There's no room for PoE-like games

[Orby]

Holy gatekeeping Batman! and its not just gatekeeping, its gate keeping a semi Diablo clone. lol Now true PoE does have some original features, and it certainly is better than Diablo 3, but PoE owes its existence to Diablo as much as WoW owes its existence to Everquest.

I'll hand it to games like Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem it tied to be original. PoE success lies on the fact that it cashed in on Diablo 2 popularity :P

I love PoE too and I agree it is the best of its type ont he market right now, but to shut out other games becuase you feel its better is gatekeeping 2.0 edition

[Mamut]

I haven't played much PoE, but how is running a map different than running a rift in D3?

With that attitude you can also ask how PoE is different than Need for Speed. Both are games and both have pixels.

But on more serious note, endgame depth and bosskilling it what makes for me PoE great.

[Cthulhu fhtagn]

And why are we building cars, horses are right there.

[StillMcfuu]

Thank you very much for the explanation, very informative. Hmm. Wasn't early "hard" D3 also the one with the real money auction house?

Yeah, the RMAH was a sticking point for some people. I never understood the issue with it vs the gold AH. I believe the overall tone was "why would you use the gold AH if the RMAH were available" and "people can buy all their gear". Both reasons never really held any water. I was one of the people that thought the RMAH would be the only AH being used, but if there were 1 or 2 of a certain well rolled item on the RMAH, those items would also be on the gold auction house (not the same items, but round-a-bout equivalents). There wasn't an issue of no gear being on the GAH. As for the "buying your gear." Sure you could. It would cost you north of $1000 to fully gear out a single character with BiS items. These items were pretty rare due to the way Rares rolled in OG D3, where you could have up to a certain number of affixes and all the affixes could be random. You could get a rare drop with 3 affixes on it and they may have been all the best ones and that would be a legit item, or you could get an item with 5 (i think that was the cap) and they'd all be worthless. The RMAH cap for items was $250 so that became the target for most of the unicorn best rolled items. GAH was usually priced higher (if you convert money to gold which was 25 cents for 1m). Major items fluctuated between 1B and 2B gold on GAH.
And this doesn't stop the fact that even in the best gear, if you didn't understand how to play the game and were actually good, you'd get rolled anyway. And really if you were any good at the game, you'd find items, that you could sell and get the items you were really looking forward to anyway.
If you want to compare gearing between D2 and D3 OG, they were pretty close. Where D2 required multiple specific runs with an inventory jam packed with MF trinkets and a small army of friends to trade and move items around, and an alt full of SOJs just to be able to trade items; D3 kind of put that power into your own hands with a shared stash and more agency to buy and sell whether with real or gold, a problem was D3 didn't really have the same MF meta where you knew the best places to find certain items. I think if loot 2.0 focused on that aspect of gearing, stabilized the RNG rolls on Rares and improved Leggos to the point where they could roll better than Rares... D3 would have appealed more casual, while not also turning into a loot pinata. Granted it would have to introduce either trading or maintain the GAH.

I do agree with one notion between D2 v D3 v PoE, PoE does maintain the D2 feel that you make a character, you build a bowazon or tesladin vs D3 which even early was still saddled somewhat with the characters being loot stands. That feeling got much worse as Loot 2.0 and RoS changes rolled through, but it was present in OG D3.

[cparle87]

Yeah, the RMAH was a sticking point for some people. I never understood the issue with it vs the gold AH. I believe the overall tone was "why would you use the gold AH if the RMAH were available" and "people can buy all their gear". Both reasons never really held any water. I was one of the people that thought the RMAH would be the only AH being used, but if there were 1 or 2 of a certain well rolled item on the RMAH, those items would also be on the gold auction house (not the same items, but round-a-bout equivalents). There wasn't an issue of no gear being on the GAH. As for the "buying your gear." Sure you could. It would cost you north of $1000 to fully gear out a single character with BiS items. These items were pretty rare due to the way Rares rolled in OG D3, where you could have up to a certain number of affixes and all the affixes could be random. You could get a rare drop with 3 affixes on it and they may have been all the best ones and that would be a legit item, or you could get an item with 5 (i think that was the cap) and they'd all be worthless. The RMAH cap for items was $250 so that became the target for most of the unicorn best rolled items. GAH was usually priced higher (if you convert money to gold which was 25 cents for 1m). Major items fluctuated between 1B and 2B gold on GAH.
And this doesn't stop the fact that even in the best gear, if you didn't understand how to play the game and were actually good, you'd get rolled anyway. And really if you were any good at the game, you'd find items, that you could sell and get the items you were really looking forward to anyway.
If you want to compare gearing between D2 and D3 OG, they were pretty close. Where D2 required multiple specific runs with an inventory jam packed with MF trinkets and a small army of friends to trade and move items around, and an alt full of SOJs just to be able to trade items; D3 kind of put that power into your own hands with a shared stash and more agency to buy and sell whether with real or gold, a problem was D3 didn't really have the same MF meta where you knew the best places to find certain items. I think if loot 2.0 focused on that aspect of gearing, stabilized the RNG rolls on Rares and improved Leggos to the point where they could roll better than Rares... D3 would have appealed more casual, while not also turning into a loot pinata. Granted it would have to introduce either trading or maintain the GAH.

