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  1. #41
    Quote Originally Posted by Berethos08 View Post
    It is of consequence when, as a game creator, you want your players to continue playing. Grinding for infinite scaling stat points, grinding for gold, and grinding for loot would all have the same end result of power progression, but only one of those adds an additional element.

    It's the same concept behind why people gamble - that "the next one could be a winner" feeling that infinite stat scaling and gold drops from creatures simply does not provide. It's Grind X to Achieve Y with a chance at getting Z to get you to Y faster. That rush when you get Z is what fuels the player as they work their way toward Y, and it's an integral part of the ARPG genre.
    Its like I said farming gold then buying a peace of gear from the AH dose not give you the same feel as a awesome item dropping.

    And that is what D3 lacks the RNG is so bad that its better to just play the AH and buy the gear or farm gold and buy the gear.

    Diablo 3's Shell is that of a ARPG but its spirit isn't.

    At lease that is how I feel anyway.

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  2. #42
    Two things.

    Itemization - Lackluster unimaginative stats, unlike where in D2 a unique you found when you were lvl 20 is useful to other classes or even inspire you to go for specific build

    Replay-ability - Once you finish the highest difficulty rest of game is eternal loop of getting better gear with boring itemization, no reason to make new character no new build to try, no special unique to inspire you.

  3. #43
    I think jtbrig sig is spot on. I remember in one of my psych classes, we learned about a study on incentives and motivation. If you were to start paying people for the stuff they love to do, then they start to lose the incentive to continue cause then it feels like a job. Thats how I and i bet many other felt about D3 AH. Essentially you are farming to get "paid", ie farming for gold in order to obtain item rewards from the AH. It is a barrier that is created between farming and getting your loot that turned alot of people off.

    Yes i bet there are some who have ignored the AH entirely and have power leveled their char and are really enjoying it. But lets face it, the itemization sucks. So when you go weeks without getting any sort of upgrade and see trash drop after trash drops, then its a matter of discipline. Why should I keep farming when the option for AH is there and so easily accessible. It not so easy to tell people "hey just dont use the AH".

    I think the most fun i had in d3 was actually in the beta. there was no AH, max level was like 13, and item stats were limited to choose from, so any rare that dropped felt like an upgrade. I remember joining public games on barb for SK boss runs. we'd plow through the act and kill SK just for any upgradeable loot. It awesome seeing your char progress in power as you got more upgrades. And once my barb was geared enough, I started a new class and did the same over again. Really felt like my old D2 days.

  4. #44
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by mvallas View Post
    My theory is simple... Diablo III's next expansion pack is not just going to be promoted as an expansion, but will be hyped up to be complete re-launch/overhaul of Diablo III.

    I guarantee that people will see the expansion and say "Woah! That's a WHOLE lot more than I was expecting!"... and that's what Blizz will want you to think.

    So, this is why you won't see any major content in patches. They're saving ALL of it for the "re-launch" via the expansion.
    Yup they need to do that or it will be wasted anyway, thanks to the Boiling frog effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog.

    If they release content in small chunks over the years, it will never be enough to bring back players. Diablo strength comes from multiplayer, playing with friends and killing large pack of mobs. Whenever there is a small content patch one player might decide to give it a try, log in, see not a single friends online play 1H and stop. One of his friend might do the same 3 days after because the small content patch did not trigger a "must try it now".

    If a big expac is released it's highly likely that those two friends will end up playing at the same time and assuming the expac content is meaningful and interesting might get to stick a lot longer.

