What's changed for the better/worse since release?

[Schmittay]

I played Diablo 3 for about four months after release but there were quite a few things wrong with it. For various reasons I have been unable to play it but am planning on getting the PS4 version on the 19th but would just like to know how things have changed in the game.

[Fhi]

there were quite a few things wrong with it.

You probably want to be more specific for us to help. Otherwise, there's a whole list of patch notes since you last played.

[Faesroll]

Inb4 BoA worst thing that ever happened to the game.

The only thing I personally dislike is having to do bounties for rifts. Otherwise everything only got better.

[Netherspark]

Lets see...

Auction house removed
Legendary drop rate massively buffed
"Smart loot" - most drops are tailored for your hero
Bind-to-account gear
Difficulty mode revamp
Crafting revamp
Many new 'events' added
Many class/ability tweaks
Many changes to stats
Many changes to items

Expansion:
Transmogrification for your gear
Enchanting - rerolling a stat on an item
Act 5
New class: Crusader
Adventure mode: Rifts & Bounties

Probably a few more changes I'm forgetting.

[Dilbon]

Better? Everything.

[Djuntas]

Its still the same old RNG grind, just now there is no trading.

I don't have much hopes for the game anymore, will enjoy it for what it is, when I play it.

[BenBos]

RoS is a kid's game.

Perfect for console play, but rather meaningless as you can import hacks and beat the game with speed of the download.

If you look at the official forums RIGHT NOW, there are even MVP's posting negative posts about the present state of the game.


I smile as I have predicted this a year ago when they announced the deleted trading.

D3 was epic and very difficult at launch with a possibility to trade everything. In perma death hardcore it was even better than WoW play.

These days you slide a difficulty scale and are immortal throughout the game. No sane person can play this for the long haul as it is complete useless.

So have fun on the couch with the PS4 version, but like all console games, it will sit there on the shelf after X days/weeks.

At least in games like CoD etc, you have some decent PvP to have casual fun. In D3 even that is absent.

Going from an epic game experiment to a very dull meaningless game in 2 years was the result of brainless developpers.

I have NO clue what was on their minds, except to make a PR stint of announcing a deleted AH, while it was the ONLY thing that kept the game going in the first place (certainly in perma death hardcore).

It is beyond sad, it is moronic.

It was Rob Pardo who announced the new idea of both the Gold AH and RMAH (in softcore only) and guess who left Blizzard in disgust a few months back ? With the possibility to SELL stuff you still had a long term goal. Without ANY trading, not even for mats, and a simplistic difficulty slider, they killed ANY sensitive for long term play.

----------

To me it went from an epic - mini EVE like - trading system in hardcore to a complete crappy experience without ANY meaningful play. I think mine sweeper has more long term play than present day D3.

I hope this lead designer of RoS will not touch ANY more games for Blizzard.

[OrcsRLame]

I for one love RoS far more than I did original D3.

I didn't care too much for the game when it was paragon levels and monster power though. RoS > original D3 > D3 with MP and paragon levels.

[Nekovivie]

Smart loot + Bind on account are the two main things for me.

You can actually play the game and find items now instead of finding absolutely nonsensical things like (for example);

<Random bracers>
Int+300
Str+100
Pickup Radius+2
Thorns+4000
Bola Shot damage +10%

[Iseeyou]

BoA worst thing that ever happened to the game.

[BenBos]

BoA worst thing that ever happened to the game.

That one too... It is even worse ...they implemented this while ... it could have saved the trading on the AH too!

Let me explain:

You get loot, it drops of course with NO BoA.

The moment you traded or sold it on the AH tough ... it would get flagged as BoA for the new owner.

ALL problems solved ... THEN introduce Loot 2.0 and the trading could go on without problems...


So simple.

1. No more endless flooding of goods: the one drop can only be traded ONCE.
2. No AH flipping possible.
3. A better loot system with 2.0 and everyone would hunt endlessly.
4. Selling would be worthwhile again and very unique rolls ... would be very limited in offers to trade.

Voila.

Stop the ridiculous "easy" sliders and the game would have been played endlessly for loot to trade OR play with.

Now, it is a dreadful game with NO point of grinding further once you down the last boss. To do what ? Down him faster or slide the difficulty one more point...., sorry but the age of PacMan ended 20 years ago...