I do agree with one notion between D2 v D3 v PoE, PoE does maintain the D2 feel that you make a character, you build a bowazon or tesladin vs D3 which even early was still saddled somewhat with the characters being loot stands. That feeling got much worse as Loot 2.0 and RoS changes rolled through, but it was present in OG D3.

Thank you again for the info.

Muling was the thing I despised the most about D2. I'm actually playing with Plugymod, which gives me an unlimited shared stash and the ability to do realm only things like Uber D and ladder runewords. Really would have trouble going back to online D2. I'd need like 50 mules to keep all the stuff I have on Plugy, add to the fact I'd be worried about losing my mules and everything on them if I didn't log into them all frequently. And the fun of getting disconnected if you switch characters too much. No thank you. =-(

[kail]

I haven't played much PoE, but how is running a map different than running a rift in D3?

My post would be too long if I explained all the differences in PoE mapping vs D3 rifts. To put it basically:
-PoE maps have to be acquired via drops or trade
-PoE maps are the backbone of the Atlas progression that unlock higher difficulties but require some level of grind and RNG luck
-There are systems that exist players could use to control their map drops
-Maps can be modified in numerous ways
-There is investment vs payoff of what goes into map modifications

[Fitsu]

They are completely different games. Diablo 3 has a few hours of actual gameplay each season and thats it. i'm not even exaggerating here. I can go back and play diablo 2 now(and i still do) and i'l have a much more engaging gameplay experience with part goals all along the way.

I'm not being nostalgic here. Diablo 3 has very little to offer outside of very good gameplay and graphics. i cant think if a worse form of progression in a arpg ever.

While I agree that the current state of Diablo 3 has way to much power creep and loot aqusition is just stupid fast I feel like thats not enough to deem it a failure, infact surely the fact the game is 6+ years old and even now you can still hop on each season and have fun even if it's for a day or two would call it a success? I'm not saying Diablo 3 is perfect, far from it. Sets ruin gear progression and the whole your gear is easy to get, but getting perfectly rolled ancients takes a while and paragon levels is the least interesting form of character progression to ever exist there are a lot of things the game does wrong but also a lot it does right.

Greater rifts are a solid concept, could use a few tweaks but generally there good. As are rifts and bounties, but the game could use a couple more world-based progression systems and farming methods (boss farming will always hold a special place in my heart) and the ubers is completely wasted. The game is very fun to play and every build feels pretty unique, some of which having more complex and challenging playstyles then any other ARPG offers (PoE has complex loot but lets be real, the more complicated build is one that uses a few shouts... 99% of them are 1 mouse button builds while you spam flasks). I honestly feel if they got the character progression via gear better and added a couple more farming methods Diablo 3 would have been one of the best ARPGS on the market, so to deem it a failure just because it wasn't the best to me is just to harsh. It was still a good game.

As for Diablo 2, perhaps we play different games as if I play Diablo 2 today... What goals? You get to hell in a day, you do some Mephisto runs and your semi-geared by day 3 with a smiter that can melt the ubers... No more content exists, all that exists is farming for more gear. What are the "part goals" you speak of? Diablo 2 also gets a lot of things right, it's gear aquistion is by far the best in the genre, mysteriously addictive along with it's varied farming methods which allows for varied builds as one is not the best at everything. But the game lacks any depth when it comes to actual end-game content so you lose any real reason to go beyond medicore gear.

If you could take Diablo 2s gear and farming methods, with Diablo 3s endgame, a small bit of PoEs complexity and maybe sprinkle in a little bit of Median XLs boss-fight style progression & rewards (I love that system and hate that no company has tried to flesh it out as a core part of the game) I think you would have a near-perfect arpg. As it stands now none of them get everything right and I feel Diablo 3 still holds it's own as one of the best ARPGs.

