I've been wanting to write this up for a long time, but I wanted to first play through D2 again just so I can get a feel of all the faults that D2 had, even though I do think it is a great game. But D2 is no masterpiece. That's right, I'm as hard a Diablo Fan as anyone, and I said it. D2 has some serious issues, but luckily I don't think we'll see these blemishes in the new product.
Issue #1: The End Game
One of the most important aspects of any game of this type is the end game. This is where we get all our fat loot, play with our friends in Hell, and spend most of our time on our Main. For some, this is where the game actually begins. Unless you were seriously hardcore, the endgame for D2 suffered a lot and heres why:
Even if you had a great build (which we'll get to game mechanics later), if you didn't have the items to back up the build, your character was useless and you weren't viable in Hell, or it just wasn't fun to play because it was so hard (immunities and resistances were to blame here). The sorceress in particular can die in hell in one hit at lvl 90 with the right combination of hits from monsters. The solution to this? The removal of immunities will be awesome, but I also think the monsters will be better tweaked to not cause you to die in one hit, and I think it's that simple.
So when you finally, after months of playing, do get your epic armor-stat combo, you can finally run Baal (or pindleskin, diablo, or whomever) so many times your eyes bleed. But seriously, that's pretty much all you'll be doing because that's where all that fat loot is dropped (rather, that's where the highest chance of it dropping is). Now hopefully this won't be worthwhile to constantly run Diablo (or whomever the main villain is) over and over a million times. Hopefully in D3 we will be rewarded for exploring different areas of the game and throughout all the acts in Hell difficulty. Not much is known here, but there is potential to make item finding interesting by putting super rare drops in obscure places throughout Hell, and/or just to simply make boss drops not so big.
The level cap has been debated for a while now, and it won hands down. Sorry you hardcore fanbois, but the level cap of 60 is necessary if you want a game where your skills actually mean something. You can argue "it was so fun grinding to as close to level 99 as possible", but no, it wasn't fun. And it wasn't fun because there was nothing to gain but a status symbol. I'm sure the status symbol for D3 will be in other, better forms such as dyes, items, and gold. Also, there are other forms of grindy things you can do in D3 such as gems that will make up for habit.
Which brings us to another topic.
Issue #2: Gold and Economy
If all goes well, we'll have a real economy that uses gold as it's currency and not SOJs. A form of the Auction House (though by no means the same) will encourage that gold be used instead of some user-defined item. This is important. This makes items you pick up worthy of being sold. Now you don't have to get really lucky and find the one Monk on battlenet that has that one Axe you were looking for and wants that one Cestus you found (but this ONLY assumes those two items are of equal value :(. Now you can put it up for auction and use the gold you get to trade for the things you need. Problem solved.
Nobody knows what the future holds for D3's econ, but I can bet we'll have a nice battle.net-level UI to do trading outside of the game (this is only speculation though, don't get your hopes up).
Issue #3: Skills
Diablo 2 has major issues with skill variety. There's a reason why there are builds named after a certain skill: Meteorb Sorc, FireWall Sorc, Hammerdin, and I could go on. These builds are designed around one skill. That's because the game encourage this. Now, why is this a bad thing? Because it gets very boring mashing right-click over and over again until your hand hurts, and seeing the same frozen orb hit the same enemies over and over just gets boring after a few days. (love ya FO, but you get old)
D3 is designed to be a more tactical game where your decisions in combat influence the battle a lot, more like Zelda, as Jay Wilson continually describes. And, as such, you're encouraged to diversify your skills. This I think will be the biggest plus for D3. I hope to see some outrageously interesting builds come out of all the classes. To further diversify these skills, we have the Runestones, which will definitely bring a whole new era of awesome builds.
D3's UI changes also help to encourage skill diversity by the use of 1-4 as well as left and right click to apply your skills. F1 through F8 got tiresome quick. As with any game, UI is very important and effects the gameplay.
Issue #4: PvP Is Separate From PvE
Running along in D2 and getting ganked is no fun. While this doesn't happen much anymore, it was a big problem when there were more people on battle.net. Now we don't have to worry about this as the arena takes care of all our pvp needs. I think it will also encourage a new form entertainment on YouTube (yes, I'm looking at you, Force), which is GREAT. Whether you're into pvp or not, getting more people to play D3 is a good thing.
