DiabloFans

There's still hope for this game.And remember guys whenever we think about diablo 2's awesome moments,we actually think about D2:LOD not the original one.

If this guy really does what he says and the expansion comes with new features.............then this game will be the best diablo game ever.

Cos right now the only feature that is good about diablo 3 is the uninstall feature.

I used it months ago and loving the benefits of this feature.

Short-ish write up after strenously reading these 18 pages...

Let's start by saying I've played both games. For me personally, PoE is much, much more attractive to the point where reading this thread made me think "how can they even believe this?"

I'll try to touch a few points that seeped through the 18 pages.

It isn't a contest. It's not an e-peen competition. I don't believe I'll "sway" anyone here into disliking D3 and liking PoE. The point is simply to relate my experience with both games and expose (again) the simple fact that most PoE players including myself WANTED to like and play D3. That's what compounds the disapointment. It's missing important game systems. I'll explain below.

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I've never particularly liked Kripparrian and I wouldn't consider him influencing me. I was watching his videos mostly for his knowledge of mechanics. Then he started playing PoE and like many I thought "hmm, that game's graphics look outdated." It seemed interesting but I wasn't overly enthusiastic about it.

Over the course of weeks / months he made videos showing the different "advanced" mechanics of the game, which usually revolve around customization. Whether's it's customizing flasks, supporting primary skills with support gems, modifying equipment.. over time curiosity got me interested.

When it came out for open beta I figured I'd try it out. At this point I had stopped playing D3 for several months.

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Why did I stop playing D3 in the first place? Because there's no progression whatsoever (or even the feel of progression). I have a level 60 of all 5 classes.

Everytime I logged on in the months I played (including when they added paragon levels), there was only 1 thing to do: mindlessly grind through act 1-2-3 inferno getting paragon levels.

Everyone knows the odds of finding gear upgrades is/was extremely small. You don't look at whites, you don't look at blues, you don't look at 99% of rares except a select few 63 item types. As for uniques.. they're rarely well rolled and even when they are, they don't enable different builds. It's more of the same.

People have talked about the itemization issues at length so there's no point in saying much more about it.

The only customization in the game is whether I'm going to farm with WW barbarian or monk, or another class. In which case you just go to town and swap skills. No effort needed. Some people argue that you have to re-itemize for different builds which is true, but once again, it's more of the same.

Whenever I play a game, I need to have OBJECTIVES to keep me interested. Objectives range from beating the game, trying different play styles, trying some end-game aspects of the game (ie maps in PoE) etc. A major objective is also to improve as a player.

When I started playing D3, the objective was to beat inferno. Then they nerfed inferno into oblivion and made it easy. They stated the change in philosophy was because Diablo's flavor is "item hunt".

2nd objective was to level every class to 60 to test out their gameplay and the different builds.

Once those 2 goals were achieved, what is left to do in this game?

Some people enjoy just going through the acts and killing stuff. It was mentionned several times here.

That's fine, but it's the basis to every game of this type. You can't really argue that it's a part of game design or a game system included to bring replayability. It's like saying you enjoy killing people in a FPS game. You might enjoy the mechanics in one game over the other but that's part of the engine, not really game design.

In that regards, I don't blame anyone for enjoying the graphics or combat in D3 as opposed to PoE. As mentioned above, I thought PoE looked underwhelming before I played it.

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Since I started playing PoE, I've only played on HC knowing that I could die. In fact, since I was completely clueless about the game's mechanics, I somewhat expected it.

I've built 7 characters so far that got between level 50 and 75 and every single playthrough has been entirely different.

Different builds. Different items. Different support gems. I guess the flasks are the same.

It's true that on HC, you tend to focus on HP nodes. And at the moment, ranged characters have an advantage since melee builds take too much damage in close range. The devs are aware of this and are actively seeking to mitigate it.

People have mentioned that you can level a character and be gimped out from not picking "correct" builds. That's all part of the learning process.

My first character sucked compared to my 2nd character. Which was worse than my 3rd. Which was worse than my 4th.

Another myth is that you need an Excel spread sheet to succeed in PoE, which is silly. All you need is common sense. If you build glass cannon in HC, you're going to die. If you don't take any resistances, you'll die. If you face tank Vaal merciless and don't dodge lasers / rocks, you'll die. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or an Excel spreadsheet, it's common sense.

With each character iteration, you learn how to level faster, how to be stronger, how to equip better. That's especially true for 1 week races, which are by far my favorite aspect of PoE so far.

