Originally Posted by
ek0zu
Tldr, Diablo 3 is a terrible game that affected Blizzard's overall way of thinking (on how games should be done) and things need to change if they still believe that this franchise can still be profitable played on PC
So long story short.
I bought d3 when it was released, because i was so bored of WoW back then, because it was promised pvp and because i have not played any other Ds before. Me and my guys were were so hyped about this game as everyone else.
We sat down and started playing the game and we were like wtf is this? Back then you simply could not raise the difficulty and it was ridiculous how easy it was. Naturally, everyone dropped the game w/o finishing it, since there was no pvp coming, real money AH and other known and well discussed issues. I have to point out that basically everyone forced themselves to play the game until the eventual drop. Then some changes occurred the difficulty was unlocked, ah cancelled, pvp was still out of the horizon.
I tried it again (unfortunately only me noone else and some other gr8 blizzard funboy friend of mine who plays anything blizzard delivers). I maxed the difficulty in some torment lvls where everything was not melting and i had some challenge but i could at the same time kill them with my shit gear. The game was not enjoyable but it was now playable, i was like yeah i can now at least finish the game and see what was the fuss about all those years since the first time i saw it (but never played it) when i was in elementary school. I eventually finished it, killed the final boss and i was like ok. It was not something memorable but it was not so shit after all.
However, i could not continue playing and raising my paragon levels. i did that for a bit but only for a bit.
Back then i was a huge blizzard fun boy, i was like i am the wrong not liking d3 because the company that made tft, roc, sc and ofc wow can't deliver a shitty game. I tried the game again with a less op class than the witch doctor was, a demon hunter, it was definitely better but still i could not run the same shit all over again, so i eventually dropped the game for good.
Obviously, when the expansion released i did not buy it and noone from my peers did. I always had the itch to buy it especially when the reviews were saying it was good etc but i did not. However, during Christmas it was on sale for only 10 euros and i bought it, but did not install it.
Due to the covid-19 everyone played games more and i was not the exception. I finished many games that were sitting on my steam library or on my actual library and it was the time of the d3 expansion.
I was pumped up to play a new class, the necromancer. I realized that i had to spent an additional amount of 15euros and i was like no ty. I said ok.... I will play paladin and i realized that i had to play the campaign from ACT1 since i have not played anything since 2013. I was like ok i am not doing that either, i will play my demon hunter which i remembered that i actually liked playing with it but i realized that that char too was not max lvl either, so i ended up with my OP witch doctor (i hate OP classes that's why i am being ironic, to make an analogy in wotlk i ditched the dk class after i lvled it because i was seeing how awesomly OP was and i did the same in legion with dh).
I said ok nvm i will max out the difficulty and enjoy the game, but again for some reason the highest difficulty possible was Hard. Obviously, everything melted. In any other case i would have dropped the game but we were on lockdown and i could not go to the gym, go out, etc things that i actually enjoy so i played it until the end.
I finished the game and every other difficulty was unlocked, i was like ok lets start with torment 5, i could not kill anything but it was challenging and fun, i lowered to torment 4. i still could not kill anything but it was getting better, at torment 3 i was ok. I started liking the game, figuring out traits that i need to play, how they interact with each other and so on and so forth. I was like lets change my keybindings now to play more efficiently but for me the game ended around there.
Bitter (not sweet) flavor is on my mouth right now, writing this long message. D3 was the start of a huge downfall for Blizzard that affected all of its games and especially WoW.
Looting many pointless items just for the sake of looting with different stats and different names, multiple difficulties for no apparent reason, you are basically burned until you reach the end of the game and you cba so much to continue after it, pointless classes with so many little things to press (yeah ok i get it is an ARPG), pointless fights with zilion of unnamed creatures that you storm through them without any form of strategy, pointless passive buffs that make you godlike.
It was good that d3 was buried and they proceeded with the production of d4 and not any expansion for the latter. But lets face the truth here, at least from my point of view. Diablo in general if they want it to continue being a PC game it needs to change, for me top-down ARPG are a huge waste of resources and it needs to evolve in something else, if it wants to remain relevant.
Personally, i don't see the reason why a multi billion company as blizzard is nowadays to bother and built an ARPG. Diablo, when i was kid was cool, i still believe it is cool (at least from what i have seen from the concept art that D4 has so far) but it really needs to change by ALOT. For me top-down arpgs that you only have 6 active skills are a thing of the past and should only be utilized by small indie companies that don't have the resources to make something more (PoE, Torchlight, Valcun, etc).
Blizzcon's D4 that aired last year was a d3 with goth graphics, same playstyle, same philosophy, same everything, just a reskin of D2. For me Lost Ark and the concept of lineage3 that i have only seen videos of are more engaging games.
I would be happy for everyone that is really invested into Diablo universe to get a game that they are hoping with D4. Who knows Diablo3 might be good for many people atm, at least from what i am reading on reviews and comebacks, etc, but i don't think its playerbase is big and evolving, rather than stagnates and stays on their previous glory.
Anyway, thank you for reading this huge wall of text but i wanted to write something like this for quite some time. As i said above Blizzard is the company that brought all those games and in my eyes D3 really really alienated most of its efforts since then, i have huge respect for the people that have built all these games that made our childhood so fun, but they now need to step it up. From what i have seen with Shadowlands beta so far i am feeling optimistic but again, the road for redemption is long.
Cheers!