Diablo 3 Beta impressions

[alba007]

I was invited to D3 beta a few days ago and I've been playing it since then. I have played on all classes. Here are my impressions so far.

Positives:
I liked the graphics and colors. The UI seems to be fine. I liked the fact that the gold you're making is accessible by all your toons. You do not have a different gold account for each toon. Likewise all your toons access the same stash (your bank in D3). So, if you find a Wizard unique item while playing your Barbarian you can put it in the stash and retrieve it when you are playing your Wizard. I don't know if this will be the same for all items in the game or if there will be items you cannot pass between your toons.

Negatives:
The talent system looks a little too simple and restrictive, however it may work fine for Diablo.

Unfortunately, Diablo 3 is dumbed down the way WoW has been dumbed down. Apparently, Blizzard does not think challenging game play is the future.
The game holds your hand very very tightly. Here is how questing works:
1 - Game tells you to use the waypoint to go to Cathedral grounds (and shows where it is on the map). You go there.
2 - It tells you to go to the Cathedral gate (and shows where it is on the map). You go there.
3 - It tells you to enter the Cathedral. You enter.
4 - It tells you to go to Cathedral level 2 (and shows where it is on the map). You go there.
So on so forth.

There is no exploration or discovering or finding something. Sure you can ignore the quest instructions and go into the wilderness despite knowing the Cathedral's gate is not there. However, this won't be the same fun you'd have by exploring and discovering the quest objectives on your own.

Mobs are way too easy to kill. I literally yawned and clicked my way most of the time. I tried multiplayer and it gets even worse. All everybody does is trying to run ahead of others and button mashing.

In short, if you like the way WoW has been dumbed down, if you are comfortable with the game holding your hand tightly, if you are not interested in challenging and admittedly time consuming gameplay then Diablo 3 may work just fine for you.
If you have problem with these attributes and you are not happy how WoW has evolved then you may want to find a way to check out Diablo 3 before buying. Try to find a friend who will buy it for sure and play his Diablo 3 before making your decision. It may save you $60.

[Xeyu]

And how was inferno?...oh thought so.

[Ogretron]

Sadly that's how the game market is heading at this point. Even though people will say "Herp, you can change the difficulty to make it harder" it still doesn't change the fact the game holds your hand every step of the way.

[Llunai]

I was invited to D3 beta a few days ago and I've been playing it since then. I have played on all classes. Here are my impressions so far.

Positives:
I liked the graphics and colors. The UI seems to be fine. I liked the fact that the gold you're making is accessible by all your toons. You do not have a different gold account for each toon. Likewise all your toons access the same stash (your bank in D3). So, if you find a Wizard unique item while playing your Barbarian you can put it in the stash and retrieve it when you are playing your Wizard. I don't know if this will be the same for all items in the game or if there will be items you cannot pass between your toons.

Negatives:
The talent system looks a little too simple and restrictive, however it may work fine for Diablo.

Unfortunately, Diablo 3 is dumbed down the way WoW has been dumbed down. Apparently, Blizzard does not think challenging game play is the future.
The game holds your hand very very tightly. Here is how questing works:
1 - Game tells you to use the waypoint to go to Cathedral grounds (and shows where it is on the map). You go there.
2 - It tells you to go to the Cathedral gate (and shows where it is on the map). You go there.
3 - It tells you to enter the Cathedral. You enter.
4 - It tells you to go to Cathedral level 2 (and shows where it is on the map). You go there.
So on so forth.

There is no exploration or discovering or finding something. Sure you can ignore the quest instructions and go into the wilderness despite knowing the Cathedral's gate is not there. However, this won't be the same fun you'd have by exploring and discovering the quest objectives on your own.

Mobs are way too easy to kill. I literally yawned and clicked my way most of the time. I tried multiplayer and it gets even worse. All everybody does is trying to run ahead of others and button mashing.

In short, if you like the way WoW has been dumbed down, if you are comfortable with the game holding your hand tightly, if you are not interested in challenging and admittedly time consuming gameplay then Diablo 3 may work just fine for you.
If you have problem with these attributes and you are not happy how WoW has evolved then you may want to find a way to check out Diablo 3 before buying. Try to find a friend who will buy it for sure and play his Diablo 3 before making your decision. It may save you $60.

Keep in mind this is only Act 1. I think it is incredibly obvious (to everybody except you, apparently) that the initial directions offered in Act 1 are part of a tutorial, for new players.

As for mobs being easy to kill....did you play Diablo 1 and 2?? They were ALWAYS easy to kill, especially at this stage of the game. Honestly, it sounds like you've played WoW but have never touched a Diablo game in your life before now. That is how this series has always been. People who played the first two games know what to expect already.

