Diablo III - It's official

[Jedi2016]

Yep. I played a monk first, and was often dismayed at the lack of Dexterity drops, while I seemed to be overflowing in Strength and Intellect gear. But it became clear when I started playing a wizard... suddenly I was getting an unusually high amount of Dexterity gear, but I was not getting any more drops of Intellect gear. That's what really confirmed that what was happening was by design.

What they seemed to not realize is that not everyone wants to just buy their gear from someone else. Even if you're using in-game currency, it's still pay-to-win. I'd rather play on just what I can find or craft myself (you know, like... every other game in the world). But the way it is now, I would have to level at least three characters simultaneously, one for each primary stat, in order to get gear for the other two primary stats.

It does seem highly random. At times, I'll "get lucky" and get some good drops. I'm only on Nightmare Act II right now on my monk. When I killed Diablo and beat Normal mode, I got nothing.. all the gear he dropped was shit. When I killed The Butcher and beat Act I on Nightmare, I got nothing. But when I got to Act II and killed Maghda (not even the final boss), I actually got two pieces of gear from her that were pretty decent upgrades.

But I still feel like I'm being punished for not going to the AH. Skills aside, I'm getting stomped when I come across elite packs, and I have the sneaking suspicion it's because I'm severely undergeared.

 

[Grall]

But I still feel like I'm being punished for not going to the AH. Skills aside, I'm getting stomped when I come across elite packs, and I have the sneaking suspicion it's because I'm severely undergeared.

Yeah, this is my biggest beef with D3, that and the total lack of gear for endgame. I actually bought two of the ONLY legendary hand crossbows at level 55, thinking there would be new weapons dropping at 60, but there isn't. The same bows just drop with level-reduction attribute randomly appearing on it, letting you equip a ridiculously overpowered weapon long before reaching endgame.

Feeling undergeared due to not getting any useful stuff dropping is really tiresome (IMO anyway) in a game totally revolving on slaying hordes of monsters. When I played the game I often went 10, 20 levels or more without anything useful dropping for a particular slot, how is that supposed to be fun? It all stems from the enormous range attributes can have when they drop. A blue piece of shit glove dropping at level 30 can have +50 or somesuch to your primary attribute, you might not find anything better in a long long time. Something with more ARMOR on it, sure, but taking a tiny amount less damage while getting beat on doesn't help you kill any faster.

Also... Elite packs can be harder to kill than bosses, depending on what random shit you get tacked on them. Invulnerability shield, waller, artillery/arcane sentry/green-crap-on-the-ground combo is ridiculous. Heck, any attribute in addition to where they get to attack you while you're completely walled in is just total bullshit as you'll die if you're not a wizard with blink or barbarian with leap (don't know monk or witchdoctor very well; maybe they got some counter to that, I dunno.)

I don't know what I'd do if I was to try and play hardcore with a class without escape skills, as being a (supposedly) superhero nephalem easily defeated by any random demons with waller and arcane sentry feels extremely anticlimactic.

 

[Jedi2016]

The ones that got me yesterday were Desecrators. That by itself wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't for the Unique that was with them that had Frozen. And because of the desecration effect, I couldn't see where the freeze-bomb things were, so I'd be suddenly stuck in place while standing in a desecration puddle with four elites beating on me. I didn't last long. Twice. Finally got the pack down on the third try, after that the Unique was easy.

 

[liolio]

I want Blizzard to let me move my characters from US to Eu servers... those bitches won't even let users do that once... This is BS

What a fucking nice use of remote resources/servers... Old school saves were traveling with me at least...

 

[John Reynolds]

Only thing I've heard - and this was a while ago, I don't watch D3 news as I (again) don't play the game - is that they plan on reducing the amount of gear that drops and buff the quality of drops.

Considering that the average quality of items dropping right now is typically somewhere between "shit" and "goddamn shit", even with 100+ percent to magic find, this would be very useful.

And also, the amount of demon hunter gear I craft with either strength or intellect on it instead of dexterity is just extraordinary, which totally suggests they deliberately nerf drops for your current class. Anecdotal evidence, sure, but it's extremely consistent anecdotal evidence which suggests to me that it really isn't all that anecdotal at all...

My favorite aspect of D3's itemization was the sheer randomness of the stats on class-specific drops. Great wizard wand, with 300+ strength, just what my spellcaster wanted.

I highly doubt the itemization overhaul occurs before they launch the console versions of the game.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

So , the game is up for pre order on the PSN now. The pre order page says it will be availalble in 25 days.

Since you guys have been playing it for quite some time now, I guess I would ask here.

I love Torchlight 2, have never played a Diablo game before, should I get it ?

