I wanted to share my posts that I made on the EU and US forums.
It would be awesome if you could give me feedback on my thoughts.
Its a wall of text but there is an TL:DR at the end.
The topic title is the same on the US & EU Forums. "Diablo ]I[ is epic but.."
Cant post urls. I have less than 10 posts here.
Greetings fellow Diablo 3 players.
I rarely post anything, I'm really not the public forum poster type. I just cant hold it in longer.
After talking it over with friends I think its time speak out. Apologies if this is a re-post of the same topic somewhere.
There is a an TL:DR at the bottom
I'm a veteran gamer for 22 years, I'm 30 years old family man. Ive played all sorts of games and Ive always gone more for the adventure/action role playing games. One of my best memories was Dark Castle on Mac and Dungeon Master on Atari. But when I got my hands on the Diablo I demo back in 97. If I remember correctly the demo was up to the Butcher or 2 dungeons. I was mesmerized! Bought the game the day after. So epic so much fun! I played all the characters to the max. Really remember farming Archbishop Lazarus with my Rogue! I also played the Sierra expansion too. So good memories.
I really didn't stick to much to Diablo II but I played 2x Amazons(Javazon and Bowazon) to ca lvl 69 and a Necro to lvl 60. I was a casual gamer back then.
I have fond memories of Diablo II and the amazing Cow Level. Ive played some MMO's over the past 15 years, Ultima Online, Daoc, Eve Online and WoW from release, recently canceled my subscription.
Enough of my gaming history.
When I found out Diablo III was in the making I got very exited. At this point Ive become a hardcore gamer, been playing WoW way to much and other games as well. In vanilla WoW I was one of the first on my server to get the Thunderfury. I did all the hard work my self. So I know about hard grinding.
When Diablo III had an exact release date I told my fiance that I would be moving out for 1-2 weeks on the 15th of may. So I actually left my family to play a video game. Well that's hardcore for a family man. Me and my 3 friends had a lot of fun. We played long hours and died a lot and had good laughs together. But I always found something missing, but I didn't think much about what is was. We got to lvl 60 and we where so exited to get to the item grind in Inferno and see all the amazing items that where waiting for us to loot of dead epic monsters. NV stacks at last and a lot of yellow stuff falling all over the place. We where so happy, at last we get some epic loot, Legendaries, Set Items, some crazy affixes and interesting items that would make my hero godlike.
We where so wrong. Sadly to say it took me almost 2 months to realize that this game was all about making me become a farmer, a little pawn for a Big Blockbuster Gaming Company named Activision/Blizzard to make them more money.
I will not use the RMAH. I was thinking of using it but after thinking about it, Ive come to the conclusion that I will not use it as it feels like I'm forced to use it. I don't want to be forced.
I want to farm my own items and get the satisfaction on getting them my self. Like my Thunderfury back in the days of Vanilla WoW, I'm very proud of that even to day. It will always be one of my favorite memories of WoW, when I wielded my Thunderfury for the first time, I felt so powerful and actually I felt like I accomplished something, weird to say that when its a fantasy/action role playing game and not Real Life.
I know Diablo III is suppose to be a item grind and you are suppose to do that for many hours, weeks and months to get the best items, that's fine. Ive done that in many games. I have patience and time. But the thing is I want it to be rewarding as well. I don't get any satisfaction on grinding for items in Diablo III, I have Pony LvL on farm, ACT1/2 in Inferno, cant be hassled with ACT3 don't have the equipment yet to get through it without insanely high repair costs.
I got an legendary last night and ca 10-15 ilvl63 items. When I saw the legendary drop I didn't get exited at all, I really didn't and when I was Id'ing the ilvl63 items, I didn't find any excitement like in other games when I was checking out if they where any good.
I love Diablo III in many ways, but the item hunt and the lack of fun, exciting, awesome looking, show off items (I was hoping to wield) is so frustrating and obnoxious. Its turning me away from this game. Which makes me very sad. Because I really wanted to like playing this game for many months or years with my friends and new friends.
I really hope this game gets fixed, but I really don't think it will be. I honestly don't think so.
Because every fix and patch is handled in the wrong way, dev's seem to work very slowly, from CM's posts Ive seen, it sound its very hard and takes a very long time to make the "smallest" fixes needed to make this game better.
Why on earth are you focusing on Magic Find gear swapping? You should be doing the Dev Blog about how to make the game more joyful, more fun, more exiting, not how to fix something that really isn't number 1 priority right now. Try to change something that is more important like making the items more fun, give us the change to get a full legendary set when leveling. I didn't get one set item while leveling, I got one crappy 2h staf and a friend gave me broken Legendary Set Monk leggings (atp didn't work).
Maybe the Item hunting isn't broken for Activison/Blizzard RMAH or the AH. But for the gamer who wants to hunt his own armor and weapons its broken, I didn't get any satisfaction on buying that 620dps 440LoH, 2.6Life Leech,103dex, Socket 1h Sword for 50k or 140dex, 40AR, 10%crit gloves for 75k Bid, I sniped those two, wow I got lucky there! Got a multimillion weapon and amazing gloves for a pocket change, I'm not really proud of it, but I got what I was trying to farm on my Monk.
I hate to refer to other games when I'm talking about Diablo III, but how did you get this wrong. Probably 50-70% of the gamers that are playing the game are for the items and the hunt, if there where no rares, legendaries and set items, I don't think many people would stick to the game. Well for my part there are no legendaries and set items. Diablo II had fun affixes on items, more frequent epic/unique items and set items drops, and actually usable items, not all garbage, I didn't need to go to 3rd party web site to buy items.
