I am in the same boat. Never finished the base game.
Just blitz through act 5. I did that before starting season 9. It doesnāt take that long.
Yep. Thatās what Iāve been doing during the last month or so. I started a Witch Doctor and I spend any spare moment playing these days. At first it was taking way too long, and I followed the advice in this thread and changed from Expert to Hard. That made a huge difference. Suddenly I could get through a section in one hour what used to take four or five hours. And eventually I switched back to Expert, and itās been just as fast on expert now.
Iām currently in Act IV with my Witch Doctor. Itās the farthest Iāve ever come with the expansion installed. Once I beat Act IV, Iāll finally get to see Act V for the first time. Yay!
But Iām very thankful that I wasnāt playing hardcore. Because like I said, back in the pre-expansion days, I never made it past Act 3 on Normal, and two nights ago, my Witch Doctor would have also died at the end of Act 3, and I would have had to start over. Without unlocking adventure mode, or Paragon (whatever that is) or Rifts (whatever those are).
Honestly, Diablo 2 did this better. They didnāt unlock Hardcore characters until you beat the game at least once with an immortal character first.
Aargh. Just got disconnected from an empowered GR with the end boss down to his last sliver of health.
Nihm
5768
You mean to tell me youāve never played adventure mode? Youāre in for a treat.
You could not pay me to play campaign mode at this point.
Uh, by not that long, I meant 20-30 minutes to play act v (assuming you finished act iv at launch)
Sweet. I played Act IV for about 2 hours last night. I think Iām getting close to Diablo. If Act V is only 20-30 minutes, I do wonder who the enemy is for Act V this time.
In Diablo 2, these Act-ending bosses were sometimes a pretty big challenge. Killing Duriel in Act 2 using an Amazon was really tough, especially on Normal. Killing Diablo in Act IV was always tricky with a Necromancer, especially one that relied on an undead army. It seems like this time around, the Act-ending bosses arenāt nearly as hard as just randomly rolled Elites you find.
Well, I was pretty well geared up and just charged through everything (and it could have been longer, been a while). I didnāt really āplayā it properly. But by all means, if you are having fun, take your time and enjoy the scenery.
Act V is no way half an hour, especially on a first time through. Probably a couple hours? The final boss may be a bit of a wall with a minionmancer because he hits like a truck and doesnāt provide any corpses to raise more undead.
Eh. I did act v boss with a minion necromancer last night on torment 1. Not that tough imo, but then the necro is WAY easier than some of the other classes I remember playing that through with.
Oh, yeah, at launch it was a whole load of suck to play Hardcore, which is all I did then, too. Even had a separate HC auction house before they canned the AH entirely. And having to run through the story again and again was icky. Once they opened up Adventure mode, it became a much, much less annoying experience.
Finally got my Gem of Ease up to 25 so my next non-seasonal HC character, if I need to make one, will have funā¦
vyshka
5775
I used that for the Diablo 1 anniversary event. It was hilarious how quickly you gain levels. The notifications couldnāt keep up.
People will criticize the campaign and tell you to rush through to get to the real game, the adventure mode and seasons etc. And while these days that is the real Diablo 3 experience, I loved my first time through the story and played quite slowly too. I think I tended to set difficulty for a challenge, so that tactical positioning actually mattered.
I think the best part of it though was unlocking the
'Tyrael's Sacrifice' cinematic,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDerwu6x40o
which is pretty much my favourite ever. Gives me chills every time!
I plan to go through the story again this next season, for the hell of it, as I do like the progression and planned segmentation of the narrative arc. But once every few years is enough for me.
Iām glad you like the cinematics. I found them somewhat less appealing, if very nicely done.
And if I never hear āAdria was my motherā again, itāll be too soon.
I might have said this before, but Iāve run every character class through the story at least once (more times, because Iāve done Hardcore, as well) and play it like I do other RPGs in that every bit of the fow gets cleared. When people say it only takes 20-30 minutes to clear an Act I laugh and laugh and laugh (on the inside) because thatās totally not how I play at all.
I get that the majority of players are all about speed and get the loot asap, but that is just so dull to me, and is likely why anything that says āthis is the best way to do this thingā never matters to me (aside from my interest in seeing how others play the game). The beauty of D3 (and all the Diablos) is that they allow for all sorts of different styles and builds, and thatās what keeps me playing after all these years.
Thereās a big difference between exploring every corner (which I used to do. I loved uncovering the whole map) and just getting through something as fast as you can because you want it done to access something else.
I thought D3 was awful when it came out because of how fluid characters are. You can completely change skill setups at will and there was no real reason to have more than one character of the same class. Then, they turned what was (for me) a negative into a positive by adding seasons. You could play through the story in season mode if you wanted, but thereās no reason to other than simply because you want to.
I agree with Equisilus; D3 is great because it is so flexible for different play styles, from uber-min/max theorycrafters to occasional āwhee blow stuff up!ā dabblers.
The respecing never bothered me because I tend to stick with my chosen skills/runes once all are unlocked and go with them. Makes it so any given character feels unique, unless I chose similar skills another time. The freedom to switch up your skills is a benefit to players who may find their chosen set to lack potential in certain situations, though. Instead of being stuck, switch and move on. So, Iām all for the design choice, even if I never used it for that reason.
Yeah, but for me, the original design at launch hampered replayability. And yet the season mode leveraged that design in a terrific way to make replaying very fun and exciting.
At launch D3 was sort of a hot mess. The video from GDC I think where the lead designer discusses the revamping of the game after launch was floating around somewhere, and is worth watching.
I was so, so happy the AH went away.
