Desync is an issue? Don't you see the beta tag? Itemization/Maps are bad? Don't you see the beta tag? To me the game is out of beta at this point and it is just a formality. Closed Beta was nothing more than than an Open Beta with a $10 opt in fee. PoE is going to be in beta as long as they can get away with it.
They also need to release content on a weekly basis to keep up people buying their micro transactions/creating unique because that is what funds the game. If they stopped releasing stuff that made people want to create a new character then they wouldn't have a player base to fund their game any longer.
And truthfully both games are just as bad as the other in terms of response time from devs and it isn't either one of their faults. Every time the community starts to complain they can't just make rash decisions that alter game play without understanding the changes that they are making beforehand. Both games have very complex systems at the core, so it takes a lot of time to understand the issue, figure out a solution and incorporate it all together then package all the changes in nice little patch notes that the users can easily read. Versioning is NOT an easy task by any means.
Guaranteed that the same people who complain about response time would be the first people to bitch, "Man don't they test things?" if they rolled out quick fixes that introduced even more bugs.
Lol +1.
Gotta love the 'omg the devs don't care about this game! Takes them forever to update!' with the 'omg this game is a beta, they just change shit without testing it!'
I honesty feel the core of PoE, it's gameplay mechanics in combat specifically, is poor and this aspect will wear down on people. I get this feeling people are trying to champion PoE to spite Diablo, and this is not a sustainable practice.
I'm still not hearing anything intrinsic about PoE that will have players stuck to it for 6+ years. They seem to have a very inspired itemization and a (overly?) complex skill system, which I credit them for. However, without good, smooth gameplay mechanics, none of that will matter for long.
From what I've seen, in terms of combat/gameplay, PoE isn't in the same league as D3. Not even remotely comparable.
It's a good thing they're giving it away.
I'm sure some people are giving the finger to D3 with PoE. I'm not one of those people though.
Races / Maps / Content development will keep me around for a long time. One of the hidden gems of the gem/unique system is that 1 skill or 1 unique can make a new build exist. Just this week a Searing ability gem came out and a new unique that lets you drop an extra totem. It works quite well together.
I feel the combat system is better than that of D3 but it is subjective. You start out limping in the game and build yourself up. Movement speed, attack/cast speed, gained skills speed the game up later on. The flask system is impressive as well. If you want to fly around a map / zone just throw on 2 speed pots with extra charges / movement bonus and have movement speed on gear.
As far as free goes I'm currently spending over $60 a month on the game (last 3 months) just because I do want to play this 6 years from now. D3 actually paid me to play it via RMAH (~$800 within a 1 month stretch). I'm enjoying my first 3 months of PoE more than the first month of D3 by far.
I'm curious what you feel kept players 6 years in D2? And do you feel D3 has that? And I don't mean this to come off as combative. None of us developed PoE or D3 right? :-P
As far as free goes I'm currently spending over $60 a month on the game (last 3 months) just because I do want to play this 6 years from now. D3 actually paid me to play it via RMAH (~$800 within a 1 month stretch). I'm enjoying my first 3 months of PoE more than the first month of D3 by far.
Let me first say I'm glad that you're enjoying PoE. I actually want D3 to have competition because that will keep the pressure on for the game to be as good as possible. I do not want PoE to fail, at all.
However, you've spent over $180 on PoE in just 3 months, whereas you spent $60 on D3 and got $800 back. How can you not expect, nay demand, that PoE would provide far better entertainment than D3 did? You have a TON more money tied up in the game, therefore you should be getting a better product, aye?
I'm curious what you feel kept players 6 years in D2? And do you feel D3 has that? And I don't mean this to come off as combative. None of us developed PoE or D3 right? :-P
I honestly don't think players played D2 for six straight years as some may claim. And if I am wrong, and there are people that did play the game for six year straight I don't believe there is going to be a game recapture that "magic" again.
Back in the day when D2 was released it was a different time. How many other ARPGs were on the market to compete against it? Gaming itself was a niche, nerdy thing to be doing at the time.
