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Diablo 3: Pretty Much the Worst of What Everyone Was Expecting
So, I recently got into the Diablo 3 EU beta and wow. Seriously, wow. This game is BAD. I'm shocked it managed to get past even the new Blizzard's QA team.
I'm getting 200ms ping and having that registered as "good" (ie. in the green in terms of latency) by the game, with random 500ms lagspikes. It's entirely possible that the EU beta's servers are set up in the US, but I get at least 160ms from US servers in every other game, and god only knows. This leads to a shit tonne of artificial difficulty and near death experiences.
The CoD-esque levelling mechanics are laughable, as are the ways abilities work. Every level, you get a new ability or a new upgrade for one of your abilities, and you will ALWAYS have every ability at max level. You have no choice in what order you get them. The only thing that distinguises you from other players is gear.
Switching out abilities gives you a 10 second (or thereabouts, not sure on the exact figure) cooldown on that ability, which means switching out abilities or having more than six active abilities is unfeasible, which can lead to situations where you get attacked and don't have the right ability for the situation.
All this just feeds into having the easiest general loadout and spamming the attack until everything is dead, regardless of the situation. You approach everything in the same way, deal with it in the same way and the like. You won't vary from other player's experiences either, as they're ALSO doing it in the same way.
Don't get me started on how horribly the classes are in general. They're not archetypal, they're not very balanced (heavy armoured barbarian / monk more easily kills stuff than the flimsy wizard?) and they're just not very fun. Witch Doctor is a bad necromancer clone, Demon Hunter is like a crappy D2 assassin, Wizard is just a poor man's sorceress, Monk is actually alright in terms of overall design and Barbarian is just a straight rip from D2 and therefore the best class in the game.
The healing potion / healing orb issue just shows how schizophrenic the design team is. On the one hand, you have healing potions which allow you to decide when you need healing and use them when you need them. On the other hand, you have healing orbs which drop randomly off mobs and heal you when you walk over them. Of course, due to this, healing orbs are utterly useless, or at least could be better replaced by healing potion drops, and is a fine example of "lol wut are we meant to be doing again???".
Graphically, the game is horrible. It reminds me of Icewind Dale 2 in terms of looks. You could say it has a certain style to it, if you thought style could mean "looks like it's from early 21st century". Low polygon models, ugly arse textures and a general bad colour scheme just makes the game seem faded and already aged. Compare it with, say, Diablo or Diablo 2 in modern resolutions and they don't look nearly as aged as this game.
Controls-wise, the game's okay-ish. Everything's pretty much the same as Diablo 2 (shift to stay still whilst you attack, ctrl to view thingies, alt to view items etc), and everything is therefore okay.
I just fail to see how this is a Diablo game. To me, it feels like a poor Korean Diablo-wannabe that made a bunch of bad design decisions because they had a massive budget, a lot of time and no idea how to improve on the original.
The graphical changes, gameplay changes, EVERYTHING changes have just ruined the overall experience and turned it into a game worthy of nothing more than the award of "Worst AAA Game of 2012".
Comments
Give Path of Exile a shot if you can grab a key somewhere, I'm finding it to be very addicting, and the skill system is excellent.
Planning on doing so. Mainly can't wait until Torchlight 2 comes out.
Add me on Steam!
Me and a Friend are Bad At Games
Can't say i agree with anything you posted. The game seems very good to me.
I was super excited about Diablo 3 when I got into the beta. When i first got in the game was on patch 12 and was pretty good. In the last few patches they have been stripping away what made Diablo so successful in the first place. Guess you could call it the WoW-effect. Dumbing the game down. Stripping customization. Removing rune drops because "omg i dont want to spend hours hunting for them to make my character better" because thats not what the game is all about /sarcasm.
This is really a prime example that shows sometimes endless money does Not equal quality. I honestly would have been happy if they took all the classes from Diablo 2. updated the graphics and set it in a new world. Would have easily sold millions but nope got to make a piece of shit that only people so far up blizzards ass will buy xD.
/rant off. slightly annoyed with how they basicly butchered one my childhood game series :P
Thank god Path of Exile is amazing and is really the true successor to the Diablo bloodline. Really hoping Torchlight 2 will so shine. I highly recomend trying to get into the beta for Path of Exile. like I said its really well done
This topic seems less about Diablo 3 and more about coaxing people into getting POE beta.
/chuckles
...thats quite the opinion
Im in d3 beta in canada. No problem with latency... sorry your having that problem.
In my opinion i think they have done a great job with the changes to d3. Glad its not just d2 with a different skin.
Got me CE preorder and cant wait to play
Why bother posting it, just don't buy it.
Although I think it lags a lot when you first start playing, that goes away after a while.
I have 8GB of ram so i'm sure it's loading into memory.
Day one purchase for me.
Yeah shame on the op for posting a negative opinion on a forum.
well evryone knows that since first beta and see some gameplay footage before beta release ,threat is pointless its obvious the game is wayy diferent from d2 and not what fan expected from d3.
still it seen good for others but its not what we really expected even whit the rmt shop ;/
I agree with many things you said. Its imo a dumbed-down version of D2 with upgraded graphics (not much). I had no problem with latency though. However, I did pre-order it, mostly because there are no other games to play at this time, im so bored.
