The most fun had in these games IMO is in the beginning when you're low level and every bit of gear could be valuable. Going from 4-5 dmg a hit to 7-8 is a significant increase. You only get that on the start of these loot-and-level games. After a while the numbers go up astronomically but the actual real-world difference is generally zilch. In real terms, your damage is measured in hits-to-kill-a-mob. Regardless of whether you're doing 10 damage or 10 million, if it takes three hits to kill a mob, it takes three hits. If a new bit of gear doesn't change that three hits to kill a mob, its bigger numbers don't mean much.
I suppose in D3's case it's the progression to levels that matters. Each item itself doesn't really change anything in the current playthrough, but it will up your numbers a little so at some point you reach a threshold value and can try the harder levels.
But the impact of treasure finding doesn't last that long. I was play D3 online with a buddy the other day (old and inferior and not patched or upgraded, wasted money version) and the loot part comes down to waiting for legendaries. All the other drops are worthless - one wonders why have them?
I am going to use your comments to compare Diablo 3 vs Diablo 2. I love both games, but I am going to use your post as the basis to explain where, imho, Diablo 3 fails compared to Diablo 2, since I praised Diablo 3 very much, but didn't compare it to the classic Diablo 2.
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Smart loot: This is a tough choice. Smart loot makes sense to some extent. If you are playing a Barbarian, you get mostly Barbarian compatible items. Same for other classes. Problem is that it's like monsters only have Barbarian focused loot if you play a Barbarian, and you get the (very) odd Wizard, DH, Crusader, etc, stuff from ime to time. This means that each character is good for Magic Find on its own, no need for Ali Babas on a barbarian to start looting crucial monsters, and that you won't see bows or staffs, rare, magic or legendary...
I mean, my Werewolf Druid loved the Ribcracker staff in Diablo 2, but it'd be almost impossible to find in Diablo 3 if not with, say.. a wizard.
http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Ribcracker
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Monsters charisma: Diablo 3 lacks charisma when it comes to monsters. In Diablo 2 every single player knew Mephisto, Pindleskin, The Countess, Rakanishu.. There was some background to them. And they were mythical and legendary.
I remember well SuperUnique monstes like Shenk, Frozenstein -my favourite, most fun name of them all!!-, Sszark the Burning -a spider-, Witch Doctor Endugu, Andariel, Duriel, Coldcrow, Blood Raven, Izual, Lord de Seis, Eldritch, AND my favourite monster, design wise, Ancient Kaa the Soulless.
I don't have recognisable monsters in Diablo 3. They exist, but there isn't a legendary easy and fast run like Pndleskin, or Mephisto. Every monster can drop about everything, as long as you set Torment difficulty levels. Jacks of all trades masters of none.
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Areas 85 and Monster Level: Diablo 2 had certain areas where monsters had a very high level and could drop extremely high level stuff. Some monsters had very special and unique monster levels themselves, like the aforementioned Pindleskin. You learnt to recognise those areas, where now I don't know where to go or which level I am going to play.
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Magic Find: I miss that in Diablo 2 you could build a great character to confront monsters but also you had the option to build a weaker character meant for magic finding. That was a great differentiator and one sacrificed survival for best items, while the other sacrificed getting best items for survival.
Now Magic Find is automatic.
Plus legendaries and sets are mostly useless, because they drop so often, especially as your Paragon levels increase. Paragon adds more Magic Find by itself, which is rather dull.
You don't have an option, and that's it. Sure that now legendaries are discarded as they drop, 'cos most of them aren't useful, but sometimes it's better to drop less so the player is quite engaged in finding certain stuff.
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Mythical items: People dreamt about getting the mythical Unique items (legendaries where called uniques) like the famous Windforce, the so famous sword called The Grandfather, the entire Tal Rasha set -so hard to come by-, the super high item level uniques like the Stormspire (where are the Threshers in Diablo 3 btw? I loved that design).
Now legendaries -instead of Uniques- drop so often and with insubstantial stats that there isn't stuff you have that people covet so much
. Plus legendaries also are given via gifts that also drop often. In Diablo 2, a player with a Windforece or a The Grandfather had an halo of an unreachable status.
http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Stormspire
What Shifty call Treasure Finding: The thing is that the Windforce was such a treasure that a player with it was automatically rich. Before the duping started at least.
Difficulty: Diablo 3 sports a few more difficulty levels, but their point is that the more difficulty the more life monsters have and they harder they punch. Fighting in Diablo 3 is also different. In Diablo 2 it felt like a 1vs1 brawl, while Diablo 3 is more about area damage. Hence stats like Hit Recovery, that were essential in Diablo 2 or Dexterity -which helped with % chance to hit and % to evade being hit- are now useless (Hit Recovery) or ended up as being only attack stats (Dexterity, the more dexterity you have doesn't mean monsters will have a harder time hitting you anymore)
Hell was a bit of hell for most builds, and death was around the corner every time. When you can clear Torment VI pretty easily -death is possible though, especially for a Demon Hunter- and Torment becomes just a name rather than something to respect, you realise something is wrong.
The game becomes a one hit-two hit battles (for monsters and you), and mobs disintegration in one hit or two hits at that point. It's not so fun.
