And I think that by and large, the players that are frustrated or have left, are justified. But I've said in posts before - those folks want this game to be great and are frustrated that it isn't. Yes, the counter is that their expectations are too high and they should just be satisfied with that they are slowly given.
I disagree with that philosophy - along with the "if you don't like the game, go play something else; I love it" argument.
Path of Exile's development team release a patch every week. A new skill, system improvements, interface improvements, new items - the works. And the downtime for the patch is around a minute. Seriously.
Yes - I know that their engine is vastly different from Blizzards. And how many people reference the fact that you are going to have to wait, when dealing with Blizzard - because they take a long time to do things. And why is that?
Because until is right, they don't release it. And that has been so utterly damage with this game that I too feel that D3 is in danger of "too little, too late."
PoE doesn't have half the pressure D3 had, and has, at any point. That's a considerable difference for their development team and everyone in charge. Furthermore, they're in a beta and testing out skills to implement or not, so comparing that aspect to D3 is a bit much. What's worse though is comparing the down time, as D3 obviously has considerably more in it's 'server backbone' than PoE ever will simply due to capacity needs. So while GGG has done well with PoE, the aspects you try and compare them to with D3 and Blizzard's development aren't really fair or accurate.
While it is frustrating about some aspects of this game and the way Blizzard handles things, you have to admire them for not only having the patience to release something in a state most gaming developers wouldn't have the patience for, but also for sticking with a game that's been out for 10 months that they easily could have given up on until the expansion is released.
The reason to play is if you still find the game play enjoyable. Personally, I feel like there are simply too many unexplored aspects of the game, even 10 months after release. So for me I feel there is still plenty of room for improvements/optimizations in builds.
One of the things I like in games is the ability to optimize builds/specs/strategies. I've played WoW for 5-6 years making builds and optimizing gameplay, which includes raiding in a world top 100 guild and playing arenas at the Gladiator level. I've also played like 9000+ StarCraft II games, making and optimizing strategies. StarCraft expansion recently came out, I played it for about a week (beat Brutal, got back to Masters, etc), yet after that week felt I'd still rather spend my time in D3 getting strategies and builds figured out rather than doing it in StarCraft again.
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Diablo 3 just seems like there is so much to do with your character's skills in terms of optimizing for different things. Even 10 months after release there just seem to be so many unexplored builds and ways to play.
I think one of the major issues with Diablo is that itemization is an incredibly MAJOR FAIL. It's so terrible, that many players never really look past it. Aside from the first few months after release, farming really wasn't as good as simply flipping items from the AH. Which of course meant many players didn't see a reason to farm, I mean there simply was NO reason to farm if the entire goal was to progress your character.
The overall situation is that players like myself who ENJOY creating and optimizing builds are still enjoying the game. For us, the game isn't about loot, but rather about figuring things out. Once a player plays Diablo from a perspective of "playing for loot" the game suddenly isn't very fun anymore, simply because the loot in this game basically SUCKs. This actually brings up an interesting question, which is WHY most people wanted to play D3 in the first place. I'm guessing a lot of players bought the game because they wanted a game where they can progress their character's gear by finding drops, which is one of the main aspects that the game failed at.
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The thing with D3, and single player games in general, is that the games are practically impossible to balance for everyone. A game that's too easy for 1 player could be too difficult for another. Or in cases like D3, class imbalances can make it too easy for some people, and too difficult for others. Basically this causes a situation where some players are having fun, and some players aren't having fun. And honestly, there really isn't any easy solution to make it where everyone has fun.
One of the funny things is I never played any Action RPG before Diablo 3. I happened to roll a DH at launch, and was already farming Inferno by the end of the first week. I actually thought that a lot of the players that started the game on release day were farming inferno as well. It wasn't until like the week after that when Blizzard started nerfs and stuff that I realized many players were still stuck in like Act 1 inferno. It was basically a situation where I was having a hell of a fun time farming inferno on my DH, while other classes were basically stuck/frustrated and unable to progress.