Issue #5: Story
Lead Content Designer Kevin Martens explained at BC 2010 that most of meat of the story will be told through what he describes as "Action Storytelling", where the story is supposed to unfold in front of you in-battle, instead of some dialog in the Rogue Encampment. Regardless of your view on this matter, whether you like good-ol' story telling or not, this will be an interesting take on the genre, of the like I don't think I've seen before, so we'll see.
We'll also be privy to bite-size stories throughout Sanctuary that will are supposed to immerse you into the world, and you can pick this up at your leisure. The reason this is so great is that it encourages two playing philosophies at once: 1. If you don't want to learn about the story, you don't have to read it, and continue hackin' and slashin'. 2. It encourages you to, if you want to, to go search for these little pockets of story within Sanctuary, providing tons of replay value.
Obviously we don't know how Diablo 3 will unfold in terms of story, but Blue has made it clear that after 20 years of relative peace, the Hells are breeding an army for war.
Issue #6: Melee Classes Were Far More Difficult to Play
As per snared04drummer's request, we'll delve into what I think to be a major design flaw of the D2. Melee classes had this really big problem in Hell and even in Nightmare. With the exception of a Hammerdin, the melee forms of the Paladin, Barb, Druid, and Assassin were not competent paradigms, especially in the later game. Yes you could build a Hammerdin, a Fireclaw Druid, or a Trap Assn, but we're talking about melee classes. A WW Barb is really risky, but I don't want to go into details. Basically, D3 will (hopefully) be rid of these problems. From the videos I've seen, all the melee classes look like they're on equal footing with all the other archetypes.
One of the sources of the problem here is Attack Rating (AR) which makes melee classes need LOTS of Dexterity, which is not really where they should be spending their points. A melee class should be spending points into their respective stat based on what they want to improve, not being forced to go Dex because of a bad mechanic. Thankfully in D3, this will be taken care of for us - the damage taken will be set for your character.
Conclusion
I could probably go on forever about the ways that D3 will be better, and by no means do I think D3 will be perfect, but so far the game looks infinitely better than it's predecessor, and that excludes graphical changes (though the ragdoll physics is super delicious in a Diablo game). This is still kindof a work in progress, so I'll update it as I see fit. In the meantime, if you guys want to chip in any more things you think will be better or worse about D3, please let us know in the comments.
Totally agree with everything you got here. I have been enjoying some of Diablo II lately but it was too simple. Then I went to Torchlight, and I felt like I had too many buttons I could be pushing to get things done. The balance of 1-4 (or was it 5) and mouse clicks is great.
Everything about this game is a good evolution of the original concepts. Just can't wait.
Awesome write-up, Cherub. :Thumbs Up: I am in agreement on everything you've said. All are reasons I can't wait for Diablo 3. It WILL be a masterpiece.
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"There's no doughnuts in Diablo. Oohhhh, I just threw it down. BlizzCon exclusive: no doughnuts. -Jay Wilson
Thanks guys! I'm not quite done with it, but the wall of text was enough for now.
Good list. In case I missed it I apologize in advance, but make sure something about there not being a horrible Attack Rating makes it into your list at some point. This made sooooo many classes totally impractical while the casting classes got to ride along without a problem.
Thanks guys! I'm not quite done with it, but the wall of text was enough for now.
Good list. In case I missed it I apologize in advance, but make sure something about there not being a horrible Attack Rating makes it into your list at some point. This made sooooo many classes totally impractical while the casting classes got to ride along without a problem.
Indeed. When I get some time I'll add that along with the section I meant to add about certain classes being basically terrible in hell. Thanks.
Thanks guys! I'm not quite done with it, but the wall of text was enough for now.
Good list. In case I missed it I apologize in advance, but make sure something about there not being a horrible Attack Rating makes it into your list at some point. This made sooooo many classes totally impractical while the casting classes got to ride along without a problem.
Indeed. When I get some time I'll add that along with the section I meant to add about certain classes being basically terrible in hell. Thanks.
Hehe. Might just list the ones that still work in hell, and save yourself some time on the shorter list.
But in that spirit, let's see...
Classes that don't work in hell:
WW barbs
Any kind of bowazon
Any kind of single elemental sorc
Any kind of Assassin that doesn't include Chaos in the gear selection
Poison and Bone Nec
Summoning necs without +20 skills or so
Curse Necs
Elemental Druids
Did I forget any?
I just remember with a mixture of fondness, hilarity, and despair having a fully decked out amazon in Hell with Windforce and all the trimmings, being able to inifintely keep a room of monsters at bay with strafe, but never being able to kill them. I'm talking, of course, about Act 1.
