And this is why supporting a modding community would have been a smart idea for Blizzard. Given all the resources and people Blizzard has and they can't even get multi-player working in their game, let alone a proper pvp, let alone any replay-ability in their single player game...
It's funny how one person can come up with all of these ideas to improve the game (many of them that should have been implemented in the game from the beginning), and yet the the entire Diablo team couldn't think of anything that would improve the playability aspect of D3 for 5 years...sad really.
I believe they should start thinking of hiring outside help, because clearly their internal team has no clue what to do with this game.
I'm guessing that Blizzard has made far less money than the suits wanted to see from the "RMAH" experiment.
Loss of players, little to no public games, damage control from the head of state, little to no developer involvement in conversations, and many changes that reverse their positions on the DIIIs' original development ideas and are adding in features from the "incorrect way to play DII"...
All this points to things are not all rosy at the DIII headquarters and know the devs are scrambling trying to stem the bleeding. But they won't be able to fix the core problems of the game without acknowledging that it was the auction house that screwed it all up to begin with.
I actually dislike the combat engine in general. With the too-large of hit boxes and no way to dodge or block, it feels like a poor man's action game. No sprint, no stamina, and the "unique" resources that mean nothing... that's one thing that I wish they would improve.
I like the Treasure Goblins. That was one thing they added to the game that was well thought out.
"It is boring and I have stopped playing until it becomes better in the future."
Of course, I've stopped playing since the end-ish of May, and it still doesn't look like they are going to fix the game, or add on to it in a meaningful way. Most likely, Blizzard is saving anything substantial for the inevitable expansion. The question is, will that expansion actually improve this game? Right now, there is nothing redeeming about this game. There is nothing done in this game that improves upon the genre, and nearly every other ARPG out now (and coming out from the looks of it) does it better.
I have hopes that this game will change for the better, but those hopes are not high, nor are they realistic.
End Game Content is replayability, whether that comes at replaying the same game again, only harder or in a different way, or it comes from replaying a certain section of the game, like Baal runs, or running a certain game mode or challenges after the "main game" is completed.
They were banking on item farming to be enough endgame. That would be fine if this were no auction house. However, the auction house essentially killed the "point" of Diablo to begin with. Why farm when you can just buy better gear? Especially since the drop rates were nerfed to make you feel more enticed to visit said auction house. The item hunt itself is bland. All Uniques/Legendaries are boring and or weak. Item "upgrades" are usually a very minor increase to one of your stats, and rarely a large DPS boost, or Armor boost.
D3 has no more character progression. You max out your level before "end game" (Inferno), and you gain nothing that improves your character outside of items. You have no alternate modes, like PvP (coming "Soon"(tm) ), or an "endless dungeon". It has minimum randomization within the game itself, be that in the levels, dungeons, monster varieties, mini-quests...Once you've played through the game 3 times and are playing through it the 4th "end-game" time, you've most likely seen most if not all (and that's only with one character!). It has no character "permanency", so replaying it to level up new toons is limited. 10 characters is all you will need, 5 of each class, female and male, hardcore and softcore, and you are done.
The problem is that Inferno was done as part of the game progression. Ie, you go through Normal, Nightmare, Hell, and then you do the "real game" in Inferno. Thus the beginning 3 playthroughs are boring as sin because you are trying to get through them as fast as possible to get to the "real game". Inferno should have been an aside to the main game, like Challenge Modes or PVP. It should also not have been the only thing to do! As well, make the beginning 3 difficulties actually fun and interesting to play, and offer something to do once you've levelled to max level.
So, You need to improve the core game first. Itemization. Give me something to hunt for. Give me items that are worthwhile. Add resistances/damage types/elemental types back into the game, making items more interesting, as well as giving characters more reasons to choose between items other than DPS. Give me Uniques that are interesting. Give me large varieties in items and socketables to make it interesting to hunt for them. You need more than just 4 gems and they need to do more interesting things in each thing you socket. You need jewels back to give more mods to add to items. You need more varieties of Affixes and Suffixes. You need to increase the drop rates of things that are interesting (uniques/sets). You need to give more ways to improve items, and at the same time you need to remove items from the game in order to encourage hunting. This is due to the auction house, which we know will not be removed.
You need to have some sort of destruction. Why not have it cost an item and a gem to add a socket to another item? Why not have it cost progressively more items and gems in order to add more sockets, up to the max number a specific item can hold? Maybe things like a 2-handed sword can get up to 6 or 8 sockets in it, while one handers can only get 3 (encourage 2-handed usage). Why not make rings and amulets more expensive to stick sockets into?
Why not add a use for white items into crafting? Remember searching for that perfect ethereal item with sockets to throw runes into? Or bring imbuing back. Or how about being able to personalize your items so that you can have "Jaroh's Great Axe of Cleverness" or some such, or let us create a set. There's so much more you can do with items that were done.
