I just don't get it...No trading, no auction house, have to be online to play, yet they are still nerfing the fun and loot out of the game. It's a fawking game, games are supposed to be fun. Who cares if there are a ton of chests that sometimes drop awesome loot, who cares if a skill or spell does a TON of damage, who cares if people find great routes to take to make lots of gold and get lots of exp.
Those things are what makes games fun and exciting. Nerfing all those things to make the game "balanced" usually makes the game too repetitive,unrewarding and boring and people quit playing it.(see vanilla D3) Did they not learn anything from the RoS Alpha and Beta or were the special people who were let in only promoting the game for Blizzard and their Twitch channels for themselves and not giving any feedback to fix the game. This huge Crusader patch tells me it was the latter. They constantly take things away from us and say "but we buffed this and fixed that for you..." So far I have not seen any rise in excitement for RoS that surpasses the D3 release.
TL:DR
Quit "fixing" things that don't need to be "fixed"! Color me unimpressed. /endrant
Agree with OP. This is solo game required to stay always online. Though it is still fun to play:D
I hope Blizzard will add more ways to communicate with other players in the future. For example - common channels, maybe even common areas where you can walk with other people, talk to them, inspect them, etc.
And most thing I dont understand is removing an ability to trade. Wtf is that? I understand removing of AH, but no trading at all? Indeed it is solo game and it shouldnt be so. Find another way to fight with bots.
Picture a line. On one end of the line you have free loot. On the other end you have an impossible grind. If the game is at the first extreme you gear up instantly, get bored, and move on. If it is at the other, you get frustrated or bored and quit. Blizzard is looking for a sweet spot that is very difficult to pin down. Fun is somewhere on the spectrum, it's just about figuring it out with trial and error. The chests were too efficient to not grind for, but it became a grind. Blizzard believes the game is at its most fun when killing monsters is the most efficient way to farm loot. If they make the chests less reliable to find the game becomes "We were out here to farm monsters and we came across this bonus highly lucrative chest!" rather than "We came out here for this highly lucrative chest we know is out here and all these stupid monsters are in the way." It's a small change that has a huge impact on the way the game is played and enjoyed.
I also think you might be looking at the damage problem wrong too. Damage is all relative. If every spell in the game did 5 damage it would feel no different than if every spell in the game did 5 million damage (assuming they both were to take the same percentage of health from a mob). What I believe you are asking for is all the spells to deal 5 damage and one spell that deals 5 million damage. The problem with that is two fold. One, now everyone who wants to be efficient must be playing that class and must be using that build or they are simply doing it wrong (Like CM wizards, guess they learned something from vanilla after all.) Second, if the game has broken skills that make the game too easy then you are too close to the "free loot" side of the fun line and everyone quits. Don't believe me? Try playing a character good enough to solo T1 on normal. It gets boring VERY fast. Imagine if that character was good enough to face some T6. Broken stuff feels powerful in the moment, but it ultimately leads to a shorter lifespan of the game. Look at Dragon Age Origins (I only bring this up because I am replaying it and the issue is glaring). If you didn't play that game this might not make sense, but mages are incredibly broken. Even though it is a single player experience, I still feel like I am hamstringing myself if I don't load my party with mages. The thing is, I've done it all as a mage before. It bores me. If I try to play it with something else I feel bad, but if I don't I feel bored. The same principal applies.
Also, I don't think the beta criticism is fair. There was a lot of talk during the beta about the DPS and survivability of the crusader. There were many posts about how they felt weak. Blizzard wanted to see it on a larger scale. They wanted more data. They got it, and they fixed it. This should be a positive, not a negative.
My last point of contention with you is about trading. I know trading of some kind would be nice, but all it did was lead to a black market. Blizzard tried to beat the black market with the AH and it was a travesty, but they have made their point very clear. They will not tolerate a black market. If the AH isn't the answer than they will defeat it another way. By making the things that could be bought and sold inconsequential, and the things that mattered to be impossible to trade. Does it suck from an economy perspective? Sure. But trading in D2 was always just for black market or duped items anyway, so if it stops the cheating then great.
I will agree with you on this. Diablo III has no business being an always online game. It's not just so I can avoid maintenance periods like this (but I would like that). It's because the game has the ability to be a single player experience (especially after loot 2.0) and if I want to enjoy the game that way I should be able to. This isn't an MMO, the core of the experience does not require other people. It is certainly more fun with friends, and I may choose to make characters that interact that way, but I may not. If I want to have a character I play only by myself why do I need to be online to do that? I understand that this is meant to deter cheating as well, but I liked the idea that you can have offline characters and online characters. If people hack their client side characters, so be it. It doesn't affect anyone else's enjoyment of the game. They won't be able to do the same to their server side characters, but the point is we get to play when we want, the way we want. I would certainly back you on that.
Picture a line. On one end of the line you have free loot. On the other end you have an impossible grind. If the game is at the first extreme you gear up instantly, get bored, and move on. If it is at the other, you get frustrated or bored and quit. Blizzard is looking for a sweet spot that is very difficult to pin down. Fun is somewhere on the spectrum, it's just about figuring it out with trial and error.