Titan Quest had frequent drops of cool fun unique items. Torchlight had some interesting items, looks like Torchlight 2 will have a lot of fun items, more frequent drops, more fun then the previous game but haven't checked that much on it. I played Kingdom of Amalure, it was an average game, but it was an insane item fest, I like it only because of the insane amount of items and the variations on crafting items. Sadly my HD crashed with the gamesaves, didn't bother installing again because of Diablo III coming soon after.
Now Ive given up. I don't want to be forced to use the AH or the RMAH. I don't want to farm 8 hours a day, 7 days a week to get 1 or 2 upgrades. That's not fun for me. I'm not alone on that one, I'm sure of that. I'm glad that some people are still having fun. My fun right now is plowing through act1/act2 just to kill not to loot, because I know its crap. It's not going to last long.
Ive got the 200+ hours I paid for, I'm not complaining on putting my money in this game. Ive played less hours on similar games and was not satisfied how short it was and easy. I just hoped Diablo III would be more fun. Which it isn't, sadly to say. I'm not going to uninstall the game, I´m going to monitor patches, play casually when I'm bored. Check with friends in co-op if some are online, which is rarely, mostly 1 or 2 online. Going to test Patch 1.1 and so on.
Hope I didn't bore you to death with this wall of text.
TL:DR; Im 30yrs, 22 veteran gamer, Item hunt is obnoxious, Blizzard forcing me to use AH and RMAH not appealing, turning me away from the game. Blizzard focusing on the wrong things in patches and dev blogs is just plain wrong. MF swapping? Really? Why not make the game fun first.
I don't get satisfaction on sniping multimillion gold items on AH for 50-100k, like when I find this godly item that Ive been dreaming about, like when I got my Thunderfury in WoW. That's the kinda hunt everyone wants I think.
Regards
Umarth "The Ill-fated"
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." -Albert Einstein
p.s I'm at work writing this and I need to hurry home, probably have to edit this later, didn't read it over. English is not my first language. I'm actually Icelandic. Posting on both EU and US.
You're not forced to use the RMAH, or even the regular gold AH.
If you don't feel excitement when getting a legendary or identifying a rare item, that's not something Blizzard can fix. The problem lies in you (and while I say problem, it isn't really: it's just that your tastes have changed, so you do not find the same things exciting anymore. Which is fine). I know I feel excited when I see an ilevel 63 rare drop, just waiting to see if I get something awesome (got a couple of really nice items so far).
You don't need to farm for 8 hours a day. You only need to do that if you care about being number 1: if you don't, then you can go at your own pace. There's no rush, so stop feeling like there is. Again, those are your feelings, not any fault of Blizzard's.
Step away from the game. Take your time. Focus on yourself. You don't need to touch the AH if you don't want to, you can farm everything yourself. Everything will take a lot longer, but that seems to be what you want, so.
So no, there are no fixes for the game to address your problem. Because your problem 100% lies within yourself. Don't blame Blizzard because of your own attitude towards the game.
On a final note, you seriously left your family for 2 weeks to play D3? As in, left the house entirely and left your wife to deal with the kids by herself? I can understand taking a week or two off of work, but leaving your family? Get your priorities sorted out.
One thing that cannot be argued with is the fact that many people just don't feel as much satisfaction grinding for items as they did in Diablo 2.
Do you think that could be attributed to the fact that you were 5-10 years younger, so were more easily amused? As a child (or teenager) it's a lot easier to get excited over something. As you get older that excitement falls away and you are entertained by different things.
If you look at the games with as objective an eye as possible, you'll realise there's more similarities than you'd think. If you liked the item hunt in D2 but don't in D3, even when the item hunt is functionally the same (with minor differences for the sake of streamlining or changes to make it more fun), then chances are it isn't the game that is at fault: it's you.
another case of someone playing too much. people are so excited to play d3 that they're going overboard.
stop it! do something else besides playing videos games. if you live in a game you're gonna start having problems with it because you're frying your brain.
if you have hundreds of hours on your account you overdid it
Ok so here goes - ive been planning on making a post on here at somepoint to share my thoughts / feelings on people's complaints and worries abotu Diablo 3 - so I'll do a mini version here.
First, in reply to your feeling of being a "pawn" to work for Activision/Blizzard. That makes absolutely no sense at all! If you are morally apposed to selling digital items for real money, than dont do it. If you don't have a problem with the selling, just that Blizzard gets a cut, then you need to come to grips with the fact that THINGS ARENT free in life - the tools to sell these items are being provoided and maintained (could argue poorly maintained but still) by Blizzard - they get paid for that.
I have sold over $200 worth of items, I've made double my money back from buying the CE - what is the problem there?
Now, at your point of wanting to find your OWN upgrades. I just have to ask, what game have you been playing where AT END GAME LEVELS you are able to find upgrades every 10-15 min? Or every hour even? You played that part of the game already - your first play through is full of constant upgrading - eventually, your gear is so good that it takes an EXCEPTIONALY good roll on an item to be an upgrade - they are RARE yes, but you can find them.
I'm playing a double resist Monk right now, and yes I have bought most of my gear on the GOLD AH, but 3 of my pieces I found my self - 2 while playing my initial Wizard and 1 I found a few nights ago on my Monk in act 2. They were Boots with 12% Speed, 150Dex 95 total resists (with the double passive) and +200 bonus armor. They are amazing boots! And I found them myself! They were rare.. the chances of rolling them up was insanely low.. but guess what?? Thats the game and thats what Diablo 2 was - the best items were so rare you SHOULD have never ever seen one. Item duping ruined that, but D3 doesnt have that problem yet.