I actually thought that a lot of the players that started the game on release day were farming inferno as well.
I think a good majority of the players were still trying to log in
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Bashiok - Blizzard Representative - 08/01/2011 -"So how many skill combinations are there now? Well taking into account 6 active skills, all the rune combinations, and 3 passives we currently expect each class to have roughly 2,285,814,795,264 different build combinations."
"Hey, I thought you'd like the witty irony of grub-on-glowie violence!"
What's worse though is comparing the down time, as D3 obviously has considerably more in it's 'server backbone' than PoE ever will simply due to capacity needs. So while GGG has done well with PoE, the aspects you try and compare them to with D3 and Blizzard's development aren't really fair or accurate.
I think one of the major issues with Diablo is that itemization is an incredibly MAJOR FAIL. It's so terrible, that many players never really look past it.
-------------------
The overall situation is that players like myself who ENJOY creating and optimizing builds are still enjoying the game. For us, the game isn't about loot, but rather about figuring things out. Once a player plays Diablo from a perspective of "playing for loot" the game suddenly isn't very fun anymore, simply because the loot in this game basically SUCKs. This actually brings up an interesting question, which is WHY most people wanted to play D3 in the first place. I'm guessing a lot of players bought the game because they wanted a game where they can progress their character's gear by finding drops, which is one of the main aspects that the game failed at.
The game is all about the loot. If the loot is crap, the game is crap. There's a history behind Diablo, you know?
It's nothing personal, but this pisses me off a bit. It seems like a lot of the people that find the game really enjoyable are people that haven't played any of the previous titles in the series. Which says a lot.
I happened to roll a DH at launch, and was already farming Inferno by the end of the first week. I actually thought that a lot of the players that started the game on release day were farming inferno as well. It wasn't until like the week after that when Blizzard started nerfs and stuff that I realized many players were still stuck in like Act 1 inferno. It was basically a situation where I was having a hell of a fun time farming inferno on my DH, while other classes were basically stuck/frustrated and unable to progress.
DH's were ultra-exploitable at launch. Let me guess: you used Smoke Screen.
I wouldn't say that a game is crap just because the loot is crap. Diablo 3 is the first non-competitive game I've played for a while, and even with it's flaws I really like the game. Previous games I've played were all heavily focused on ranking. WoW raiding was trying to get top raiding ranks and PvP was about pushing for Gladiator titles. StarCraft was pretty much a competitive ladder system. D3 is a lot more relaxing in that you can aim for efficiency, but at the end you can really just play it however you like.
As for Diablo's history, the previous game, Diablo 2 was released in 2000. Regardless of it's history, I'd guess a large percentage of D3's players, including myself, had never played the previous Diablo games. My friends that started playing D3 with me were more competitive players from games like WoW and StarCraft. We didn't come from other action RPG games.
So you are probably correct that many of the players that like D3 didn't play previous games of the series. A lot of us came more from the strategy end of things, where making builds and pushing ideas were the important parts of gameplay. In games like WoW everyone in the competitive (Duelist-Glad) range wore about 95% of the same gear. We used strategy to win fights there. For raiding we used strats to beat bosses faster since basically all world top guilds were in the same top end gear from farming previous content. StarCraft has no gear, and higher ranked players already knew the standard builds. So we relied heavily on modifying strats, along with good control, to win games.
Basically a lot of players played games that didn't revolve around special gear, but rather around strategy and skill. So as non-Action RPG players, the loot wasn't as big of a factor to us.
I'm not going to say what's right or wrong. I realize ORIGINALLY action RPGs were about loot. But when you factor in the types of players that actually play the game now, I'm guessing a lot of them weren't even action RPG players in the first place before playing D3. I don't think anyone wouldn't want a better loot system. However, I simply don't feel like it's everyone's top priority in what makes a game fun.