One of the most important aspects of any game of this type is the end game. This is where we get all our fat loot, play with our friends in Hell, and spend most of our time on our Main. For some, this is where the game actually begins.
Umm, take your MMO attitude elsewhere. Not only does DII not benefit from end game in any way, there's no plausible way to implement endgame outside of hamster wheels. I don't know why you think a monotone activity where the entire playerbase is funneled a good idea. End game doesn't exist. It's a failure of a concept, it doesn't really mean anything, and it should be eradicated. The moment you implement that your game will be plagued with tons of MMO elitists with their stupid ideas. Especially when you say it's where the game begins, instantly nullifying all the efforts of people making builds and finding items, apparently they're just wasting their time and you're the only one doing it right. Give me a break.
There's no such thing as endgame.
There should be no cap on items and therefore no plausible end game ever, that's the problem with WoW it's too easy to get to the pre-maximized status and move on to raids and gain maximized status in a very streamlined and boring way in RAIDs. Do not want.. Alts is really what Diablo is about and this talk about a "main" (rubbish) and "endgame", makes me think you play way too much WoW. Diablo was great because you could make many builds and find great items to beat on monsters with, in fact, specifically the Baal runs is very similar to an MMO raid and I'd want to see LESS of that, not more.
Even if you had a great build (which we'll get to game mechanics later), if you didn't have the items to back up the build, your character was useless and you weren't viable in Hell, or it just wasn't fun to play because it was so hard (immunities and resistances were to blame here). The sorceress in particular can die in hell in one hit at lvl 90 with the right combination of hits from monsters. The solution to this? The removal of immunities will be awesome, but I also think the monsters will be better tweaked to not cause you to die in one hit, and I think it's that simple.
Immunities can be fixed by having buddies. I figured that was the intent. They should be toned down in solo but I see no reason to tone them down multiplayer.
As for difficulty, well, there's a lot of things I would fix there.
Hopefully in D3 we will be rewarded for exploring different areas of the game and throughout all the acts in Hell difficulty.
I can agree with this. Concentrating drops in a boss is stupid. I wouldn't mind if after killing the boss once, Hell would be completely reset to a different, evened out state.
One of the most important aspects of any game of this type is the end game. This is where we get all our fat loot, play with our friends in Hell, and spend most of our time on our Main. For some, this is where the game actually begins.
Umm, take your MMO attitude elsewhere. Not only does DII not benefit from end game in any way, there's no plausible way to implement endgame outside of hamster wheels. I don't know why you think a monotone activity where the entire playerbase is funneled a good idea. End game doesn't exist. It's a failure of a concept, it doesn't really mean anything, and it should be eradicated. The moment you implement that your game will be plagued with tons of MMO elitists with their stupid ideas. Especially when you say it's where the game begins, instantly nullifying all the efforts of people making builds and finding items, apparently they're just wasting their time and you're the only one doing it right. Give me a break.
There's no such thing as endgame.
There should be no cap on items and therefore no plausible end game ever, that's the problem with WoW it's too easy to get to the pre-maximized status and move on to raids and gain maximized status in a very streamlined and boring way in RAIDs. Do not want.. Alts is really what Diablo is about and this talk about a "main" (rubbish) and "endgame", makes me think you play way too much WoW. Diablo was great because you could make many builds and find great items to beat on monsters with, in fact, specifically the Baal runs is very similar to an MMO raid and I'd want to see LESS of that, not more.
Even if you had a great build (which we'll get to game mechanics later), if you didn't have the items to back up the build, your character was useless and you weren't viable in Hell, or it just wasn't fun to play because it was so hard (immunities and resistances were to blame here). The sorceress in particular can die in hell in one hit at lvl 90 with the right combination of hits from monsters. The solution to this? The removal of immunities will be awesome, but I also think the monsters will be better tweaked to not cause you to die in one hit, and I think it's that simple.
Immunities can be fixed by having buddies. I figured that was the intent. They should be toned down in solo but I see no reason to tone them down multiplayer.
As for difficulty, well, there's a lot of things I would fix there.
Hopefully in D3 we will be rewarded for exploring different areas of the game and throughout all the acts in Hell difficulty.
I can agree with this. Concentrating drops in a boss is stupid. I wouldn't mind if after killing the boss once, Hell would be completely reset to a different, evened out state.
If they call it auction house I'll murder someone.
Whoa ho ho, at the hostility! I actually don't like MMOs man, calm down!
