DiabloFans

Quote from Drachar

Quote from johnnysd

The fact that a Diablo 3 fan site does not have 85+% in the first three choices is very telling on how incredibly bad D3 actually is.

Last three options has even fewer votes. By your logic that would make D3 the best game ever done in history of mankind.

Myself I am in the middle somewhere, had very high expectations but not had them fulfilled. It is not a bad game, i got rather decent value out of it but not much more then that.

Huh? Its a Diablo fan site, the fact that just over 50% think it is good to excellent is very telling

The fact that a Diablo 3 fan site does not have 85+% in the first three choices is very telling on how incredibly bad D3 actually is.

Wow every answer from Blizzard is completely clueless in my view. They do not understand their own game at all.

Quote from snared04drummer

Sigh...

Trait points have been replaced by passives. You can't say that traits are better, because you never experienced them. With only three passive slots and many to choose from, there's quite a bit of customization and depth just from that aspect alone.

Skill points do not inject customization into a game, especially not Diablo II. You either:
-Maxed it for use
-Maxed it for synergy
-Put one point into it for a pre-req
-Didn't use it.

That's not customization. Builds became very cookie-cutter, and very few are viable in hell. Most, if not all, are 1-2 skill wonders, whereas all SIX of your skills in Diablo III will be viable without having to worry about putting points into one or another.

Rune levels are gone. Simply a byproduct of the necessity of their removal as items. They're right, as much as I would have liked to have to find them in the game, there's simply no way that the inventory/stash size could have supported 30~ skills x 5 runes x 5 character classes x 5 rune levels. May not be perfect, but the old system would have been extremely cumbersome.

I am disapointed about the lack of choice in runes, so I agree with you there.

I am not comparing Diablo 2 to Diablo 3. I am comparing what Diablo 3 WAS going to be to what it was now. And why is everyone falling for the stupid math that Wilson threw out. There are 35 possible runes. Period, 5 colors and 7 levels per color.

I am in the beta and I do not much like Diablo 3 much at all. I went to 2 Blizzcons just to play it but each update brings more and more simplification and I think that they have torn the heart out of the game, and removed basically all depth, replayability and the ability to be unique. Here is a post I made on the beta forum. On the beta forum there is a lot of back and forth between people that want to see more depth and to be honest people that just think no matter what Blizzard does is great

Just go back and watch the gameplay panel from Blizzcon 2010 and tell me that Diablo 3 has not been completely gutted of the depth the designers had planned for it. This is not about Diablo 2 versus Diablo 3 this is about Diablo 3 versus itself. The system as planned for this game by the same designers would have been the middle ground between the two extremes we see portrayed on this board. Give us what you promised us in 2010 and both sides would be happy. The skill system they proposed in 2010 would have been terrific, I had actually forgotten how much depth it had. But please watch yourself and see the actual developers of the game saying what they wanted to do, and what we have now as the game gets continuously simplified over and over:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv0XqBYBBJc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Z7mTfLV5g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=andaxt5UkEY

Summary:

Trait points gone

Skill points and skill SELECTION gone

Rune levels gone

Flexibility in early game of which rune to use gone

As they continue to iterate on the D3 design I think that they are getting closer and closer to their true vision of the game so in the next few months I would expect the following exciting changes:

1. Runestones will be removed and changed to "rune etchings". Rune etchings are automatically obtained as you level every 5 levels of so. As soon as available you can inscribe an etching on your spell changing it the way a runestone would have. Of course there is no restriction on swapping out the etching as they are freely interchangeable at all times.