Don't forget that that point of fun is different for everyone. For somone who has the ability to play games for long hours every day, a streamer a super hard core fan etc they want a game that lasts forever because they feel rewarded for their long play. Average fans who like myself are playing regularly but have life obligations that only allow us to play 3 hours a day want more obviously as we have less time to play and want to at least see some full sets for each class in our time even if it isnt best in slot or perfect rolled. And there is the casual gamer who will play this for a few weeks months top who wants to see all the game has to offer even if it he cant have EVERYTHING they will prob have a few classes but not all and maybe want a set or two. They most likely wont get past T1 or T2. And each play style is valid and reasonable for what THEY deem as fun and worth the time. Not to mention all the points of plyastyles between the ones I mentioned. That makes a game like this REALLY hard to play around. Do they favor the hardcore who will be here forever even if it gets old? do they favor the people who will buy the game initially then give it up? we aren't charged for content updates or anything just expansions so all that work the devs do need a reason. It must be insane to balance that in todays market.
Picture a line. On one end of the line you have free loot. On the other end you have an impossible grind. If the game is at the first extreme you gear up instantly, get bored, and move on. If it is at the other, you get frustrated or bored and quit. Blizzard is looking for a sweet spot that is very difficult to pin down.
Especially since any point on the line they choose will be too far to the left for some people, but too far to the right for other people. There is literally no decision they can make that will not lead to some people whining.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Those things are what makes games fun and exciting. Nerfing all those things to make the game "balanced" usually makes the game too repetitive,unrewarding and boring and people quit playing it.(see vanilla D3) Did they not learn anything from the RoS Alpha and Beta or were the special people who were let in only promoting the game for Blizzard and their Twitch channels for themselves and not giving any feedback to fix the game. This huge Crusader patch tells me it was the latter. They constantly take things away from us and say "but we buffed this and fixed that for you..." So far I have not seen any rise in excitement for RoS that surpasses the D3 release.
TL:DR
Quit "fixing" things that don't need to be "fixed"! Color me unimpressed. /endrant
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
I hope Blizzard will add more ways to communicate with other players in the future. For example - common channels, maybe even common areas where you can walk with other people, talk to them, inspect them, etc.
And most thing I dont understand is removing an ability to trade. Wtf is that? I understand removing of AH, but no trading at all? Indeed it is solo game and it shouldnt be so. Find another way to fight with bots.
I also think you might be looking at the damage problem wrong too. Damage is all relative. If every spell in the game did 5 damage it would feel no different than if every spell in the game did 5 million damage (assuming they both were to take the same percentage of health from a mob). What I believe you are asking for is all the spells to deal 5 damage and one spell that deals 5 million damage. The problem with that is two fold. One, now everyone who wants to be efficient must be playing that class and must be using that build or they are simply doing it wrong (Like CM wizards, guess they learned something from vanilla after all.) Second, if the game has broken skills that make the game too easy then you are too close to the "free loot" side of the fun line and everyone quits. Don't believe me? Try playing a character good enough to solo T1 on normal. It gets boring VERY fast. Imagine if that character was good enough to face some T6. Broken stuff feels powerful in the moment, but it ultimately leads to a shorter lifespan of the game. Look at Dragon Age Origins (I only bring this up because I am replaying it and the issue is glaring). If you didn't play that game this might not make sense, but mages are incredibly broken. Even though it is a single player experience, I still feel like I am hamstringing myself if I don't load my party with mages. The thing is, I've done it all as a mage before. It bores me. If I try to play it with something else I feel bad, but if I don't I feel bored. The same principal applies.
Also, I don't think the beta criticism is fair. There was a lot of talk during the beta about the DPS and survivability of the crusader. There were many posts about how they felt weak. Blizzard wanted to see it on a larger scale. They wanted more data. They got it, and they fixed it. This should be a positive, not a negative.
My last point of contention with you is about trading. I know trading of some kind would be nice, but all it did was lead to a black market. Blizzard tried to beat the black market with the AH and it was a travesty, but they have made their point very clear. They will not tolerate a black market. If the AH isn't the answer than they will defeat it another way. By making the things that could be bought and sold inconsequential, and the things that mattered to be impossible to trade. Does it suck from an economy perspective? Sure. But trading in D2 was always just for black market or duped items anyway, so if it stops the cheating then great.
I will agree with you on this. Diablo III has no business being an always online game. It's not just so I can avoid maintenance periods like this (but I would like that). It's because the game has the ability to be a single player experience (especially after loot 2.0) and if I want to enjoy the game that way I should be able to. This isn't an MMO, the core of the experience does not require other people. It is certainly more fun with friends, and I may choose to make characters that interact that way, but I may not. If I want to have a character I play only by myself why do I need to be online to do that? I understand that this is meant to deter cheating as well, but I liked the idea that you can have offline characters and online characters. If people hack their client side characters, so be it. It doesn't affect anyone else's enjoyment of the game. They won't be able to do the same to their server side characters, but the point is we get to play when we want, the way we want. I would certainly back you on that.