Anyway, I like that someone is disagreeing with me! But I am confused. I don't understand by what you mean "there's no such thing as endgame"? What exactly did you do in Diablo 2?
Are you admitting that there's nothing to do after you beat the game in Hell difficulty?
OK, so you just listed out all of the design promises/aims of the development team and said, look, it'll be better than D2! To be real, even BLIZZ doesn't know exactly how it'll all pan out. You can hire all the PHD's and have the best designers, but when you're radically changing the way the game works, you won't know where your gaps are until the game is populated with millions of people. Even beta testing, in its limited form, can't see everything. And that's fine, the game gets around 6 months post-release to get all major things fixed and working properly. Past that, its poor design or poor follow-up with patches. So all this talk oozes of optimism, but I don't really get how we can contribute to the discussion. I could refute your optimism but then I would look like a bad guy for no reason, but really, this is akin to taking some politician's campaign promises, saying look how good things will be, better than last time I'm sure! Better to talk about how specific ideas and systems will contribute to their overall design philosophy rather than writing some I<3Blizz loveletter praising every single idea they have. It'll obviously be a better game. Only those who reveled in the repetition and simplicity of D2's online play will argue that it's taking a step back. They've had a decade to make a new one and knowing Blizz, it hasn't taken this long for no reason.
Umm, take your MMO attitude elsewhere. Not only does DII not benefit from end game in any way, there's no plausible way to implement endgame outside of hamster wheels. I don't know why you think a monotone activity where the entire playerbase is funneled a good idea. End game doesn't exist. It's a failure of a concept, it doesn't really mean anything, and it should be eradicated. The moment you implement that your game will be plagued with tons of MMO elitists with their stupid ideas. Especially when you say it's where the game begins, instantly nullifying all the efforts of people making builds and finding items, apparently they're just wasting their time and you're the only one doing it right. Give me a break.
There's no such thing as endgame.
There should be no cap on items and therefore no plausible end game ever, that's the problem with WoW it's too easy to get to the pre-maximized status and move on to raids and gain maximized status in a very streamlined and boring way in RAIDs. Do not want.. Alts is really what Diablo is about and this talk about a "main" (rubbish) and "endgame", makes me think you play way too much WoW. Diablo was great because you could make many builds and find great items to beat on monsters with, in fact, specifically the Baal runs is very similar to an MMO raid and I'd want to see LESS of that, not more.
I hate to pour gasoline on the fire....
But D2 had an endgame - it was farming items to trade, farming items to give to alts, making alts with new builds with items you farmed.
The endgame was Farming.
What else was there to do? You built a new character, leveled it to wear new gear, that you farmed with your first character (main) or otherwise known as your Farmer. That process, imo, was ultimately boring. Its fun for awhile - you never know when the jackpot is going to hit - but after awhile, it gets boring.
The D2 endgame (described above) is really no different from the endgame raiding of an MMO, like WoW. You build a character, level it, then go raid (farm) for gear. Farming in D2 is streamlined - hit all the major bosses and most likely drop places. Farming in WoW is streamlined - go to the newest dungeon and raid (farm) for your gear.
Farming in D2 has no story, nothing changes - its the same thing, over and over. Raiding (farming) in WoW has a new story to experience, new gear to discover and collect. You stated that:
I don't know why you think a monotone activity where the entire playerbase is funneled a good idea
I assume you are talking about MMO raiding, like in WoW. How is that raiding ANY different than farming in D2. And remember, why do you farm? - to "make many great builds and find great items to beat on monsters".
So here's the part where I pour gasoline on the fire....
WoW and Diablo 3 are really almost the same game.
The major exceptions, as I see it are:
-Looting new items and the process you go about doing it
-One is 3d and the other is not.
I'll give you the loot being an issue with MMOs like WoW. That's ultimately why I left WoW long ago. You work hard for months to get the "pre-maximized status" of gear, only to have new content added that makes you start all over again. Diablo 3, there is randomness everywhere for loot drops and customization that will make that old loot, new again with the right effect.
that's the problem with WoW it's too easy to get to the pre-maximized status and move on to raids and gain maximized status in a very streamlined and boring way in RAIDs
and I have to ask; how was the farming in D2 ANY different? At least with a Raid there is new lore, new encounters - something to read while you wait for the magic loot to drop.
Diablo was great because you could make many builds and find great items to beat on monsters with, in fact, specifically the Baal runs is very similar to an MMO raid and I'd want to see LESS of that, not more.
how do you plan on finding items, for your Alts and their new builds, without farming Baal, bosses, areas? You want to "make many great builds and find great items to beat on monsters" - isn't a Baal run, doing EXACTLY that? What are you wanting in D3? - no reason to do anything else but "make many great builds and find great items to beat on monsters"?
