Hello I am a player who was more into the competitive PVP scene in Diablo II. I played from ages 13-18 and I am 21 now so that would be 5 years. I spent a lot of time on the game to the point where it interfered with some other parts of my life, but I do not regret it as I had a blast. I knew the game inside and out from mostly a PvP aspect. I built many different classes and builds. Ultimately in the end I ended up joining a private PVP server which better served my desire to PvP.
Now I am super stoked about Diablo 3. I already have a level 60 in Inferno and also another low level. Here is a picture showing my time spent on the game so far as well as my characters.
Now I see a lot of complaining going on in the forums as well as a lot of argueing and bickering. Behind all these words of text are people who have strong emotions and feelings behind what they are saying. What I do think is that these emotions, thoughts, and feelings are now conflicting with each other, and though all these people at heart want to improve the game, this desire for improvement is being inhibited by all the clash of ideas.
So in order to not add to the mess, get others angry, and attract the trolls, I am just going to share my mind, my personal opinion on the things that seem out of place for me or doesn't feel right. Some of the things I am posting below are all OPINIONS, and I am not saying any other ideas are WRONG. I am just saying that, when comparing to my previous years of experience with D2, I don't think I can play this game with such enthusiasm as I did Diablo 2.
Now do mind that I fully understand that everything below is negative, it is all what dissapoints me for the game. This is done on purpose for the reason of bringing out what I believe to be, in my opinion, flaws of the game. Some of my points may be of the 1% and not the majority, and some may be of the 99%. Regardless I am typing this for almost what seems to be a personal need to get this off of my chest.
First and foremost -> We need PvP. I think a lot of people are getting bored with the questing / grinding / killing robots and want the excitement of PVP. I know there is already a system and Blizzard is already working on it, but I PERSONALLY realllly want to PVP and am getting bored. As far as PVP goes, I cannot comment on the actual system as there isn't one up yet, but this is my #1 dissapointment right now. This is temporary, Blizzard is working on it, but I want to PVP ! ( ^___^ )
"The community" -> One thing I greatly miss from Diablo 2 was GREATER feeling that feeling that I am actually playing an online game. What I mean by that is CONSTANT human interaction. There is a few things that go into this.
1. The ability to join and create custom games. First and foremost I will admit that the whole auto join a game with somebody on the same exact quest progress with you is VERY HANDY, a huge improvement! It is just a big (dot dot dot) moment when it ends there. The game making process in Diablo 2 was awesome. Ability to join custom games for TRADES (which i will get into later) , PVP, gossip, questions, Free item giveaways, magic finding, runs, making friends...the list never ends... I DEEPLY miss this because you could join a game and do random fun things. Now honestly, not including the friend list, all you can do is just quest...matter of fact even if you do join to have fun, you will probably anger someone for both impeding and making more difficult their progress. It feels like a single player game with a minor multi-player slapped on top of it.
It seems like a downgrade from an already wonderful system. I expected game names, passwords, CHAT CHANNELS and more, but the system seems half-assed and unfinished. I feel this alone is a huge flaw that adds life to Diablo 2, and is stripping it away (or will be, or inhibits greater growth) of Diablo 3
Regarding auto statting / auto spec'ing and how some people claim everybody is the same
-So here is my take on this. I am indifferent and accept this change. Now to the people who claim that everybody is the same, there is no character variety -- Here is what I think.
---It is true that in Diablo 2 people can spec different ways and create many different builds. I do know what sorcerers can choose Energy Shield build, choose Vitality. I also do know that if it were possible to choose it in this game, we can have glass cannons , bigger tanks, hybrids, max block, and so on. This adds more depth to the game and makes the system more interesting. But here is the thing. Personally, I would rather not have to spend 40 hours of questing to try a specific build. It's very convenient to be able to choose on the fly. Fortunately or unfortunately, this is something that Blizzard has solidly chosen as part of the game, and I THINK it does more good than bad. Sure it can make things more stale, but honestly I think there are other things to worry about than this.
