6401

So basically we’ve got a few people who’s expectations were that:

  1. Diablo 3 would be exactly the same as Diablo 2.
  2. Diablo 3 would also be 10x better than Diablo 2.

Yeah, you don’t get it. Not when you keep getting the core mechanics of D3 wrong. What I think it comes down to is that the “I hate D3, it’s not D2” metagame is more fun to you than anything Blizzard could have released.

6402

I kind of like some set items, and some legendaries, so not everything lost. Is only that a lot of the legendaries drop with low stats and low level, but the best legendaries can be nice things. And the set items sell for 400K on the AH, so has to have something desirable to them.

6403

It’s not surprising that so much is messed up when you consider how completely limited the beta test was for that many months. They should have done a smaller closed beta with heavy NDA for the whole game. The game really needed it.

Still, I’m having fun and I like that they are treating the game as an ongoing service to be updated and polished, as Blizzard always does.

Path of Exiles is awful. In almost every possible way, fail.

PoE is really really boring, yeah. I paid $10 for the beta and played about 2 hours of it. I haven’t touched it since D3 came out, I just have no desire to. Some things money can buy, yeah, and solid animations and basic combat appears to be one of them. Not to mention the item system is pretty bad in that game.

6404

What is it about this thread that makes StGabe seem like the reasonable one in arguments?

I find the item complaints interesting as there’s obviously a psychological component to people looking only at the level requirements for gear. In one of their posts Blizzard said that a lot of people complain “How dare you drop a level 57 magic item for my level 60 character!” when that item’s properties actually make it a level 61 item with a 57 level requirement. I wonder if showing that will actually help with people angry that the game only drops items they can use.

Another thing I wonder about is people only playing one class. I made one of every class, so when I find an item with my monk that’s awesome for a witch doctor I can hand it off and be happy. Anyone who doesn’t have a WD probably goes “THIS SUCKS AND THE GAME HATES ME!”

6405

I’m having trouble grokking exactly what people expected Diablo 3 to be and how it’s failing to live up to those expectations.

Look, no matter how you slice it, Diablo 3 is an arbitrary numbers game once you get all of the skills. Enemy health and DPS increases. Your health and DPS increases. Maybe a couple new enemy abilities, but that’s about it.

They can increase or decrease the ratio between the rate of your increases vs. enemy increases. Make them similar, the game literally never changes. Make enemies increase faster, you have to grind. Make your character increase faster, it’s too “easy”.

What else is there? No other Diablo-like game has solved this “problem” (if it’s even a problem). It’s an inherent property of the entire genre. It’s why I barely played much of Diablo II past the 2nd difficulty, same with Titan Quest, and same with Diablo 3.

6406

Having a magical Item level that is different from the required level is useless (barring the item having lowered requirements, which is generally not the issue being talked about here).

People care about the required level. If i’m level 50, and a item level 50, required level 45 item drops, i’m still not going to use it. I’m going to buy a required level 50 item from the auction house.

Even worse when -3 tends to be a good find and a lot tend to be even lower level by quite a bit.

So yes, the perfect way to play is to have a main character that is about 10 levels higher and then make alts that maintain that level gap. That way you can put the loot you find to good use.

6407

Thanks JM. That’s all I was trying to say. Of course I’m happy that they are acting fast and doing things to improve the game post release. It is one of the things that sets Blizzard apart. I’m just voicing my disappointment that they didn’t think of these scenarios before release during beta testing and focused feedback groups and have to give some of these systems a serious rethink now.

6408

I may be reading too much into scant information, but I have a half-formed suspicion that WoW’s relative decline means the days of Blizzard having the freedom to spend as much time (read: money) as they feel like to bring a title to market are drawing to a close. Does anyone think the devs were happy about having to cut PvP and interesting weapon affixes (and doubtless other stuff they haven’t mentioned/I haven’t read about) to make the release date?

6409

Er, they could’ve easily shipped back in 2011. Everything was done, they took an extra year to polish.