Isn't that sorta what they are doing with the game? Giving you great builds, with monsters to beat on to find great loot - for new characters with great builds to beat on monsters to find great loot - to then again give to a new alt that has a great build........................
I think he means less baal runs, and more of other areas to kill monsters to get great items for great builds, to beat on monsters with.
as apposed to JUST BAAL runs over, and over ,and over again.
Any similarities between WoW and D3 will be because certain mechanics of WoW solve the problems of D3 best.
Their main design philosophy, IMO, is the following: To make D3 as close to look and feel as D2 (with obvious updates to graphics, inclusion of physics, etc...), while ridding the sequel of the cheesiness and dated game mechanics which (for some) characterized the game.
D2's end game was farming for items, creating "perfect" characters (or as close to perfect as possible), dueling, challenging yourself on HC. Looking at WoW, the main thing you have to keep in mind is that MMO's are designed as cash-cows, and everything in the game is meant to keep you playing.
When a friend of mine asked why so many people complain about playing WoW (to be more accurate, playing certain PARTs of WoW, the annoying stuff like grinding materials or daily quests), he couldn't understand the answer. I told him that in order to do the things that are genuinely fun in the game (instances or PvP), you had to engage in repetitive gameplay in a variety of cases (tradeskills, dailies, material farming ,etc...) in order to procure the things needed to succeed and compete in those fun areas of the game. Levelling is fun the first few times, and perhaps once with each class - past that, you see too much of the same.
When talking about WoW's end game, it IS similar to D3: get items, build the best character possible. PvP will likely be similar with rankings, etc... however the key difference is that Diablo doesn't have to fill the game with mindless, unfun parts to soak up players' time and keep subscriptions going. It obviously has to make the acqusition of items hard and rare but not to the degree of WoW. And each WoW expansion simply resets everyone's relative power, adds more levels, and gets you to do it all again (grind the new 5-10 levels to cap, acquire new items, do next raids, or PvP, etc..). In this sense, D3 is not FORCED to keep these boring parts of the game in order to keep subscriber's paying. It can be genuinely fun ALL THE TIME (for most, of course some will get bored after many hours) without negatively impacting their financial side. And of course there will be some form of item resets in D3, with patches and expansions, but not to the frequency of WoW.
And that is the main reason I stopped playing that game. The time investment was too great, and there's no reward. You are forced to do terribly boring things in order to enjoy the game because if your items suck, you can't PvP or PvE, and further you CANT get decent items to compete with if you don't invest a lot of time doing boring things. And I refuse to pay to be bored.
So their new goal is to make D3's endgame more than just Baalruns (substitute for whichever boss in D3 you like). They want to diversify your PvE gameplay, expand PvP, and keep the experience as fresh as possible. Seasons will probably accomplish this, with a more competitive aspect than WoW's expansion resets, given that it won't take as much time to make a character from scratch and equip it nicely.
So their new goal is to make D3's endgame more than just Baalruns (substitute for whichever boss in D3 you like). They want to diversify your PvE gameplay, expand PvP, and keep the experience as fresh as possible. Seasons will probably accomplish this, with a more competitive aspect than WoW's expansion resets, given that it won't take as much time to make a character from scratch and equip it nicely.
I believe they said there will not be seasons. If this is the case, they will have to keep it fresh by other means such as a meaningful economy, updating the loot content, and updating (perhapse) mobs in various places of the world.
Your post reminded me of the side quests I love so much, they were few in D2, hopefully many more in D3. Loved the countess, it was an optional quest though many did it.
Your post reminded me of the side quests I love so much, they were few in D2, hopefully many more in D3. Loved the countess, it was an optional quest though many did it.
Definitely. And now a lot of people do Countess runs for the loot dropped from her. I hear she drops some great runes, which is a great reward for going up all 5 stories down the Forgotten Tower.
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Issue #1: The End Game
One of the most important aspects of any game of this type is the end game. This is where we get all our fat loot, play with our friends in Hell, and spend most of our time on our Main. For some, this is where the game actually begins. Unless you were seriously hardcore, the endgame for D2 suffered a lot and heres why:
Even if you had a great build (which we'll get to game mechanics later), if you didn't have the items to back up the build, your character was useless and you weren't viable in Hell, or it just wasn't fun to play because it was so hard (immunities and resistances were to blame here). The sorceress in particular can die in hell in one hit at lvl 90 with the right combination of hits from monsters. The solution to this? The removal of immunities will be awesome, but I also think the monsters will be better tweaked to not cause you to die in one hit, and I think it's that simple.
