It's just how I feel about the guy. I don't think he "gets" the genre. I don't really feel like I'm playing an ARPG at this point. I feel like I'm playing an action-adventure game with a hell theme. What I mean by that is that, to me, one of the biggest things for an ARPG is that players have choices in things to do. As someone pointed out in this thread, or another, there actually were a lot of different things to do in D2 depending on what you actually wanted to farm. (EDIT: It's one of the issues I had with PoE and maps. What the fuck is the point of the entire rest of the game? A dumb story to get in the way of the real fun? To me "endgame" in an ARPG should be systems set in place ... like bounties, ubers, paragon, etc. ... that enhance the existing content and make it more tolerable when repeated ad infinatum and NOT completely-separate systems that rather invalidate the rest of the content. For me bounties are, generally a great idea, whereas rifts being the "best place to farm" is a horrible idea.)Quote from Bagstone
I disagree with your Josh rant. Towards the end of your post, you sound very similar to one of the bitter guys from the official forums. Yes, Josh might not have as much ARPG background as we wished the D3 Lead Director would have, but stating that he has never played an ARPG before makes it sound like RoS is a total failure in your eyes, and that's just ridiculous.
If you wanted to farm high runes you'd go to a different place than if you wanted to farm socketed gear to put them in. And, while I think specific boss farming (particularly any farming where you fire up a game for 90 seconds and create a new game) is generally bad, I am finding that I hate loading up a game just to do five rifts. Why is the endgame JUST rifts? Why isn't story mode remotely valid? Why doesn't adventure mode, aside from rifts/bounties, have any purpose? I mean they opened up the game so that all the acts were stitched together seamlessly (something I desperately thought the game needed) and then Josh buffs rifts so that the main meta-game is to spend as little time doing ANYTHING other than rifts as humanly possible.
As much as I wouldn't be interested in PvP, it's really sad that some very basic concerns (size of the brawling area, etc.) haven't been addressed yet. People do enjoy it and there's no doubt that NOT having it and NOT showing any intent to fix even the most simple aspects of it that people feel aren't working properly, actually hurts the longevity of the game.
And, honestly, I'm still not pleased at how many legendaries didn't have legendary properties. I had put much more faith in the team to know better than that, and they really left me down. I'd figured that given D3V and, moreso, the fact that Jay gave reworking legendaries a try and swung and missed, that they'd have been more detail-oriented on the subject. That they wouldn't have been content for half of the oranges that drop in RoS to be Skorns, Mempos, EFs, Angel Hair Braids, etc. It's almost like Josh has selective hearing. They want better legendaries.... check. What constitutes a bad legendary... NOT LISTENING.
I just don't get him. For me the RoS game isn't THAT much more playable than the vanilla game. Not because of BoA per se. But because the possibility that the game had with BoA was immense... and it just didn't live up to that. The game never should have went live with drop rates that were so low. BoA was supposed to, according to Josh, allow them to jack up drop rates so that we felt like we were finding things. I remember him saying 6 legendaries in a single act clear on Campaign Mode. We weren't remotely close to that in 2.0. Even after the anniversary buff becoming permanent we're arguably not close to that in Campaign Mode. Why did he make such a big deal about being able to increase drop rates being a benefit of BoA... and then go live with junky drop rates?
I thought BoA was supposed to allow them the freedom to go wild and get crazy with ideas. I haven't really seen that translate into anything revolutionary in RoS. If I saw him leading a team that really was thinking outside of the box and presenting me with those groundbreaking things that BoA was allegedly going to allow them to do, that they absolutely couldn't do with trading, then I'd probably STFU on the subject. But it really isn't there.
EDIT
The reality of the situation for me is that I agreed with him that BoA probably would let them do awesome things that they *may* not have been able to do without it. And I don't miss the AH. But in order for me to feel that BoA is justified, I want to see them go nuts. I want them to show me that BoA *is* the right choice by showing me all these mind-blowing ideas. I simply don't see ANYTHING mind-blowing about RoS. And that really rubs me the wrong way.
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Im certainly not a professional game developer. I spend 90% of my free time enjoying roleplaying games, I'm in no rush to spend 90% of my working time fighting to create them.
You say the phrase "armchair developers" as if actual game developers do not litter the internet. And that actual professional developers do not hate certain aspects of Diablo 3.
You say it like only an actual professional game developer can even attempt to describe an idea about a roleplaying game that is subjectively tantalizing.
I'd imagine I could name any actual gaming professional or gaming company in the world and you would not be impressed and consider 100% of their efforts to pale in comparsion to those of the company that made this thing:
http://i.imgur.com/6Ph9d.png
and dropped it into the game with a smile on their face while doing cartwheels to the bank.
if you are going to insinuate that I and countless others whom I was referring to are so unfit to critique a video game adopted by millions, of course I'm going to toss a picture your way of fucking lame example of work done by a company that earns billions of dollars in profit.
either you will still cling to that picture saying its a cool legendary for a level 60 zone, and many characters should be so lucky and eager to find and use it,
say its a one in a million happening, having such shitty stats, and is not a fair example of the quality of drops
or say that its a tiny example of stupidity in a massive game that earns alarmingly rampant praise from all but the most grizzled and hateful critics. if you did not say one of those three above phrases than I fear you and I are in agreement and have not described our thoughts correctly to each-other....
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But it does not address the underlying model of the game.
They keep resetting the gear. first they design legendaries during development. and they fucking SUCK. Then the redesign them, and a very small portion of them surge past the rest in terms of power. Many still completely suck. Then trifecta gear absolutely steamrolls all other gear, all other gear sucks then they roll out "demonic Essence gear" which is kind fun to chase after for a while. but 90% of all the crafting still sucks from the beginning.
So now whats their next plan? lets take 100% of all the items ever generated pre patch, and 100% of peoples interest in the game voraciously tracking these items down and ban them from our next "gear block" which also happens to be the most interesting one. It includes the brand new enchanting system.
it just seems like FFS....they are the "game masters" overseeing our table top adventure....so....get with it and master the fucking game. It seems like they are zig zagging all over the place with out a clue in the world. as if they have never made a world consuming large scale online rolepayign game before. except they have. probably more than once LOL.
TLDR: IMHO rah rah ****ing bullsh**t!! /angry !!
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RoS is probably a shining example even among all the current titles floating around..
out of curiosity I'd love to hear your write up on what you mean about disagreement over "what the devs are doing" in regards to this particular subject.
Maybe in a new thread?