The fact that good items are so rare makes finding one SO awesome - at least to me! I sold a ilvl 62 chest piece for $45 that had high Dex, High Vit, Double Resists and 3 sockets. When I found it I thought "Boooyah! Rare piece for sure"
My point here is - the item game has falws (I'll get to them below) but to say your not finding your own upgrades is silly - because you most certainly can, it just takes a LONG time - it wouldn't be fun if they werent rare when arming INFERNO!
There are problems of course. No well defined end game added with the lack of PvP right now is making the game feel super lacking in the "meaty" section. Farming gear is fun for some (like me!) but to others its a neccessary thing to do so you can get somehwere else - like Top a Ladder season or Kill People in PvP.
More problems include Legendaries being so horrible (with a few exceptions). With as rare as they are (I've farmed in inferno act 3 for well over 250 Hours already and only found 2 Legendaries) they need to be better - they need to compete and compete well with rares with only the BEST BEST BEST rare items out rolling the best legendaries. They also do need to drop a bit more often ESPECIALLY while leveling - as your leveling you should see them fairly often. Also - I think they should go the route where even TOP END legendaries drop more oftem, but make it rarer to roll up the best versions of them.
So to sum up - there are problems - but I dont understand the mass "OMG this isn't what I thought it would be" cry from people. There are some things that arent nearly as perfect as I hoped they would be (items/legendaries/endgame) and there are some personal gripes (build diversity doesn't exist) but for the most part - Diablo 3 is exactly what I wanted and hoped it would be - a Super Slick and wellc rafted crawler with adictive to farm items. Thats the game! It can and WILL be more, but that is the core of the game. Play the core of the game and lets see what the future brings - Diablo 2 was not in nearly as good a place as it was at launch as it was 2 years later.
Lastly - I think alot of what you (OP) are talking about can be chalked up to getting older. For example - I used to LOVE FPS games and and RTS game. I played them for hours and hours, and mastered them. I was a god in SOCOM 1 and 2 on PS2. But today - they just don't do it for me any more - CoD isn't a worse game than SOCOM was - it is in fact WAY better.. but as I've gotten older my tastes have changed - I'm now ALL about RPG style games and I think our tastes just change as we age.
Any way - my personal feelings are: Diablo 3 is awesome - play it for what it is or, if its not your cup of tea, give it some time before you jump back in. Wait for PvP to hit and some kind of end game content to hit if endlessly farming up items for a SMALL chance at good gear isn't your thing.
Lucky for me, it is my thing.. OOHhh is it ever my thing.
I'm sorry, snowhammer, but I completely disagree with you. I played D2 for 10 years, the overwhelming majority of it spent in SP or small LAN/tcp ip games, and let me tell you this: I saw many of the good items in D2, and I didn't need to trade, didn't need to go to D2JSP, and didn't need to grind 8 hours a day. The exception to this were the very top high runes; i never saw those, but they were way too rare. What I'm saying is that getting your own upgrades in D3 (totally ignoring the AH) takes WAY longer than in D2. You tried to make it sound like it's not like that, but it is. You can add to that the fact that items in D2 were way more inspired. In D3, all you're hoping for is "bigger numbers". You want gear with more Dex that you already have, with more Vit than you already have, more crit, etc. In D2 there were loads of items, especially Sets and Uniques, but also Rares, that had affixes that were DIFFERENT. Not just "oh, cool, these boots have 50 str more than my current ones, so technically they're an upgrade, hurray". The items in D3 are lacking in the 'flavour' and 'variety' department, i don't think anyone can argue with that.
Hey Maka,
I think we actually agree - your just putting a negative spin on it where as I'm putting a positive spin on it (meaning we have landed on different conclusions about what it means for diablo 3).
As for finding more items in Diablo 2 than in Diablo 3 - yes I said that in my post. You found FAR more uniques and they were indeed more varried and interesting - I also touched on that in my problems with the game section.
However, in diablo 2, once you had pretty good gear and pretty good drops it took an act of god to roll up a better item (One that maxed out all 5 stat rolls instead of just 3 outa 5 for example).
Thats the point we're at in Diablo 3, its just the maxing out rolls takes ALOT longer because there are bigger gaps between the rolls on these rares then there was on uniques.
Bottom line is - the item game plays out differently in D3 than it did in D2 - mostly because you are seeing TONS of rare items with a small chance at being a small upgrade and a microscopic chance at being a huge upgrade. Your seeing almost no Legendaries (unquies) and when you do, they are 99% trash. While the outcome isn't all that different from D2 (you kill massive amounts of monsters for small chances at awesome things) its feels much different, and I would agree not as good - but I believe the good news is they are fixing that bit (or at least trying) with the legendary item patch.
I'm sorry, snowhammer, but I completely disagree with you. I played D2 for 10 years, the overwhelming majority of it spent in SP or small LAN/tcp ip games, and let me tell you this: I saw many of the good items in D2, and I didn't need to trade, didn't need to go to D2JSP, and didn't need to grind 8 hours a day. The exception to this were the very top high runes; i never saw those, but they were way too rare. What I'm saying is that getting your own upgrades in D3 (totally ignoring the AH) takes WAY longer than in D2. You tried to make it sound like it's not like that, but it is. You can add to that the fact that items in D2 were way more inspired. In D3, all you're hoping for is "bigger numbers". You want gear with more Dex that you already have, with more Vit than you already have, more crit, etc. In D2 there were loads of items, especially Sets and Uniques, but also Rares, that had affixes that were DIFFERENT. Not just "oh, cool, these boots have 50 str more than my current ones, so technically they're an upgrade, hurray". The items in D3 are lacking in the 'flavour' and 'variety' department, i don't think anyone can argue with that.