[ClassicPeon]

While I agree that the current state of Diablo 3 has way to much power creep and loot aqusition is just stupid fast I feel like thats not enough to deem it a failure, infact surely the fact the game is 6+ years old and even now you can still hop on each season and have fun even if it's for a day or two would call it a success? I'm not saying Diablo 3 is perfect, far from it. Sets ruin gear progression and the whole your gear is easy to get, but getting perfectly rolled ancients takes a while and paragon levels is the least interesting form of character progression to ever exist there are a lot of things the game does wrong but also a lot it does right.

Greater rifts are a solid concept, could use a few tweaks but generally there good. As are rifts and bounties, but the game could use a couple more world-based progression systems and farming methods (boss farming will always hold a special place in my heart) and the ubers is completely wasted. The game is very fun to play and every build feels pretty unique, some of which having more complex and challenging playstyles then any other ARPG offers (PoE has complex loot but lets be real, the more complicated build is one that uses a few shouts... 99% of them are 1 mouse button builds while you spam flasks). I honestly feel if they got the character progression via gear better and added a couple more farming methods Diablo 3 would have been one of the best ARPGS on the market, so to deem it a failure just because it wasn't the best to me is just to harsh. It was still a good game.

As for Diablo 2, perhaps we play different games as if I play Diablo 2 today... What goals? You get to hell in a day, you do some Mephisto runs and your semi-geared by day 3 with a smiter that can melt the ubers... No more content exists, all that exists is farming for more gear. What are the "part goals" you speak of? Diablo 2 also gets a lot of things right, it's gear aquistion is by far the best in the genre, mysteriously addictive along with it's varied farming methods which allows for varied builds as one is not the best at everything. But the game lacks any depth when it comes to actual end-game content so you lose any real reason to go beyond medicore gear.

If you could take Diablo 2s gear and farming methods, with Diablo 3s endgame, a small bit of PoEs complexity and maybe sprinkle in a little bit of Median XLs boss-fight style progression & rewards (I love that system and hate that no company has tried to flesh it out as a core part of the game) I think you would have a near-perfect arpg. As it stands now none of them get everything right and I feel Diablo 3 still holds it's own as one of the best ARPGs.

The progression in d2 is much, much slower then it is in d3.

You have levels to farm, runewords, gems, gear(not small incremental upgrades but actual gear). I'm not saying d2 is perfect, its not. But if you literally just took the graphics and gameplay of d3 and put it into d2, name 1 thing thats better about d3.

[kukkamies]

Except they basically revamped the game with ROS. If they gave up on it, why would they put that much time and energy into it?

I think the real question is why did they give up on it after ROS?

Kotaku had an interview with Blizzard employees about it. https://kotaku.com/the-past-present-...blo-1830593195
2nd expansion was canceled and sense of team was “there was a vote of no confidence from the executives. They thought Diablo III was a giant fuck-up.”
And then the team working on Diablo was split after RoS released. Further decreasing developing.

[Araevin]

Kotaku had an interview with Blizzard employees about it. https://kotaku.com/the-past-present-...blo-1830593195
2nd expansion was canceled and sense of team was “there was a vote of no confidence from the executives. They thought Diablo III was a giant fuck-up.”
And then the team working on Diablo was split after RoS released. Further decreasing developing.

The thing is, why give a vote of no confidence after RoS? RoS was largely considered a success by the playerbase. It improved so much about Diablo, especially once we got Kanai's Cube in our hands.

On one side, I'd think the issue was monetization; the original D3 investment proposition was likely bound to the RMAH yet nothing replaced that to provide for consistent cashflows throughout product life. Which meant that when RoS failed to provide a new scheme (season passes were not yet a thing back then, even though they'd have made so much sense for D3) they would not see much value on it.
But at the same time, they knew that D4 would take a long time to launch, which means having a team in development for the next 5-8 years before they saw any return.
I think Blizzard essentially expected that they would have had enough releases in the meantime by multiple teams to get funds for a longer development. This decision was made at a point in time when Blizzard was releasing Hearthstone and Overwatch and close to releasing Heroes of the Storm. They expected they would have had the cash flows to keep all development going from essentially doubling their games. It made more sense to take the risk and put Diablo 3 on ice and work on the next game than to make a big investment on a Brand they felt was tarnished; better get a reset.
Of course history proved them wrong imo; the completely botched Immortal Blizzcon damage the brand even further (only to be saved by what imo is one of the best game cinematics in the history of gaming the year after) and not all of their new games managed to make as much money as they wanted (Heroes of the Storm just being too late in the game by about three years).

[kukkamies]

The thing is, why give a vote of no confidence after RoS? RoS was largely considered a success by the playerbase. It improved so much about Diablo, especially once we got Kanai's Cube in our hands.

Yep that's what the developers think too. They believed RoS is good and wanted more time. The vote of no confidence was already decided before RoS was even out. Managers/directors thought it has no hope anymore. They cancelled the 2nd expansion before RoS was even released.

It's a case of bad management. Happens everywhere I'd think.

[Hinastorm]

Kotaku had an interview with Blizzard employees about it. https://kotaku.com/the-past-present-...blo-1830593195
2nd expansion was canceled and sense of team was “there was a vote of no confidence from the executives. They thought Diablo III was a giant fuck-up.”
And then the team working on Diablo was split after RoS released. Further decreasing developing.

Didn't the necro DLC sell a ton of copies? Bliz execs sound stupid.

[Araevin]

Didn't the necro DLC sell a ton of copies? Bliz execs sound stupid.

The Necro DLC was monetizing a realized cost though; development had already gone into the Necro when the decision to not move forward with expac 2 was made, or at least that is my understanding.

[Fitsu]

The progression in d2 is much, much slower then it is in d3.

You have levels to farm, runewords, gems, gear(not small incremental upgrades but actual gear). I'm not saying d2 is perfect, its not. But if you literally just took the graphics and gameplay of d3 and put it into d2, name 1 thing thats better about d3.

Endgame actually as some depth and challenge to it, Build variety (while I dislike sets it can't be denied that each class set actually feels like a different build, just compare the difference between a Frenzy Barb, leap barb, seismic barb, hota barb, charge barb, whirlwind barb and LoN options), some classes also have intricute interactions which require some thought and planning to play. I honestly feel like Diablo 3 doesn't get enough props for it's different builds that actually feel different, this is one thing I feel PoE fails at to. Yeah they are built differently and the gear is complex but when push comes to shove there still all just run around pressing right click whereas you actually have to learn how to play each Diablo 3 build.

When I say endgame I don't mean Paragon and ancient farming, I mean the actual push through GRs I do think the state of GRs now where you just mass farm paragon to climb is bad but the concept of this increasingly difficult, timed & competed PvM event is very good. If paragon didn't exist I think GRs would be quite an alive competive scene and honestly keep people playing but it's spoilt with the whole "you win by farming rat runs 12hrs/day".

Diablo 2 does gear and gear aquisition better but is this day and age is such a shallow, empty game and even that I feel your remembering a past game if you play Diablo 2 pretty much everything that isn't worth ist+ is worthless in 2 days and within a week only your HR items have any value at all and what do you use all that gear for? You've cleared every piece of content the game has to offer before your even 10% into the gearing process.

[ClassicPeon]

Endgame actually as some depth and challenge to it, Build variety (while I dislike sets it can't be denied that each class set actually feels like a different build, just compare the difference between a Frenzy Barb, leap barb, seismic barb, hota barb, charge barb, whirlwind barb and LoN options), some classes also have intricute interactions which require some thought and planning to play. I honestly feel like Diablo 3 doesn't get enough props for it's different builds that actually feel different, this is one thing I feel PoE fails at to. Yeah they are built differently and the gear is complex but when push comes to shove there still all just run around pressing right click whereas you actually have to learn how to play each Diablo 3 build.

When I say endgame I don't mean Paragon and ancient farming, I mean the actual push through GRs I do think the state of GRs now where you just mass farm paragon to climb is bad but the concept of this increasingly difficult, timed & competed PvM event is very good. If paragon didn't exist I think GRs would be quite an alive competive scene and honestly keep people playing but it's spoilt with the whole "you win by farming rat runs 12hrs/day".

Diablo 2 does gear and gear aquisition better but is this day and age is such a shallow, empty game and even that I feel your remembering a past game if you play Diablo 2 pretty much everything that isn't worth ist+ is worthless in 2 days and within a week only your HR items have any value at all and what do you use all that gear for? You've cleared every piece of content the game has to offer before your even 10% into the gearing process.

I can agree with you on the difficulty curve thing actually. Thats probably a place where d2 lacks a little behind. Makes sense for its time but doesnt hold up to todays standards. I disagree on the builds part though. I think all three games failed epicly in that fashion.

I'm a spare time games developer(meaning i dont actually develop games to sell, i just work on hobby projects that i find interesting). And i promise you i could sit down for 5-6 hours and find 10-12 barbarian builds that where actually interesting to play compared to anything we have in any arpg i've seen. I dont understand why the class designers are so shit compared to the gameplay and especially blizzards art team.

