Diablo III - It's official

[KKRT]

I'll just paste what i wrote on neogaf ;p

After testing 3 chars i was interested in, i can finally summary my 'experience'.
First of all classes were amazing to play. I've started with Wizard and really loved how powerful it is, i liked most skills a lot, but i think it was the most repetitive/boring class from all i've played, its of course only beta issue, because there are no runes, slots/skills are limited [we dont have in beta any movement skill, which sucks ;p]

Then i played Monk, who i gave two/three items i found with first run of Wizard and to make game 'a little harder' i havent changed them almost for an entire game. Monk became really fun when he gets Deadly Reach. Skill is not only fun and well balanced, but also gives You spirit that You can use on other skills and make some combos I liked that a lot, even though this class was the weakest one. I didnt like Crippling Wave and You can even see that in movies below when i test it ;p Also it was the only class which needed to play fight Skeleton King 'safe'.

Last one was Demon Hunter that i didnt like at first, it was slow, skills were quite crappy, hatred ended too fast etc, but thats changing after level 5-6 and it gets better and betters when You level up. It was probably the easiest class for killing Skeleton King, because had really strong ranged attacks and awesome dodge. Dodge is awesome [its called Vault as i recall] and i'm quite unhappy that i cant use it to travel non stop
You can watch my full Demon Hunter run on youtube [link below]

Gameplay is really fun and addictive, even though beta is easy as fuck ;p [i cant believe that some people on Blizzard board write that it was too hard o_0], but i can see how good it will be in higher difficulties with those all options. I really liked how responsive skills were and how could You easily combine them.

I liked physics, but i think for some it could be too overdone. Maybe its only a beta issue, but i think they focused on that too much [i'm ok with that because i love all physic stuff in games ]

I didnt like health orbs, they seem too random in the beta. I dont how they scales up on higher levels/difficulties, but i think that flask system in PoE is better designed and more predictable.

Crafting seem quite good, i havent leveled my Blacksmith yet [i'll do it today], but from i saw, items he crafts are useful and salvaging helps cleaning Your inventory, it will also be quite good currency later in game. I just hope it scales up well to Inferno.

Stash is too small, like almost none ;\ It should at least has 6+ pages.


Videos:
Wizard [just running around]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIuQIzcBjLg&hd=1

Monk [from Templar to Skeleton King]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3irFzbt-6_k&hd=1

Demon Hunter [full run]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-qGi_mSR_I&hd=1

Oh and optimization sucks hard in this game.

 

[John Reynolds]

Got a wizard to 8th level and love the class. Had the smith upgrade almost everything I could, and slipped some magic rings and other stuff his way that'd dropped for my barbarian. And he's a monster, just tears through the mobs.

 

[snarfbot]

bring it on!

 

[Grall]

Oh and optimization sucks hard in this game.

What do you mean by this?

 

[KKRT]

What do you mean by this?

It stutters when You uncover new areas, it uses 80-90% of 1 core under v-sync and 30-40% on two cores without, it slows downs to 40-35 in action even when it shouldnt and it doesnt feel fluid without v-sync even with 100+ fps.
Also game is locked in 110fps, strange.

 

[Grall]

Well, Blizzard has never been known for its technical prowess. Hopefully what you describe is caused by its pre-release nature, and perhaps, lack of video driver level optimizations. With a bit of luck, Blizzard should be able to fix all this before release (rumored february 2012 is what I heard last.)

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Whoa, thanks for the heads up. Never would have guessed I was in the BETA now. Didn't get a mail but checked my account after some of you mentioned that. Argh, now I have to wait while it downloads.

[edit] - Argh, and of course the login servers are down until tomorrow. Grrrr.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Hmmm, runs smooth as silk for me. So not sure why it seems unoptimized to some.

Graphics are fantastic for this type of game with a lot of little details and animations that I'm sure most people won't even notice since they are hard to see unless you zoom in.

In game AA does a good job with jaggies, but unfortunately blurs things a bit much as well. I'm torn on whether to keep it on or not. Guess I should see if I can force AA through the control panel.

And I REALLY miss being able to assign stat points and skill points at each level up.

Regards,
SB

 

[Grall]

Being able to assign stat points makes balancing the game a nightmare, so I can understand why they're skipping it this time around. There's quite a few knobs left to tweak from what I understand, so it should be OK.

In D2, I remember you could make your character wickedly powerful by pretty much exclusively sinking your stat points into your primary stat, like agility for an amazon, and make up for the lack of strength, hitpoints and so on by cherrypicking what to wear plus twinking out your gear with runes and gems.

If Blizzard wants inferno to be challenging, they can't allow you to build a character that has no chance of surviving that difficulty level. Players would become frustrated and angered after spending countless hours working their way up through the game, only to hit a brick wall because they don't have enough life, for example. So to allow for that situation, they'd have to tone down monster damage, which would encourage such bad character building habits...

It's disappointing perhaps to lose a character development option, but if it makes for an overall better game then so be it I guess.

Also, since leveling is just a transport stretch really, with the majority of gametime spent at the level cap - hopefully anyway - it shouldn't matter too much.

 

[KKRT]

Hmmm, runs smooth as silk for me. So not sure why it seems unoptimized to some.

Have You done some performance tests? How is Your CPU utilization? Do You play with v-sync on or off? Do You have SSD?

Graphics are fantastic for this type of game with a lot of little details and animations that I'm sure most people won't even notice since they are hard to see unless you zoom in.

Disagree. Animations are quite crappy [i was so suprised] and there are almost no little details, and even if there are, they are really low poly.

Have You seen Path of Exile? Its a game made by 10 people mostly without experience in industry.
http://i.imgur.com/qNd16.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/0PDLr.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ASWnX.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/tSfvs.jpg
http://i.minus.com/iLhDMvvnBeZs4.png
http://i.minus.com/ibyETIWOTfOQXY.png

some gifs showing animations [more detailed than D3 ones and i'm not joking or fanboying]
http://k.minus.com/illGQ6swNPpKl.gif
http://i.minus.com/ibdh7MuamXXoqA.gif

 

[AlphaWolf]

some gifs showing animations [more detailed than D3 ones and i'm not joking or fanboying]

have to disagree, that doesn't look half as good or detailed as D3. And there seems to be very little going on in comparison (single light source?). Art aside (although I think that's pretty weak as well).

 

[KKRT]

have to disagree, that doesn't look half as good or detailed as D3. And there seems to be very little going on in comparison (single light source?). Art aside (although I think that's pretty weak as well).

I would make animation comparison, but D3 gives me Error_37 ...

Their engine is forward rendering based, so no, not every projectile is a light source, but nor is in Diablo 3 [http://i.imgur.com/ZGo9f.jpg or http://i.imgur.com/7C45h.jpg], but there are different light sources.
Oh and lets forgot about much better shadowing system, high quality shaders, high quality textures, much higher poly objects. And how D3 is detailed? Grass is painted on the texture, awful bushes and trees, there is not much details in dungeons either, except for physics stuff.
I understand not every people should love PoE art style [i dont, i would prefer something more like Dark/Demon's Souls], but D3 art style if awful and much worse. Just compare skeletons/zombies from both games.

 

[homerdog]

Graphics look pretty darn good for a pure DX9 game (I am correct in this?).

Edit whoops I was looking at those Path of Exile screenies... well that game looks pretty good. :smile:

Anyhow, does Diablo 3 support a DX11 or 10 path? Seems like the obvious choice for a 2012 PC exclusive, but Blizzard games don't necessarily follow the same rules as most PC exclusives.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yeah, I've tried path of exile, it's nowhere near as polished as D3. The animations are amateurish at best, but the game isn't bad for being developed by such a small team. Likewise a completely different art direction and focus between the two games. I don't entirely agree with the direction Blizzard went, but they've done well enough with it.

For one of the little things I mentioned just zoom in while Leah (I think that's her name) is idling. She hooks her thumb into her belt and just twiddles her fingers. Incidental NPCs that don't even have meaningful dialog have free flowing locks of hair and tassles and whatnot. There's cloth physics, again on incidental NPCs that most people won't take more than a single glance at.

And I play with vsync off. Always have and always will unless it's a point and click adventure game. Vsync annoys the ever living crap out of me most of the time, so I just don't bother even if a game implements it well. The only time there's a performance issue is when the wireless goes wonky, but that's a given with any game I try to play over wireless. But there's no issues at all when using a wired connection.

BTW - are achievements working for anyone else? Didn't get a single achievement while playing tonight. Not even the pick up 500 gold one, and I've picked up over 2000.

As well I'm missing the level up assignment of attributes and skillpoints more and more as I play. There's no feeling of control over my characters developement.

I'm starting to feel that this game is going to have far more limited replayability than D2 did.

Also I wish more effort had been put into giving the Monk more appropriate animations when wielding weapons. I would have loved to see staff animations and even more martial arts inspired single sword and dual sword animations. Big missed opportunity there.

Speaking of the Monk. It's annoying me to no ends that they gave him a Russian accent. They should have least have given the player the option of having an Asian accent (Chinese, Japanese, whatever...but preferably Chinese).

Regards,
SB

 

[I.S.T.]

Wait, you can't do different builds of characters? Each one has a set path skillwise? I knew about the attributes thing(Not a fan, but if they can make it work...), but not letting people select their skills? Jeeze. It's like they want to make customization entirely gear based.

 

[KKRT]

Yeah, I've tried path of exile, it's nowhere near as polished as D3. The animations are amateurish at best, but the game isn't bad for being developed by such a small team. Likewise a completely different art direction and focus between the two games. I don't entirely agree with the direction Blizzard went, but they've done well enough with it.

Hard for a game in Closed Beta and 30% done to be as polished as complete title And i have encounter only one bug in PoE beta [which was fixed in two days], so its definitely quite polished for its stage.
Art directions and gameplay styles are different in both games. PoE is more traditional [hack and slash] in terms of gameplay than D3, but they both awesome and really addicting ;]

I wouldnt say amatourish. Just compare this
http://i.minus.com/i7cuQwljgkghp.gif [bigger version /30mb/ with more animations and different perspective - http://i.minus.com/ibfXV2Zo3q2RTr.gif]
http://i.minus.com/ibdh7MuamXXoqA.gif
Legs work better in PoE, also hands are better animated. Yep PoE animations are more 'generic', where D3 have more character in them to fit art style.
I also think that Monk has some great animations [especially this one with three punches], but Wizard and DH really lacks.

I dont agree about replayability, for me just Inferno gives much more replayability than D2 would ever give.
I hated doing same boss runs all the time and that i couldnt get proper gear in my beloved act [act 1], with Inferno i will Now Blizzard just need to make an act i will truly love

Wait, you can't do different builds of characters? Each one has a set path skillwise? I knew about the attributes thing(Not a fan, but if they can make it work...), but not letting people select their skills? Jeeze. It's like they want to make customization entirely gear based.

You have limited amount of skills slots and runes changes skills dramatically and also 3 slots for passives, so their is still some character building left
Still dont know though why they've changed traits too passives ;\, traits were awesome, I'll always hate streamlining ;\

 

[John Reynolds]

Wait, you can't do different builds of characters? Each one has a set path skillwise? I knew about the attributes thing(Not a fan, but if they can make it work...), but not letting people select their skills? Jeeze. It's like they want to make customization entirely gear based.

Read up on the runes. There are five and they each affect the skills differently. And each toon only has so many skill slots (more as you increase in level), so there are more skills than slots. So, yes, there's variation in building each class. I've seen some neat melee wizard builds, though that's not my cup 'o tea.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Wait, you can't do different builds of characters? Each one has a set path skillwise? I knew about the attributes thing(Not a fan, but if they can make it work...), but not letting people select their skills? Jeeze. It's like they want to make customization entirely gear based.

Everyone gets the same skills at the same time. Everyone gets the same stats at the same time. That part I really dislike and hate about the game.

The differentiator will supposedly be the rune system. But they have yet to make it work to where they are satisfied. Their last attempt was with unattuned runes. You'd get a random rune type (out of 5 different types with greatly varied effects) when you socket it along with some random stats. You had no way of knowing what rune type or what stats before socketing. And once socketted it was permanent until replaced by another rune.

The problem they had was that there are 7 levels runes. Creating a 7th level rune was reportedly going to take more than 2 months of grinding. Now imagine grinding out a 7th level rune, then socketing it, only to find that it not only isn't the type you wanted but didn't have stats you normally gear for.

So they went back to the drawing board about 3-4 weeks ago. What I described is still their fallback solution if the game launches before they have a system in place that they are really happy with.

But whatever they come up with, they want it to be a bit random. So again, no control over my character really.

You have a limited set of skills that everyone gets at the same time, with the same stats that everyone gets at the same time.

You are limited to 6 active powers and 3 passive powers at any given time. These can be swapped anytime you visit a town or in some dungeon entrances. You used to be able to change them on the fly anytime you wanted. Everything is unlocked by the time you reach level 30.

So yes, the only thing that differentiates people will be the gear. Runes, gems, armor, weapons, etc. Skill builds won't be terribly unique as you can change them almost anytime you want.

So yes, basically I have no feeling of control over how my character develops. I'm still going to buy this game. And I'm still going to play the ever living crap out of it.

But... I have a feeling that I'll probably be done with it in a few months rather than the few years that I played D2.

There is no endless replayability in trying new builds. No challenge of trying to play a build that is gimpy in the early levels but extremely powerful at the higher levels. Armor has no restrictions other than level for the most part. So expect to see a lot of Plate wearing Wizards. The armor may look like cloth since the appearance changes based on class, but it'll have the higher armor values, etc. of Plate without actually needing stats for it (like D2).

I have a feeling that 5 years from now. I'll still be playing Diablo 2 while Diablo 3 gathers virtual dust. Doesn't mean I won't have fun with D3 while it's still fresh, but it certainly doesn't look to have any sort of replayable longevity.

Regards,
SB

 

[snarfbot]

so basically every character will be exactly the same, or potentially be the same based on what skills they have active?

 

[I.S.T.]

I knew about the runes, but i was filing them under equipment.

Jeeze. I think I'll skip this one... Finding good gear was random enough in D2, making my characters' effectiveness based entirely off of gear is just... No.