Exactly! Spot on!
I love Diablo 3, but the thing is the item hunt is turning me off, big time! Like I said, I did tell my self that I wouldn't be able to get the best items in game and the rarest. But I should get something interesting. I was looking forward to wield some mediocre items and cool unique weapon or armor.
Exactly! Spot on!
I love Diablo 3, but the thing is the item hunt is turning me off, big time! Like I said, I did tell my self that I wouldn't be able to get the best items in game and the rarest. But I should get something interesting. I was looking forward to wield some mediocre items and cool unique weapon or armor.
what time period is appropriate for what items? what is mediocre?
I'm sorry, snowhammer, but I completely disagree with you. I played D2 for 10 years, the overwhelming majority of it spent in SP or small LAN/tcp ip games, and let me tell you this: I saw many of the good items in D2, and I didn't need to trade, didn't need to go to D2JSP, and didn't need to grind 8 hours a day. The exception to this were the very top high runes; i never saw those, but they were way too rare. What I'm saying is that getting your own upgrades in D3 (totally ignoring the AH) takes WAY longer than in D2. You tried to make it sound like it's not like that, but it is. You can add to that the fact that items in D2 were way more inspired. In D3, all you're hoping for is "bigger numbers". You want gear with more Dex that you already have, with more Vit than you already have, more crit, etc. In D2 there were loads of items, especially Sets and Uniques, but also Rares, that had affixes that were DIFFERENT. Not just "oh, cool, these boots have 50 str more than my current ones, so technically they're an upgrade, hurray". The items in D3 are lacking in the 'flavour' and 'variety' department, i don't think anyone can argue with that.
I think you need to qualify that a little more in order to drive home the point you are trying to make. I would fully expect that anyone who played D2 for 10 years on a regular basis would see a fair amount of the best items, especially considering the changes to the loot distribution over the years. If you play D3 for the next 10 years I would expect that you could say the same thing. That is to say you found perfect or close to it rolled items multiple times. D2 made it linear though. You knew what items you wanted so you hunted specifically for them. As of right now D3 is all about the random items at the right ilvl that will hopefully roll the right stats. Is that more or less fun than D2? That is a matter of preference. I do agree that itemization is a tad boring and I do miss some of the crazy(er) affixes. I think Blizz got the message and we will see some changes.
You're not forced to use the RMAH, or even the regular gold AH.
If you don't feel excitement when getting a legendary or identifying a rare item, that's not something Blizzard can fix. The problem lies in you (and while I say problem, it isn't really: it's just that your tastes have changed, so you do not find the same things exciting anymore. Which is fine). I know I feel excited when I see an ilevel 63 rare drop, just waiting to see if I get something awesome (got a couple of really nice items so far).
You don't need to farm for 8 hours a day. You only need to do that if you care about being number 1: if you don't, then you can go at your own pace. There's no rush, so stop feeling like there is. Again, those are your feelings, not any fault of Blizzard's.
Step away from the game. Take your time. Focus on yourself. You don't need to touch the AH if you don't want to, you can farm everything yourself. Everything will take a lot longer, but that seems to be what you want, so.
So no, there are no fixes for the game to address your problem. Because your problem 100% lies within yourself. Don't blame Blizzard because of your own attitude towards the game.
On a final note, you seriously left your family for 2 weeks to play D3? As in, left the house entirely and left your wife to deal with the kids by herself? I can understand taking a week or two off of work, but leaving your family? Get your priorities sorted out.
You are maybe right there.
But still my point is that the item hunt is so obnoxious compare to many other games Ive played.
Kingdom of Amalure did have to many items imo, I didn't care that much about the drops that where set items and unique ones, but I had a lot of fun getting them and testing them out, different set bonuses and different build variations. Diablo 3 is not letting me do that (maybe in 2 years?), and that's very disappointing for me. I'm glad that it working for some people. I just had to speak out.
Imo you should be able to get an full low level legendary set while leveling up, even couple of them. Be able to use the low level unique items that you get.
I don't know, I just don't think Diablo 3 is worth my time anymore. I'm happy with the 200 hours I spent on it, they where fun until in the end.
that's around a full time job worth of hours. a lot of players complaining probably did this. they played 40+ hours a week or more and burned out. all of a sudden they start finding all of these problems with the game that drives them crazy. it's like hooking up with a girlfriend and then never spending time apart for any reason. you'll drive each other crazy no matter how much you love one another.
You're not forced to use the RMAH, or even the regular gold AH.
If you don't feel excitement when getting a legendary or identifying a rare item, that's not something Blizzard can fix. The problem lies in you (and while I say problem, it isn't really: it's just that your tastes have changed, so you do not find the same things exciting anymore. Which is fine). I know I feel excited when I see an ilevel 63 rare drop, just waiting to see if I get something awesome (got a couple of really nice items so far).
You don't need to farm for 8 hours a day. You only need to do that if you care about being number 1: if you don't, then you can go at your own pace. There's no rush, so stop feeling like there is. Again, those are your feelings, not any fault of Blizzard's.