  5. #45
    my experience on DIII;

    Five players playing each class was a fun idea but i did not encounter to do such an experience. I found that looking for players to effectively synergise with the class' was far in between. i found a couple players. we were able to synergise, this was back when inferno was difficult if not impossible to go through. the items in general was random drop random stats that your class did not use. which required a lot of time to find the ones you wanted tailored for your class and build. caster items with strength for example. if the game dropped items for your class able to use would be best experience. the game is all about how you use the abilities you want for the build you like to use and stats on gear.

    i did try pvp with a sorceress as barbarian. i was able to resist her greatest spell damage along with about 15% life left on my character; except from a melee point, the weapon damage was not even denting her. basically i come to this conclusion any game made by the company that made DIII. they prefer the range class's, and will always be better than the melee they make. casters bowmen etc. they really do prefer range over melee. if you remember the sean connery bond films specter organization at least they had an evil mastermind petting a cat the audience could watch. what happened? so noone really gets the moment to think through about a game when they release except give it to the players but we don't have the patients to organise and all agree to make the necessary changes in the discussion or the position to do so. Leadership.

  6. #46
    I stopped playing last August. Anyway, all my upgrades came from AH and that annoyed the hell out of me.

  7. #47
    The problem with D3 aren't the nerfs or the AH - it's the bad itemization system.

    Why people used thenAH from the very beginning? Because farming for items was in reality impossible. The way RNG impacted on gear made the 99% of items worth literally nothing - beware, AH has nothing to do with this.

    AH damage is huge because the availability of good gear was so scarce; now they are taking multiple actioons against this, but the damage is already done - people who still play usually have already bought everything. People who just starts or starts again to play is facing a wall of crap items for nothing with on top uber rolled gear which costs an arm and a leg for each piece (so everyone can get maximum two of them lol).

    Again, the AH just made visible the itemization problem, because it has become the fast and easy solution to it. Doesn't matter if they fix up everything, the damage is already done and all solution are just patches over a hole. With time the situation will stabilize, but it's been screwed badly at the start.

    P.S: about nerfs and the entire "WTF they don't have tpo treat D3 like WoW", i'm sure that if i say D2 necro 1.05 blood golem nerf (iirc the patch number), only a few remeber. Don't get cocky over your character, this happened everytime many years ago and everyone was fine with that, they just changed their abilities a little and continued farming.
    Non ti fidar di me se il cuor ti manca.

  8. #48
    Obviously, not one of you has multiple characters in hardcore mode.

    It is very different in HC.

    Because the game becomes a goal orientated game instead of a pure gear chase.

    In trying to beat the game in hardcore with every class (d3 inferno), you are really playing a game of survival with a goal.

    ------

    At that point D3 ' s gear chase ONLY becomes a means to an end and that simply is : survival.

    -----

    It is odd that the game shines in HC, as the AH becomes a resource management system within VERY limited means (everyone dies) and with no external sources (no gold buyin).

    For those complaining: try to raise several classes in HC. You'll soon realise D3 is an awesome system as ... Every death is further progress to that end goal: all classes down HC inferno Diablo.

    I am quite sure most will be taken by surprise once they play it HC with this goal.

  9. #49
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    Quote Originally Posted by KBWarriors View Post
    You know, I get they've made some minor band-aid changes to the game to improve it, but one must wonder what exactly they're doing for an entire year almost to go by without one single major patch.

    It's been almost a year and I'm really trying to love the game. It's the same process with every single character though, the game's only a year old and I loathe leveling. I don't mind Act 1 but Act 2 makes me want to rip my hair out. Act 4 is FAR too short and I think we can all say we're tired of farming Act 3 over and over again.

    All these band-aid changes are helping in some way or another but they're still not trying to address the real issues of this game.

    - Itemization is stupid. They did this in order to focus people more towards the Auction House. They knew it would happen, there's no way you couldn't know it would happen by introducing such a bogus itemization. Diablo 3 is a farming game, not an Auction House game.
    - There's no way Chris Metzen or any of the other talented writers they've employed have worked on this storyline. I love the stories of all Blizzard games but this one felt ridiculous. Bosses always told you their diabolical plans and it just felt like watching a cartoon from the 90s. "You may have beaten my Lieutenant but my armies still flow through the hell rift.. HAHAHAHA!" "Oh you killed my Hell Rift? That's fine, that's not my only one!"
    - Not only is the story beyond terrible in-game but you're forced to follow it. There's no free-roaming allowed, you HAVE to play the same tired out story over and over. Not only that, but there's still no option to auto-skip cinematics. We get it, you want us to watch the cinematics and in-game pauses, but skipping them 200 times per character just to get through Inferno isn't fun.
    - I'm not a hardcore PvPer but the PvP that was displayed before release looked fun. Yet, we still have no hopes of ever having arena like PvP come our way. Don't you dare bring up the Brawling feature either, that was a slap in the face.
    - Also forced monster affixes are the idea of someone that needs to be fired. You have no control over being walled in, jailed, feared or anything else. Players should have an opportunity to avoid these attacks before they happen. We can smash through demonic sieges, 10 foot monsters and we can destroy the environment but we can't break 3 foot walls when monsters surround us with them?

    Let's look at some old videos of how Diablo 3 was looking before the release:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEvThjiE038 (this video is one of the videos that got me hooked)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZrGE3VLiSk (Ah... PvP)

    This one still gets me to lol
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsqUZkmO-zk (How I felt on launch day)

    Just a quick overview of what I remember was brought by patches:

    1.0.8
    - Adding AH Tooltips
    - Giving players more incentive to play Multiplayer
    - Increasing the MF cap
    - Fixing Monster Density so that players do more than two sections of Act 3
    - Giving players the ability to Identify All (I'm not sure why there's UNID in the first place since they don't require a tome)
    - More nerfs and more buffs

    1.0.7
    - NV persists through Acts
    - MF was increased in MP games
    - Nerfed res timer
    - Buffed gold pickup radius
    - MP came to public games
    - Blizzard added Brawling (only further enraging people who want to PvP)
    - Demonic essence was added
    - Reflect damage got a nerf
    - A bunch of crafting plans were added (most of them being BoP)

    1.0.6
    I don't remember what this did.. a couple of bug fixes? I'm not looking it up.

    1.0.5
    - More buffs
    - Added MP
    - Added Ubers
    - I remember a couple of monster nerfs

    1.0.4
    - Paragon levels

    1.0.3
    I don't remember... I think they buffed item drops in this one? Or something? I know they made it so you couldn't kite mobs into town anymore.

    1.0.3
    1.0.2
    If I recall, they fixed a bunch of embarrassing errors that shouldn't have been there in the first place.
    I agree with you fully.
    The story was horrendously laughable, childish even. The auction house ruined the rest of the game.

    ---------- Post added 2013-04-30 at 01:32 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by BenBos View Post
    Obviously, not one of you has multiple characters in hardcore mode.

    It is very different in HC.

    Because the game becomes a goal orientated game instead of a pure gear chase.

    In trying to beat the game in hardcore with every class (d3 inferno), you are really playing a game of survival with a goal.

    ------

    At that point D3 ' s gear chase ONLY becomes a means to an end and that simply is : survival.

    -----

    It is odd that the game shines in HC, as the AH becomes a resource management system within VERY limited means (everyone dies) and with no external sources (no gold buyin).

    For those complaining: try to raise several classes in HC. You'll soon realise D3 is an awesome system as ... Every death is further progress to that end goal: all classes down HC inferno Diablo.

    I am quite sure most will be taken by surprise once they play it HC with this goal.
    How the heck could Hardcore be LESS of a gear chase? If anything it's worse for someone playing Hardcore because without the proper gear you will die.

  10. #50
    Quote Originally Posted by BenBos View Post
    Obviously, not one of you has multiple characters in hardcore mode.

    It is very different in HC.

    -snip-
    I don't have, and don't plan to have. I played some time HC in D2, but it's just not for me; i just hate to lose a char. So i play SC and just avoid the AH entirely.

    In the end i agree with you, HC is different and simply doesn't have the means to farm enrmous amount of resources because of permanent death.