You need to add some sort of character personalization and progression back to the game. How about allowing us to "socket" a skill, and by sticking a gem into it, you give that skill some modifiers, like increased radius, or multishot, or lifesteal, or crushing blow, or any number of interesting modifiers that you can attach to gems. Using Jewels, you can get people to add random mods to their skills as well. Changing skills destroys the gem/jewel. Maybe you can gain a socket with experience after reaching level 60? Or using the mystic?
You need to let us get powerful. You need to let us be able to kill waves after waves of demons and make it fun to do so, not kite a couple around for minutes until you finally kill one and then do it again, for the rest of the entire endgame! You need to get rid of 1-shots, at least in the extreme amounts they are using. What do we do with quest rewards once we've reached level 60? Make them interesting and tie them to character development. Give us a way to improve followers, skills, abilities, runes for their skills, what have you.
You need more Randomization. In the overland, you need more varieties of monsters and monster attacks in each area. Maybe a pool of available monsters in each area to choose from, so you never know what you are going to face until you are there. You need more randomness in the overland tiles as well. Make the land larger, with more random blocks in them. Add more offshoots. Remember the "you want people to explore every corner of the map because you never know what you will find?" That kind of feeling.
In dungeons, the same thing, but you also need more randomization to the maps themselves, in the number of map tiles as well as the sizes of the maps, and the "mazeness" of them. You need more variety to the scripted events, so that you don't always face 4 skeletons coming out of the ground here, or 3 skeletons jumping through the window there, or 4 zombie halves coming at you from the trees there, or 3 bats from the holes over there. You need this to be a variety, so that you don't know what or how many to expect, or even if some are bosses or not.
You need more random events for every area of the game. You need more random lines from followers (or else just shut them up!). You need more random numbers of enemies in each group, but overall you need much larger packs, so that you can kill mobs of them. You need more "optional bosses" that are not just "normal" enemies, but unique enemies that aren't part of the main progression. The later acts definitely need "more" everything...
Replayability. You need to make the land progressively larger for each difficulty. You need to add in new areas/monsters/quests in each progressive difficulty. Make the areas larger, more variety, deeper dungeons, more offshoots, more miniquests. You need to kill the story. It is terribly written and we don't want to be forced into it anymore. Or improve it. One of the two. The story needs to be sidelined from the game so that "pressing escape" is not necessary. Add more character choices, whether that be more skills to choose from, or making existing ideas more fleshed out (Melee Wizards and Ranged Barbs for example).
You need to add more modes. Add a Challenge Mode. Add a Team Challenge Mode. Add a Time Trial Mode. Add a Descent into Hell/Endless Dungeon Mode. Add Uber Mode. Add PVP Mode. Put these in the same category as Inferno Mode so that people can choose how they want to farm their gear. Get rid of Whimseyshire and add in an area that isn't an insult and outright mock to part of your player-base. Hell add in multiple areas, secrets within secrets.
Make us want to play the damn game. There's your "End Game"
I trusted Blizzard North to make a sequel to D2. Considering they no longer exist, and the current developers don't know what the hell they are doing...
Sigh...It just really goes to show how much the current developers really have no clue how to make a Diablo sequel and they really are just throwing **** at walls to see what sticks. I've never seen so many flip-floppy decisions regarding game design especially when the game is a month from releasing!
At this point, I almost wish the game will get Ghosted, considering how incompetent the current Dev team is making themselves look (not that Bashiok's PR speak is helping matters any...).
At least they've opened up the game for expansions to introduce higher character levels and more acts!! Yay? I guess they couldn't figure out how to keep players playing long enough nor what to introduce in a new expansion that wouldn't throw the balance out of whack in staying with the "flat difficulty curve" idea. Get ready for 2 characters, 1 act and raise to level cap expansions because they can't think of anything else meaningful to put in there (you know, the things they didn't want to do with the game...).
I will say that some of his top ten seems to be true. He did forget the "online only" being a detriment to the game, although that could fall under the "Battle.net 2.0" heading as well.
I don't think that 2 months is enough time, given the existing issues and considering how long they have taken to produce what they have. It just means that the issues with the UI or Chat channels or Hit Boxes or Customizability will remain past launch and whether they will be fixed with a patch...doubtful.
It just goes to show the current mentality of Blizzard evolve from "When it's done" to "It's good enough after enough cutting..."
My goodness people... it is PVP! It will be there... People are acting like it has been totally cut from the game and is never going to be added back in....
Was PVP cut? Yes. Thus they are cutting features from the game in order to speed up the release date, rather than release it when it's done. It doesn't matter if they "can" add it in later. Will they? They said they would add Guild support into D2 and look how well that turned out...