Step away from the game. Take your time. Focus on yourself. You don't need to touch the AH if you don't want to, you can farm everything yourself. Everything will take a lot longer, but that seems to be what you want, so.
So no, there are no fixes for the game to address your problem. Because your problem 100% lies within yourself. Don't blame Blizzard because of your own attitude towards the game.
On a final note, you seriously left your family for 2 weeks to play D3? As in, left the house entirely and left your wife to deal with the kids by herself? I can understand taking a week or two off of work, but leaving your family? Get your priorities sorted out.
It's a bit harsh to say that I left my fiance and have her deal with the kids her self. My girls are 8 and 10, they can mostly take care of them selves. I mostly played during the night and of course I went home between work and playing Diablo 3, I'm not an complete deuce. My fiance even made a visit to the LAN, and laughed at us been nerds.
Exactly! Spot on!
I love Diablo 3, but the thing is the item hunt is turning me off, big time! Like I said, I did tell my self that I wouldn't be able to get the best items in game and the rarest. But I should get something interesting. I was looking forward to wield some mediocre items and cool unique weapon or armor.
what time period is appropriate for what items? what is mediocre?
example:
Mediocre: 800 dps weapon with ok stats.
instead of
Rare im fine with not having: 1200dps weapon with the right stats and affixes +socket.
Mediocre: Amy with right stat and half the affixes of the rarest item.
istead of
Rare: Amy with high right stat and second stat and higest affixes.
Mediocre set items: ilvl 59-60 with the half or 1/3rd of the set bonues on ilvl 61-63
instead of
Insanly rare set items: with high of everything.
edit: forgot the time period you asked for, well those 200 hours should have given me atleast a half or full low level set items and some legendary rings and ammy's that where mediocre but not the best of the best. But still usable items.
One thing that cannot be argued with is the fact that many people just don't feel as much satisfaction grinding for items as they did in Diablo 2.
This is so true. I remember in D2, searching for that one Unique or Rune come hell or high water. And I also remember IDing every rare worth IDing, like amulets and such. Sometimes I would find really good ones! If not, I always had the Uniques. And then, the crafting amulets were so very good.
I also don't like the forced use of gold as currency. I think the prices were much easier to understand when we used PSkulls, duped SoJ and legit SoJ, and later runes. I miss trading. I miss trading for things like dracs for rends, nigma for nigma, etc. That type of stuff really made the game fun for me.
I even miss Baal runs, and the old sorc tele cs runs in classic, and the cow runs.
I've thought, many times, about saying screw D3 and going back to D2.... but the spam bots really ruin the experience in D2.
I'm sorry, snowhammer, but I completely disagree with you. I played D2 for 10 years, the overwhelming majority of it spent in SP or small LAN/tcp ip games, and let me tell you this: I saw many of the good items in D2, and I didn't need to trade, didn't need to go to D2JSP, and didn't need to grind 8 hours a day. The exception to this were the very top high runes; i never saw those, but they were way too rare. What I'm saying is that getting your own upgrades in D3 (totally ignoring the AH) takes WAY longer than in D2. You tried to make it sound like it's not like that, but it is. You can add to that the fact that items in D2 were way more inspired. In D3, all you're hoping for is "bigger numbers". You want gear with more Dex that you already have, with more Vit than you already have, more crit, etc. In D2 there were loads of items, especially Sets and Uniques, but also Rares, that had affixes that were DIFFERENT. Not just "oh, cool, these boots have 50 str more than my current ones, so technically they're an upgrade, hurray". The items in D3 are lacking in the 'flavour' and 'variety' department, i don't think anyone can argue with that.
I think you need to qualify that a little more in order to drive home the point you are trying to make. I would fully expect that anyone who played D2 for 10 years on a regular basis would see a fair amount of the best items, especially considering the changes to the loot distribution over the years. If you play D3 for the next 10 years I would expect that you could say the same thing. That is to say you found perfect or close to it rolled items multiple times. D2 made it linear though. You knew what items you wanted so you hunted specifically for them. As of right now D3 is all about the random items at the right ilvl that will hopefully roll the right stats. Is that more or less fun than D2? That is a matter of preference. I do agree that itemization is a tad boring and I do miss some of the crazy(er) affixes. I think Blizz got the message and we will see some changes.
But, you see, that's being reasonable. That's disliking D3 without being pejorative or somehow having a D2 God Complex. I have no doubt that the item hunt in D2 was more enjoyable than currently in D3. What I do doubt is that anyone truly had all the best items in D2 within 2 months, or even 5-6 months, because itemization at launch in D2 was terrible. I do NOT give Blizzard a pass for going down the same road in D3, though. Legendaries and sets being, by and large, useless in D3 was a horrible misstep. Bashiok asking if a legendary should be better than a blue was... well it got me pretty incensed - OF COURSE IT SHOULD! Rarity should have some bearing on power, that's a given in this environment. To ask that question really bothered me because it felt as if Blizzard didn't really understand that we don't want to find very rare items like legendaries and sets and have them be total crap. That was a mistake that Blizzard never should have made.
However, they are planning on addressing this, and that makes me feel that a lot of people who are complaining *will* be back after it's fixed. People want to hunt for items, but they want it to be on their terms. And, frankly, I still refuse to believe that 12 years later in our adult lives we still have the same desires for gaming that we did back in our teens. And, whether or not anyone admits their desires have changed, I think it's a big part of the backlash - people remember being 15, 16, or 17 and loving the shit out of D2. We're not 15, 16, or 17 anymore... and we're not going to get the same rush. That is not to say that D3 cannot give us a rush, it's just not going to be the same.
Ultimately, we, the fans, were pretty pushy about D3 being released ASAP, and I think we had a hand in this because D3 does seem rushed. But, how much of that rush was related to the pressure we created? I can't say, but I have no doubt that it was in some part related. Sometimes Blizzard has to realize that what we ask for isn't necessarily what's best for the game.
I'm getting fed upp with all this RMAH conspiracy nonsense crap...
It's easy to write everyone off as a consiparacist or tin-foil hatter, but think about it for a second; the RMAH is Blizzard's recurring revenue model for DIII. Recurring revenue is a desirable business model, they want to make as much money off of DIII as they can. There is nothing wrong with this, it makes perfect business sense.
However, when Blizzard says things like "item drops are not balanced around the RMAH" I just don't buy it. I don't think they are some evil entity with the sole intention of changing the game in any way that best suits the RMAH regardless of what negative affect it may have on gameplay (that would be a conspiracy theory), but do you honestly think it doesn't factor into the decision making process at all?
They built this feature for a reason, they're not going to make changes to the game that make it undesirable or irrelevant.
I think Blizz really did drop the ball on the Sets/Legendarys, they are fixing them, and that is great. (I cannot wait!)
I also think that 60/61/62/63 items should have a slightly higher "minimum" base for rolls.
Also, MOAR skills + affixes that are more powerful would not hurt one bit!
That being said, I am having a blast with Diablo 3, and literally find GREAT items pretty much every single day.
This. I play 2-6 hours every night before the wife gets home from work and I find somthing of value every night. Some nights its just a pair of gloves that will sell for 200K gold, maybe a ring that looks good for my starter set when I level my Barb.. Other nights I hit the jackpot and find a weapon that sells for 8+ Million gold. It's been taking about a week at a time, but I end up with 20ish million gold and buy one really nice piece for my self.
During that time, Ive found 4-5 very very nice piece (worth 15+ million) that I am using myself.
I think the item system needs tweaks (as you say, and as I've already said in this thread too!) and a larger section of the poulace will enjoy the item hunt.. I just dont think its as far off as alot of the people think it is.
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I wanted to share my posts that I made on the EU and US forums.
It would be awesome if you could give me feedback on my thoughts.
Its a wall of text but there is an TL:DR at the end.
The topic title is the same on the US & EU Forums. "Diablo ]I[ is epic but.."
Cant post urls. I have less than 10 posts here.
If you don't feel excitement when getting a legendary or identifying a rare item, that's not something Blizzard can fix. The problem lies in you (and while I say problem, it isn't really: it's just that your tastes have changed, so you do not find the same things exciting anymore. Which is fine). I know I feel excited when I see an ilevel 63 rare drop, just waiting to see if I get something awesome (got a couple of really nice items so far).
You don't need to farm for 8 hours a day. You only need to do that if you care about being number 1: if you don't, then you can go at your own pace. There's no rush, so stop feeling like there is. Again, those are your feelings, not any fault of Blizzard's.
Step away from the game. Take your time. Focus on yourself. You don't need to touch the AH if you don't want to, you can farm everything yourself. Everything will take a lot longer, but that seems to be what you want, so.
So no, there are no fixes for the game to address your problem. Because your problem 100% lies within yourself. Don't blame Blizzard because of your own attitude towards the game.
On a final note, you seriously left your family for 2 weeks to play D3? As in, left the house entirely and left your wife to deal with the kids by herself? I can understand taking a week or two off of work, but leaving your family? Get your priorities sorted out.
Do you think that could be attributed to the fact that you were 5-10 years younger, so were more easily amused? As a child (or teenager) it's a lot easier to get excited over something. As you get older that excitement falls away and you are entertained by different things.
If you look at the games with as objective an eye as possible, you'll realise there's more similarities than you'd think. If you liked the item hunt in D2 but don't in D3, even when the item hunt is functionally the same (with minor differences for the sake of streamlining or changes to make it more fun), then chances are it isn't the game that is at fault: it's you.
stop it! do something else besides playing videos games. if you live in a game you're gonna start having problems with it because you're frying your brain.
if you have hundreds of hours on your account you overdid it
First, in reply to your feeling of being a "pawn" to work for Activision/Blizzard. That makes absolutely no sense at all! If you are morally apposed to selling digital items for real money, than dont do it. If you don't have a problem with the selling, just that Blizzard gets a cut, then you need to come to grips with the fact that THINGS ARENT free in life - the tools to sell these items are being provoided and maintained (could argue poorly maintained but still) by Blizzard - they get paid for that.
I have sold over $200 worth of items, I've made double my money back from buying the CE - what is the problem there?
Now, at your point of wanting to find your OWN upgrades. I just have to ask, what game have you been playing where AT END GAME LEVELS you are able to find upgrades every 10-15 min? Or every hour even? You played that part of the game already - your first play through is full of constant upgrading - eventually, your gear is so good that it takes an EXCEPTIONALY good roll on an item to be an upgrade - they are RARE yes, but you can find them.
I'm playing a double resist Monk right now, and yes I have bought most of my gear on the GOLD AH, but 3 of my pieces I found my self - 2 while playing my initial Wizard and 1 I found a few nights ago on my Monk in act 2. They were Boots with 12% Speed, 150Dex 95 total resists (with the double passive) and +200 bonus armor. They are amazing boots! And I found them myself! They were rare.. the chances of rolling them up was insanely low.. but guess what?? Thats the game and thats what Diablo 2 was - the best items were so rare you SHOULD have never ever seen one. Item duping ruined that, but D3 doesnt have that problem yet.
The fact that good items are so rare makes finding one SO awesome - at least to me! I sold a ilvl 62 chest piece for $45 that had high Dex, High Vit, Double Resists and 3 sockets. When I found it I thought "Boooyah! Rare piece for sure"
My point here is - the item game has falws (I'll get to them below) but to say your not finding your own upgrades is silly - because you most certainly can, it just takes a LONG time - it wouldn't be fun if they werent rare when arming INFERNO!
There are problems of course. No well defined end game added with the lack of PvP right now is making the game feel super lacking in the "meaty" section. Farming gear is fun for some (like me!) but to others its a neccessary thing to do so you can get somehwere else - like Top a Ladder season or Kill People in PvP.
More problems include Legendaries being so horrible (with a few exceptions). With as rare as they are (I've farmed in inferno act 3 for well over 250 Hours already and only found 2 Legendaries) they need to be better - they need to compete and compete well with rares with only the BEST BEST BEST rare items out rolling the best legendaries. They also do need to drop a bit more often ESPECIALLY while leveling - as your leveling you should see them fairly often. Also - I think they should go the route where even TOP END legendaries drop more oftem, but make it rarer to roll up the best versions of them.
So to sum up - there are problems - but I dont understand the mass "OMG this isn't what I thought it would be" cry from people. There are some things that arent nearly as perfect as I hoped they would be (items/legendaries/endgame) and there are some personal gripes (build diversity doesn't exist) but for the most part - Diablo 3 is exactly what I wanted and hoped it would be - a Super Slick and wellc rafted crawler with adictive to farm items. Thats the game! It can and WILL be more, but that is the core of the game. Play the core of the game and lets see what the future brings - Diablo 2 was not in nearly as good a place as it was at launch as it was 2 years later.
Lastly - I think alot of what you (OP) are talking about can be chalked up to getting older. For example - I used to LOVE FPS games and and RTS game. I played them for hours and hours, and mastered them. I was a god in SOCOM 1 and 2 on PS2. But today - they just don't do it for me any more - CoD isn't a worse game than SOCOM was - it is in fact WAY better.. but as I've gotten older my tastes have changed - I'm now ALL about RPG style games and I think our tastes just change as we age.
Any way - my personal feelings are: Diablo 3 is awesome - play it for what it is or, if its not your cup of tea, give it some time before you jump back in. Wait for PvP to hit and some kind of end game content to hit if endlessly farming up items for a SMALL chance at good gear isn't your thing.
Lucky for me, it is my thing.. OOHhh is it ever my thing.
Hey Maka,
I think we actually agree - your just putting a negative spin on it where as I'm putting a positive spin on it (meaning we have landed on different conclusions about what it means for diablo 3).
As for finding more items in Diablo 2 than in Diablo 3 - yes I said that in my post. You found FAR more uniques and they were indeed more varried and interesting - I also touched on that in my problems with the game section.
However, in diablo 2, once you had pretty good gear and pretty good drops it took an act of god to roll up a better item (One that maxed out all 5 stat rolls instead of just 3 outa 5 for example).
Thats the point we're at in Diablo 3, its just the maxing out rolls takes ALOT longer because there are bigger gaps between the rolls on these rares then there was on uniques.
Bottom line is - the item game plays out differently in D3 than it did in D2 - mostly because you are seeing TONS of rare items with a small chance at being a small upgrade and a microscopic chance at being a huge upgrade. Your seeing almost no Legendaries (unquies) and when you do, they are 99% trash. While the outcome isn't all that different from D2 (you kill massive amounts of monsters for small chances at awesome things) its feels much different, and I would agree not as good - but I believe the good news is they are fixing that bit (or at least trying) with the legendary item patch.
Exactly! Spot on!
I love Diablo 3, but the thing is the item hunt is turning me off, big time! Like I said, I did tell my self that I wouldn't be able to get the best items in game and the rarest. But I should get something interesting. I was looking forward to wield some mediocre items and cool unique weapon or armor.
you didn't load d2 and within a week have every item you could possibly want
what time period is appropriate for what items? what is mediocre?
I think you need to qualify that a little more in order to drive home the point you are trying to make. I would fully expect that anyone who played D2 for 10 years on a regular basis would see a fair amount of the best items, especially considering the changes to the loot distribution over the years. If you play D3 for the next 10 years I would expect that you could say the same thing. That is to say you found perfect or close to it rolled items multiple times. D2 made it linear though. You knew what items you wanted so you hunted specifically for them. As of right now D3 is all about the random items at the right ilvl that will hopefully roll the right stats. Is that more or less fun than D2? That is a matter of preference. I do agree that itemization is a tad boring and I do miss some of the crazy(er) affixes. I think Blizz got the message and we will see some changes.
You are maybe right there.
But still my point is that the item hunt is so obnoxious compare to many other games Ive played.
Kingdom of Amalure did have to many items imo, I didn't care that much about the drops that where set items and unique ones, but I had a lot of fun getting them and testing them out, different set bonuses and different build variations. Diablo 3 is not letting me do that (maybe in 2 years?), and that's very disappointing for me. I'm glad that it working for some people. I just had to speak out.
Imo you should be able to get an full low level legendary set while leveling up, even couple of them. Be able to use the low level unique items that you get.
