Quote from Cowcaine
people who havnt played d2 for years but hopped on d3 this year will never understand the difference between these 2 games. d2 was addicting like crack, leveling from 1 to around 85 was just a huge journey. The item hunt, sets and runewords just made the game that much more better. And since the skill tree isnt the same anymore i dont see ANY reason at all to make duplicate classes anymore. I used to love having a fire sorc, java zon, bow zon, ice sorc, zeal pally, hammer pally.....there's just too many thing in d2 that kept you going...d3 is pre school on training wheels.
Anyone who actually played D2 for any length of time knows that D2 is facerolling easy.
D3 has FAR more complex combat, and FAR more challenge then D2 ever did.
And I have played D2 since day 1, the only game that made me stop playing D2 was D3.
Str to equip, Dex to hit, everything else to Vit is hardly complex, picking your 2-3 skills to spam endlessly and stacking those skills synergies is hardly complex.
Diablo 2 was brilliant for its time, but D3 has FAR more complexity then D2 ever did. The stats in D3 actually DO SOMETHING, Dex can be a valuble stat on a Barb, Str can be a valuble stat on a WD, etc.
All they need to do is pull the focus from mega damage in Inferno (already being done) and buff some of the lesser used skills (already confirmed for the patch after 1.0.3) and there will be easily 10x the build diversity in D3 then D2 could ever hope to have.
And Runewords? Yeah, its not like you had to wait 2 years and pay for an expansion pack to get those or anything.......
OH WAIT, you did.
1
Many might disagree with some design decisions made, but the end result is a fun game and in the spirit of the diablo franchise. No other game since D2 has even come close. They are not perfect, especially since this is a completely new group, new classes, new engine, new design concepts, they have made some mis-steps but nothing that they are not addressing currently.
If you're so narrow minded to even ask "What did they do right" then sadly my opinion of your intelligence and maturity is vastly diminished. Not that in your immaturity would care.
In fact if D3 is such a mess to you, do us all a favor and find another game. Spare us your presence in these forums.
1
No where is any advert does it say that Diablo 3 will give you hundreds of hours of play. Just like some people play Civilization for 1 campaign and some play it constantly for hundreds of hours. Just like Skyrim, some played 20-30 hours enjoyed it and moved on and I know many have sunk 500+ hours into it. Diablo 3 is just like any other game and the number of hours you play it is dependent on your enjoyment of the game.
You spent 65 hours playing a game, want a refund and you don't think it is a moral issue? Of course it is. All gamers are disappointed by a game some where along the way. You accept it and handle it in a responsible and mature method.
I stand by my opinion, (and it is an opinion not an attack). The OP is a douche with no morals.
1
The game is just as hard or harder than D2 even on nightmare if you only had to rely on just finding better drops yourself. They have given you an option, you don't have to use it, or you can choose to use it sparingly. It is your choice. If your D2 character was fulled decked out as well, the game would be just as easy.
They have chosen to allow more people access to higher levels of the game using the AH. Why is that bad? For the really hard core, you have a choice and can also choose to play hardcore mode. And Inferno is by no means a cakewalk even with great gear.
I simply don't understand people complaining about the game being too easy because of the AH. Not having the AH in D3 would have been a HUGE HUGE HUGE mistake. Say what you will, but there would be a huge outcry for Blizzard to implement an AH and it would be in the game several months later anyway. This is 2012, a game like diablo 3 not having an AH would be ridiculous. The RMAH is a still a bone of contention to many but the Gold AH to my mind a required feature. No one in 2012 wants to look up forum posts just to look for a trade, and if you do want that, then you're stuck in a time warp.
So the only other option is to tune the game for people using the AH? Meaning if you choose not to play the AH game you would literally be unable to progress. So please tell me the options you're thinking about.
Times change, Games evolve, gamers expectations change. If diablo 2 had been released with an AH, it would have faced the same growing pains that D3 is facing now.
1
No, its a logical solution. Limiting auctions to 10 a person at any one time is a great way to stop flooding. Similarly allowing people to undercut is also another way to flood the auction house. You could have someone posting every hour and undercut by only 1000g. This in no way helps the efficiency of the AH.
Right now there's no listing price so I think forcing people to live by their decisions is a balanced alternative. I would rather this than to have auctions I bid for suddenly disappear because a seller constantly cancels his auctions. That happens often enough with items being sold while I'm browsing.
It is not a very user friendly solution, but it is a very logical and efficient solution. It also makes you decision to try and get the most gold vs trying to get a decent value for your item. Major difference.
1
Normal = 90% = 3.6 million complete normal
Nightmare = 70% of previous mode = 2.52 million complete nightmare
Hell = 40% of previous mode = 1,008,000 complete hell
Inferno = 10% of previous mode = 100,800 complete inferno
To that end we've seen less than 10 persons completing Inferno so far, you're one of them. Bottomline is, you're at the TOP end of those 100,800 persons. So again, you're not quite the target audience even for inferno.