[davesurfer]

Just for the record, it DOES NOT tell you where to go in a dungeon. Either OP didn't play as he said or is just flat out not telling the truth.

[BoomChickn]

Well one thing to remember is that normal, an especially act one of normal, is kind of a tutorial to the game. It is meant for new people that don't know what they are doing. Now if most of these "hand holding" trends hold over in to the next act or even difficulty, then I think you will have a valid point.

I remember blizzard having a bit of footage from diablo 2 act one normal, you had to get literally within a foot of the zombies for them to attack you. This isn't really that different, if anything the enemies are a bit more aggressive, however they hit for less and health globes heal for a ton (Both of which change in difficulties, the health globes will heal less in later difficulties i believe, again on blizzcon panels).

I do admit there aren't quite as many distractions as in diablo 2, but maybe that can change in later acts. I do remember act one (d2) being relatively closed compared to act two. However both have the large dungeon rooms in the cathedrals where you have to look around quite a bit to find the next level down.

Talent system, to each their own. I wasn't a big fan of diablo 2 talent trees. However changing abilities tailored to a specific boss isn't exactly the best option either. I am thinking having a respec similar to WoW with its costs, while allowing people to swap runestones as needed free of charge would work.

Shared stash ftw. I remember my dad having to use 2 accounts to swap items toon to toon, that would be a bitch to do without shared stash. (Heck you don't even need a second account now...

[Driahtvacahtve]

How far did you go? I mean Diablo 1,2 were not exactly hard in the beginning either, wasting your way through swarms of skeletons, zombies and fallen with little to no problems, while having no gear at all.
In fact in my opinion, provided your geared up properly it wasn't until well into Nightmare/Hell when you started facing mobs that could be immune to just about anything you did, that the game could become quite hard.
For some classes more than others ofc, Warrior was challenging quite quickly while sorceror could breeze through anything once they got aoe.
Duriel was tough for many on any difficulty, as were certain lightning enchanted mobs, mobs with thorns, etc.

As far as I have understood, they added the exstra difficulty for max level, for the sake of challenge.
So to me, it seems this Diablo will be the hardest to come, as we now actually have content scaled to be challenging at max level.
Something unlike any previous Diablo.
But I have not played, I cannot say what it is like. If you have tried the higher difficulties and they are all super clicky easy all the way through then I am probably wrong.

[Deleted]

Some of the points you make, makes me think you haven't played any Diablo game before..

[Howard Moon]

Yeah hopefully the "dumb down" gameplay you described applies only to Act I in normal difficulty.

Btw quests in Diablo 1 and 2 were always very very simplistic.

[Deleted]

Its the easiest setting in a demo (beta) that lasts just over an hour, what was you expecting?

The game has lots of hard difficulties as you go on including hardcore mode, if you die in that your character remains dead and you lose the items it had equipped, they also have 3-4 different difficulty levels to play through, there will be lots of challenges in this game don't worry about that.

[Standing]

I was invited to D3 beta a few days ago and I've been playing it since then. I have played on all classes. Here are my impressions so far.


Unfortunately, Diablo 3 is dumbed down the way WoW has been dumbed down. Apparently, Blizzard does not think challenging game play is the future.

I personally wouldn't use those words exactly, because there are people who enjoy owning stuff for the sake of owning it. For example, the monk seems to be the most over powered class compared to the others right now, and might end up as the most popular. However, both my girlfriend and I for our play style both see the game as way to easy. There was no need to position correctly, worry about where we ran or what we fought. I am hoping for a level of difficulty choice option on release. (edit: I mentioned it elsewhere. These are also the starter levels, and most games tend to make starter levels easy).

The storyline and quest style with the voice overs will never get old. It's a cute game right now. In addition to difficulty levels, I am curious to see more about the max level content they have discussed.

[luedieniel]

Unfortunately, Diablo 3 is dumbed down the way WoW has been dumbed down. Apparently, Blizzard does not think challenging game play is the future.
The game holds your hand very very tightly. Here is how questing works:
1 - Game tells you to use the waypoint to go to Cathedral grounds (and shows where it is on the map). You go there.
2 - It tells you to go to the Cathedral gate (and shows where it is on the map). You go there.
3 - It tells you to enter the Cathedral. You enter.
4 - It tells you to go to Cathedral level 2 (and shows where it is on the map). You go there.
So on so forth.

Diablo 1 didn't tell you where to go, it only let you go in one direction: Down.
Diablo 2 let you run around more freely but the quests tell you to "locate X wtihin zone Y."

Mobs are way too easy to kill. I literally yawned and clicked my way most of the time. I tried multiplayer and it gets even worse. All everybody does is trying to run ahead of others and button mashing.