I don't know, I just don't think Diablo 3 is worth my time anymore. I'm happy with the 200 hours I spent on it, they where fun until in the end.
that's around a full time job worth of hours. a lot of players complaining probably did this. they played 40+ hours a week or more and burned out. all of a sudden they start finding all of these problems with the game that drives them crazy. it's like hooking up with a girlfriend and then never spending time apart for any reason. you'll drive each other crazy no matter how much you love one another.
It's a bit harsh to say that I left my fiance and have her deal with the kids her self. My girls are 8 and 10, they can mostly take care of them selves. I mostly played during the night and of course I went home between work and playing Diablo 3, I'm not an complete deuce. My fiance even made a visit to the LAN, and laughed at us been nerds.
example:
Mediocre: 800 dps weapon with ok stats.
instead of
Rare im fine with not having: 1200dps weapon with the right stats and affixes +socket.
Mediocre: Amy with right stat and half the affixes of the rarest item.
istead of
Rare: Amy with high right stat and second stat and higest affixes.
Mediocre set items: ilvl 59-60 with the half or 1/3rd of the set bonues on ilvl 61-63
instead of
Insanly rare set items: with high of everything.
edit: forgot the time period you asked for, well those 200 hours should have given me atleast a half or full low level set items and some legendary rings and ammy's that where mediocre but not the best of the best. But still usable items.
This is so true. I remember in D2, searching for that one Unique or Rune come hell or high water. And I also remember IDing every rare worth IDing, like amulets and such. Sometimes I would find really good ones! If not, I always had the Uniques. And then, the crafting amulets were so very good.
I also don't like the forced use of gold as currency. I think the prices were much easier to understand when we used PSkulls, duped SoJ and legit SoJ, and later runes. I miss trading. I miss trading for things like dracs for rends, nigma for nigma, etc. That type of stuff really made the game fun for me.
I even miss Baal runs, and the old sorc tele cs runs in classic, and the cow runs.
I've thought, many times, about saying screw D3 and going back to D2.... but the spam bots really ruin the experience in D2.
I also think that 60/61/62/63 items should have a slightly higher "minimum" base for rolls.
Also, MOAR skills + affixes that are more powerful would not hurt one bit!
That being said, I am having a blast with Diablo 3, and literally find GREAT items pretty much every single day.
But, you see, that's being reasonable. That's disliking D3 without being pejorative or somehow having a D2 God Complex. I have no doubt that the item hunt in D2 was more enjoyable than currently in D3. What I do doubt is that anyone truly had all the best items in D2 within 2 months, or even 5-6 months, because itemization at launch in D2 was terrible. I do NOT give Blizzard a pass for going down the same road in D3, though. Legendaries and sets being, by and large, useless in D3 was a horrible misstep. Bashiok asking if a legendary should be better than a blue was... well it got me pretty incensed - OF COURSE IT SHOULD! Rarity should have some bearing on power, that's a given in this environment. To ask that question really bothered me because it felt as if Blizzard didn't really understand that we don't want to find very rare items like legendaries and sets and have them be total crap. That was a mistake that Blizzard never should have made.
However, they are planning on addressing this, and that makes me feel that a lot of people who are complaining *will* be back after it's fixed. People want to hunt for items, but they want it to be on their terms. And, frankly, I still refuse to believe that 12 years later in our adult lives we still have the same desires for gaming that we did back in our teens. And, whether or not anyone admits their desires have changed, I think it's a big part of the backlash - people remember being 15, 16, or 17 and loving the shit out of D2. We're not 15, 16, or 17 anymore... and we're not going to get the same rush. That is not to say that D3 cannot give us a rush, it's just not going to be the same.
Ultimately, we, the fans, were pretty pushy about D3 being released ASAP, and I think we had a hand in this because D3 does seem rushed. But, how much of that rush was related to the pressure we created? I can't say, but I have no doubt that it was in some part related. Sometimes Blizzard has to realize that what we ask for isn't necessarily what's best for the game.
Get a dictionary, OP (and the rest of you whiners who keep saying you're "forced" to do things in this game).
Also, who leaves their family for 2 weeks for a release? I should have quit reading at that point.
It's easy to write everyone off as a consiparacist or tin-foil hatter, but think about it for a second; the RMAH is Blizzard's recurring revenue model for DIII. Recurring revenue is a desirable business model, they want to make as much money off of DIII as they can. There is nothing wrong with this, it makes perfect business sense.
However, when Blizzard says things like "item drops are not balanced around the RMAH" I just don't buy it. I don't think they are some evil entity with the sole intention of changing the game in any way that best suits the RMAH regardless of what negative affect it may have on gameplay (that would be a conspiracy theory), but do you honestly think it doesn't factor into the decision making process at all?
They built this feature for a reason, they're not going to make changes to the game that make it undesirable or irrelevant.
This. I play 2-6 hours every night before the wife gets home from work and I find somthing of value every night. Some nights its just a pair of gloves that will sell for 200K gold, maybe a ring that looks good for my starter set when I level my Barb.. Other nights I hit the jackpot and find a weapon that sells for 8+ Million gold. It's been taking about a week at a time, but I end up with 20ish million gold and buy one really nice piece for my self.
During that time, Ive found 4-5 very very nice piece (worth 15+ million) that I am using myself.
I think the item system needs tweaks (as you say, and as I've already said in this thread too!) and a larger section of the poulace will enjoy the item hunt.. I just dont think its as far off as alot of the people think it is.