The point is Blizzard has evolved to a point where money is trumping integrity. How far will it go?
I don't think that 2 months is enough time, given the existing issues and considering how long they have taken to produce what they have. It just means that the issues with the UI or Chat channels or Hit Boxes or Customizability will remain past launch and whether they will be fixed with a patch...doubtful.
It just goes to show the current mentality of Blizzard evolve from "When it's done" to "It's good enough after enough cutting..."
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/34229-diablo-iii-beta-impressions/page__view__findpost__p__743763
I believe they should start thinking of hiring outside help, because clearly their internal team has no clue what to do with this game.
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/34229-diablo-iii-beta-impressions/page__view__findpost__p__743763
Loss of players, little to no public games, damage control from the head of state, little to no developer involvement in conversations, and many changes that reverse their positions on the DIIIs' original development ideas and are adding in features from the "incorrect way to play DII"...
All this points to things are not all rosy at the DIII headquarters and know the devs are scrambling trying to stem the bleeding. But they won't be able to fix the core problems of the game without acknowledging that it was the auction house that screwed it all up to begin with.
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/34229-diablo-iii-beta-impressions/page__view__findpost__p__743763
I like the Treasure Goblins. That was one thing they added to the game that was well thought out.
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/34229-diablo-iii-beta-impressions/page__view__findpost__p__743763
Of course, I've stopped playing since the end-ish of May, and it still doesn't look like they are going to fix the game, or add on to it in a meaningful way. Most likely, Blizzard is saving anything substantial for the inevitable expansion. The question is, will that expansion actually improve this game? Right now, there is nothing redeeming about this game. There is nothing done in this game that improves upon the genre, and nearly every other ARPG out now (and coming out from the looks of it) does it better.
I have hopes that this game will change for the better, but those hopes are not high, nor are they realistic.
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/34229-diablo-iii-beta-impressions/page__view__findpost__p__743763
They were banking on item farming to be enough endgame. That would be fine if this were no auction house. However, the auction house essentially killed the "point" of Diablo to begin with. Why farm when you can just buy better gear? Especially since the drop rates were nerfed to make you feel more enticed to visit said auction house. The item hunt itself is bland. All Uniques/Legendaries are boring and or weak. Item "upgrades" are usually a very minor increase to one of your stats, and rarely a large DPS boost, or Armor boost.
D3 has no more character progression. You max out your level before "end game" (Inferno), and you gain nothing that improves your character outside of items. You have no alternate modes, like PvP (coming "Soon"(tm) ), or an "endless dungeon". It has minimum randomization within the game itself, be that in the levels, dungeons, monster varieties, mini-quests...Once you've played through the game 3 times and are playing through it the 4th "end-game" time, you've most likely seen most if not all (and that's only with one character!). It has no character "permanency", so replaying it to level up new toons is limited. 10 characters is all you will need, 5 of each class, female and male, hardcore and softcore, and you are done.
The problem is that Inferno was done as part of the game progression. Ie, you go through Normal, Nightmare, Hell, and then you do the "real game" in Inferno. Thus the beginning 3 playthroughs are boring as sin because you are trying to get through them as fast as possible to get to the "real game". Inferno should have been an aside to the main game, like Challenge Modes or PVP. It should also not have been the only thing to do! As well, make the beginning 3 difficulties actually fun and interesting to play, and offer something to do once you've levelled to max level.
So, You need to improve the core game first. Itemization. Give me something to hunt for. Give me items that are worthwhile. Add resistances/damage types/elemental types back into the game, making items more interesting, as well as giving characters more reasons to choose between items other than DPS. Give me Uniques that are interesting. Give me large varieties in items and socketables to make it interesting to hunt for them. You need more than just 4 gems and they need to do more interesting things in each thing you socket. You need jewels back to give more mods to add to items. You need more varieties of Affixes and Suffixes. You need to increase the drop rates of things that are interesting (uniques/sets). You need to give more ways to improve items, and at the same time you need to remove items from the game in order to encourage hunting. This is due to the auction house, which we know will not be removed.
You need to have some sort of destruction. Why not have it cost an item and a gem to add a socket to another item? Why not have it cost progressively more items and gems in order to add more sockets, up to the max number a specific item can hold? Maybe things like a 2-handed sword can get up to 6 or 8 sockets in it, while one handers can only get 3 (encourage 2-handed usage). Why not make rings and amulets more expensive to stick sockets into?
Why not add a use for white items into crafting? Remember searching for that perfect ethereal item with sockets to throw runes into? Or bring imbuing back. Or how about being able to personalize your items so that you can have "Jaroh's Great Axe of Cleverness" or some such, or let us create a set. There's so much more you can do with items that were done.