Every demographic has a bell curve, 60-70% of those 100,800 persons will fall into the middle range of that bell curve, meaning they find Inferno ultra tough but eventually doable. Being an "elite" you're still not the target audience either.
1
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4846824867?page=24
You and other reading challenged folks are the only ones associating Diablo 3 gameplay with wow. No where is Blizzard introducing Wow's Enrage timers. This is summoning more skeletons (as an example). In Wow, enrage timers are instant die scenarios. In diablo it just makes things a lot more difficult but still possible. You should check your facts before going off on rants.
You do realise that it's been stated over and over, if you've ever seen the interviews, that for each higher difficulity mode Champions/Elites/Bosses has additional special abilites not seen in lower difficulities right?
Not quite as complex as WOW's scripted events but again there's no sense in wasting a lot of coding effort on things that only happen in 1 or 2 modes. Each scripted event is very time consuming to create. Hence the alternative of having new abilities for different modes.
1
WOW. I don't want to make personal attacks or demean you and I've only read the posts on the first few pages and this page. But wow. The only thing that comes to my mind is how old are you?
If you're in your late 20's or older and are holding a steady job supporting yourself and perhaps a family, then you sound really immature. You're telling me that in life you've never encountered lucky bastards who won something while you didn't ? (eg. Winning a lottery or game giveaway) never encountered a situation where you weren't picked for a group either social or sports or otherwise? Where there was a gift/toy/item that you really wanted but so did everyone else and you had to wait a few months? (Eg. iPad launch) When investing in the stock market or your 401k, and how some people who picked stocks which skyrocketed in value despite the market and your portfolio going down?
Blizzard using whatever algorithmic formula they used picked Random people for Diablo 3 closed beta. It was completely luck of the draw. They now want to give those people a Feat of Strength which gives a sigil banner unlock. There are going to be tens of dozens of sigil unlocks just from gameplay. One more isn't going to make a difference to anyone in the grand scheme of things.
Also you made a comment about special Dye + Wings in a previous post that you're losing out on? Anyone buying a collector's edition get's this. You just needed to have 2 criteria. (1) Shell out the cash for a CE D3 box (2) Had been a devoted fan of diablo (or luck) and pre-ordered a box. I can only assume by your post number that you're new to diablofans.com so either you were on another diablo fan site or you are only a casual fan of the game. Some of us have literally been following this game for years and were just waiting for the CE to be available. That's why it sold out in less than a day when initially offered.
Back to my main point, if you're in your late 20's or older and are crying out at the unfairness of people getting a feat of strength, you have bigger issues that a game. If you're not yet in your late 20's and are and are crying out at the unfairness of this, then its a life lesson. One of many you will encounter, so deal with it, see a shrink, find an outlet, whatever. Otherwise you'll find yourself in a whole heap of trouble in a few more years.
You don't want real discussion because this is a non-issue to a rational mature adult. And this sounds bad but Shit Happens, get over it.
1
The point here is that the choice of weather a skill is crap differs from Person to Person. There are folks like Antirepublican who use purely math to calculate if skills are good or not. But his analysis does ignore other aspects of the spell as Glitterpony mentioned (positioning, timing, secondary effects, area of effect, personal preference, etc).
It is easy to call people fanboys and argue purely based on math. But you have to know that not everyone is using that logic. If people decide to use Energy Twister or Meteor in their builds and are finding it fun and not having issues, it doesn't mean it is a bad build.
So they take 25% longer to complete a certain Act, there are so many variables such as equipment used, numbers of monsters faced, random dungeons all of which contribute to the timing of finishing an act. Even builds between classes affect timings, a build focused on kiting would take longer than a build focused on direct damage.
I have no issue with People disliking and dismissing skills, its pure personal choice. I'm not necessarily disagreeing that some skills definitely need buffs/balancing changes from Blizzard. But to flat out say that a spell is completely useless based on math that many people have punctured in terms of logic, and acting like it is a black and white issue is just the sign of a closed mind.
2
- Mana Pots were free flowing in D2. So not the case in D3.
- All these spells were your main attack spells in D2 (esp with synergies), but in D3, most of these spells are not meant as main attacks. (Not to say we can't try to make them our main attacks but you're not meant to have a Meteor Sorceress as in D2)
Again I want to stress, the 3rd or 4th category of skills for each class were never designed to be your main attack, potentially with lots of very specific gear and gems we could potentially chain cast these spells non stop, but that's a conscious build and effort on your part.Unlike Diablo 2 where if you decided you wanted a Hydra build, you would pump 20 points into it, then the synergies and probably use it 90% of the time (before the nerf). Heck with a Freezing Orb sorceress, it was essentially the only spell I cast 95% of the time. Those spells were designed to be your main attack.
And this applies to the other classes as well. I would love to have Exploding Palm as my main monk attack (as it was in 2008 Blizzcon demo). But the current design does not support this. For the Witch Doctor, Chain Casting Acid Cloud seems like an awesome build except it costs 172 mana per cast. For the Demon Hunter, tell me no one thought that chain casting Fan of Knives was an awesome idea! In early beta it was available early on but did crap dmg, now the dmg looks awesome, too bad they added a cooldown.