As for DH at launch, I heavily emphasized the use of smokescreen in multiple threads on the beta forums, as it was a clear winner from what we noticed on the beta. I'm not sure how people consider it an "exploit" when the skill and it's effects were thoroughly discussed on Blizzard beta forums, and they decided to leave it unchanged. Yes, I told people it was the way to create DH builds, and used it heavily myself.
I would love to have a sheet with the numbers of this game.. how many players started to play, how many left, how many new accounts are created every month, how many of them still play today.. etc.
You already have the number for how many started - at least 12 million. Also between the first month and January 2 million bought the game. That's all we have.
Nowhere near a majority, or even anywhere remotely describable as half.
Let's be fair about it.
Diablo 3 sold off of it's name, not it's reviews. Post-launch buzz didn't witness these sales. They had 10+ million guaranteed sales 4+ years ago. People bought the brand on good faith.
The number that really matter is the rate at the players stop playing, and how many of them. Let say, 12 millions bought the game, how many of them still play today and if not, for how long the played the game until they quitted. And to apply that to new accounts. Average, how long it takes to a new player to stop playing after he bought the game?.
The number that really matter is the rate at the players stop playing, and how many of them. Let say, 12 millions bought the game, how many of them still play today and if not, for how long the played the game until they quitted. And to apply that to new accounts. Average, how long it takes to a new player to stop playing after he bought the game?.
Those numbers are the important ones.
I'm not sure why this is so important. When the majority of gamers will play it and stop once they 'beat' the game (to their standards of beating) the numbers aren't all that important. As long as they continue to develop changes for the game what does it matter how many people are still playing or how long people played for? They have those numbers for their review and decision making, and it's not really relevant as to why you play the game or not.
@TianZI: I don't agree with that approach. Games should be what they are, and players then choose to either play it or not. If you want a "WoW-esque" or "Starcraft-esque" gaming experience, you should play those games, or games similar to them. Don't come to Diablo and expect the core gameplay to change to accomodate you. Diablo has always been, and should always be, a game about loot. I maintain: if the loot system is crap, a Diablo game is therefore crap.
I annoys me that this "WoW generation" came over in droves (mainly due the whole "buy annual pass/get D3 for free" scheme - worst thing ever), and suddenly they're the ones defining the direction that this game is taking, while long-time fans of the series and of this style of play get left in the dust, because, perhaps, they are less vocal, and not as used to complaining on forums.
EDIT: hmm, re-reading this post, I can see it didn't come out as I expected. I hope the sentiment is still clear, though.
I do understand your point of view, and it makes sense.
Don't get me wrong, I never expected for the Diablo franchise to change for us. I'm just stating that the way it happened to change isn't that bad for the way we play games. I'm pretty sure if Diablo stayed more like the previous Diablo games, with more customization we'd still love it (probably even more than we do now).
As for WoW players coming from the annual pass thing, I really don't know. Most people I know quit WoW for D3, so we payed the full regular price like most people did. The few people I had on my friends list that actually got the annual pass offer quit D3 pretty fast and went back to WoW. The primary reason that many of us actually quit our previous games for Diablo was because of the giant hype Blizzard had put on the difficulty. Many of us had taken time off just to be able to game heavily after release, and compete for progression. Blizzard pretty much failed on that, yet even now some of use still find fun in the game even though it didn't match one of the main reasons we choose to play this game.
The primary reason that many of us actually quit our previous games for Diablo was because of the giant hype Blizzard had put on the difficulty.
The game was super difficult on Inferno at release, when did you start playing?
I played since launch day (technically about 18 hours after launch), and finished inferno by the end of the first week. I had no prior Action RPG experience aside from the D3 beta (and about 1-2 hours of Torchlight 1 before I got bored with it). I played a DH, which turned out to be quite OP at the time compared to other classes.
By the time I rolled my second class (Monk) and got to lv 60, inferno was already nerfed...
The primary reason that many of us actually quit our previous games for Diablo was because of the giant hype Blizzard had put on the difficulty.