    The point anyway is not "HC provides a better game experience" but (to me) "why everything in the game has become tied irreversibly to the AH?".

    Now they can change a huge amount of things making the AH more "marginal", but the damage is already done - people have already awesome gear on multiple characters.
    Non ti fidar di me se il cuor ti manca.

  11. #51
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by catbeef View Post
    only reason i have no bought diablo 3 yet is that it still costs a ridiculous amount of money.

    wake me up when it hits $15~
    That would be around first D3 expansion, the orginal version will cost around 15 and exp will cost atleast 40 in the most basic digital version.

  12. #52
    You dont really need to use the AH honestly but if you are part of the impatient and/or self entitled crowd you can farm mp6/7 quiet easily with less than 5m gold which will get paragon lvls pretty fast for the ones that havent leveled it yet. MP0 is like doing late nightmare early hell even with mediocre gear.

  13. #53
    Quote Originally Posted by Noomz View Post
    How the heck could Hardcore be LESS of a gear chase? If anything it's worse for someone playing Hardcore because without the proper gear you will die.
    Because the HC game is a game of resources. I'll explain.

    1. Gear gets reset in HC Diablo 3 all the time, because everyone dies (at one point).
    2. The HC AH has no option of buying gold. So you better make everything count before you buy something.
    3. Even when your character dies ... it builds up your progress as the only thing lost is your CURRENT worn gear, not the gear already assembled and stocked. Your gold is saved too as are the professions and learned crafting.

    4. The progress and GOAL in hardcore Diablo 3 is survival, the gear chase becomes only a means to that end, not a goal as such.

    5. Crafting is even more awarded since the market is limited AND constantly reset (through deaths).

    All the above makes for a complete different game than Softcore play, since the 3 different ways to obtain gear (grinding/crafting/trading) is tied to a kind of resource spending which is much more rewarding than in softcore.

    You only get a feel how D3 should be played if you start up 3 or 4 different hardcore characters and ... die with them.

    Suddenly you see that the game becomes a resource management system in which the player can set his/her own goals.

    To me that is kiling HC Dablo Inferno on all classes.

    Much more challenging and you'll be occupied quite a while with that.

    No doubt: in hardcore mode D3 is one of the best games I ever played.
    Last edited by BenBos; 2013-05-02 at 09:53 AM.

  14. #54
    I was actually having some fun when I left ( and haven't returned yet). Was a bit tired of my max level character and was leveling a sorcerer in an odd way.

    I managed to make it to chapter 3 in nightmare without a death but quit soon after. I suppose the AH has become a deterrent for my return, though, I am not sure it's as bad as I think...

  15. #55
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    I'm honestly not sure if a major patch could bring me back because the damage to this game has been done.

    The childish cartoon like storyline is a pathetic slap in the face. We went from the World Stone shattering the barrier between Heaven and Hell to this:

    Act 4
    "For some reason, you'll have to fight my lieutenant who controls my demons!"
    "Oh so you beat my Lt? That's fine, because I have this Hell Rift and monsters constantly pour out of them!"
    "Oh so you beat my Hell rift? That's fine, because I HAVE not one.. but wait.. TWO HELL RIFTS!"
    "Oh so you beat my second Hell rift? I'm going to go hide in the tower, come fight me!"

    I know it's not worded like that but that's about the extent of it... Act 4 was embarrassingly short and the lackluster story is enough to make me quit.

    Not only that, but you can't skip the poor story, it's forced. Why do we have to continue to click "Cancel" on every mini-in game cinematic after Normal? Why isn't there an Auto-Skip option for people who have beaten normal for the personal cinematics as well?

    I'm currently not playing Blizzard games because in my personal opinion, I feel the quality of WoW is slipping downhill and D3 is.. well.. I'm not sure if it's fixable at this current point in time.

    Also: The AH is still currently the most viable way to gear up. Grinding is one thing, but when stats are completely RNG and Legendaries can be utter garbage (most of the time they are), people are forced to use the AH.