Same with the first levels in Diablo 1 aswell as normal in diablo 2, the first real 'test' you encounter in Diablo 2 is duriel and he's also cake if you've played the game before.

In short, if you like the way WoW has been dumbed down, if you are comfortable with the game holding your hand tightly, if you are not interested in challenging and admittedly time consuming gameplay then Diablo 3 may work just fine for you.
If you have problem with these attributes and you are not happy how WoW has evolved then you may want to find a way to check out Diablo 3 before buying. Try to find a friend who will buy it for sure and play his Diablo 3 before making your decision. It may save you $60.

I don't like the way WoW has changed but I do like the way diablo 3 is turning out, the game might be telling me where to go but that is actually just fine because the game revolves around a story and I intend to experience that story, in hardcore, all the way through inferno. No matter how much the game holds my hand it won't help me when I'm playing hardcore.

If you intend to 'save' your $60 based on the difficulty level of act 1, I'm pretty glad you won't be bouncing around on the D3 forums complaining about how class X ability Y is unbalanced due to reason Z.

[Tojara]

Isn't the beta about as much content as doing up to Blood Raven in Diablo 2?

If I only drew my impressions upon that when I first started Diablo 2 I would think that the game is shit.

[Dermot]

I can't see any problem, it is no easier than Diablo II Act I was. As for the hand holding? Diablo II and Diablo III are both linear in that there is only one way to go, you just have to find it, that's all.

[Extremities]

My concerns with the beta so far is how terribly small act 1 feels like and how terribly linear the areas are. Not very much exploration because the zone areas you have access to are soooooo small in size. Diablo 2, yes the stuff was linear as well but the zones were much larger so you could go out and kill crap in the zones. Now, theres no telling how the acts beyond 1 are so heres to hoping they are much larger in size.

[TaurenNinja]

Diablo never was hard, or "confusing" or whatever. Not Diablo 1, not Diablo 2, and not Diablo 3. Very linear games, all of them, and all monsters at lower difficulty/gear levels were "click to kill".
D2 on Hell mode was challenging until you got good enough gear (or you had luck playing a class/spec or with a party that was well-equipped for doing that).

Anyway. Diablo is really all about the visceral fun you get by destroying tons of monsters with different, unique super-powerful abilities. And about getting better loot.
That's really all there is to it. Diablo series is one of the most braindead games on the market, but it's of stellar quality compared to similar games and it's just an appealing, simple gameplay, so in the end it's still very fun to play.
WoW is rocket science compared to Diablo.

I'm certain that Diablo 3 will be somewhat challenging on the higher difficulty levels, but it wouldn't be a Diablo game if it weren't braindead-easy (yet still fun) at lower levels.

[Llunai]

Isn't the beta about as much content as doing up to Blood Raven in Diablo 2?

If I only drew my impressions upon that when I first started Diablo 2 I would think that the game is shit.

It's more than that, but not much more. It's very very short. I'm not sure if the beta is intended to be the entirety of act 1 or not, but it's certainly shorter than D2's act 1 (and D2's beta).

[Sandraudiga]

I for one was super excited for D3. Loved Diablo 1, and played Diablo 2 entirely way too much, having multiple 99 hardcore characters.

This beta though has my excitement levels dimmed. Its significantly easier than Diablo 2, which is saying quite alot. Talent system has forest gump written all over it, but talent system in D2 wasn't very great either.

Also, like the OP pointed out, there seems to be a trend with Blizzard making content more linear in terms of exploration. Wow dungeons evolved from BRD and Upper/Lower BRS, into a path of rooms from room one to room two to room three etc. This isn't quite as pronounced in D3, but it really does feel like you are being herded from story point to story point in as strait a path as possible.

Overall, its still a good game, don't get me wrong. If I hadn't bought the annual pass and was forced to have it I would still buy it. After playing the beta though i've gone from "Bloody hell blizzard get off your asses and release it already" to "Yeah, that's okay, i'll play it sometimes".

[Oldbugga]

Thanx for that and I don't mean to rain on your parade......

But it IS only one person's opinion, based on unknown experiences and prejudices, about a portion of the game in which we don't know the length of the ACT, we don't know its difficulty level, we don't know whether, because it is a beta, it isn't fully balanced yet, we don't know if and how the difficulty levels scale yet because of the small sample etc etc etc.

I do appreciate your feedback but I think your conclusion is a bit hasty basically because there are too many unknowns at this stage.

[nbm02ss]

I was pretty bored with the beta (demo?) myself. Got past the cathedral and (spoilers) saved Cain, went and retrieved the skeleton king's crown. Granted, there really wasn't anything hard about D2 on normal difficulty, but I will miss the talent trees. Pretty much all the beta did was ensure that I won't be buying it on release. I'm just going to wait for reviews and see if it's worth it for the harder difficulties.