A common perception of races is that you can't compete because of time constraints. It's true to some extent in longer races, but how is that true in shorter ones? If you actually spent time practicing, you would improve. As for longer races, I felt great enjoyment "beating" Nugiyen in the first week race. He's a streamer that plays a ton but to be competitive, you have to take some risks. He died on day 5 of the 1 week race. Meanwhile my slower, cautious build carried me to a ~140ish position (which for me was good since I still felt clueless).

How do you "improve" at D3?

You farm act 3 faster?

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I mentioned in the intro that I feel D3 is missing game systems and by that I'm specifically thinking of systems to keep you interested in the game.

Some have suggested that D3 is a good $60 game for what it is (and Kripparrian himself mentioned that several times) and you shouldn't expect content all the time.

There's a difference between getting new content all the time and creating a game with systems that support themselves. I'll try to give a few examples.

Someone mentioned Guild Wars 2. In fact, if you played / followed this game at all, you will notice that a lot of its most ardent followers, people who had been waiting for it for years, have all stopped playing. There's no end game and the devlopment team always said there wouldn't be. The games is beautiful in terms of graphics and gameplay (sounds like D3?) but when you reach max level, the vast majority of the playerbase felt like there was nothing to do.

I loved the game on a technical level. I feel like it's the MMORPG with the best graphics and controls I've ever played (sounds like D3?) but it's missing core game systems to make you play long term.

They believed that the PvP system would keep most people hooked but exactly like D3, it was repetitive as hell. Once you did it for a while, it became more of the same. The objectives which I've been talking about through this whole message was to "win" the weekly PvP map. But then it was reset the week later and you just had to re-do it. It didn't feel like there was a long term objective.

Now let's move on to a totally different game: World of Tanks. Let's ignore the fact that there are pay to win elements since that's irrelevant to both D3 and PoE. People criticize WoT because there's a lot of grinding required to go through the content. People love instant gratification and hate working toward goals nowadays.

I played WoT very no life mode for a good 3 months and had a blast. Yet I didn't get to try out 50% of the content (in this case the 120+ different tanks).

I didn't want to use WoT as a model because a lot of people find that too grindy. My point is simply that they have a game system (unlocking different tanks) making it so it has long term replayability. Adding new tanks, new maps, you can play for years without feeling like it's "more of the same".

Path of Exile has a lot of those game systems, and D3 doesn't (yet). Whether it's the race system, the map system, the talent tree, the itemization / crafting system, you never run out of stuff to do.

People love to talk about Kripparrian's freeze pulse marauder "using 1 skill and never losing health". It's like saying Tennis is a crap sport because Roger Federer won for years, or golf sucks because Tiger Woods won for years. You're taking the most extremely example of end game build and generalizing it to the entire game. Not only does his "1 skill" freeze pulse is linked to FIVE OTHER SUPPORT GEMS, he constantly makes new builds. Some of them aren't as strong. Yet due to the game systems, you can pick any skill in the game and create a build around it. It won't be the most efficient but it's doable. The difference is you can't just go to town, change a few skills and voila, not have to work on it.

When I'm playing PoE, there isn't a moment where I don't look at drops whether they're white, blue, rare or uniques. And orbs, of course. Even after playing for 3 months, there is still a high level of excitement when finding a good orb or a 5 link chest (never got a 6 link yet).

Because there's no AH, the economy hasn't crumbled yet to the point where you bypass 99% of items. With the advent of AH-like websites, this is starting to happen sadly. There's been a few cases where I didn't pick up rares knowing that they would have no value. Regardless, because of the game system of races, there will ALWAYS be a part of the game with a fresh economy.

I'm very much looking forward to the 1 week races in the next seasons, especially when they add in new modifiers. 1 week cutthroat race? Sounds fun. 1 week BLAMT race? Sounds crazy challenging and fun.

Those are all objectives that make PoE sustainable long term. They can add new maps, new map mods, new uniques, new races.. those are all things that WILL make it so a lot of us will still play the game years from now. We will surely take breaks, but the infrastructure is there to make it so it's not always more of the same.

Unless they add SIGNIFICANT systems like these in the D3 expansion (which everyone hopes for, since we all have D3), the game will always be a pale comparison of what it should have been.

PS: PoE with all graphics maxed is much better than I ever imagined from watching screenshots / videos.

PPS: No, PoE isn't perfect. On the other hand, I feel like it has the game systems to keep us hooked for years to come with different playstyles and experiences. D3 remains more of the same "grind grind grind" and that will only last for so long.

PPPS(?): They agree maps drop too infrequently. They'll make it more sustenable in the future but in any case, you would have to be extremely hypocritical to stop playing because of it. I bought 21 maps for a handful of orbs just this week.