Life is too short and valuable for such a meaningless activity.

Bring back trading with the above SIMPLE mechanic and you have your game back.

Deleting trading was a nice PR stunt, but it killed ALL long term grinding fun. EVEN basic mats trading which was actually WORKING well, was deleted.

Terrible designers. Please fire these dudes and start all over with D4 AND allow trading as described above. I would return in a hearthbeat.

- - - Updated - - -

I for one love RoS far more than I did original D3.

I didn't care too much for the game when it was paragon levels and monster power though. RoS > original D3 > D3 with MP and paragon levels.

What's there to love? all gear bind on account with NOTHING to sell. A difficulty slider that takes away all challenge and once you down the last boss ... you up the difficulty with one point to what purpose ?

ROS simply has no long term motivation to play except to waste time in a game where there is no challenge other than massochistically trying to kill yourself with higher stats...

I am stunned by the lack of insight by these developpers. PvP could have been a weak cure, but even that they are incapable of making it work...

In SC2 it makes sense to have a difficulty slider as the end game is all about PvP, but D3 lacks ANY reference. Certainly in hardcore... why would I push even ?

If I kill the last boss, reach 70 with NO trading (sales possible) I would be a moron to try to kill myself for one difficulty more...

[Kelimbror]

Don't listen to the people who don't understand how to find rewards or challenge in a game when they are responsible for it themselves. They'd prefer difficulty be handed to them via arbitrary measures and limitations which ruin most people's gameplay. Pretty much everything has changed for the better since launch. I can't think of a single thing I like less than when the game released. Not one. If you want a rewarding and fun ARPG with some of the best gameplay the genre has to offer, it's this game.

[announced]

ya most babies posting above prefer to have things handed to them. D3 is a dungeon crawler/forever item hunting game.

the removal of the AH was fine since it removed all the garbage ah flippers/ gold sellers/ ah merchants who played the market instead of finding items like they should be doing.

paragon lvls are much better than before ( +3 str/ +2 vit and 3% mf/gf wasnt very useful 1-100) now you can get offensive/defensive/core/utlity stats which actually make sense. the curve is also much lower and easier to climb.

smartloot has to be one of the bigger bonuses - instead of finding that awesome item and then realizing it has dex on it when it should have int. it'll most likely have int. 90% of the time anyway

Rifts have a much higher legendary drop rate - all good as people have places to go when they want to hunt for items. 5 keystones per rift seems steep. wait for 2.1 it'll be 1 per.

Gems (you can mass craft gems now and they are much cheaper)

enchanting (still a bit skewed but its getting better)

Gambling (the odds sometimes arent in your favor but hey atleast u can target some certain set pieces easier)

skill overhaul/revamp in 2.1 (most of the underpowered skills are getting massive buffs)
goblin realm in 2.1
smarter pet AI in 2.1
increased Life on hit/ Life regen (could go under skill rehaul i guess)
legendary gems in 2.1
hellfire amulets with an 5th passive

so as you can see, RoS just keeps getting better and better. why should you keep playing? well to upgrade your character, constantly getting better, and to get the highest paragon lvl. it'd take some serious dedication to get to 600+ but also the game tends to be fun even without pvp.

ive played d2 lod in pvp and yes it was pretty addicting but pvp isnt always what its cracked up to be.

[BenBos]

Don't listen to the people who don't understand how to find rewards or challenge in a game when they are responsible for it themselves. They'd prefer difficulty be handed to them via arbitrary measures and limitations which ruin most people's gameplay. Pretty much everything has changed for the better since launch. I can't think of a single thing I like less than when the game released. Not one. If you want a rewarding and fun ARPG with some of the best gameplay the genre has to offer, it's this game.

Ok then answer this:

I played hardcore Vanilla D3 with a Gold only trading AH. Not even a RMAH there.

That means I could craft, grind gear to sell on that Gold AH. One day a complete crafting Cain plan dropped on me and so I had FUN acquiring the mats and craft to sell them on the Gold AH. An AH that was CONSTANTLY RESET due to the perma death of the hardcore avatars.