There's absolutely nothing anyone can say that will keep me from buying and enjoying D3.
LOL at Torchlight 2.
Steampunk with giant fonts is cool amirite?
TL1 was a 1 week game at best. TL2 may be a 3 week game until mods come out.
/sigh
Your RAM has nothing to do with server latency (lag)...
So basically
New = Bad
The same, but improved = Good
Gamers fear change
Blizzard has made it apparent throughout their development process that they lacked a clear vision from the start. This thing fails both as an "upgraded D2" and something truly unique.
If I could describe it properly, it would be a mish mash of different concepts and mechanics whose purpose is to attempt to appeal to everyone.
Meh, I prepurchased it because I enjoy the diablo series as a whole. So long as it satisfies the minimum requirements, I'll probably enjoy D3.
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!"
~Lord George Gordon Byron
I look foward to playing gw2, d3 seems to have a lot of people hating on it. Which means they have vested interest in POE and tl2. have you actually seen any videos of TL2? Really? You're looking foward to that?
I think d3 has massive potential and they will easily be the hottest selling game of 2012. Even if GW2 is as amazing as it seems, different genre. But d3 will stand alone, doesn't mean i'll be playing it all that much when gw2 launches, but it'll be a fun month or 2 until it does.
There has been so little seen and played with in beta, it's like saying you decided not to buy d2 because the demo runs of blood raven were boring and too easy.
LOL?
I have to disagree with OP. It lives up to the diablo series and I will most likely buy it when it comes out. The graphics are great and they made some gameplay changes but most of them are annoyances that existed in diablo 2.
Glad to see atleast one player review didn't make D3 out to be some sort of perfect game as if Blizzard can never do wrong.
It won't sell better then the next COD (yuk) or GTA 5 (hurrah!)
Torchlight 2 Whooooo!
I disagree with nearly your entire post.
Latency issues are the least of your concerns. For me, I have no seen any latency issues at all. Blizzard will iron out the problems, it's BETA.
Switching out abilities is really smart. Part of it has to do with allowing people alternate playstyles for any situation. Part of it has to do with balancing PvP. If you could swap everything out instantly, then combat would most likely turn into a bunch of scripting, button mashing garbage. Do remember that this is the first Diablo that is trying to produced a balanced PvP experience. You may approach every situation the same, but I don't.
Characters are very diverse. So I agree completely again. Also, we all know there will be an expansion with added characters to play. This is not everything.
Healing orbs are meant to take the focus off of chugging potions at hyper speed. It's meant to put more focus on the combat itself and keep the flow of combat going without having to stop for town potion runs. It's a good change. I personally feel that the healing potion cooldown is too long, but that could be a quick change. BETA.
Graphically, the game is leaps and bounds above Diablo 2 and any other RPG hack and slash title in the past. That's also including the ones that will come out after it that all of the Diablo haters always have to mention in every Diablo post. Not just graphics either, I'm talking about UI, animations, as well as the feel of the world.
Why even mention the controls? In fact, they are better than previous Diablo's. They've reduced the amount of clicking and button mashing with health globes and dragging between your targets with the holding of a mouse button. Everything seems less clunky, and much smoother.
This game is clearly still Diablo. The only things that I really don't like are the RMT auction system (Though it happens regardless) and the exclusion of gathering runes. But, at the same time.. one of my issues with the previous title was that it was too grindy. I did not find it fun to do 100 Bhaal runs every day to get some good gear. They have made a lot of changes to reduce the grind in that aspect.
I like the blacksmith and hopefully the Mystic will make a reappearance in the future. Those are interesting time sinks that were not present in previous titles. I like the ability to customize your spells and abilities, another feature that was absent in previous titles. I like how the game is displayed through AI and improved graphics. I like the physics that are a huge improvement over previous titles. They listened to the community and darkened the appearance of their game. I feel that Diablo 3 offers so much more positive than negative. None of the negatives are game-breakers in my opinion.
In the end, you will be dead wrong. Diablo 3 is already going to be one of the best selling, if not THE best selling RPG this year. Torchlight and Path of Exile will be nothing but footnotes. You can fight it all you want, but in the end, it's inevitible.
And yet gamers are tired of all the WoW-clone and want something new. But for D3, it's good to play an improve clone.
Get a life you freaking Gamer.....no no, you don't understand, I'm a Gamer, I have many lives!!
I agree with OP, my time in the beta was dissapointing to say the least. Blizzard North was really good in the 90s and gave us some great games but since then the good devs have left and I have been let down by all the recent titles from WoW to SC2. There's a very good chance I will skip D3 which is sad because I loved D2 quite a bit. Blizzard just doesn't make em like they used to.
EDIT: Also I really hate how Blizzard has chosen to make all the graphics in their games (all of which used to have a pretty serious feel) into kiddy-cartoony graphics. Who decided that was a good idea? Who wants their game to look like that? I hate it. And doing that to a Diablo game no less is border line retarded imo.
doesnt matter, it will get universal 9/10 reviews accross most gaming sites just becasue its blizzard. Pretty much like swtor/bioware.