2. All items will be removed from the game except for legendaries, set items and crafting materials which is now a drop. A new interface in your inventory now lists the number of each type of material you have. We found that people really only care about legendaries, set items and crafted items anyway, so removing them allows us better itemize and balance the game, especially boss fights since it is so much more predictable what gear people will be wearing at each boss fight

3. Resistances on gear will be removed. It was found that figuring out what lightning or fire resistance did was too difficult for play testers grandmothers, and in house testers were very frustrated at not having the right type of resistance gear drop before some key bosses. To fix this critical issue, all characters will automatically develop resistances as they level. To provide some interest for bosses and champion monsters, these types of mobs can be imbued with skills that ignore some of your base resistance to a certain type of damage. To balance this, champions and bosses that have special elemental or poison attacks will now drop "resistance orbs" tuned to the type of damage the boss drops. Doing this allows the battle to be very balanced and have interesting mechanics without providing a barrier that requires certain gear, as the "resistance orbs" that temporarily buff resistance to provide a really unique and interesting mechanic for these fights. This power up type of mechanic is viewed as very intuitve by testers and will likely be expanded into other areas

4. Names will be removed as all characters are identified with their Battle Tag so names are no longer needed. A number scheme will be added for multiple characters of a particular type

5. Hardcore mode will be unlocked through a shard of the Worldstone which can only be obtained from killing Diablo on Inferno level. It is a rare legendary drop and only one can drop per group. As inferno DIablo is the ultimate battle he can only be killed in a group of 4. The shard can also be purchased for $19.99 directly from Blizzard on the RMAH

6. Along these lines, it was decided that certain crafting materials and rune etchings have a very significant effect on the playability of the game. As such, these "super" materials and etchings will only be available from Blizzard on the RMAH. Having these be a drop would have provided an unfair advantage to people who can play more so having these key items on the RMAH makes it a much more level playing field for casual Diablo 3 players.

7. Certain special set items will become available on a monthly basis on the RMAH. A portion of the proceeds will go to charitable causes.

8. Advanced tool tips have been removed as they were confusing to players, led to too much theorycrafting and made it too difficult to make balancing changes since the tool tips would have to be updated so much. Only the simple tool tips are now in the game.

9. A compare item feature has been created. Holding down shift when selecting a piece of armor or weapon will automatically display a message stating which item is "better" for your class. All the damage numbers and math was getting a little too confusing for a lot of players. Many beta testers asked for a simple way to know which item was better. We do not want players to have to struggle over these decisions we want to get them back into the action.

10. Battle Net access now costs $5.99 a month. Although we wanted to keep BattleNet free it was determined that we could not provide the type of experience and content we wanted in a free model. We think that $5.99 is a very fair price as we will be bringing out new content quite often both for free (mostly bug fixes) and new content that can be added through the RMAH. All subscribers to the Diablo Battle Net service will receive a free in game mount and pet in WOW.

I would expect that in typical Diablo III design iteration, they will decide that rune abilities are gathered automatically when you level and all runes are available through a skill like inscription by level 30 or so. Just water the game down even more.

If we let them continue they may decide that all loot drops are removed except for set items, uniques and crafting materials since "that's all people want to use anyway and it will make itemization and balancing of classes and boss fights richer and deeper"

Quote from Baracuda

Quote from snared04drummer

Quote from Bloodyvain

Quote from greatmars

stuff i am glad they removed:
in game PvP, CoJ, NC, extra levels, unique naming, skill tree.

stuff i don't care about:
chat lobby, death animations, pets, Scroll of identify, graphics, offline mode, simplified tips.

stuff you are mistaken about:
traits became passives not removed, character limit 4 is a design choice since some skills take too much screen space (mercenary not in multiplayer for the same reason i guess).

stuff i don't have enough info about:
in game trading, clan systems, rune system.

stuff removed that really matter (some might be added with a patch or with an expansion):
mystic, talisman, PvP modes perm death, reduced storage (items and chracters).

Majority of hardcore players that play diablo 2, love world pvp, thats all they grind up to doing.
Im not mistaken about the character limit, I already knew that.
Not caring about death animations..? well alot of people do on diablo forums.
Trait passives arent a real level up reward, and it was still changed.

Alright on rest

"Majority of hardcore players" WoW that's assuming and speaking for a much larger group of people than you have the authoritiy to do.... Majority meaning 51+%? I don't think you can tangibly prove or even support that statement. You're telling me if I log on right now and there's 48,000 players playing on USEast there are at least 24,001 players PVPing at any given moment? I really, really, really, really doubt that. I'd say 5-10% of active players at any given time are pvp-ing, and I think that's a generous estimate. And I'd say that fewer than 20% of everyone who has ever played Diablo II took PVP serious (which is good, because it wasn't meant to be).