Slowly but surely I advanced through the very difficult vanilla levels with the danger of dying anywhere. Finally somewhere in august 2012 .... I managed to kill Diablo - after having had 3 avatars killed - and accumulating gear, mats and Gold.

IT WAS EPIC as I constantly fed the hardcore Gold only AH with new leveling gear with all those DYING avatars around me.

All drops needed to be evaluated too, since everything could be traded for every class.

It was like a single player EVE but with heart beating stress not to die and grind, craft and trade within this harsh system.

----- Fast forward-----to RoS.

No trading at all, not even basic mats, so your long term play in economics is GONE.

No challenge at all: you simply slide it to easy and you can down every boss with your eyes closed. Why would you even take a chance of dying in hardcore ?

No assesment of other gear for other classes needed as you can't trade anyway. It is reduced to looking at + green stats on drops.

Stupid, moronic, childish.

Blizzard created something epicly new and they killed it without a proper design (like making traded goods BoA AFTER trading).



End result: the most Legendary designer within Blizzard left weeks after RoS dropped: Rob Pardo as he was the one who presented structured in game trading within D3.

Fools.

Of course NOW even MVP's react on the official forums that there is no long term goal anymore to keep playing. Thousands of complaints of not even finding groups.

Why in hells name would you even play? There is no PvP, there is no challenge because which idiot wants to risk death as everything can be done on easy mode and blindfolded ?

D2 had trading and it kept you going. D3 RoS is the most stupid game Blizzard launched ... ever.

In August 2011 Rob Pardo held a press conference about the new D3 and he said: with trading INSIDE the game now, you will play D3 long after being gear capped or level capped.

No discussion: without ANY trading, D3 RoS has no long term goals to continue playing and PvP is not even an option.

The console version is just that: you download the latest hack and have the best gear imaginable. Pure waste of time and meaningless as no PvP present either.

Just be sure RoS is shelved by 99.9% of its console players after 2 weeks. Nice to play on the couch with the wife like you play any of these console things for 5 hours and sell it in a garage sale at 10% of the paid price.

Even filling in a cross word puzzle is time better spend.

[announced]

sounds like you are the kind of player that beats a game on easy, or very easy (if the setting allows) and is done with the game. try normal mode, or maybe hard/expert/master/torment 1-6.
if you played vanilla there wasnt much else to do either, once u hit 60 it was just another grinding game hoping for loot which usually never drops. most players would go for weeks without finding one usaeable/sellable piece for the ah. or they decided to fill the ah with overpriced garbage that no1 in the right mind would purchase.

sure u could go hardcore, but whats the point of even playing hc if your only objective is to buy gear off the ah for $? or sell it for rl $? doesnt that turn d3 into a job, except it pays less than one? the point of a game is to have fun, if you arent having fun then just move on. try another class/etc go hunt for a perfect set. who knows. or try another game.

when 2.1 comes it'll be great

[Kelimbror]

sounds like you are the kind of player that beats a game on easy, or very easy (if the setting allows) and is done with the game.

I see this type of complaint so much, as well as veiled complaints that really amount to the same thing. There's really no sense in saying: 'Omg, D2 was so amazing because I could trade and and and the game never ended and was so much fun' and then turning around and saying: 'wtf I can't trade so now the same gameplay has become boring...once I beat the boss, why should I grind more gear just to kill a harder boss?' It's like that one Dark Legacy comic that explains why we raid. In a literal fashion, it makes no sense. If all you care about is the end result, then you won't see the fun had from simply playing the game.

I similarly think people are nuts who claim that LFR ruins the game for them because they can see the fight once on super easy mode so now they have no motivation to do anything more challenging. Essentially it's lazy people wanting Blizzard to force them to have challenging content instead of allowing everyone an option to do what they want. I'll take the options, thanks. I know what I'm signing up for when I play a dungeon crawling ARPG. Endless grinding, endless loot, the quest for never ending gear perfection, and trying to tackle the hardest content.

[Vintersol]

Best things: many
Worst things: BoA, Smartloot (it would be okay, if you could choose for which class smart loot works)

[OrcsRLame]

What's there to love? all gear bind on account with NOTHING to sell. A difficulty slider that takes away all challenge and once you down the last boss ... you up the difficulty with one point to what purpose ?