[Fitsu]

I can agree with you on the difficulty curve thing actually. Thats probably a place where d2 lacks a little behind. Makes sense for its time but doesnt hold up to todays standards. I disagree on the builds part though. I think all three games failed epicly in that fashion.

I'm a spare time games developer(meaning i dont actually develop games to sell, i just work on hobby projects that i find interesting). And i promise you i could sit down for 5-6 hours and find 10-12 barbarian builds that where actually interesting to play compared to anything we have in any arpg i've seen. I dont understand why the class designers are so shit compared to the gameplay and especially blizzards art team.

I guess this is where we differ then maybe it's perspective, To me barb has Whirlwind and Frenzy/conc/zerk. I lump frenzy, conc and zerk into the same because they all play the same. Run at mob and hold down LMB. Sure you can spec into item find barb, gold find barb, pit zerker etc... There are different niche ways of doing it which excel at certain things which is fine for me I want builds to actually feel and play different, require me to actually learn how to play it and this is where Diablo 2 falls down. A lightning sorc, FB sorc, Forb Sorc different elements and skins sure? Work will vs different content because of immunities but play literally the exact same.

Diablo 3 on the other hand like I say every build feels unique has different nuances and tricks with it which are cool. When I first saw a leap barb in D3 I was like "ah cool I want to try that!" while in D2 while sure you could name 15 different "builds" there isn't much variety in them.

I honestly think Diablo 3 is a lot closer to being the best arpg out but a few mechanics stop it from that. Paragon turns what would of been an excellent competetive scene into a "who can grind the most". Sets and absurd legendaries turn what could have been a good gear curve into a rushed mess. If the game removed all these "x attack deals 7000% more damage" stuff. Still kept items like "you can leap 3 times" a toned down version of CoE, took the concent of sets but turned them into legendary affixes and removed the stupid number so you just had a legendary that made whirlwind apply rend, without it making it doing 10000% more damage so it instantly overshadowed everything else, just rebalance it all and utalise the content that's there... There's a whole campaign option why not give it viable drops so that builds that could run the campaign fast became a thing?

I am hopeful that Diablo 4 learns from the mistakes it made from Diablo 3, incorperates some of the things that are clearly great about Diablo 2 (varied farming methods, gear curve etc.) and D4 is great. I hope they just don't completely disregard Diablo 3 because there are many things Diablo 3 does amazing it's just other things they did ruin them.

Neither Diablo 2 nor Diablo 3 are perfect, but in each game they do the thing that fixes the other so if we get the best of D2 and D3 then D4 will be the best arpg on the market but a long shot.

[ClassicPeon]

SNIP.

I think we agree on more then we disagree on tbh.

The main difference might be that i just dont think d3 had imaginative enough builds. We can argue that d2 had even less, but it was made in a completely different time.

When you make a game like d3 and you decide that the only builds that are viable are tied to extremely overpowered set items, and you then only make 4 or 5 for each class, then you severely limit the pretty decent system of runes on skills that you made already because only a handful of skills are going to be good with those builds.

On top of that some skills are simply too alike for my tastes.

Example of this could be hammer of the ancients and seismic slam. Have the exact same playstyle. Overpower and revenge. Earthquake and avalanche.

The game could really use some more crative minds when designing skills, and even more importantly rotations for these classes. Skills should combo with eachother at the very least. That way we avoid the boring 1 button damage specs that everyone is using(almost everyone). Put some care into setups of damage. Not really rotations per se but setups for damage payoffs. Make all skills do damage or dont have them in the first place. basicly all the generators are useless atm.

Make sets/items good for different situations. Some really good at single target, some good at aoe, some good at cleave, some good at movement and kiting and so on.

I mean there are so many things they could do to diversify but instead we are left with 1 set being the goto each season because it ifts the season power or its been buffed. Often its the same set as last season. Like thats so damn bland.

[tkioz]

I don't think there is room PoE-like games (hack and slash). Chaosbane wasn't that succesful and D3 was also fail. Can't see how D4 is going to success.

I think you've proven that all that bone in your skull leaves no room for a brain.

[Baconeggcheese]

This thread is mad old but its always funny seeing people say that D3 failed despite it being one of thee best selling PC games of all time.

[Mamut]

This thread is mad old but its always funny seeing people say that D3 failed despite it being one of thee best selling PC games of all time.

And its funny to see people who cant understand that D3 failed not financially but to meet expectations from D2 funbase. And Im not talking about those people who overhyped D3 too much but compared to D2, D3 gearing and progression mechanics looks just shallow and its really bad considering ARPGs are about gearing and character progression.