Regarding the Auction house
Here is my take on the auction house. I think it is a welcome change. (Wait, don't stop reading yet, I have more ) I think the auction house makes getting and selling gear easier. I feel currently the way it is, meaning only 10 auctions running at once without the ability to cancel , without ability to talk to the seller or know who it is, is an interesting addition added TO A SYSTEM IF IT WERE TO HAVE AN ALREADY ESTABLISHED CUSTOM GAMES SYSTEM LIKE D2 YOU CAN MAKE FOR TRADES. Yes that is right. Adding the auction house to D2 would make things more interesting because you can already have trading games with people.
In Diablo 2, trading was a HUUUUUUGE source of human interaction with people. You literally have to talk to the person you are selling and try to get different deals going. People can HOOK you up and bonds can be created. You can end up getting a deal you wouldn't have thought of. You can end up getting items better than what you were even expecting.
Diablo 3 lacks in that. There is a trade channel, and unfortunately, US SERVER WIDE, is a ghost town with 6 people total. (The record I've seen actually, most being usually 4.) And it's not even 6 people talking and bartering, rather no trading happening at all. 1 single chat for an entire server's trade is PATHETIC.
In Diablo 2, trading was amazing. Sure, there wasn't any true form of currency as Gold in the game meant nothing. Rather, uniques and runes and other items had an established worth. I'm not saying that THIS is how it should be, but even with that established FLAWED system that Diablo 2 had, magic finding was more valuable as if you found different items, you knew it had a worth. Found a unique Shako? Worth a Pul. Found Stone of Jordan? Worth an High Rune, or two. The trading system Diablo 2 has, for those who are familiar with it, is wonderful as it syncs many different parts of the game. And with Diablo 3, my dissapointment is that it doesn't have it, but rather that it will never have anything close. Everything will be ran through the auction house, there never (or rarely) be trading games dedicated to trading, all those bonds and interactions, deals and exitements will rarely happen with this closed system. And to me, this dissappoints me, BIG-TIME.
There is so much more that can be said, but I'm just going to end it at this point
Items
One major gripe going on is that Legendary items are terrible and they are easily beaten by rares and blues found in the game so far.
You know what? I agree with that. In Diablo 2, a major characteristic about legendary items is that they took blues (which are a joke in Diablo 2 honestly) and rares to a new level. Many legendary items had a characteristic about them that made them unique, that sets them apart from other items. What do I mean by that? Stormshield people think of damage reduce, Crown of Ages people think of GODLY damage reduce, FHR, resistance, skills etc, Shako people thought of health and +2 skills, SOJ people thought of mana and skill, Arachnid Mesh people thought of ultimate caster belt ....All these items have a personality and identity to them. Look at these legendaries in Diablo 2 ... the only thing I can think of when I look at any of them is (this one has higher stats than the other one I see) -- There is very little to no distinguishing characteristics of these items. That's pathetic.
Sure, it could be a different system than Diablo 2. Sure you can say Uniques DO NO EQUAL Legendaries. But the same could be said for SET items. There is just something that isn't right about this and I think personal unique traits of these set / legendary items are lacking.
Another one, for example, is finding a 1,000 DPS blue dagger. This isn't a once in a year game wide amazing lucky roll like some circlets or amulets or boots were in Diablo 2. These things are popping up daily as you can see from the auction house. This simply shouldn't happen! Damage means SO MUCH in this game, especially when you don't have as much mods on items as Diablo 2 had.
Rares in Diablo 2 were almost never, except in few cases, NEVER better than uniques. Unfortunately in this game, that does not seem to be the case.
Another arguement I heard is that they do not want everybody to be wearing the same type of items. They want there to be more difference between people. -- I agree with this and see the logic behind it, but this directly conflicts with what makes Diablo 2 so addictive in the first place...Is that you ALWAYS, though SUPER SMALL, have that chance of finding THAT rare item! If I run 1 moooore run, I may get that unique I wanted! And knowing since that unique has SUCH a small chance to drop and you eventually getting it after some time is what made you stay and keep playing. But this game...you get a unique = Blehh who cares, my blue or rare is better is just sad.
Getting to level 60
I see people talking about how it is "too easy" to get to level 60. Lets be real folks, you PROBABLY did not hit level 99 in Diablo 2. I know in my 5 years I did not. I had no care for it, it took AN AMAZINGLY long time to hit. To the point of you being level 97, 98...that if you died, you would loose DAYS of grinding.