Times have changed there are a million big budget games out there that are interesting across many different genres. The way people play games these days developers can't produce fun, engaging content at the pace that it would require to keep people hooked for 6 years straight.
However, you've spent over $180 on PoE in just 3 months, whereas you spent $60 on D3 and got $800 back. How can you not expect, nay demand, that PoE would provide far better entertainment than D3 did? You have a TON more money tied up in the game, therefore you should be getting a better product, aye?
Never spent the $60 on D3. I did the year WoW sub after I had that game cancelled So it is tricky to say how much it cost me. How do you properly add in the costs of raiding Dragon Soul for a year? And I knew that was what it would be too .. my fault.
If your point is the expectations are higher because the name is 'Diablo' I agree. My point was that I'd give that money back for a more enjoyable experience.
I've played Blizzard games from WarCraft 2 and on. I played a lot of Diablo 1/2 but I don't think anything (non-WoW) compares to the time I spent on StarCraft. SC2 comes out and I had zero complaints. Am I giving them an unfair pass and for some strange reason treating Diablo 3 differently? Or did they understand the genre and not disappoint?
Wow this thread is still trucking along. I've only been able to skim through most posts from how far behind I got.
I wanted to chime in on the question on what kept D2 going or kept players playing for several years to come. For me, it was really bursts of playing the game followed by long breaks between. I would usually come back after a major patch and try it out and play for awhile. I really think the same thing is happening with D3, patches get released it introduces a new enthusasim and then it dies down again. Some people will keep playing and others take breaks.
It wasn't that I didn't like D2, far from it, but after doing anything for long periods of time you'll start to get bored. I think it's only natural to want to step away and then you'll get that itch to play again. For those times when I was playing a lot it was really in hopes to find that really awesome piece of gear for a different build.
So in the end I guess it just came down to the item hunt for me. Something that D3 really does still struggle with which might be systemic with the way they did the affixes. They are working on it and it sounds like they have some great ideas, but i'm not going to worry about it too much until an expansion. After all, LoD is what really made D2 shine, perhaps the same will happen here.
To that end, I would like to say that because I like hunting items, I rarely use the AH. I feel it's good to be there for those who want it, but I fear it ruined the game for people like me who hunted for items but didn't realize that once the item hunt was gone what it would do to their play experience. It wouldn't be nearly as bad if there were more unique or interesting (or useful) affixes on gear, then perhaps you might have gear that works for one build really well but not others and players might trade gear more often because of this.
lastly, I think there needs to be more incentive to remove items from the economy. Crafting was supposed to be that system, but it didn't do the job, only because there was nothing worth crafting. Because the market floods with items, the prices change wildly. If there was a reason to get rid of items (especially gems) then prices might stabalize. You have no reason to destroy gems like you did in D2 so everyone just keeps making better and better gems. The Marquis gem is only a bandaid for this problem, they should really add more crafting recipes that mirror the old horalric cube tranmutes so there's a reason to take them out of the economy.
I don't think streamlining items was at its core a bad idea, I just think they went too far with it. It removed the uniqueness that really made each game of D2 interesting.
All this comes from a lover of D3. I still come back right now just for the smooth combat and to try new builds or classes. I haven't played all 5 classes to 60 yet so I still have lots to keep me going forwards, even if it is at a slower pace.
"Path of Exile is more fun" (at 7:35) oh yeah what you're doing there looks amazingly fun.
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!"
I'm curious what you feel kept players 6 years in D2? And do you feel D3 has that? And I don't mean this to come off as combative. None of us developed PoE or D3 right? :-P
Diablo 2 had friggin awesome itemization. It was endless fun to acquire and implement them across a range of skills. Most importantly, it was unique for it's time. Not so now, as it has inspired numerous knock-offs.
Many of the more ardent and habitual players seemed to approach the game as if they were collectors, of sorts. There was just so much depth in itemization.
Myself, like KageKaze said above, I played in approx 6 month stints, would tire of it and take a break for months, come back and get to it again. What caused me to bore of it was repetitive farming practices. Very very little options for farming. It was literally the same few bosses over and over again for years.