It has 4 player couch co op , which is what I prefer over the pc version, which means I can get my nephew to play with me during vacations. Internet seems to be full of hate for the game and yet it is also selling like hot cakes. Whats the deal?

 

[Malo]

It's a Blizzard game therefore it sells like hotcakes. The hate is from the millions of Diablo II fans whom were disappointed in how D3 ended up. Mostly I assume due to the skill system.

 

[Grall]

Skill system isn't what's problematic with D3 (if you discount that you're always awarded skills, with no choice over the matter yourself and thus can't direct the path of your character's development), I think most ragers are upset over the loot drops (which they're fixing) and that you can't select attribute points like the previous diablos.

Blizzard's response - which was quite logical really - is that character progression which is solely dictated by mathematics isn't really character progression; if you can calculate which distribution of attribute points is the best then you've beaten the game basically. If you don't know of this ultimate distribution, then you're ending up with a gimped character through no fault of your own really.

They feel they can't keep such a flawed system just to cater for the tiny minority who like to produce gimped characters for their own amusement, and I agree.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It's a Blizzard game therefore it sells like hotcakes. The hate is from the millions of Diablo II fans whom were disappointed in how D3 ended up. Mostly I assume due to the skill system.

Skill system + ability system. There's relatively limited customizability compared to Diablo II. All meant to save the player from themselves. /middle_finger Blizzard. If I want to challenge myself with a strength heavy Wizard wearing platemail let me. Fugging babysitters.

Personally I think everything else was fine. But no skill tree and no ability customization outside of equipment just made it not even a fraction as replayable as Diablo 2 was.

Torchlight did the character progression correctly. Diablo 3 totally F-ed up the character progression, IMO. Hence I haven't played it in almost a year now.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

So , the game is up for pre order on the PSN now. The pre order page says it will be availalble in 25 days.

Since you guys have been playing it for quite some time now, I guess I would ask here.

I love Torchlight 2, have never played a Diablo game before, should I get it ?

It has 4 player couch co op , which is what I prefer over the pc version, which means I can get my nephew to play with me during vacations. Internet seems to be full of hate for the game and yet it is also selling like hot cakes. Whats the deal?

It sells like hotcakes because it's by Blizzards, it's Diablo, and it's pretty much impossible to play a complete version of D3 offline. The latest good working offline emulator was stopped before it managed to emulate much past the 1st Act.

It's still a good game. And if you have never played Diablo 2, then you won't even know how it was completely ruined compared to Diablo 2.

Torchlight 2 didn't sell as well due to not being as well known as Diablo, but also being extremely easy to pirate. I know a lot of people playing a pirated version of Torchlight still, while they no longer play the version of Diablo 3 that they purchased.

Regards,
SB

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Skill system + ability system. There's relatively limited customizability compared to Diablo II. All meant to save the player from themselves. /middle_finger Blizzard. If I want to challenge myself with a strength heavy Wizard wearing platemail let me. Fugging babysitters.

Personally I think everything else was fine. But no skill tree and no ability customization outside of equipment just made it not even a fraction as replayable as Diablo 2 was.

Torchlight did the character progression correctly. Diablo 3 totally F-ed up the character progression, IMO. Hence I haven't played it in almost a year now.

Regards,
SB

Can u please elaborate on that? Are you saying we can't choose which skills to acquire or upgrade?

 

[itsmydamnation]

Can u please elaborate on that? Are you saying we can't choose which skills to acquire or upgrade?

with everything including your primary stats being item based it completely comes down to items and needing items with 3 base stats + whatever attributes your build needs. Compared to diablo two you could make a very high damage but extremely limited ( yet still survivable) Sorc(for example) with low level items. The problem with diablo 3 item drop this is shear number of shit "godly items" purely based off needing so many stats to align.


for example the best PvP in diablo 2 was level 15 cap, it had nothing to do with items.

 

[Arwin]

My impression was that the desire to make the online item economy work better, they unintentionally ruined an important part of the actual gameplay drive, which is getting nice loot. Two of my colleagues ended up always gold farming, actually buying software that played for them. And the changes that are also coming to the pc version I think but are also highlighted for the console version now are more and better drops, that are also more likely to be useful for your specific character.

Single screen multiplayer using controllers for me tends to go a long way for liking these games, and preventing them from becoming too much of a click everything thing ... It feels so much more detached for me.

 

[Grall]

for example the best PvP in diablo 2 was level 15 cap, it had nothing to do with items.

Define "best"... At level 15 you had access to only a tiny subset of skills, and of course none of the interesting gear, rune words and so on.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

with everything including your primary stats being item based it completely comes down to items and needing items with 3 base stats + whatever attributes your build needs. Compared to diablo two you could make a very high damage but extremely limited ( yet still survivable) Sorc(for example) with low level items. The problem with diablo 3 item drop this is shear number of shit "godly items" purely based off needing so many stats to align.


for example the best PvP in diablo 2 was level 15 cap, it had nothing to do with items.

Not being rude, I didn't understand anything . So u don't need levelling up to progress in diablo3 but items ? I mean if u want to upgrade ue skills or weapons, you need specific items not th epoints you would generally get in other games like Torchlight 2?

My impression was that the desire to make the online item economy work better, they unintentionally ruined an important part of the actual gameplay drive, which is getting nice loot. Two of my colleagues ended up always gold farming, actually buying software that played for them. And the changes that are also coming to the pc version I think but are also highlighted for the console version now are more and better drops, that are also more likely to be useful for your specific character.

Single screen multiplayer using controllers for me tends to go a long way for liking these games, and preventing them from becoming too much of a click everything thing ... It feels so much more detached for me.

If they nerfed the game's loot to make auction house work, then it sounds like a very very weird decision on thier part.

Since auction house is not available inthe console version, this might get remedied automatically. They have mentioned that console lpayers will get less loot but better loot. So, if that was the only qualm/ complaint, that we can hope is remedied in the console version.

 

[Grall]

not th epoints you would generally get in other games like Torchlight 2?

Whenever you ding a level in diablo3 you're automatically awarded attribute points (strength, dexterity and so on, whatever is appropriate for your class), along with skills and/or skill runes. You can't decide how to spread your attributes, or which skill you want next or even which skill rune. It's all pre-set in the game. Level X, you get so-and-so many attribute points, and these specific skills/runes.

If they nerfed the game's loot to make auction house work, then it sounds like a very very weird decision on thier part.

They've never actually admitted to this, but it's pretty clear that's exactly what they did, because drops are so friggin incredibly terrible that unless you want to drag WAY behind the curve in your gear (or you have simply unbelievable luck), you HAVE to use the auction houses, either the gold or the real money one, and the prices on the gold AH are simply ridiculous. Even nobby gear is so expensive that you have to play for hours at max level to collect that much gold.

Since auction house is not available inthe console version, this might get remedied automatically.

Yes, as I mentioned, drops are going to be improved for console players. No idea if they'll do the same for PC users, but I sure as hell hope so.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Whenever you ding a level in diablo3 you're automatically awarded attribute points (strength, dexterity and so on, whatever is appropriate for your class), along with skills and/or skill runes. You can't decide how to spread your attributes, or which skill you want next or even which skill rune. It's all pre-set in the game. Level X, you get so-and-so many attribute points, and these specific skills/runes.

Wow ! Why is that? isn't this an RPG? There must be some flexibilty.

So, once I choose a class, its set in stone as to how my character will turn out in terms of attributes and skills/powers? The only difference between my Wizard and yours will be the gear I got along the way?

If so, I am having second thoughts. I might not buy it.

 

[Malo]

The flexibility solely lies in choosing which active skills and runes to take. You can't have them all at once, you choose a combination that works best for whatever build you want/trying at the time. You can simply go back to town and completely change your entire skillset.

 

[Grall]

The only difference between my Wizard and yours will be the gear I got along the way?

Essentially correct, yes. Although, you can only use six skills at a time with one skill rune per skill, so you can customize your skills quite a bit (many different combinations) even though you can't select the order in which you receive them. And you can also gem your gear differently (experience, health, damage, magicfind etc), but this is rather minor.

But yea, character customization in D3 is not particularly strong. Maybe (hopefully probably) they'll fix this in the expansion. ...Which hasn't been announced, but is a no-brainer, so everyone + dog knows it is coming.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Essentially correct, yes. Although, you can only use six skills at a time with one skill rune per skill, so you can customize your skills quite a bit (many different combinations) even though you can't select the order in which you receive them. And you can also gem your gear differently (experience, health, damage, magicfind etc), but this is rather minor.

But yea, character customization in D3 is not particularly strong. Maybe (hopefully probably) they'll fix this in the expansion. ...Which hasn't been announced, but is a no-brainer, so everyone + dog knows it is coming.

Ok, so you are saying that I can't choose which skills to unlock when, they are automatically unlocked n a set way as I level up, but I can choose which skills to use and which not to. SO, I might be using Skill A, B and D on my wizrd while you might have C, D and F as your favourites.

What are Runes? Some kindof buffs to the skills? Upgrades? So, I can invest in skills I like .


That is stifling, but then even in Torchlight 2, even though they provide around 6 different skills to choose from in the very beginning itself, rest of th eoptions are unlocked with levels. Yes, there are around 9 different options at every new unlock stage, so , yes , a lot of options. so, D3 is basically very stripped down and straightforward in that regard. Less replayable, then , I guess. But first playthrough should be fine.