Diablo 3 - The Phantom Menace

[Khadhar]

D3, to me, is a decent game. And that right there is probably the problem. It's not that D3 is bad, it's just that it's not good as you hoped. You were expecting the second coming, and all you got was pizza. Pizza's great, sure, but it's not what you were expecting.

Ultimately they changed too little to make it stand out on it's own, possibly because they were afraid that if they changed too much, people would hate it. Which is... probably what would happen. They lose either way.

That is the inevitable cycle of the hype machine. Remember Duke Nukem Forever? Yeah...

[wariofan1]

"That was a worthy foe!"

''By all that is holy, do you see that enemy over there!?''

''What a monstrous creature!''

''Black magic bars our way. Butthewillofatemplar is stronger!''

''We have done it''

''JondAAr''

''You were defeated the moment you surrendered to madness!''

God how I love that douche.

That is the inevitable cycle of the hype machine. Remember Duke Nukem Forever? Yeah...

Difference is that Duke Nukem Forever sucked balls. Diablo 3 is at worst decent. It is a really well constructed game. You can't deny it, the game is good for what it is, whether it lived up to your expectations is a whole other question. As a first time Diablo player I found the game surprisingly good, and looking at Diablo 2 there are just mechanics I can't understand that some people liked, like potion spamming. And I guess that is what this game was, a game for newcomers, but not really true to the veterans, it isn't as primitive as its past incarnations. I fear that the hype combined with Diablo 2 nostalgia is what inevitably ended up killing the game for tons of fans.

[Snes]

Diablo III is a game I'll pick away at very slowly because I get bored very quickly with it. Slow paced and clicky, not too engrossing for me, hence why I'm only in act 2 of normal lol.

What I really need is another Monster Hunter game. Have over 200 hours on Monster Hunter Tri for Wii and thinking of going back to prepare for Monster Hunter 3G on 3DS :P

Or Dark Souls, but I sold my PS3 to my brother before that came out.

[Leonard McCoy]

''
Difference is that Duke Nukem Forever sucked balls. Diablo 3 is at worst decent. It is a really well constructed game. You can't deny it, the game is good for what it is, whether it lived up to your expectations is a whole other question. As a first time Diablo player I found the game surprisingly good, and looking at Diablo 2 there are just mechanics I can't understand that some people liked, like potion spamming. And I guess that is what this game was, a game for newcomers, but not really true to the veterans, it isn't as primitive as its past incarnations. I fear that the hype combined with Diablo 2 nostalgia is what inevitably ended up killing the game for tons of fans.

Diablo 3 at worst is more like a 6/10. It depends what you qualify as decent. For a Blizzard release it's bad. Real bad.

[jvbastel]

There was a discussion in this thread earlier about how blizzard designed loot and drop rates with the auction house in mind, here's an official statement saying that isn't true.

The auction house has absolutely no effect on drop rates. There are conspiracy theories and misunderstandings but I do want to re-iterate, the is NO interaction whatsoever. Bashiok mentioned earlier that we took the AH into account, so let me expand a little bit on that.

The drop rates were tuned for a player who would never use the Auction House. For the majority of internal development we didn't have an Auction House, we all played using our own drops only. I've personally leveled multiple characters from 1 to 60 internally before the game came out using only drops that I found - we all did.

When we say we "took the AH into account" that means it's one of many factors. ie. some players will choose to play without trading, some players would play in a group of 4 where they share drops among each other, and some (as it turns out, many) players would use the AH.

Three weeks after launch player's gear is much higher than what we were expecting. When I killed the Butcher on Inferno for the first time I was using a weapon with 492 DPS. There are also certain passives which are much more powerful than they were during internal development. One With Everything, for example, was basically never used internally because we didn't have an auction House. With the auction house, it feels like a mandatory passive. In retrospect we should have seen it coming. In the game's current state though, it's a powerful Monk ability that gives Monks a big survivability boost and has some interesting (some would argue fun, others would argue negative) effects on gearing.

I consider playing without the Auction House to be a very fun way to play the game. I'm personally planning on rolling some new characters that I'll set aside to be "no-AH/no-twink" characters. Much like in D2 when I would make a new character with a friend and we'd agree with each other not to twink our characters out.

and here's a question by another poster:

You've been quoted as saying that Diablo III loot is balanced around the existence of the Auction House. Could you clarify what you mean by that? Many people seem to assume that means there is "less" or "poorer" loot being dropped on an individual basis because we're expected to get our actual upgrades from the Auction House. I read it more as the existence of the Auction House allows a much wider variety of loot affixes. If a person had to rely on only their own drops or ad hoc trading, the game would have to roll most items with +Primary Stat and +Vitality/Resist. With the Auction House in play, the game can roll literally millions of crazy stat combinations, because even if you only get "crazy" drops, you can still use the Auction House for the hard-to-upgrade slots. Thoughts?

to which Jay responded:

I'm sorry, I don't remember saying that and if I did then I was drunk and/or wrong. We tuned and balanced the game without the auction house, as there weren't enough people internally using it to test it against gameplay, so we didn't design anything for it.

[Leonard McCoy]

When we say we "took the AH into account" that means it's one of many factors.