So when you finally, after months of playing, do get your epic armor-stat combo, you can finally run Baal (or pindleskin, diablo, or whomever) so many times your eyes bleed. But seriously, that's pretty much all you'll be doing because that's where all that fat loot is dropped (rather, that's where the highest chance of it dropping is). Now hopefully this won't be worthwhile to constantly run Diablo (or whomever the main villain is) over and over a million times. Hopefully in D3 we will be rewarded for exploring different areas of the game and throughout all the acts in Hell difficulty. Not much is known here, but there is potential to make item finding interesting by putting super rare drops in obscure places throughout Hell, and/or just to simply make boss drops not so big.
The level cap has been debated for a while now, and it won hands down. Sorry you hardcore fanbois, but the level cap of 60 is necessary if you want a game where your skills actually mean something. You can argue "it was so fun grinding to as close to level 99 as possible", but no, it wasn't fun. And it wasn't fun because there was nothing to gain but a status symbol. I'm sure the status symbol for D3 will be in other, better forms such as dyes, items, and gold. Also, there are other forms of grindy things you can do in D3 such as gems that will make up for habit.
Which brings us to another topic.
Issue #2: Gold and Economy
If all goes well, we'll have a real economy that uses gold as it's currency and not SOJs. A form of the Auction House (though by no means the same) will encourage that gold be used instead of some user-defined item. This is important. This makes items you pick up worthy of being sold. Now you don't have to get really lucky and find the one Monk on battlenet that has that one Axe you were looking for and wants that one Cestus you found (but this ONLY assumes those two items are of equal value :(. Now you can put it up for auction and use the gold you get to trade for the things you need. Problem solved.
Nobody knows what the future holds for D3's econ, but I can bet we'll have a nice battle.net-level UI to do trading outside of the game (this is only speculation though, don't get your hopes up).
Issue #3: Skills
Diablo 2 has major issues with skill variety. There's a reason why there are builds named after a certain skill: Meteorb Sorc, FireWall Sorc, Hammerdin, and I could go on. These builds are designed around one skill. That's because the game encourage this. Now, why is this a bad thing? Because it gets very boring mashing right-click over and over again until your hand hurts, and seeing the same frozen orb hit the same enemies over and over just gets boring after a few days. (love ya FO, but you get old)
D3 is designed to be a more tactical game where your decisions in combat influence the battle a lot, more like Zelda, as Jay Wilson continually describes. And, as such, you're encouraged to diversify your skills. This I think will be the biggest plus for D3. I hope to see some outrageously interesting builds come out of all the classes. To further diversify these skills, we have the Runestones, which will definitely bring a whole new era of awesome builds.
D3's UI changes also help to encourage skill diversity by the use of 1-4 as well as left and right click to apply your skills. F1 through F8 got tiresome quick. As with any game, UI is very important and effects the gameplay.
Issue #4: PvP Is Separate From PvE
Running along in D2 and getting ganked is no fun. While this doesn't happen much anymore, it was a big problem when there were more people on battle.net. Now we don't have to worry about this as the arena takes care of all our pvp needs. I think it will also encourage a new form entertainment on YouTube (yes, I'm looking at you, Force), which is GREAT. Whether you're into pvp or not, getting more people to play D3 is a good thing.
Issue #5: Story
Lead Content Designer Kevin Martens explained at BC 2010 that most of meat of the story will be told through what he describes as "Action Storytelling", where the story is supposed to unfold in front of you in-battle, instead of some dialog in the Rogue Encampment. Regardless of your view on this matter, whether you like good-ol' story telling or not, this will be an interesting take on the genre, of the like I don't think I've seen before, so we'll see.
We'll also be privy to bite-size stories throughout Sanctuary that will are supposed to immerse you into the world, and you can pick this up at your leisure. The reason this is so great is that it encourages two playing philosophies at once: 1. If you don't want to learn about the story, you don't have to read it, and continue hackin' and slashin'. 2. It encourages you to, if you want to, to go search for these little pockets of story within Sanctuary, providing tons of replay value.
Obviously we don't know how Diablo 3 will unfold in terms of story, but Blue has made it clear that after 20 years of relative peace, the Hells are breeding an army for war.