You need to add some sort of character personalization and progression back to the game. How about allowing us to "socket" a skill, and by sticking a gem into it, you give that skill some modifiers, like increased radius, or multishot, or lifesteal, or crushing blow, or any number of interesting modifiers that you can attach to gems. Using Jewels, you can get people to add random mods to their skills as well. Changing skills destroys the gem/jewel. Maybe you can gain a socket with experience after reaching level 60? Or using the mystic?
You need to let us get powerful. You need to let us be able to kill waves after waves of demons and make it fun to do so, not kite a couple around for minutes until you finally kill one and then do it again, for the rest of the entire endgame! You need to get rid of 1-shots, at least in the extreme amounts they are using. What do we do with quest rewards once we've reached level 60? Make them interesting and tie them to character development. Give us a way to improve followers, skills, abilities, runes for their skills, what have you.
You need more Randomization. In the overland, you need more varieties of monsters and monster attacks in each area. Maybe a pool of available monsters in each area to choose from, so you never know what you are going to face until you are there. You need more randomness in the overland tiles as well. Make the land larger, with more random blocks in them. Add more offshoots. Remember the "you want people to explore every corner of the map because you never know what you will find?" That kind of feeling.
In dungeons, the same thing, but you also need more randomization to the maps themselves, in the number of map tiles as well as the sizes of the maps, and the "mazeness" of them. You need more variety to the scripted events, so that you don't always face 4 skeletons coming out of the ground here, or 3 skeletons jumping through the window there, or 4 zombie halves coming at you from the trees there, or 3 bats from the holes over there. You need this to be a variety, so that you don't know what or how many to expect, or even if some are bosses or not.
You need more random events for every area of the game. You need more random lines from followers (or else just shut them up!). You need more random numbers of enemies in each group, but overall you need much larger packs, so that you can kill mobs of them. You need more "optional bosses" that are not just "normal" enemies, but unique enemies that aren't part of the main progression. The later acts definitely need "more" everything...
Replayability. You need to make the land progressively larger for each difficulty. You need to add in new areas/monsters/quests in each progressive difficulty. Make the areas larger, more variety, deeper dungeons, more offshoots, more miniquests. You need to kill the story. It is terribly written and we don't want to be forced into it anymore. Or improve it. One of the two. The story needs to be sidelined from the game so that "pressing escape" is not necessary. Add more character choices, whether that be more skills to choose from, or making existing ideas more fleshed out (Melee Wizards and Ranged Barbs for example).
You need to add more modes. Add a Challenge Mode. Add a Team Challenge Mode. Add a Time Trial Mode. Add a Descent into Hell/Endless Dungeon Mode. Add Uber Mode. Add PVP Mode. Put these in the same category as Inferno Mode so that people can choose how they want to farm their gear. Get rid of Whimseyshire and add in an area that isn't an insult and outright mock to part of your player-base. Hell add in multiple areas, secrets within secrets.
Make us want to play the damn game. There's your "End Game"
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/34229-diablo-iii-beta-impressions/page__view__findpost__p__743763
That's pretty rude. Myself, I don't care because I've read the books, but for anyone that hasn't and is just watching the show. Very low.
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/34229-diablo-iii-beta-impressions/page__view__findpost__p__743763
Unfortunately, this sloppy "game" is released as is; everyone just has to suck it up and either like it or leave it.
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/34229-diablo-iii-beta-impressions/page__view__findpost__p__743763
See my sig for my thoughts on the Beta.
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/34229-diablo-iii-beta-impressions/page__view__findpost__p__743763
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/34229-diablo-iii-beta-impressions/page__view__findpost__p__743763
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/34229-diablo-iii-beta-impressions/page__view__findpost__p__743763
At this point, I almost wish the game will get Ghosted, considering how incompetent the current Dev team is making themselves look (not that Bashiok's PR speak is helping matters any...).
At least they've opened up the game for expansions to introduce higher character levels and more acts!! Yay? I guess they couldn't figure out how to keep players playing long enough nor what to introduce in a new expansion that wouldn't throw the balance out of whack in staying with the "flat difficulty curve" idea. Get ready for 2 characters, 1 act and raise to level cap expansions because they can't think of anything else meaningful to put in there (you know, the things they didn't want to do with the game...).
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/34229-diablo-iii-beta-impressions/page__view__findpost__p__743763
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/34229-diablo-iii-beta-impressions/page__view__findpost__p__743763
The point is Blizzard has evolved to a point where money is trumping integrity. How far will it go?
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/34229-diablo-iii-beta-impressions/page__view__findpost__p__743763
It just goes to show the current mentality of Blizzard evolve from "When it's done" to "It's good enough after enough cutting..."
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/34229-diablo-iii-beta-impressions/page__view__findpost__p__743763