The game was super difficult on Inferno at release, when did you start playing?
I played since launch day (technically about 18 hours after launch), and finished inferno by the end of the first week. I had no prior Action RPG experience aside from the D3 beta (and about 1-2 hours of Torchlight 1 before I got bored with it). I played a DH, which turned out to be quite OP at the time compared to other classes.
By the time I rolled my second class (Monk) and got to lv 60, inferno was already nerfed...
Edit: spelling mistakes
That is impressive... I started DH and had trouble progressing through A2 and 3 in original inferno because of item progression problems.
hehe played monk since launch beat inferno when it was hard ( I didnt technically but before the nerf I had "almost kill" on Diablo 3 but battle.net played some tricks on me and disced me ) and have been sticking to it ever since.Tho I barely play now cause I have work + gym + dota + friends in general take up most of my time. But when I want to listen to a podcast or something I usually play D3 cause it is very chill
Nowhere near a majority, or even anywhere remotely describable as half.
Let's be fair about it.
Diablo 3 sold off of it's name, not it's reviews. Post-launch buzz didn't witness these sales. They had 10+ million guaranteed sales 4+ years ago. People bought the brand on good faith.
I like how you think ruksak. I cannot post on the Blizzard diablo page because I no longer have an account with them but this forum seems to be up to par (thus my creation of this account).
Anywho I totally agree with your passion for diablo. Diablo 2 was crack rock there is no other way of putting it. I can sit here and list off everything I agree with in your past statements from itemization, custom games, dodge, timers, runes etc. or we can just hope for the future to bring this game where it should have been a year ago.
It was disappointing however to visit the blizzard website a few days ago thinking that since may 15th, 2012 at least something major would have been announced correlating to the game mechanics that have been pointed out since probably may 16th, 2012.
Above ... your post is misleading in the extreme. If you look at the top 10 games on Xfire you will notice that the majority (if not all) are competitive games. This in no way describes D3 (even allowing a 1% for PvP) ... at all ... period .
What I've been trying to understand lately is the question: "Is there point in playing SOME game" ?
So before I give you my 2 cents, could you please tell me, what would be the answer to this question ?
"Point in playing some game" ?!
The point of GAMES is probably found in it's word and it means play, have fun. If you don't have it, then I simply don't understand why are you still questioning it ?
Diablo 3 is not like Diablo 2, maybe because of the gameplay and probably because you got too old, just the way I did, since we played D2 like a decade ago, so you might also want to question that...
I wonder when will people realize that games are just games and if you loose yourself into it, I m afraid your life gonna suffer a lot. Log in here and there, kill some mobs, play with your friends (if you have them) and simply log out and do million of other things that you can, for example, job, book, girls, friends etc. Games went too far, or at least people took them to serious.
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PoE doesn't have half the pressure D3 had, and has, at any point. That's a considerable difference for their development team and everyone in charge. Furthermore, they're in a beta and testing out skills to implement or not, so comparing that aspect to D3 is a bit much. What's worse though is comparing the down time, as D3 obviously has considerably more in it's 'server backbone' than PoE ever will simply due to capacity needs. So while GGG has done well with PoE, the aspects you try and compare them to with D3 and Blizzard's development aren't really fair or accurate.
While it is frustrating about some aspects of this game and the way Blizzard handles things, you have to admire them for not only having the patience to release something in a state most gaming developers wouldn't have the patience for, but also for sticking with a game that's been out for 10 months that they easily could have given up on until the expansion is released.
One of the things I like in games is the ability to optimize builds/specs/strategies. I've played WoW for 5-6 years making builds and optimizing gameplay, which includes raiding in a world top 100 guild and playing arenas at the Gladiator level. I've also played like 9000+ StarCraft II games, making and optimizing strategies. StarCraft expansion recently came out, I played it for about a week (beat Brutal, got back to Masters, etc), yet after that week felt I'd still rather spend my time in D3 getting strategies and builds figured out rather than doing it in StarCraft again.