Diablo II was not built around PVP, nor is DIablo III. Can we all arrive at this truth together?

You need to train your reading comprehension mate. "Majority of hardcore players" Does not equal: The majority of people playing Diablo 3 is hardcore, it means the majority of that specific group, not the entire player base.
If 5% of the player base consists of hardcore players and 51%+ of those players(2.55% of the entire player base) enjoy world pvp then a majority of hardcore players enjoy world pvp.

But the majority of "hardcore players" did not PVP. Some did, but I would seriously doubt if it was more than a 10-25% but that is a complete guess just like yours.

Quote from Azidonis

Here's D2 customization:

Paladin - Hammerdin, Zealot, Smiter, FoH, Auradin
Barb - WW, Fury, Cryer
Zon - Bow, Javelin
Sorc - Fire, Light, Ice
Sin - Trap, Martial Arts
Druid - Rabies, Hurricane, Lifebot
Necro - Summoner, Bone, Poison

That's it, in a nutshell. And let's be honest. If you don't have the right merc equipment, some of those builds simply do not work (such as trapasin), unless you plan on running to Akara every time you see an immune. Some of the other builds are terrible, some builds are pvp only.

Yea, lots of customization there...

/sarcasm

There were many more than that, and in D2 they were subclasses NOT builds. Yes I know D2 now has respec but it didnt for 9 years and that is why it became so popular.

Quote from Gheed2010

Quote from snared04drummer

Diablo II was not built around PVP, nor is DIablo III. Can we all arrive at this truth together?

PVP/arena is the only interesting and remotely innovative part of D3 - can we all admit that?

I have no interest in it, and it is not innovative at all. They even call it Arena for crying out loud

Quote from GladHeHasBeta

customization explained for lesser minds


D2 core customization:

1. attributes that resulted in 2 options (for best results): 1. enough str to use gear then rest into vit. 2. enough str to use gear, enough dex for max block, then rest into vit.

2. skill trees. where nearly entire trees were useless and most skills were sub par and only a few skills were used by everyone resulting in 80% of all players using the same exact few builds. hammerdin, meteorb, trapsin. lightning sorc. ect. making it so between all 7 classes there was really only about 30 viable builds for end-game. and everyone used the same skill and gear (enigma cough*)

D3 core customization:

1. Skill runes: where most every skill rune effect is useful in comparison and can be used in combination with thousands of viable builds PER class.

2. blacksmith: able to salvage gear and create hundreds of different weapons and armor with up to 6 completely random stats from a large pool of affixes so you can literally spend years trying to get the exact rolls on all your gear your want for you specific build/class.

TLDR - in the end D3 has far superior customization than D2. if you want to get technical in viable customization then D3 has infinitely more just because of the skill rune system. as said everyone knows how fail 90% of the skills were in D2 therefor removing most of the "customization" from it. an option isnt a real option if its a terrible one that cant compare, the exact same thing goes for the attributes. so stop claiming those were better in any way shape or form.

I think you are completely wrong here. The D3 skill system is a SIGNIFICANT step backward from D2 essentially because there really is no skill system.

Your statement: between all 7 classes there was really only about 30 viable builds for end-game

By extension you are saying that D3 is better because it has more combinations of builds because of runes and other clever math. Here is what you are missing:

Lets say I agree with you that there were only 30 viable "builds" in D3. (There were many more but lets go with it). But those "builds" in D2 were permanent. So in reality there were NOT BUILDS but sub-classes. And you had to choose one.

D3 has 5 classes period. Yes you can choose a build, but you can choose ANY possible build and completely change builds based on each fight. I am sorry but that is a MMO feature not an action RPG feature. Having every build means there is no real customization as there is no choice.

And each sub-class in D2 had some severe weaknesses that you had to work around. Not a worry in D3 though, just swap a few things around. And anyone who thinks the "optimal build" element will not be significantly worse than D2 is completely fooling themselves.