Getting to 60 is fine right now. It shouldn't be like other games where hitting max level means something. In Diablo 3, it is just a stepping stone to get to Inferno. I think that people shouldn't have to make a leap of faith and play for months to simply reach end-game content. I feel getting to 60 is fine, it just seems short / boring when clouded by some of the other things I mentioned above
Champions / Elites
Now since I didn't PVM (PvE for WoW players) much in Diablo 2 except for baal runs to level up, I'm not going to say much on this subject but I will give it a touch.
Champions and Elites in Inferno are VERY difficult. The problem right now isn't their difficulty. The problem is that people keep dying and respawning to kill them without any punishment. In Diablo 2, if you died you lose XP. You think some level 9X or 8X player will die 10 times to kill a single champion or elite pack? FORGET IT! I think that THIS is the huge problem because , yes, as intended, champions and elites are hard as hell, but there are people killing them in cheesy lame ways such as dying 15 times to kill them. If this gets fixed, then people will have to actually adopt strategies to killing champions/elites and not just smashing them with DPS until their HP gets to zero -> rinse and repeat
Oh dear, I've typed wayyy too much. I'm going to end it here.
Enable PVP
Enable PVP!!!!
Enable like Battle.net 1 in Diablo 2, ability to create custom games
Obviously Blizzard didn't work the item system right, so fix that
ENABLE PVP!!!
I agree for PvP, it will come; unfortunately we must wait.
Basically your chat/item debacle all stem from the same issue and Bnet 2.0 is a let down. I blame Activision but meh, finding friends online is just different now (fan sites such as this) and human interaction online is overrated, many years ago it was great now it's full retard syndrome. I agree legendaries are a let down, the initial focus was theoretically sound, random but less range of random = usually better than blue's or yellows... sadly doesn't seem to be the case so far... too much random on the random.
Level length is fine and you said it perfectly
I think the death factor right now is fine, spending 40-50K in repairs for an hours worth of death is annoying enough. Dieing 15 times to kill a mob is deterrent enough, trust me. Only issue I have is how easy it is to rez people.
I played D1 about the same sage you started D2, inferno reminds me of D1 hell, it's fine the way it is. Well written though, I enjoyed thanks.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing Diablo since 97. I know nothing and having nothing good to say, I be a troll.
I actually think this is one of the best posts I've seen in days. Most just post to start a flame war. Well done!
I agree. PvP needs to be enabled. Can't deny I was a bit peeved Blizz pushed it back. Hopefully its sooner rather than later.
Custom games are... yes. I can't say anything negative on that point either. I hope this happens just to open up the trade market. I find it doubtful though. They want this AH to work. Maybe if RMAH flops they'll do it... who knows.
As for items... This is partially true. Theres a lot of caveats to this point though. The legendaries ARE good. Could be some of the best items in the game in fact. Theres a lot of mixing of stats on them that make them better than most rares. On top of this they are much more likely to be good than a rare with 5 random properties. The problem in my mind lies with a mentality that didn't get dropped between D2 and D3. Namely, there was no plan for items like Arachnid Mesh or SoJ's to become so ubiquitous with the game. Arachnid Mesh, Zod rune, SoJs, and other items that were the BiS uniques really shouldn't have been nearly as common. It got to the point where Blizzard had to release 1.08 just to combat item duplication and botting. While some of these items came in after the patch they had to do something. In this aspect I think we'll end up doing better waiting for well stat'ed legendaries that fit well into the characters we have rather than basing them purely on what we've seen so far.
Having said that I do miss the unique's unique property. Biggin's Bonet had +% damage, Twitch had IAS on a chest, Tarn had more MF than any helm, Frostblink had the freeze.... Those were cool ideas for items. I hope we see the return of that. I have seen blue posts eluding to some re-itemization.
No 1v1 would be utterly lame and so against what I loved about D2 PvP.
I was heavily into the GM competitive melee scene. It was a sort of subculture that strayed from the normal random duels. We had strict rules and standards, great tourneys and a kinship that will likely never be a part of arena duels in D3.
Point being, we found a way to have fun dueling and we didn't need a restrictive system to force us to have structure. Now, from what their proposing for D3 PvP, they did all the structuring for us, which is bullshit. I get that most random public duels were garbage pk-fests. So I guess they decided to force everyone to get along while ruining the greatest aspect of D2 PvP.....the 1v1 GM duelers.
This is an RPG...it shouldn't have MMO duel structure.
Now I am super stoked about Diablo 3. I already have a level 60 in Inferno and also another low level. Here is a picture showing my time spent on the game so far as well as my characters.
http://i.imgur.com/WcTHs.jpg
Now I see a lot of complaining going on in the forums as well as a lot of argueing and bickering. Behind all these words of text are people who have strong emotions and feelings behind what they are saying. What I do think is that these emotions, thoughts, and feelings are now conflicting with each other, and though all these people at heart want to improve the game, this desire for improvement is being inhibited by all the clash of ideas.
So in order to not add to the mess, get others angry, and attract the trolls, I am just going to share my mind, my personal opinion on the things that seem out of place for me or doesn't feel right. Some of the things I am posting below are all OPINIONS, and I am not saying any other ideas are WRONG. I am just saying that, when comparing to my previous years of experience with D2, I don't think I can play this game with such enthusiasm as I did Diablo 2.
Now do mind that I fully understand that everything below is negative, it is all what dissapoints me for the game. This is done on purpose for the reason of bringing out what I believe to be, in my opinion, flaws of the game. Some of my points may be of the 1% and not the majority, and some may be of the 99%. Regardless I am typing this for almost what seems to be a personal need to get this off of my chest.
First and foremost -> We need PvP. I think a lot of people are getting bored with the questing / grinding / killing robots and want the excitement of PVP. I know there is already a system and Blizzard is already working on it, but I PERSONALLY realllly want to PVP and am getting bored. As far as PVP goes, I cannot comment on the actual system as there isn't one up yet, but this is my #1 dissapointment right now. This is temporary, Blizzard is working on it, but I want to PVP ! ( ^___^ )
"The community" -> One thing I greatly miss from Diablo 2 was GREATER feeling that feeling that I am actually playing an online game. What I mean by that is CONSTANT human interaction. There is a few things that go into this.
1. The ability to join and create custom games. First and foremost I will admit that the whole auto join a game with somebody on the same exact quest progress with you is VERY HANDY, a huge improvement! It is just a big (dot dot dot) moment when it ends there. The game making process in Diablo 2 was awesome. Ability to join custom games for TRADES (which i will get into later) , PVP, gossip, questions, Free item giveaways, magic finding, runs, making friends...the list never ends... I DEEPLY miss this because you could join a game and do random fun things. Now honestly, not including the friend list, all you can do is just quest...matter of fact even if you do join to have fun, you will probably anger someone for both impeding and making more difficult their progress. It feels like a single player game with a minor multi-player slapped on top of it.
It seems like a downgrade from an already wonderful system. I expected game names, passwords, CHAT CHANNELS and more, but the system seems half-assed and unfinished. I feel this alone is a huge flaw that adds life to Diablo 2, and is stripping it away (or will be, or inhibits greater growth) of Diablo 3
Regarding auto statting / auto spec'ing and how some people claim everybody is the same
-So here is my take on this. I am indifferent and accept this change. Now to the people who claim that everybody is the same, there is no character variety -- Here is what I think.
---It is true that in Diablo 2 people can spec different ways and create many different builds. I do know what sorcerers can choose Energy Shield build, choose Vitality. I also do know that if it were possible to choose it in this game, we can have glass cannons , bigger tanks, hybrids, max block, and so on. This adds more depth to the game and makes the system more interesting. But here is the thing. Personally, I would rather not have to spend 40 hours of questing to try a specific build. It's very convenient to be able to choose on the fly. Fortunately or unfortunately, this is something that Blizzard has solidly chosen as part of the game, and I THINK it does more good than bad. Sure it can make things more stale, but honestly I think there are other things to worry about than this.