Actually, I was heavily involved in melee dueling tournaments, the whole Zealot sub-culture. That's what got me truly hooked and gave me incentive to farm those few areas so much. I always had a thing for the Zealot, can't really explain it. Hence my Monk build I use today in D3. It's the closest thing to the Zealot I could manage, a speed freak build.
Eventually, I logged in sometime in late 2007 and I just didn't feel it anymore. I knew it was time, like an old sports player knowing it was time to retire, I knew it was time to move on. I gave an unreal amount of top-shelf Zealot gear to a friend and I walked away for good.
I'm still holding out hope that a similar sub-culture may show itself in D3. A melee dueling league with GM rules and tournaments hosted by the players. Alas, sadly, much of what Blizz has done to this point has hurt any chance of this taking form for some time.
The only difference is that in D2 we weren't stacking the same stat over and over and over. Well, ok, the best was +skill, capped res and dual leech, but it had more interesting properties and more diversity between classes and builds.
The difference between a barb and a monk is main stat, then they are stacking the same stats (CC, Crit Dam, Ias) regardless of the build. As i already said somewhere, Diablo 3 lacks some pepper in itemization...
I want to add something. Saying that Diablo 2 classic was shit then LoD fixed issues isn't a good justification for a sequel. I know patches and expansion will probably fix some problems D3 has, but they streamlined everything a bit too much in my opinion.
Grinding Gear Games (Company that produced POE): "These are great Ideas, we will use them for sure as they are clearly what the player base is looking for."
Blizzard: "While we agree that this game needs re-working and that these ideas could help the future of this game, we have no plans to listen to our fan-base at this time."
The only difference is that in D2 we weren't stacking the same stat over and over and over. Well, ok, the best was +skill, capped res and dual leech, but it had more interesting properties and more diversity between classes and builds.
The difference between a barb and a monk is main stat, then they are stacking the same stats (CC, Crit Dam, Ias) regardless of the build. As i already said somewhere, Diablo 3 lacks some pepper in itemization...
I have written my views about D3's problems yesterday (had a 7+ hour long car trip), and this was a major topic.
I'm currently thinking how's the best way to present it to everyone, since it's quite a long essay. I'm wondering whether anyone would even read it...
I want to add something. Saying that Diablo 2 classic was shit then LoD fixed issues isn't a good justification for a sequel. I know patches and expansion will probably fix some problems D3 has, but they streamlined everything a bit too much in my opinion.
You're absolutely right.
But try to understand that some systems (namely the Stats and Items) changed into completely different beasts than what they were in D1/D2. They have a different purpose now than they had then.
It's hard to say that they should've used their previous experience (with a completely different system) in order to not make mistakes with the new one. And whether or not people prefer the old or the new, we can't ignore this.
If I find a good way to publish what I wrote on this, it should be easier to understand my pov.
I don't know about others, but i would gladly read a good essay about Diablo 3 even if it would be a bit tiresome reading from a monitor and not in my language
I'm still holding out hope that a similar sub-culture may show itself in D3. A melee dueling league with GM rules and tournaments hosted by the players. Alas, sadly, much of what Blizz has done to this point has hurt any chance of this taking form for some time.
Would have replied much earlier but this was the last message at the time and the thread was off the top post list so I figured I'd help it to die. The dead don't want to stay dead
Totally agree with you on the culture and that Blizzard dropped the ball. It looks like 1.0.8 will add in the tools for people to evolve that culture though. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to do a broadcast to let any friends that still didn't kill Diablo Inferno know they could ask me for help after the Inferno nerf in killing him. I wish all multi-players games offered clans/guilds including Tetrinet.
I would definitely be interested in reading that Zero(pS)! It could be a nice checklist of "Fixed in this patch" as well for later on.
I basically dissected some D3 core systems to see if I can help players understand the thought process behind some design decisions. How some of the things they perceive as problems aren't as bad as we're led to believe, and that some are extremely independent of others.