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Diablo 3 just seems like there is so much to do with your character's skills in terms of optimizing for different things. Even 10 months after release there just seem to be so many unexplored builds and ways to play.
I think one of the major issues with Diablo is that itemization is an incredibly MAJOR FAIL. It's so terrible, that many players never really look past it. Aside from the first few months after release, farming really wasn't as good as simply flipping items from the AH. Which of course meant many players didn't see a reason to farm, I mean there simply was NO reason to farm if the entire goal was to progress your character.
The overall situation is that players like myself who ENJOY creating and optimizing builds are still enjoying the game. For us, the game isn't about loot, but rather about figuring things out. Once a player plays Diablo from a perspective of "playing for loot" the game suddenly isn't very fun anymore, simply because the loot in this game basically SUCKs. This actually brings up an interesting question, which is WHY most people wanted to play D3 in the first place. I'm guessing a lot of players bought the game because they wanted a game where they can progress their character's gear by finding drops, which is one of the main aspects that the game failed at.
-----
The thing with D3, and single player games in general, is that the games are practically impossible to balance for everyone. A game that's too easy for 1 player could be too difficult for another. Or in cases like D3, class imbalances can make it too easy for some people, and too difficult for others. Basically this causes a situation where some players are having fun, and some players aren't having fun. And honestly, there really isn't any easy solution to make it where everyone has fun.
One of the funny things is I never played any Action RPG before Diablo 3. I happened to roll a DH at launch, and was already farming Inferno by the end of the first week. I actually thought that a lot of the players that started the game on release day were farming inferno as well. It wasn't until like the week after that when Blizzard started nerfs and stuff that I realized many players were still stuck in like Act 1 inferno. It was basically a situation where I was having a hell of a fun time farming inferno on my DH, while other classes were basically stuck/frustrated and unable to progress.
Bashiok - Blizzard Representative - 08/01/2011 -"So how many skill combinations are there now? Well taking into account 6 active skills, all the rune combinations, and 3 passives we currently expect each class to have roughly 2,285,814,795,264 different build combinations."
"Hey, I thought you'd like the witty irony of grub-on-glowie violence!"
So is it fair to compare it to League of Legends?
I wouldn't say that a game is crap just because the loot is crap. Diablo 3 is the first non-competitive game I've played for a while, and even with it's flaws I really like the game. Previous games I've played were all heavily focused on ranking. WoW raiding was trying to get top raiding ranks and PvP was about pushing for Gladiator titles. StarCraft was pretty much a competitive ladder system. D3 is a lot more relaxing in that you can aim for efficiency, but at the end you can really just play it however you like.
As for Diablo's history, the previous game, Diablo 2 was released in 2000. Regardless of it's history, I'd guess a large percentage of D3's players, including myself, had never played the previous Diablo games. My friends that started playing D3 with me were more competitive players from games like WoW and StarCraft. We didn't come from other action RPG games.
So you are probably correct that many of the players that like D3 didn't play previous games of the series. A lot of us came more from the strategy end of things, where making builds and pushing ideas were the important parts of gameplay. In games like WoW everyone in the competitive (Duelist-Glad) range wore about 95% of the same gear. We used strategy to win fights there. For raiding we used strats to beat bosses faster since basically all world top guilds were in the same top end gear from farming previous content. StarCraft has no gear, and higher ranked players already knew the standard builds. So we relied heavily on modifying strats, along with good control, to win games.
Basically a lot of players played games that didn't revolve around special gear, but rather around strategy and skill. So as non-Action RPG players, the loot wasn't as big of a factor to us.
I'm not going to say what's right or wrong. I realize ORIGINALLY action RPGs were about loot. But when you factor in the types of players that actually play the game now, I'm guessing a lot of them weren't even action RPG players in the first place before playing D3. I don't think anyone wouldn't want a better loot system. However, I simply don't feel like it's everyone's top priority in what makes a game fun.