Regarding the Auction house
Here is my take on the auction house. I think it is a welcome change. (Wait, don't stop reading yet, I have more
In Diablo 2, trading was a HUUUUUUGE source of human interaction with people. You literally have to talk to the person you are selling and try to get different deals going. People can HOOK you up and bonds can be created. You can end up getting a deal you wouldn't have thought of. You can end up getting items better than what you were even expecting.
Diablo 3 lacks in that. There is a trade channel, and unfortunately, US SERVER WIDE, is a ghost town with 6 people total. (The record I've seen actually, most being usually 4.) And it's not even 6 people talking and bartering, rather no trading happening at all. 1 single chat for an entire server's trade is PATHETIC.
http://i.imgur.com/mRilv.jpg
In Diablo 2, trading was amazing. Sure, there wasn't any true form of currency as Gold in the game meant nothing. Rather, uniques and runes and other items had an established worth. I'm not saying that THIS is how it should be, but even with that established FLAWED system that Diablo 2 had, magic finding was more valuable as if you found different items, you knew it had a worth. Found a unique Shako? Worth a Pul. Found Stone of Jordan? Worth an High Rune, or two. The trading system Diablo 2 has, for those who are familiar with it, is wonderful as it syncs many different parts of the game. And with Diablo 3, my dissapointment is that it doesn't have it, but rather that it will never have anything close. Everything will be ran through the auction house, there never (or rarely) be trading games dedicated to trading, all those bonds and interactions, deals and exitements will rarely happen with this closed system. And to me, this dissappoints me, BIG-TIME.
There is so much more that can be said, but I'm just going to end it at this point
Items
One major gripe going on is that Legendary items are terrible and they are easily beaten by rares and blues found in the game so far.
You know what? I agree with that. In Diablo 2, a major characteristic about legendary items is that they took blues (which are a joke in Diablo 2 honestly) and rares to a new level. Many legendary items had a characteristic about them that made them unique, that sets them apart from other items. What do I mean by that? Stormshield people think of damage reduce, Crown of Ages people think of GODLY damage reduce, FHR, resistance, skills etc, Shako people thought of health and +2 skills, SOJ people thought of mana and skill, Arachnid Mesh people thought of ultimate caster belt ....All these items have a personality and identity to them. Look at these legendaries in Diablo 2 ... the only thing I can think of when I look at any of them is (this one has higher stats than the other one I see) -- There is very little to no distinguishing characteristics of these items. That's pathetic.
Sure, it could be a different system than Diablo 2. Sure you can say Uniques DO NO EQUAL Legendaries. But the same could be said for SET items. There is just something that isn't right about this and I think personal unique traits of these set / legendary items are lacking.
Another one, for example, is finding a 1,000 DPS blue dagger. This isn't a once in a year game wide amazing lucky roll like some circlets or amulets or boots were in Diablo 2. These things are popping up daily as you can see from the auction house. This simply shouldn't happen! Damage means SO MUCH in this game, especially when you don't have as much mods on items as Diablo 2 had.
Rares in Diablo 2 were almost never, except in few cases, NEVER better than uniques. Unfortunately in this game, that does not seem to be the case.
Another arguement I heard is that they do not want everybody to be wearing the same type of items. They want there to be more difference between people. -- I agree with this and see the logic behind it, but this directly conflicts with what makes Diablo 2 so addictive in the first place...Is that you ALWAYS, though SUPER SMALL, have that chance of finding THAT rare item! If I run 1 moooore run, I may get that unique I wanted! And knowing since that unique has SUCH a small chance to drop and you eventually getting it after some time is what made you stay and keep playing. But this game...you get a unique = Blehh who cares, my blue or rare is better is just sad.
Getting to level 60
I see people talking about how it is "too easy" to get to level 60. Lets be real folks, you PROBABLY did not hit level 99 in Diablo 2. I know in my 5 years I did not. I had no care for it, it took AN AMAZINGLY long time to hit. To the point of you being level 97, 98...that if you died, you would loose DAYS of grinding.