Issue #6: Melee Classes Were Far More Difficult to Play
As per snared04drummer's request, we'll delve into what I think to be a major design flaw of the D2. Melee classes had this really big problem in Hell and even in Nightmare. With the exception of a Hammerdin, the melee forms of the Paladin, Barb, Druid, and Assassin were not competent paradigms, especially in the later game. Yes you could build a Hammerdin, a Fireclaw Druid, or a Trap Assn, but we're talking about melee classes. A WW Barb is really risky, but I don't want to go into details. Basically, D3 will (hopefully) be rid of these problems. From the videos I've seen, all the melee classes look like they're on equal footing with all the other archetypes.
One of the sources of the problem here is Attack Rating (AR) which makes melee classes need LOTS of Dexterity, which is not really where they should be spending their points. A melee class should be spending points into their respective stat based on what they want to improve, not being forced to go Dex because of a bad mechanic. Thankfully in D3, this will be taken care of for us - the damage taken will be set for your character.
Conclusion
I could probably go on forever about the ways that D3 will be better, and by no means do I think D3 will be perfect, but so far the game looks infinitely better than it's predecessor, and that excludes graphical changes (though the ragdoll physics is super delicious in a Diablo game). This is still kindof a work in progress, so I'll update it as I see fit. In the meantime, if you guys want to chip in any more things you think will be better or worse about D3, please let us know in the comments.
Everything about this game is a good evolution of the original concepts. Just can't wait.
and don't forget random quest 0.0 that is going to be so awesome.
as well as everything you said.
Good list. In case I missed it I apologize in advance, but make sure something about there not being a horrible Attack Rating makes it into your list at some point. This made sooooo many classes totally impractical while the casting classes got to ride along without a problem.
Indeed. When I get some time I'll add that along with the section I meant to add about certain classes being basically terrible in hell. Thanks.
Hehe. Might just list the ones that still work in hell, and save yourself some time on the shorter list.
But in that spirit, let's see...
Classes that don't work in hell:
WW barbs
Any kind of bowazon
Any kind of single elemental sorc
Any kind of Assassin that doesn't include Chaos in the gear selection
Poison and Bone Nec
Summoning necs without +20 skills or so
Curse Necs
Elemental Druids
Did I forget any?
I just remember with a mixture of fondness, hilarity, and despair having a fully decked out amazon in Hell with Windforce and all the trimmings, being able to inifintely keep a room of monsters at bay with strafe, but never being able to kill them. I'm talking, of course, about Act 1.
There's no such thing as endgame.
There should be no cap on items and therefore no plausible end game ever, that's the problem with WoW it's too easy to get to the pre-maximized status and move on to raids and gain maximized status in a very streamlined and boring way in RAIDs. Do not want.. Alts is really what Diablo is about and this talk about a "main" (rubbish) and "endgame", makes me think you play way too much WoW. Diablo was great because you could make many builds and find great items to beat on monsters with, in fact, specifically the Baal runs is very similar to an MMO raid and I'd want to see LESS of that, not more.
Immunities can be fixed by having buddies. I figured that was the intent. They should be toned down in solo but I see no reason to tone them down multiplayer.
As for difficulty, well, there's a lot of things I would fix there.
I can agree with this. Concentrating drops in a boss is stupid. I wouldn't mind if after killing the boss once, Hell would be completely reset to a different, evened out state.
If they call it auction house I'll murder someone.
Whoa ho ho, at the hostility! I actually don't like MMOs man, calm down!
Anyway, I like that someone is disagreeing with me! But I am confused. I don't understand by what you mean "there's no such thing as endgame"? What exactly did you do in Diablo 2?
Are you admitting that there's nothing to do after you beat the game in Hell difficulty?
Edit: Who said anything about raids, anyway?
Good OP by the way.
But D2 had an endgame - it was farming items to trade, farming items to give to alts, making alts with new builds with items you farmed.
The endgame was Farming.
What else was there to do? You built a new character, leveled it to wear new gear, that you farmed with your first character (main) or otherwise known as your Farmer. That process, imo, was ultimately boring. Its fun for awhile - you never know when the jackpot is going to hit - but after awhile, it gets boring.
The D2 endgame (described above) is really no different from the endgame raiding of an MMO, like WoW. You build a character, level it, then go raid (farm) for gear. Farming in D2 is streamlined - hit all the major bosses and most likely drop places. Farming in WoW is streamlined - go to the newest dungeon and raid (farm) for your gear.