It's not uncommon to see people putting them all them in one basket, and it's usually what creates an overly negative attitude ("the game is a failure", "Blizzard messed up", "D3 is not a Diablo game"). Not that they're wrong (that's where each one's opinion comes in), it's just not the proper way of handling multiple issues/problems (not even irl).
All that makes the feedback really noisy. Instead of Blizzard looking at 1k posts all saying "look, we would like you to fix 'x' this way, because of 'y' reason", they have to sort through all the non-constructive posts and some very unnreasonable changes (that would change the very foundation of the game).
I enjoyed PoE for probably the same amount of time I enjoyed D3.
I quit D3 because the updates to make it better are taking forever. The skill system needs a major overhaul but we will have to pay $40 if we want to get that.
I quit PoE because the updates are too frequent. They are adding new items and new spell gems weekly. This ruins the gameplay for me because I feel like the time I'm spending farming isn't as efficent because all the items arent in the game yet. The more legendaries and spells in the game the higher your chance of at least finding something is. You may try to argue against that point but yea you have 0% chance now to get an item that wont be in the game till next week.
So in a way both games have the same flaw they have you not wanting to waste time playing until a patch. Just in diablos case your waiting months for 2 changes that should have been in game at release a year ago. at least PoE still calls it a beta
I basically dissected some D3 core systems to see if I can help players understand the thought process behind some design decisions. How some of the things they perceive as problems aren't as bad as we're led to believe, and that some are extremely independent of others.
It's not uncommon to see people putting them all them in one basket, and it's usually what creates an overly negative attitude ("the game is a failure", "Blizzard messed up", "D3 is not a Diablo game"). Not that they're wrong (that's where each one's opinion comes in), it's just not the proper way of handling multiple issues/problems (not even irl).
All that makes the feedback really noisy. Instead of Blizzard looking at 1k posts all saying "look, we would like you to fix 'x' this way, because of 'y' reason", they have to sort through all the non-constructive posts and some very unnreasonable changes (that would change the very foundation of the game).
Post it....in a different thread mind you. Maybe link to it from here just to give people a heads up. Sounds like some productive conversation could sprout up from it.
Lol +1.
Gotta love the 'omg the devs don't care about this game! Takes them forever to update!' with the 'omg this game is a beta, they just change shit without testing it!'
I'm sure some people are giving the finger to D3 with PoE. I'm not one of those people though.
Races / Maps / Content development will keep me around for a long time. One of the hidden gems of the gem/unique system is that 1 skill or 1 unique can make a new build exist. Just this week a Searing ability gem came out and a new unique that lets you drop an extra totem. It works quite well together.
I feel the combat system is better than that of D3 but it is subjective. You start out limping in the game and build yourself up. Movement speed, attack/cast speed, gained skills speed the game up later on. The flask system is impressive as well. If you want to fly around a map / zone just throw on 2 speed pots with extra charges / movement bonus and have movement speed on gear.
As far as free goes I'm currently spending over $60 a month on the game (last 3 months) just because I do want to play this 6 years from now. D3 actually paid me to play it via RMAH (~$800 within a 1 month stretch). I'm enjoying my first 3 months of PoE more than the first month of D3 by far.
I'm curious what you feel kept players 6 years in D2? And do you feel D3 has that? And I don't mean this to come off as combative. None of us developed PoE or D3 right? :-P
Path of Exile - CleavieWonder (Elemental Cleave)
Let me first say I'm glad that you're enjoying PoE. I actually want D3 to have competition because that will keep the pressure on for the game to be as good as possible. I do not want PoE to fail, at all.
However, you've spent over $180 on PoE in just 3 months, whereas you spent $60 on D3 and got $800 back. How can you not expect, nay demand, that PoE would provide far better entertainment than D3 did? You have a TON more money tied up in the game, therefore you should be getting a better product, aye?
I honestly don't think players played D2 for six straight years as some may claim. And if I am wrong, and there are people that did play the game for six year straight I don't believe there is going to be a game recapture that "magic" again.
