I bought Diablo III and its' expansion when they were each released, and have leveled almost every class to 70, with Wizard having been leveled to 70 three separate times. I
used to adore the gameplay and explorative RPG action. I thought it was such an innovation for Blizzard to take hold of the reins of the market for buying gear from other players. Was it 'game-breaking'? Perhaps. In my opinion no, but I was sort of a casual. You won't find me on top of any ladders, but if there was one for sheer hours played, you might.
I think the excitement with playing died slowly once the Adventure Mode option became available with Reaper of Souls. Instead of playing through the game and leveling up and acquiring gear (even through the RMAH when you hit a lul in drops while leveling), you simply log on, grind the 5 quests per zone, do each zone, then log off and log back on to do the random quests again (or should I just call them world quests ....). The other option of course is Rifts and Greater Rifts, but those are even more randomly generated than the random quests.
We as gamers have always griped about why linear gameplay isn't fun, but after witnessing what happens as the reciprocal to linear, I can't find any motivation to even log on any more. Having a linear path of progression gives motivation to get to the next check point!
I always enjoyed gearing up, and when you have an alt that has a socketed weapon drop, and you grab a high end Ruby from your main to use for it, your damage skyrockets! It was so thrilling to me to blast bosses away with a few strikes, it almost felt like a cheat code. When drops weren't in your favor, you could swing over to the RMAH, using money or gold mind you, and play around with auctions.
I understand what all went into that system, and how Blizzard's design was not how the game ended up with direction, but personally, I loved where it was going.
On a tangent, do any of you feel any similarities between the current state of Diablo III's endgame and that of WoW Legion? I have stopped playing Legion out of boredom, in the exact same fashion and timeframe that Diablo III became boring, and in my opinion, for the same reasons.
Thoughts?