Farming in D2 has no story, nothing changes - its the same thing, over and over. Raiding (farming) in WoW has a new story to experience, new gear to discover and collect. You stated that:
I assume you are talking about MMO raiding, like in WoW. How is that raiding ANY different than farming in D2. And remember, why do you farm? - to "make many great builds and find great items to beat on monsters".
So here's the part where I pour gasoline on the fire....
WoW and Diablo 3 are really almost the same game.
The major exceptions, as I see it are:
-Looting new items and the process you go about doing it
-One is 3d and the other is not.
I'll give you the loot being an issue with MMOs like WoW. That's ultimately why I left WoW long ago. You work hard for months to get the "pre-maximized status" of gear, only to have new content added that makes you start all over again. Diablo 3, there is randomness everywhere for loot drops and customization that will make that old loot, new again with the right effect.
However you stated: and I have to ask; how was the farming in D2 ANY different? At least with a Raid there is new lore, new encounters - something to read while you wait for the magic loot to drop.
Further: how do you plan on finding items, for your Alts and their new builds, without farming Baal, bosses, areas? You want to "make many great builds and find great items to beat on monsters" - isn't a Baal run, doing EXACTLY that? What are you wanting in D3? - no reason to do anything else but "make many great builds and find great items to beat on monsters"?
Isn't that sorta what they are doing with the game? Giving you great builds, with monsters to beat on to find great loot - for new characters with great builds to beat on monsters to find great loot - to then again give to a new alt that has a great build........................
Monkalicious: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/OptimusPrime-12194/hero/79139477
as apposed to JUST BAAL runs over, and over ,and over again.
Wow, if you dont get flamed soon I will get very confused,
with no hostility from me, your going to get your head eaten off for that statement o.o
Their main design philosophy, IMO, is the following: To make D3 as close to look and feel as D2 (with obvious updates to graphics, inclusion of physics, etc...), while ridding the sequel of the cheesiness and dated game mechanics which (for some) characterized the game.
D2's end game was farming for items, creating "perfect" characters (or as close to perfect as possible), dueling, challenging yourself on HC. Looking at WoW, the main thing you have to keep in mind is that MMO's are designed as cash-cows, and everything in the game is meant to keep you playing.
When a friend of mine asked why so many people complain about playing WoW (to be more accurate, playing certain PARTs of WoW, the annoying stuff like grinding materials or daily quests), he couldn't understand the answer. I told him that in order to do the things that are genuinely fun in the game (instances or PvP), you had to engage in repetitive gameplay in a variety of cases (tradeskills, dailies, material farming ,etc...) in order to procure the things needed to succeed and compete in those fun areas of the game. Levelling is fun the first few times, and perhaps once with each class - past that, you see too much of the same.
When talking about WoW's end game, it IS similar to D3: get items, build the best character possible. PvP will likely be similar with rankings, etc... however the key difference is that Diablo doesn't have to fill the game with mindless, unfun parts to soak up players' time and keep subscriptions going. It obviously has to make the acqusition of items hard and rare but not to the degree of WoW. And each WoW expansion simply resets everyone's relative power, adds more levels, and gets you to do it all again (grind the new 5-10 levels to cap, acquire new items, do next raids, or PvP, etc..). In this sense, D3 is not FORCED to keep these boring parts of the game in order to keep subscriber's paying. It can be genuinely fun ALL THE TIME (for most, of course some will get bored after many hours) without negatively impacting their financial side. And of course there will be some form of item resets in D3, with patches and expansions, but not to the frequency of WoW.
And that is the main reason I stopped playing that game. The time investment was too great, and there's no reward. You are forced to do terribly boring things in order to enjoy the game because if your items suck, you can't PvP or PvE, and further you CANT get decent items to compete with if you don't invest a lot of time doing boring things. And I refuse to pay to be bored.
So their new goal is to make D3's endgame more than just Baalruns (substitute for whichever boss in D3 you like). They want to diversify your PvE gameplay, expand PvP, and keep the experience as fresh as possible. Seasons will probably accomplish this, with a more competitive aspect than WoW's expansion resets, given that it won't take as much time to make a character from scratch and equip it nicely.
I believe they said there will not be seasons. If this is the case, they will have to keep it fresh by other means such as a meaningful economy, updating the loot content, and updating (perhapse) mobs in various places of the world.
Definitely. And now a lot of people do Countess runs for the loot dropped from her. I hear she drops some great runes, which is a great reward for going up all 5 stories down the Forgotten Tower.