As for DH at launch, I heavily emphasized the use of smokescreen in multiple threads on the beta forums, as it was a clear winner from what we noticed on the beta. I'm not sure how people consider it an "exploit" when the skill and it's effects were thoroughly discussed on Blizzard beta forums, and they decided to leave it unchanged. Yes, I told people it was the way to create DH builds, and used it heavily myself.
But it will never happen.
Ha. Bagstone.
*Some of those were free copies.
Nowhere near a majority, or even anywhere remotely describable as half.
Let's be fair about it.
Diablo 3 sold off of it's name, not it's reviews. Post-launch buzz didn't witness these sales. They had 10+ million guaranteed sales 4+ years ago. People bought the brand on good faith.
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
Ha. Bagstone.
Those numbers are the important ones.
so after i suffered a character i will restart another one
I'm not sure why this is so important. When the majority of gamers will play it and stop once they 'beat' the game (to their standards of beating) the numbers aren't all that important. As long as they continue to develop changes for the game what does it matter how many people are still playing or how long people played for? They have those numbers for their review and decision making, and it's not really relevant as to why you play the game or not.
I do understand your point of view, and it makes sense.
Don't get me wrong, I never expected for the Diablo franchise to change for us. I'm just stating that the way it happened to change isn't that bad for the way we play games. I'm pretty sure if Diablo stayed more like the previous Diablo games, with more customization we'd still love it (probably even more than we do now).
As for WoW players coming from the annual pass thing, I really don't know. Most people I know quit WoW for D3, so we payed the full regular price like most people did. The few people I had on my friends list that actually got the annual pass offer quit D3 pretty fast and went back to WoW. The primary reason that many of us actually quit our previous games for Diablo was because of the giant hype Blizzard had put on the difficulty. Many of us had taken time off just to be able to game heavily after release, and compete for progression. Blizzard pretty much failed on that, yet even now some of use still find fun in the game even though it didn't match one of the main reasons we choose to play this game.
The game was super difficult on Inferno at release, when did you start playing?
Ha. Bagstone.
I played since launch day (technically about 18 hours after launch), and finished inferno by the end of the first week. I had no prior Action RPG experience aside from the D3 beta (and about 1-2 hours of Torchlight 1 before I got bored with it). I played a DH, which turned out to be quite OP at the time compared to other classes.
By the time I rolled my second class (Monk) and got to lv 60, inferno was already nerfed...
Edit: spelling mistakes
That is impressive... I started DH and had trouble progressing through A2 and 3 in original inferno because of item progression problems.
I like how you think ruksak. I cannot post on the Blizzard diablo page because I no longer have an account with them but this forum seems to be up to par (thus my creation of this account).
Anywho I totally agree with your passion for diablo. Diablo 2 was crack rock there is no other way of putting it. I can sit here and list off everything I agree with in your past statements from itemization, custom games, dodge, timers, runes etc. or we can just hope for the future to bring this game where it should have been a year ago.
It was disappointing however to visit the blizzard website a few days ago thinking that since may 15th, 2012 at least something major would have been announced correlating to the game mechanics that have been pointed out since probably may 16th, 2012.
TL:DR digital crack rock > fun
So before I give you my 2 cents, could you please tell me, what would be the answer to this question ?
"Point in playing some game" ?!
The point of GAMES is probably found in it's word and it means play, have fun. If you don't have it, then I simply don't understand why are you still questioning it ?
Diablo 3 is not like Diablo 2, maybe because of the gameplay and probably because you got too old, just the way I did, since we played D2 like a decade ago, so you might also want to question that...
I wonder when will people realize that games are just games and if you loose yourself into it, I m afraid your life gonna suffer a lot. Log in here and there, kill some mobs, play with your friends (if you have them) and simply log out and do million of other things that you can, for example, job, book, girls, friends etc. Games went too far, or at least people took them to serious.