DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

[cidbahamut]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Wait, so now EA is in charge of the Diablo franchise? Man, I stop paying attention for one weekend and the whole industry turns itself upside down.

[jenova_9]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

no, Cid. WTFBBQ is just mixing examples.

When you know its a problem...
When your customers know its a problem...

AND THEN you go on to make it online-only anyway...
And your customers go on to buy it anyway...

Actually the community was divided on the subject of RMAH, there were many that actually approved it. As for online only, the backlash from the prelaunch online only news wasn't huge, the community wasn't that vocal against it because general PC market is already online universal anyway, people were more preoccupied with wanting to play it. Also considering PS3/console version removes DRM, removes RMAH and adds things like couch co-op and redone loot drop system, as well as adding things the latest PC versions add (like PVP), and more direct control like action rpg is meant to be controlled, that is all a good sign of learning their lesson and giving the community at least the option to play it offline through the console version with a fresh slate.

[cidbahamut]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

no, Cid. WTFBBQ is just mixing examples.

[DakAttack]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Ze goggles!

[Taskmage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Diablo III for PS3 and PS4 is nothing more than an admission of the failure to listen and someone stepping down from their position is hardly a reassurance that the business itself hasn't learned its lession.

I disagree. I would say the company has definitely earned a lesion.

[Malacite]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

<.<

[Kailea]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

I am with some on this, never bought the PC version, wont touch it with a 10-foot poll, but I might get the PS3 version..... IF it has no always online BS, and the real money AH is gone.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Both are gone in the PS3 version.

[Malacite]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Really? Thank god. So no micro transactions via PSN then.

But is the regular AH still there?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

The parrot is dead.

[Icemage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

I care less about class balance and more about the game being rewarding at higher levels. I picked it up again for a few hours a couple months ago and felt like I had achieved absolutely nothing in that time. May even have made negative progress due to dying a few times to a stubborn elite. In D2 I could make some directed effort and walk away with something at least usable if not uber. In D3 you basically wander around killing whatever elites you find and often don't find a single thing that any class would consider using.

Sorry, when I say "balance" I meant making the game not suck. D2's patches weren't just to balance out the game.

1.06 was the last playable and fun version of Diablo 2. 1.07 was vanilla Lord of Destruction, which basically broke everything in the game on Hell difficulty because 90% of character builds failed miserably. Patch after patch after patch later, they completely reworked skills and a lot of item mechanics... and the game still isn't particularly good because no one at Blizzard had the brain cells to realize that making every monster with at least one random complete immunity made only terrible min-maxed character builds playable on Hell difficulty.

Fast forward to Diablo 3, where that same thinking has again reigned supreme. Instead of giving players viable choices, they have again forced people into min-maxing specific stats and builds just to stay alive on anything past Normal. The itemization focus in D3 still reeks. You need good weaponry in D3. There's no way around it because sooner or later if you're just relying on skill-based damage, you're going to either run out of mana or run into something that laughs at whatever skill you've focused on. Same problem as in D2 LoD, and it's just sad that no one at Blizzard could see that coming with the design they had on their hands.


Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

That's actually not true - virtually any build you can come up with is viable at least up until A2 on Hell. It's not until around A3 that you seriously need to start stacking resists along with your armor (depending on which your class is lacking) and going for more cookie-cutter builds. But ultimately yes, despite the wide variety of runes for each skill, only a handful of skill + rune combos are truly viable. It's a combination of retarded mob affixes and certain skills just being so underwhelming there's no point in using them.


One of the stupidest decisions they made IMO was to tie all abilities to your weapons. I couldn't believe me eyes when I discovered my Wizard's damage was so pitiful because my main hand weapon was trash. Since when does the dps of a wand dictate how powerful magic is?!

And while I do like the concept of runes modifying skills, I don't like not being able to invest into a skill to strengthen it. That was one of the key concepts they got right in Diablo 2 and should not have screwed with. I'm not necessarily favoring going back to the old skill points + tech trees path, but rather some kind of hybrid; Allow us to still mix and match skills and runes to modify those skills, but also put emphasis on those skills.


For example, let's take the Wizard and the Hydra Skill. In D3, you can modify the hydra with 5 different runes to change how it functions (Lightning, Poison, Arcane etc.). But there's no real sense of commitment, no way to emphasise that skill as part of your build; You can enhance the damage of Hydra by increasing your INT but that's it. You can't say, add points or forego other benefits to for example, increase the AoE from the Arcane Hydra, or duration of the poison from the Venom Hydra etc. etc.

THAT is what's sorely missing from D3, that sense of identity that your characters had in D2.

[Taskmage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

1.06 was the last playable and fun version of Diablo 2. 1.07 was vanilla Lord of Destruction, which basically broke everything in the game on Hell difficulty because 90% of character builds failed miserably. Patch after patch after patch later, they completely reworked skills and a lot of item mechanics... and the game still isn't particularly good because no one at Blizzard had the brain cells to realize that making every monster with at least one random complete immunity made only terrible min-maxed character builds playable on Hell difficulty.

I had forgotten about all of this. Remembering those things now, I agree with your assessments completely.

[Malacite]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

I dunno, I still liked LoD - the plot was good and I loved the synergies patch, as it added a lot more depth to the skill trees. But it's still true that the fundamental, underlying mechanics of the game remained horribly broken. Mob immunites was the single stupidest thing they could have done. The resist penalties they hit you with starting Nightmare and Hell were also complete horseshit - you could end normal with max resist but then when you start nightmare suddenly you're barely over 15~20; by the time you hit Hell you're got negative resistances. Instead of just tweaking the values on equipment and skills, they just arbitrarily screwed you over when you move up to the next difficulty. Don't get me started on the clusterfuck that was rune words or the Horadric Cube (though the cube was a cool idea, it was implemented so badly...)


They screwed up too many skills as well along the way; Making Pierce no longer proc on Guided Arrow basically killed the Bowazon vs bosses. Fire magic for the sorceress stopped being effective entirely about midway into nightmare (though the enchant build actually became horrifically powerful with the right gear). Ironically enough, it wasn't until I think 1.12 or 1.13 that skeletons actually became viable into early Hell, where as before that they really sucked past Normal.

Oh yeah, they nerfed lower resist + bone spells (doesn't reduce resistance to magic dmg anymore) which was an epic dick move... they even nerfed the Hammerdin pretty badly.

[Taskmage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

The combination of synergies AND immunities was what really sucked ass, especially for sorceress. To maximize your bonuses you had to commit all your points to one element, which made you totally screwed vs immunes, while if you went with a less one-dimensional build your damage output ended up feeling sub-par. There were ways to work with it with any class, but the constraint it put on build possibilities was onerous.

Iirc, I spent most of LoD playing assassins, since both trap and MA builds had strong skills that synergized across multiple elements.