Back in the day when D2 was released it was a different time. How many other ARPGs were on the market to compete against it? Gaming itself was a niche, nerdy thing to be doing at the time.
Times have changed there are a million big budget games out there that are interesting across many different genres. The way people play games these days developers can't produce fun, engaging content at the pace that it would require to keep people hooked for 6 years straight.
It's just a different landscape these days.
Never spent the $60 on D3. I did the year WoW sub after I had that game cancelled So it is tricky to say how much it cost me. How do you properly add in the costs of raiding Dragon Soul for a year? And I knew that was what it would be too .. my fault.
If your point is the expectations are higher because the name is 'Diablo' I agree. My point was that I'd give that money back for a more enjoyable experience.
I've played Blizzard games from WarCraft 2 and on. I played a lot of Diablo 1/2 but I don't think anything (non-WoW) compares to the time I spent on StarCraft. SC2 comes out and I had zero complaints. Am I giving them an unfair pass and for some strange reason treating Diablo 3 differently? Or did they understand the genre and not disappoint?
Path of Exile - CleavieWonder (Elemental Cleave)
I wanted to chime in on the question on what kept D2 going or kept players playing for several years to come. For me, it was really bursts of playing the game followed by long breaks between. I would usually come back after a major patch and try it out and play for awhile. I really think the same thing is happening with D3, patches get released it introduces a new enthusasim and then it dies down again. Some people will keep playing and others take breaks.
It wasn't that I didn't like D2, far from it, but after doing anything for long periods of time you'll start to get bored. I think it's only natural to want to step away and then you'll get that itch to play again. For those times when I was playing a lot it was really in hopes to find that really awesome piece of gear for a different build.
So in the end I guess it just came down to the item hunt for me. Something that D3 really does still struggle with which might be systemic with the way they did the affixes. They are working on it and it sounds like they have some great ideas, but i'm not going to worry about it too much until an expansion. After all, LoD is what really made D2 shine, perhaps the same will happen here.
To that end, I would like to say that because I like hunting items, I rarely use the AH. I feel it's good to be there for those who want it, but I fear it ruined the game for people like me who hunted for items but didn't realize that once the item hunt was gone what it would do to their play experience. It wouldn't be nearly as bad if there were more unique or interesting (or useful) affixes on gear, then perhaps you might have gear that works for one build really well but not others and players might trade gear more often because of this.
lastly, I think there needs to be more incentive to remove items from the economy. Crafting was supposed to be that system, but it didn't do the job, only because there was nothing worth crafting. Because the market floods with items, the prices change wildly. If there was a reason to get rid of items (especially gems) then prices might stabalize. You have no reason to destroy gems like you did in D2 so everyone just keeps making better and better gems. The Marquis gem is only a bandaid for this problem, they should really add more crafting recipes that mirror the old horalric cube tranmutes so there's a reason to take them out of the economy.
I don't think streamlining items was at its core a bad idea, I just think they went too far with it. It removed the uniqueness that really made each game of D2 interesting.
All this comes from a lover of D3. I still come back right now just for the smooth combat and to try new builds or classes. I haven't played all 5 classes to 60 yet so I still have lots to keep me going forwards, even if it is at a slower pace.
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!"
Diablo 2 had friggin awesome itemization. It was endless fun to acquire and implement them across a range of skills. Most importantly, it was unique for it's time. Not so now, as it has inspired numerous knock-offs.
Many of the more ardent and habitual players seemed to approach the game as if they were collectors, of sorts. There was just so much depth in itemization.
Myself, like KageKaze said above, I played in approx 6 month stints, would tire of it and take a break for months, come back and get to it again. What caused me to bore of it was repetitive farming practices. Very very little options for farming. It was literally the same few bosses over and over again for years.
Actually, I was heavily involved in melee dueling tournaments, the whole Zealot sub-culture. That's what got me truly hooked and gave me incentive to farm those few areas so much. I always had a thing for the Zealot, can't really explain it. Hence my Monk build I use today in D3. It's the closest thing to the Zealot I could manage, a speed freak build.
Eventually, I logged in sometime in late 2007 and I just didn't feel it anymore. I knew it was time, like an old sports player knowing it was time to retire, I knew it was time to move on. I gave an unreal amount of top-shelf Zealot gear to a friend and I walked away for good.
I'm still holding out hope that a similar sub-culture may show itself in D3. A melee dueling league with GM rules and tournaments hosted by the players. Alas, sadly, much of what Blizz has done to this point has hurt any chance of this taking form for some time.
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
The difference between a barb and a monk is main stat, then they are stacking the same stats (CC, Crit Dam, Ias) regardless of the build. As i already said somewhere, Diablo 3 lacks some pepper in itemization...
I want to add something. Saying that Diablo 2 classic was shit then LoD fixed issues isn't a good justification for a sequel. I know patches and expansion will probably fix some problems D3 has, but they streamlined everything a bit too much in my opinion.
Blizzard: "While we agree that this game needs re-working and that these ideas could help the future of this game, we have no plans to listen to our fan-base at this time."
http://s1332.photobucket.com/user/Tester_3211/media/Diablo3devs_zpscc5fbac9.jpg.html?state=replace
17 pages of this bullshit. I've almost responded back to several posts but stopped myself.
Maybe it's time to call this one?
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
NO THEY ARE WRONG! I HATE THEM! POE SUCKS! AHAHAHAHAH
I'm currently thinking how's the best way to present it to everyone, since it's quite a long essay. I'm wondering whether anyone would even read it...
You're absolutely right.
But try to understand that some systems (namely the Stats and Items) changed into completely different beasts than what they were in D1/D2. They have a different purpose now than they had then.
It's hard to say that they should've used their previous experience (with a completely different system) in order to not make mistakes with the new one. And whether or not people prefer the old or the new, we can't ignore this.
If I find a good way to publish what I wrote on this, it should be easier to understand my pov.
Would have replied much earlier but this was the last message at the time and the thread was off the top post list so I figured I'd help it to die. The dead don't want to stay dead
Totally agree with you on the culture and that Blizzard dropped the ball. It looks like 1.0.8 will add in the tools for people to evolve that culture though. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to do a broadcast to let any friends that still didn't kill Diablo Inferno know they could ask me for help after the Inferno nerf in killing him. I wish all multi-players games offered clans/guilds including Tetrinet.
I would definitely be interested in reading that Zero(pS)! It could be a nice checklist of "Fixed in this patch" as well for later on.
Path of Exile - CleavieWonder (Elemental Cleave)
I basically dissected some D3 core systems to see if I can help players understand the thought process behind some design decisions. How some of the things they perceive as problems aren't as bad as we're led to believe, and that some are extremely independent of others.
It's not uncommon to see people putting them all them in one basket, and it's usually what creates an overly negative attitude ("the game is a failure", "Blizzard messed up", "D3 is not a Diablo game"). Not that they're wrong (that's where each one's opinion comes in), it's just not the proper way of handling multiple issues/problems (not even irl).
All that makes the feedback really noisy. Instead of Blizzard looking at 1k posts all saying "look, we would like you to fix 'x' this way, because of 'y' reason", they have to sort through all the non-constructive posts and some very unnreasonable changes (that would change the very foundation of the game).
I quit D3 because the updates to make it better are taking forever. The skill system needs a major overhaul but we will have to pay $40 if we want to get that.
I quit PoE because the updates are too frequent. They are adding new items and new spell gems weekly. This ruins the gameplay for me because I feel like the time I'm spending farming isn't as efficent because all the items arent in the game yet. The more legendaries and spells in the game the higher your chance of at least finding something is. You may try to argue against that point but yea you have 0% chance now to get an item that wont be in the game till next week.
So in a way both games have the same flaw they have you not wanting to waste time playing until a patch. Just in diablos case your waiting months for 2 changes that should have been in game at release a year ago. at least PoE still calls it a beta
Post it....in a different thread mind you. Maybe link to it from here just to give people a heads up. Sounds like some productive conversation could sprout up from it.
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan