back when D2 was being actively played.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Error: 37. Signature not found. Please connect to my server for signature access.
Not entirely true. I also am a big fan of the game, as i know you are, i've been following these boards for a long time and saw you rightfully defending the game. But the truth is somewhere in between.
For example, you say that you are in Act III inferno and never used AH, i am assuming you are playing a ranged character (DH or mage), and you did stack damage for as much as you could, pretty much ignoring defenses.
Between other chars, I play a monk. I have 55k HP, lots of armor, forgot the number, 500-600 resistanced and 30k DPS. I have put more than 100 hours into the character. The game is unplayable for me in ACT II-III Inferno. Roll one and you'll see. The gear i need to improve my character to maybe make it viable (800 resists, 10k more hp, 20k more dps) would have perfect stats and would never drop in Act I Inferno. I have been farming that act for 7 days now.
Also, i have a Witch Doctor, which i must play like i play my Demon Hunter, aka no pets. He is obviously much much weaker than my Demon Hunter and the pets are useless. So useless it's retarded, for a pet class.
I've been facerolling Act II Inferno after 3 days with my Demon Hunter, i also farm Act I with him as it's much much faster, Right now, to be able to progress, you need to roll DH or Wizard, use a specific build and a specific approach, aka go glass cannon, don't get hit.
This is not Diablo. The game was emphasized for having millions of VIABLE skill/rune combinations and lots of approach styles (offensive, defensive, mixed). Diablo was about having fun finding awesome loot. Don't even get me started on itemisation. Again, i love some aspects of the game and i want it to succeed, but serious changes need to be made, what we have now is ridiculous.
Diablo III is "ENTIRELY" designed around the "REAL MONEY Auciton House" !
/end thread
This flies in evidence of everything we have seen so far.
COD:MW2 'boycott' group, 80% bought it anyway.
EA being voted as the 'most hated company', well, their games are still selling like hotcakes (Sims, BF3, FIFA etc).
Starcraft2/D3 'online DRM with no LAN', 6.3 Million sales in the first month.
Us gamers will buy everything if it is shiny. And I am one of them.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Wait though, weren't you going on and on about how people just didn't understand what H&S rpgs were about, and that D3 was superior to games like TL2? In a very heated way I might add.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I would agree that the story is not very strong. This is a good thing because it doesn't break my heart to follow these characters around multiple times.
I do have to say, however, that I don't mind the itemization. When I see a "?" rare item, I feel like I'm scratching off a lotto ticket. Usually I lose, but on rare occasion (hey, it's a RARE item) I win! I don't mind the way they do loot. If they just gave every class a 'set' to aim for, everything else would be useless and they would have to balance the entire game against THAT set.
The only difference is that it "REALLY" is a lottery, with like a 1 in a million chance of getting the item you want.
This was Blizzard's intent, to make the good stuff so extremely rare, that it will end up on the Real Money Auction House for ridiculous prices!
Blizzard takes 30% of all profits, even thinking about charging "Real money" for listing items, so people only post those high priced stuff!
The more you think about it, the more it makes you sick that a game is solely designed that way, where buying the box for a "single player" is no longer enough, but practically forces....ehh entices you to "LEECH" your wallet as much as possible along the way through Inferno.
People interested in beating Inferno are basically "FORCED" to farm ridiculous amount of hours farming gold to gear up, and soon "FORCED" to pay "Real cash" to gear up! to be able to progress through Inferno.
And if not! Well good luck spending eternity in Act.1 Inferno in desperation to find the items yourself. And then another eternity in Act.2, and so on, and so on.
Thanks, but no thanks. I have beaten the game on Normal.... started out in Nightmare now.... but really feel like just uninstalling the game and not bothering anymore, seeing the Ridiculous itemization system unfolding itself in front of me, with drops getting worse and worse the further you get into the game!
Diablos story always stunk and can be shorten down to "Go down in the dungeon and kill Diablo"...
If you want a story get a RPG game instead.
Of course some of the stuff is really taking things too far, maybe they should have scrapped the story altogether and just have the huge dungeon. But Diablo always been about killing mobs (and maybe you mouse while you are at it, the first Diablo killed 2 for me).
It is amusing to see you speak out against parroting a stock opinion "diablo 3 is like wow" and then parroting another stock opinion "diablo 3 is like vanilla diablo 2".
Vanilla d2 and d3 are incomparable in gear requirements and gear system (ilvl vs mlvl vs TC).
If we want to talk about similarities, it is more like diablo1 ^ 2, +all stats + all resists on every item, the odd unique thrown in and you still struggle with blood stars
Flame on!
What people really need to understand.
Give it 3 months, as that's how long I'm giving myself to progress to say act 3 Inferno. That includes grinding for gear and buying fromt he AH as I know I will have to.
Now I'm only in Act 2 Hell at the moment, so take into account it will be another couple weeks before I see inferno. That being the case think if everyone is like me.
So they have a good 3 months before everyone gets to Some form of inferno if that is where they want to go some may stop at hell as thats a viable option as well...and then what.
Honestly I have nothing else ot play at the moment and that is what's keeping me playing. I love the character leveling. But the static zones just idk kind of mess things up for me.
I previously thought that I would level all characters up to at least hell mode. I no longer have this intention. After getting my WD to I think 55, I just can't seem to find the love for the game that I used to have. There is just something that is missing when you get to the higher levels. It quickly becomes apparent the flaws in the game when you are not seeing a level in a long time. And while that is not the issue there is really nothing rewarding you in the mean time.
I'm going to see how far I can level my wizard, but truth be told If Torch Light 2 was out I would have switched over to that game after I beat this on normal-inferno. I did promise myself I'd get my WD to 60. So we shall see.
I'll try ot beat Inferno over time, say 3-4 months. After that yeah I'm done...unless something is done.