See that's the problem I have with their responses. They never quite explain how or what they took into account with the AH. They never give you any detail about how the auction house made them rethink loot or how its changed because of the AH. All they'll tell you is "it was a factor" well that's meaningless. We know that. In fact that's what led to the initial confusion. Your answers aren't clear so people fill in the blanks.

[Deleted]

The drop rates were tuned for a player who would never use the Auction House.

that's really all I need to know.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Diablo III is a game I'll pick away at very slowly because I get bored very quickly with it. Slow paced and clicky, not too engrossing for me, hence why I'm only in act 2 of normal lol.

What I really need is another Monster Hunter game. Have over 200 hours on Monster Hunter Tri for Wii and thinking of going back to prepare for Monster Hunter 3G on 3DS :P

Or Dark Souls, but I sold my PS3 to my brother before that came out.

Slow... Paced? I can't believe someone actually said that.

[wariofan1]

Diablo 3 at worst is more like a 6/10. It depends what you qualify as decent. For a Blizzard release it's bad. Real bad.

I take a 5/10-6/10 score as decent, so it seems reasonable.

[Eroginous]

A lot of you are forgetting that unlike other companies, Blizzard iterates games until they are in a good place. Having had a rough launch, they are definitely paying close attention to D3 and in their minds, they aren't going to let it fail or be a '6/10' game so long as players keep giving them the kind of feedback they can take and improve the game with.

We've already had two small patches, with a decent sized one coming.

[kaelleria]

I dunno... I'm having a ton of fun in D3 right now... Capable of farming Acts I-IV Inferno on my wizard at this point so now I'm making a DH and loving that as well.

I'm thinking there's a point in the game (Act 2 Inferno) where people get really frustrated because they can't advance any further without better gear. And then you farm... and in a few days you'll be back on track.

PS. Belial is harder than Diablo.

[jakeic]

The drop rates were tuned for a player who would never use the Auction House. For the majority of internal development we didn't have an Auction House, we all played using our own drops only. I've personally leveled multiple characters from 1 to 60 internally before the game came out using only drops that I found - we all did.

now we have discovered why it took seven years to develop.

[Ichy]

For me its the whole Viable builds are only viable after either gold sinking, extreme rnd (yes RND/rand = random, from a coders perspective RNG has always meant ranged in my book) luck, or at least 100hours a week farming (something not all of us can do). A combination is probably more than likely the reality. After that I have a grip with the way one goes about the acts. I liked in d2 that at any point in a farm run I could just skip to a different act, in d3 I have to actually exit the game, change the quest, start the game before I can move on to farming. Not very fun In my book.

[Arrowstormen]

Diablo has always depended on you getting the weird addicting feeling you get from some games. There is something addicting about that game for me.

[DeadmanWalking]

now we have discovered why it took seven years to develop.

It took so long because they went through 3 seperate art direction style changes.

[Caiada]

It took so long because they went through 3 seperate art direction style changes.

And every single gameplay element besides the isometric view and click-to-move was changed multiple times. They've basically built and rebuilt 3 or 4 different mediocre games into one (arguably) much better one.

[Drilnos]

D3, to me, is a decent game. And that right there is probably the problem. It's not that D3 is bad, it's just that it's not good as you hoped. You were expecting the second coming, and all you got was pizza. Pizza's great, sure, but it's not what you were expecting.

Ultimately they changed too little to make it stand out on it's own, possibly because they were afraid that if they changed too much, people would hate it. Which is... probably what would happen. They lose either way.

That is the inevitable cycle of the hype machine. Remember Duke Nukem Forever? Yeah...

The thing about the Second Coming is that we're not going to see it coming. If you go around expecting a game to the the Greatest Game of All Time, and it turns out to be just a good game, maybe even simply a great one, you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

Games that change the genre are only apparent after the genre has been changed. It's impossible to know whether that's the case within a month after release, much less years before it hits the shelves. D3 is D2 with some improvements, tweaks and a new storyline. D2 was a great game. D3 is also a great game. But "great" isn't good enough for the imagination. If it cured leprosy and made blind men see, it might begin to live up to the hype, but it doesn't do those things. It's just Diablo.

[Frozen Death Knight]

It took so long because they went through 3 seperate art direction style changes.

Their problem was that they did not know which direction they wanted to take the game in. Can be quite hard filling in other people's shoes, sometimes. Still, I think they did a great job at several things, so they succeeded in my eyes.

[Deleted]

For me its the whole Viable builds are only viable after either gold sinking, extreme rnd (yes RND/rand = random, from a coders perspective RNG has always meant ranged in my book) luck, or at least 100hours a week farming (something not all of us can do). A combination is probably more than likely the reality. After that I have a grip with the way one goes about the acts. I liked in d2 that at any point in a farm run I could just skip to a different act, in d3 I have to actually exit the game, change the quest, start the game before I can move on to farming. Not very fun In my book.

this is one of few things that makes my nose itch.
Not a major problem but I would have preferred the other way considering how much they wanted to go with "no bosses but kill stuff around"

[Zaqwert]

Just wanna bump this old thread I made back in JUNE of last year.

Just patting myself on the back for calling one right.