So just saying that we need to look at Diablo 3 skills as they currently are and the way they are designed (at least at launch), and stop focusing on how similar skills worked in Diablo 2.
FORCE (Wizard)
Hydra
Meteor
Blizzard
TECHNIQUES (Monk)
Exploding Palm
Sweeping Wind
DECAY (Witch Doctor)
Zombie Charger
Acid Cloud
Spirit Barrage
DEVICES (Demon Hunter)
Fan of Knives
Spike Trap
Sentry
MIGHT (Barbarian)
- Very different skills which don't quite compare
1
- You do realize that D2 was chugging along for about 3+ years before the concept of Ladders came into play correct? The first ladder reset was Oct 2003. Diablo 2 was released June 2000. Part of the main reason was because the Blizzard that developed Diablo 2 and LOD were no longer intact. Its the whole Blizzard North and Blizzard East thing. Bottonline, no true detailed code changes could be done because the original team was no more. So the problem of item duping and balancing and future support of D2 was all done via home grown solutions. Moreover this was by then at least a 3-4 year old game, in game years it was ancient.
- It has been over 12 years since then. Blizzard now has a lot more manpower and expertise and $$$$ to prevent things like item duping. Not to mention every account is tied to a Blizzard account which makes banning very much easier. And the added RMAH is even more incentive to put contingencies in place, non of which will be shared with us until it needs to be.
- Blizzard is well aware of all the issues with Diablo 2. If you don't think they have spent a huge bunch of money researching this and preventing duping and such issues from occuring, I think you're very deluded.
- Will there still be botting or duping etc etc etc. Very likely, you can't ever prevent it 100% but the minute it becomes "popular", it will be banned. And as I said, the company knows with RMAH they have to have contingencies in place for any number of situations or face lawsuits.
2. RMAH.
- Please don't hate the RMAH. You might not like it but many many of us do want it in the game. And many of us see it as a good way for Blizzard to protect its users from fraud.
- Your main concern here is that in 1 year, uber item #1 which drops only once for every million games will now have dropped 100,000 times so in theory 100,000 such items exist. its a GLUT!
- First oof let's have the game go live first. This is an economy problem which might/might not be an issue and we will need to see what happens. And you can and will need to break items down for components, this is a very new game system.
3- Lack of new content.
- Please reference the URL that you read this from. Otherwise this is rumor only. I think I follow D3 pretty closely and don't recall Blizzard ever saying there would be no new content.
- Also let's be clear on new content. If you want new areas, new mobs, new levels, you're most probably not going to get it. This is not a monthly payment game, nor does it have a cash shop. This is an online only solo/co-op game. Pay for it once and play for a long time to come. Expect to get what you pay for.
But chances of more gems being added, of more items or more item affixes, of the Mystic being re-added, those are fully possible. Also a lot of us are sure there will be at least 2 expansions. The only thing preventing this is if the game does not sell well (which I doubt will happen). After that... we'll see.
Your Concerns:
1 The whole reason you could get a full Hammerdin in the best equipment off ebay was becuase almost all those items were dupped. In reality, these items are very hard to find. I myslef have played D2 many many times over the years and only ever found 2 Stones of Jordans. So people who used it as the currency of trading were mostly all using dups. Which we have already said should not happen or will be very much harder in D3.
2 No racing, no "be the best" experiences. Uhhhh.. sorry I never did this and so cannot comment also does not sound like my method of play. Additionally, in D2 items could only be sold for gold. In D3 you can and need to break them down for higher level crafting components. Yes this includes breaking down Legendaries for higher level crafting items. How it will all work out? Only time will tell so please have a little faith.
3 You would not sell any and everything just for the heck of it, although each account will have X number of free transactions a week so only farmers (chinese or otherwise) would run into problems with this limit. You would rather buy a better item or break down your current item for components rather than pay the listing fee. This is a good thing. This means only the really valuable items or components will be on sale on the AH. The economy will work itself out and decide.
And not to sound like a broken record but people constantly talk about the perfect gear required for certain builds. Those items did NOT drop very often. Again many people who got those items and consistently reached level 90+ were all using bots. Which should now be more difficult.
Bots. With a Blizzard account being required, you now need a separate account for each game. In D2 you could use 1 game code, create 100's of users names and create 100's of games all with 1 game code. No Longer. So those farmers will need to purchase 100's of legitimate D3 games and create legitimate bliizard accounts to do this. Which is no different than if 100's of persons buying a copy of D3 and playing hours on end.
I don't see an issue with the longevity and replayability of Diablo3 for myself and a great portion of the gaming population. But if you are expecting a game to last another 10 years based on your $60 investment... that might be pushing it a bit. Diablo 2 (and WOW) are perhaps the only games that I can think of that I played over and over again through the years. But then I'm always after the new shiny.
I'm not totally dismissing your concerns. It might be that a ladder reset might be needed in the future, but until we find such a need, I think this is very very pre-mature. Also I think there are better ways to fix the issues than with a ladder reset which was in itself a stop gap solution.