The D3 skill system or lack thereof is completely useless. It takes all depth and all choice and consequence out of the game. It makes it nothing other than an action game.

No one is saying that D2 was perfect, only better in concept. They should have worked to deepen and perfect a system more like Diablo 2 then completely gutting and dumbing down the game to the point that there is no character development in the game at all.

It seems that a lot of people just want this to be a action game with some MMO style elements. I think that is lame.

To me for a game like this to have any depth and long term replayability, there needs to be choices that carry an actual COST, and have a consequence on the rest of the game. If I choose a skill, then there should be a skill I do not get ever.

If there is no consequence to a choice then choices do not matter and the skill system itself does not matter. They become just power ups in an arcade game.

Diablo 3 should be a simple game to get into, but a very complex game underneath with choice and consequence. This game has gone in an entirely different direction. Infinite respecs should only be in an MMO and then only because you are paying $15 a month and leveling a character takes weeks,

I guess it is just the new gaming mentality that WOW has created. I find it sad actually.

Quote from Ayr_Izaelle

Quote from Molster

its only "bad lag" is due to about 100k new people playing and very few servers. It runs fine every other day. One key point of you even getting in now, was for them to see how the game plays when a server is filled way to much. You can expect more servers / less lag in the days to come


as for what you said about talent system, I really like this pic

Good post with a good pic

Pic is stupid because you cannot choose all skills like you get for free in D3. D2 was not a perfect skill system, maybe even just OK, but the D3 system is worse in every way

It just struck me that when people criticize the deeply flawed character system in DIablo 3 and are met with the standard retort of how many possible "builds" there are and how they do not want to play the same character again, they are COMPLETELY MISSING THE POINT.

There is a huge difference between a character that is unique and a character that can switch to a huge number of builds.

DIablo II had dozens and dozens of character archetypes within each character class. If you replayed an Amazon and went for Bowazon, it was a very different experence form a Furyzon or Jabazon. Playing the different archetype was like playing a completely different class. The experience was completely different and it was fun to play different characters through many of which were from the same class.

So Diablo II had a much much larger set of classes than D3 does.

D3 gets away with this entirely. in favor of a bunch of possible builds. But at the end all Demon Hunters are pretty much exactly alike and the game experience is the same. No one will want to play the same character twice.

This is the fatal flaw in Diablo 3

Quote from Snaks42

This thread? Again?




1. You only have ~10 skills and ~ 4 passives unlocked, out of the potential ~120 skills (runestones) and ~ 20 passives available per class.
2. Stat points were broken. They created an issue where if you screwed up you couldn't use half the gear you wanted, or it made you not able to kill anything in the second half of the difficulties. But alas, stat points are still in the game, but they are on gear instead of given per level. This makes the game that much more custom because you choose which gear with which stats you want. A far better system.
3. Having to level a new character every time you wanted to try a different build was also broken. Don't mistake something that was in D2 for good, just because it was in D2. There's nothing that stops you from leveling another character if you so choose, but the majority of the player base don't WANT to level the same class twice or 6 times.

All in all the removal of stat points is a great move, and your toon feels the same because there are almost no options available in the beta that will be at release, including later level spells, runes, passives and gear.

@Bidmal;
Ask yourself, why do you care so much that i can swap skills when i want? Why do you want to put such a penalty on it? There's no good reason because it's a control issue; For some reason people with your mindset have a seriously hard problem thinking that someone else in a different game that you'll probably never meet is able to switch skills. In my opinion the system in place now is awesome, and it bugs me that you want to control how I play the game. Nothing is stopping YOU from keeping whatever build you want, and in all actuality the majority of players will end up sticking with one build. But If they wanted to change, there's the option.

Yes this thread again because the division on this topic is much much greater than you seem ready to admit.

I completely disagree with everything you said. The character generation is completely destroyed in this game. There should be hard choices, and yes, if you want a different type of character you should play a new character from scratch. Saying the majority of people don't want to level a character multiple times, is clearly your opinion and one I feel is incorrect. Everyone I know HATES the direction that D3 has taken with character development, and 10 years of Diablo II success actually point to having to start over as a key component in the game's longevity.