ROS simply has no long term motivation to play except to waste time in a game where there is no challenge other than massochistically trying to kill yourself with higher stats...

I am stunned by the lack of insight by these developpers. PvP could have been a weak cure, but even that they are incapable of making it work...

In SC2 it makes sense to have a difficulty slider as the end game is all about PvP, but D3 lacks ANY reference. Certainly in hardcore... why would I push even ?

If I kill the last boss, reach 70 with NO trading (sales possible) I would be a moron to try to kill myself for one difficulty more...

Since you asked I will explain what I like about the game. First I will answer your points though.

I don't care about selling things. I played vanilla D3, and to me, selling stuff was my least favorite part of the game. It was pure busywork without a single iota of fun. I don't really understand how the difficulty slider takes away difficulty... You're gonna have to explain that one to me.

My long term motivation with RoS is basically just trying out builds, gearing up characters, grinding paragon levels, and playing with friends.

I think you are looking at the game from a hardcore perspective. I play softcore. You can say that invalidates my opinion if you want, but the whole perma death thing has never really appealed to me. I get why people like it, but for me a game like Diablo is all about making my character stronger, and permanent loss of progress is anathema to that. I mean, in RoS I still don't have a goddamn Unity or strength Cindercoat. If given the choice, I'd rather not delete my main and start all over again.

Anywho, I like vanilla D3 for totally different reasons. It didn't really give much of a sense of gear progression, as the truly rare shit was far far more rare than items like Cindercoat and Unity are today, but the mediocre shit was common as hell. For me, original Inferno was about killing bosses solo. I had a lot of fun doing that. After the nerfs, the game just felt empty to me. The character progression just felt flat, and the difficulty of MP just wasn't the same as Inferno.

For me, RoS revitalized the game. Yes, the difficulty of original D3 is dead and gone and it's probably never coming back. RoS didn't cause that though, the original nerfs they did to Inferno caused that. For me, RoS made it fun to just get on and kill monsters. I find it relaxing.

[Titebiere83]

I havn't been playing D3 ROS lately (waiting for 2.1) but the game has improved like... you wouldn't even believe. Okay, it started low, that's a granted, but Blizzard listened, reacted and delivered on this one. The games is faaaaaaaaaar better now.

[Simulacrum]

BoA is the worst part of the game, by far. My brother comes back to the game after not playing for a year, and I can't even give him any help other than by personally boosting him through all the content. I can't give him any of the excess gear I've got laying around, can't give him any recipes for craftables, any materials, any gems... not even any gold.

Oh, a thunderfury dropped while I was farming; my brother's wizard could use one of those! Ah wait, he's in another game... oh well, I guess I'll just do the equivalent of vendoring it then, like I did with all the other 99.9% of legendaries that are now trash to my characters.

It's a system that makes you feel bad when amazing but not perfect items drop... and it won't even let you give it to your friends... in a forced always-online multiplayer ARPG. Not to mention the part where it destroys long-term character progression and the game's strongest incentive to socialize... because apparently they don't care whether or not people interact with each other in their forced always-online game here. This sure is some consumer-friendly stuff.

Game's new loot system is great if you just wanna play through it fast a couple of times and then not return until the next expansion, though, which is what I assume is the most important concern.

Bounty and rift systems are also both pretty fun, though they both have their flaws, with bounties being grindy as all fuck, and rifts being totally random; some being awesome, full of monsters to kill everywhere and rares around each corner, and others being boring crap without any rares at all and such low mob density that you'll be lucky to find a couple of packs a minute. If there was some way to decide how your rifts turned out it would actually be a really good system. I don't understand why they don't just steal more ideas from PoE.

I see this type of complaint so much, as well as veiled complaints that really amount to the same thing. There's really no sense in saying: 'Omg, D2 was so amazing because I could trade and and and the game never ended and was so much fun' and then turning around and saying: 'wtf I can't trade so now the same gameplay has become boring...once I beat the boss, why should I grind more gear just to kill a harder boss?' It's like that one Dark Legacy comic that explains why we raid. In a literal fashion, it makes no sense. If all you care about is the end result, then you won't see the fun had from simply playing the game.

...

646 posts in the D3 subforum, and you still don't even vaguely understand why people dislike BoA gear?

I'm almost impressed.