    Also, the most viable way to make gold is via the AH too by buying gems on the RMAH and selling them on the GAH. I'm sure Blizzard isn't complaining about this one while they pretend it was a mistake. Activi$ion showing it's true influential colors even though they operate separately. :\
    Last edited by KBWarriors; 2013-05-03 at 02:10 AM.

  16. #56
    I never found the itemization to be particularly bad. It is alittle different than two...it seems like the randomized stats on a legendary mean more than anything else, but maybe I've just able to intercept it better than I did 10 odd years ago. The auction house doesn't really generate loot. People have to go out and do it. Gold is just a way for people to efficiently trade items of differing values and honestly it is a huge relief compared to the no support we previously had. Like others have suggested, if you have the will to resist buying gear for gold (effectively trading with others), then do so. You'll get that same thrill of getting a new item.

    Yeah, you might not get the best rolled Inna's Temperance pursuit with resist all on it or whatever and only 8 percent attack speed, but it will still be way ahead of whatever yellow you are wearing when it drops. With paragon levels especially, you have this growing chance to get better stuff without giving up as many stats...basically you'll get geared up eventually. Will it be as good as having access to millions of players drops? No way. Will it work to play the game? Totally.

    That being said, I finally got one of my friends to download the try and play with me. He commented how relieved that it felt like the older game just with a clean up of the system in terms of skill points and build flexibility. (Granted he's only around 30ish so far on more than one character; he might play them all through normal before moving onto nightmare.) He's pretty much refused to use the auction house and doing just fine. I actually don't think he'll have any problems beating the game on inferno without ever touching it. (There's a wizard that did it on mp 0 with blues after all.) He's the type that will probably play hardcore characters again. It never appealed to me to lose hours of effort by being inattentive once, but for him it was a challenge I guess.

  17. #57
    Quote Originally Posted by Hanyuu View Post
    I never found the itemization to be particularly bad. It is alittle different than two...it seems like the randomized stats on a legendary mean more than anything else, but maybe I've just able to intercept it better than I did 10 odd years ago. The auction house doesn't really generate loot. People have to go out and do it. Gold is just a way for people to efficiently trade items of differing values and honestly it is a huge relief compared to the no support we previously had. Like others have suggested, if you have the will to resist buying gear for gold (effectively trading with others), then do so. You'll get that same thrill of getting a new item.

    Yeah, you might not get the best rolled Inna's Temperance pursuit with resist all on it or whatever and only 8 percent attack speed, but it will still be way ahead of whatever yellow you are wearing when it drops. With paragon levels especially, you have this growing chance to get better stuff without giving up as many stats...basically you'll get geared up eventually. Will it be as good as having access to millions of players drops? No way. Will it work to play the game? Totally.

    That being said, I finally got one of my friends to download the try and play with me. He commented how relieved that it felt like the older game just with a clean up of the system in terms of skill points and build flexibility. (Granted he's only around 30ish so far on more than one character; he might play them all through normal before moving onto nightmare.) He's pretty much refused to use the auction house and doing just fine. I actually don't think he'll have any problems beating the game on inferno without ever touching it. (There's a wizard that did it on mp 0 with blues after all.) He's the type that will probably play hardcore characters again. It never appealed to me to lose hours of effort by being inattentive once, but for him it was a challenge I guess.
    Right now you typically look for Critical Chance, Critical Damage, Increased Attack Speed, and your main stat. Then you look for All Resist. You do both of the above while looking not for a weapon that has interesting affixes but rather some combination of the above, possibly Life on Hit, and as high as damage as you can get. Outside of the occasional build that uses class specific items that reduce cost or cool down, that's pretty much all you need across all classes, and the real problem is that those first three I mentioned are FAR more effective than any of the other stats.

    Note that this is a separate issue beyond drop rates or how quickly you will gear up without using the auction house - there just isn't a whole lot of flavor when it comes to itemization, and you have very, very few fun or quirky builds that are built around some interesting combination of the other stats.

    The good news is that Blizzard has acknowledged that, and the itemization patch(s) that are coming are looking to change that - something that should be a positive change for both softcore and hardcore, as it simply means more gear types will be viable and more build options open up that are supported by the other stats (and hopefully some new ones, interesting affixes as well). The bad news is that they arguably had more interesting itemization in the previous game, and thus took an unneeded step back for D3 that they sill haven't quite corrected.

    Playing self found is also a different beast than it was in the months following launch - there's still that unfortunate nagging voice that could be in the back of your mind saying "You could skip the 20 hours of farming and pick up this decent version of the item with the exact stats you want for 200k" which is an unfortunate side effect (and really not the biggest issue anyway - that there are so few options available for a character to try and get better gear beyond very specific crafting recipes that are very new, the AH, and self found is a much bigger problem)...but it's not made worse by terrible drop rates on even decent gear nor the psychological mindfuck of trying to get past the Act 1 Inferno wall on self-found gear and most of the stuff dropping is either crap or crap that's 5-7 levels lower than you until you either get lucky or give in and pick up some cheap upgrades and keep going until the next wall.

    That was how is was when I first hit Inferno (even after the 1.0.3 nerfs) and partially why the game gained its reputation for "requiring the AH" rather than it being a useful and additional tool. The legendary patch and the addition of Monster Power pretty much got rid of drop rates problems as it relates to getting items good enough to proceed.

    Something else that I've noticed that is somewhat related to itemization is how, among the four ARPGs that have released (or will release in about a month) in the last year - D3, Torchlight 2, Path of Exile, and Marvel Heroes - the latter three all have a system by which you can take gear that you find that may not be that good and try (not always successfully) to improve that item into something you want. It's a compelling mechanic, and one that tends to make more of what drops give that little rush similar to seeing good gear or a wanted item drop, where you are often seeing potential (the rush can also come from that moment when you are trying to upgrade the item, and waiting to see what happens). It also has the positive side effect of making more of what drops potentially useful, versus the large amount of vendor trash (or not even, as in the case of whites, which are little more than screen clutter) in Diablo 3...that doesn't have any such system (D2 did if I recall, using the Horadric cube).

  18. #58
    D3 writing was incredible bad, ammator level.

    It was predictable, ppl were predicting the end before the game released and they were right, it was full of cliches, linear and repetitive

  19. #59
    Quote Originally Posted by Hellfury View Post
    D3 writing was incredible bad, ammator level.

    It was predictable, ppl were predicting the end before the game released and they were right, it was full of cliches, linear and repetitive
    People don't play a hack and slash for the story. D1 and D2 were so bad in their story telling there wasn't even a correlation between the story lines.

    Also redoing 2.367 times the same story would make ANY story predictable.

    Btw no one predicted the end of the story before the launch. Not even one website predicted it correctly.

    Only kids could come up with such an argument for a hack/slash.


    On topic: these days the goal to play D3 is Hardcore play. Fabulous.

  20. #60
    The Unstoppable Force Resentful's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BenBos View Post
    People don't play a hack and slash for the story. D1 and D2 were so bad in their story telling there wasn't even a correlation between the story lines.

    Also redoing 2.367 times the same story would make ANY story predictable.

    Btw no one predicted the end of the story before the launch. Not even one website predicted it correctly.

    Only kids could come up with such an argument for a hack/slash.


    On topic: these days the goal to play D3 is Hardcore play. Fabulous.
    What the F are you talking about LOL you go from this game is amazing in EVERY post into worshiping the hardcore play like STOP. Game is so good because of hardcore if the game is terrible just switch to hardcore and it will be fun that's your ENTIRE logic in every post I've read.

    Do you not hear your self?
    Last edited by Resentful; 2013-05-04 at 01:17 PM.

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