6410

I’m sort of enjoying the gameplay of D3 at the Hell level, but a fun night can be ruined by meeting some of the silly special elite combos that I simply cannot beat, even via cheesing, zoning, kiting and trying to get mobs stuck or lost on geometry.

While on the topic of kiting, when I visit the Diablo forums for advice, it appears kiting is not a cheesy way of playing a game. It seems people take it in stride and consider it the intended proper way to play Diablo 3 at the upper levels.

Does anyone think that is a bit of a silly way to design a game? A game where you put on some boots of speed and run around constantly, usually off screen of the critters, constantly tapping your slow movement speed, long range dots, turrent or pet that will slowly eat away at a pack of instant death bad guys over several minutes. Many skills totally useless because if they require getting within half the screen of the baddies, you likely die.

That aside, what will most likely make me quit playing is the lack of wonder and excitement when a corpse explodes into the sparklies of rare or even legendary treasure. I’ve already been trained to realize most of it will be boring and useless. At best my big woohoo will be over a new dagger or whatever that adds a predicable % more damage.

Rumors are they are going to revamp some of the more rare items. From the dev posts, it appears the only thing they think is wrong is the item lvls are not clear enough or are out of whack a bit for the level.

That is not enough, the item pool needs truly unique memorable items, items that change your gameplay, items that might even be the central item of a character build.

As it stands now, the items are a boring spread sheet. I understand it is hard to balance a game around items with truly powerful effects, but that is their job. Quit taking game balance so seriously. When you are so scared to introduce cool items, unique effects in a game about collecting items…you have lost sight of why people play action rpgs.

6411

That’s my problem with the game in a nutshell. /agree.

6412

It’s especially annoying since it is essentially a SP game with an online component. Who is it going to bother if I have some weird item that lets me shoot lasers from my eyes? No-one other than the friends I choose to play with, who will be more likely jealous than upset.

Would it unbalance the game? Who cares? Unbeatable Elite mobs (courtesy of some random affixes) already does that and I’m only (at the moment) playing against AI anyway. It would also probably help encourage additional play-throughs. Would those items sell for more on either AH? Probably, but who cares? It would at least make AH more interesting as there would be greater variety of items and pondering over laser eyes vs trampling boots would be far more exciting than whether an additional +25 strength is worth 20 million.

6413

A game with an always-on friends list that lets you seamlessly join or exit games with the quest structure updating dynamically and enemy strength changing depending on how many people are playing isn’t a single-player game with an online component.

It’s an online game that can be played alone. But, hey, it’s a good thing you brought that up again!

6414

Well, I’m not really interested in the argument in general, but you could pretty much do the same thing with the Torchlight 2 beta, though it involved an extra step of creating a server.

Many people would probably prefer that, but both methods have positive and negative aspects.

6415

Hey, I’m pretty much much with you there. Open/Closed Battle.net was a great idea.

6416

See, this right here is what is interesting. Blizzard didn’t intend for the required level of an item to be the exact moment you equip it, and I really wonder if they ever realized that with the auction house people would start thinking that way. Is the level requirement the first thing you look at on items and would you junk anything below your level even if it might be an upgrade?

6417

By SP online, I only really meant you are only ever competing against the game, even in MP. There are no ladderboards or PVP (at the moment), so unbalanced items offering unfair advantages only really matter in terms of your own gaming experience.

6418

You don’t need to look at the level when the base damage is ~100 dps. In that case, you know it’s level 50 or 51 and you’re wasting time identifying it. I usually identify them anyway just to laugh at how bad they are.

Anyhow, we may be looking at a rollback. The first part of a two-part gold duping process became common knowledge and Blizzard is now scrambling to repair the economy (is it ladder time yet?)

6419

The gold dupe thing is just a random rumor blowing up. If there was an easy gold dupe out there people would be rushing to launder/spend money and yet I see no change in action on the AH. The high DPS weapons aren’t disappearing, commodities aren’t inflating in value, etc.

6420

No, the gold dupe thing is real. I have friends who accidentally stumbled onto it while using the auction cancel exploit (though it didn’t work every time, I’m sure there’s some trick to it).