Getting to 60 is fine right now. It shouldn't be like other games where hitting max level means something. In Diablo 3, it is just a stepping stone to get to Inferno. I think that people shouldn't have to make a leap of faith and play for months to simply reach end-game content. I feel getting to 60 is fine, it just seems short / boring when clouded by some of the other things I mentioned above
Champions / Elites
Now since I didn't PVM (PvE for WoW players) much in Diablo 2 except for baal runs to level up, I'm not going to say much on this subject but I will give it a touch.
Champions and Elites in Inferno are VERY difficult. The problem right now isn't their difficulty. The problem is that people keep dying and respawning to kill them without any punishment. In Diablo 2, if you died you lose XP. You think some level 9X or 8X player will die 10 times to kill a single champion or elite pack? FORGET IT! I think that THIS is the huge problem because , yes, as intended, champions and elites are hard as hell, but there are people killing them in cheesy lame ways such as dying 15 times to kill them. If this gets fixed, then people will have to actually adopt strategies to killing champions/elites and not just smashing them with DPS until their HP gets to zero -> rinse and repeat
Oh dear, I've typed wayyy too much. I'm going to end it here.
Enable PVP
Enable PVP!!!!
Enable like Battle.net 1 in Diablo 2, ability to create custom games
Obviously Blizzard didn't work the item system right, so fix that
ENABLE PVP!!!
/opinion
I agree for PvP, it will come; unfortunately we must wait.
Basically your chat/item debacle all stem from the same issue and Bnet 2.0 is a let down. I blame Activision but meh, finding friends online is just different now (fan sites such as this) and human interaction online is overrated, many years ago it was great now it's full retard syndrome. I agree legendaries are a let down, the initial focus was theoretically sound, random but less range of random = usually better than blue's or yellows... sadly doesn't seem to be the case so far... too much random on the random.
Level length is fine and you said it perfectly
I think the death factor right now is fine, spending 40-50K in repairs for an hours worth of death is annoying enough. Dieing 15 times to kill a mob is deterrent enough, trust me. Only issue I have is how easy it is to rez people.
I played D1 about the same sage you started D2, inferno reminds me of D1 hell, it's fine the way it is. Well written though, I enjoyed thanks.
I agree. PvP needs to be enabled. Can't deny I was a bit peeved Blizz pushed it back. Hopefully its sooner rather than later.
Custom games are... yes. I can't say anything negative on that point either. I hope this happens just to open up the trade market. I find it doubtful though. They want this AH to work. Maybe if RMAH flops they'll do it... who knows.
As for items... This is partially true. Theres a lot of caveats to this point though. The legendaries ARE good. Could be some of the best items in the game in fact. Theres a lot of mixing of stats on them that make them better than most rares. On top of this they are much more likely to be good than a rare with 5 random properties. The problem in my mind lies with a mentality that didn't get dropped between D2 and D3. Namely, there was no plan for items like Arachnid Mesh or SoJ's to become so ubiquitous with the game. Arachnid Mesh, Zod rune, SoJs, and other items that were the BiS uniques really shouldn't have been nearly as common. It got to the point where Blizzard had to release 1.08 just to combat item duplication and botting. While some of these items came in after the patch they had to do something. In this aspect I think we'll end up doing better waiting for well stat'ed legendaries that fit well into the characters we have rather than basing them purely on what we've seen so far.
Having said that I do miss the unique's unique property. Biggin's Bonet had +% damage, Twitch had IAS on a chest, Tarn had more MF than any helm, Frostblink had the freeze.... Those were cool ideas for items. I hope we see the return of that. I have seen blue posts eluding to some re-itemization.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Wise ElderNo 1v1 would be utterly lame and so against what I loved about D2 PvP.
I was heavily into the GM competitive melee scene. It was a sort of subculture that strayed from the normal random duels. We had strict rules and standards, great tourneys and a kinship that will likely never be a part of arena duels in D3.
Point being, we found a way to have fun dueling and we didn't need a restrictive system to force us to have structure. Now, from what their proposing for D3 PvP, they did all the structuring for us, which is bullshit. I get that most random public duels were garbage pk-fests. So I guess they decided to force everyone to get along while ruining the greatest aspect of D2 PvP.....the 1v1 GM duelers.
This is an RPG...it shouldn't have MMO duel structure.
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC)
Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan