DiabloFans

Hey Mafia,

Thanks for the point on the skills - I forgot (its been that long since I played) it was changed to 6 skills down from 7, another late delopment change.

Point is.. less is more (the design choice Blizzard took at nearly EVERY decision) makes alot more sense when you realize it was inteneded to be for Consoles all along.

As far as me making no point with the Items, linearness and simple stats..
Excuse me sir, but making no point is a different thing than you not agreeing with my point.

The POINT, is that simple is the design philosphy behind basiaclly everything in the game.

EDIT** I added responses to all your points in the OP Maffia, thank you for making me want to further clarify all the points for people who may not have been folowing what I meant.

Quote from Henno

Is there a chance to delete this thread?

Yea, delete it becaue the guy with 10 posts says so please.

Never mind me, the guy whos been active on this site since May 2011 - has +138 rep from all my well reasoned, informative and helpfull posts back during develpment.

Any way.. believe me I understand the gut reaction of hating on me for typing this. There was a time when i would have hated on a thread like this too - but that time is gone. I'm not calling people who hate on me Blind. I do believe that many many people love Diablo 3 for what it is. Genuinley love it. As I said above, more power to you.

But that doesn't change the fact that there seems to be a bit of cloak and dagger work that went on late in development of this game.. and for people like me, it didn't turn out that great. It made D3 a simple console game ARPG.

Look, I have a perfect example of what I'm talking about.

I am a pretty hardcore gamer. I devour games that I like. I'm there right now with Path of Exile - its sooo Tasty!

My brother is a very very softcore, casual gamer. One of his favorite games of all time was/is Champions of Norath for Play Station 2.

I like Champions of Norath for PS2. Its a fun game. I really really liked it. But I played it for about a month and was done. My brother (who digs the simplicity of that game) STILL plays it.

Guess what? I.. who was the one obbessed with Diablo 3 pre launch, talked my brother into buying it day 1. he did. HE LOVES DIABLO 3. He can't quit playing.

Also guess what, my brother, NEVER could get into Diablo 2: LoD - I tried so many times. He beat the game on normal once and that was it.

Look I know this is just one example and not evident of every person's expirences. But, for me, my brother's love and addiction to Diablo 3 is a huge example of the fact that Diablo 3 was made for people like him. Console gamers.

Well, like some of you I imagine, I was watching the Play Station event yesterday online and had the shock/supprise of seeing Chris Metzen announce Diablo 3 is coming to the Playstation 3/4.

After the initial shock wore off - it all started making sense.

I know a lot of the people left on this site are pretty much happy with the game and love playing it (more power to you), but for folks like me that spent years devouring development news, looking forward to this game more than any other EVER, and feel let down by it, yesterday provided a bit of an epiphany.

This game shifted during development from being Diablo 3, the sequel to Diablo 2: LoD, to being Diablo 3 for Consoles.

The evidence is so clear. All those late decisions that got dropped on us back during late 2010, and all through 2011 make so much sense now. This game had to be easy and simple to work on a console.

Skill System (runes not itemized)
Runes, which were supposed to be itemized, were changed to be part of the UI. When we finally saw that UI, my first thought was "really? this is a joke right?". The UI and really the whole skill/rune system feels like a port from a console game. Pick your skill, drop down box, pick your rune effect.
(To answe Maffia: As you say, Blizzard chose not to go that route. I wonder why? Consoles. Look at Path of Exile!! The Itemized skills works GREAT in that game. They chose not to address that so that the game could be made for consoles.

6 Skills at once (Thanks Maffia for the pointer forgot they changed it from 7 to 6 - again late in development)
Square, Triangle, Circle, X, Left Shoulder, Right Shoulder, Left Trigger, Right Trigger
6 Skills, two potions. Point is, simple is better. Point is, it makes much more sense to build a game that confines you to 6 choices when you realize its build for a console gamepad.

Linear "Randomness"
If you, like me, were/are very un-impressed by the supposed "randomness" of Diablo 3, than coming to the realization that the game is supposed to be played on a Console makes it all make sense. Its areas are perfectly designed to be walked through on a console, with multi players.

(To Answer Maffia: I'm not "HAHAing" at Console gamers. Its just a simple fact that if you intend for a game to be played split screen with 4 players, the environment needs to be linear.)

Simple Stats
You level up, and have more skills to chose from. Thats it. It always felt to me like just a grose simplification that really had no justification other than "it just makes it more simple". Well, guess what, BINGO. Simple Simple Simple, so you can play it on your couch.

(To Answe Maffia: Late in development, that stats were changed to be more stragithforward, the skill trees were removed, spending points at level up was removed, and we ended up with basically having more "perks" to chose from when you level. Sounds like another Activision game to me..)

Simple Gear
No one wants to use a spread sheet for a console game - so, now we know why the itemization is so straight forward in Diablo 3.
(To answer Maffia: My point is this: in Diablo 3, you don't think about your gear beyond just wanting maor!!. There are no oddball builds that become viable with certain itemization. No number crunching you can do to make a particular weak skill become godly with proper itemzation. Its just, Find primary stats, Health, Crit% and Dam and Attack speed. Do this for every character you have. Simple. Simple because its made for consoles. In a way this is good news for me. I thought the developers were just that bad, that making the items the way they did was just a massive screw up. But it makes sense now)

4 Player's only
We heard it was because there was too much onscreen clutter. Ok.. I don't buy it. It was because 4 Players works on a console.
(To answer Maffia: Oh really? Call of Duty lets more people play than 4? Shock. Guess how many can play on one system though? 4. 4 Player split screen. In the words of Chris himelf "One Couch to Rule them all")

Lack of Game Creation / Game names
Sorry, but it seems to me like the whole "auto join / auto match maker" system was designed specifically for the console crowd. This makes sense now too.

Look, hate on me if you will (I'm sure you will, and thats ok) but when I heard this news.. I just kinda let out a long sigh.. and the lightbulb went off for me.

Call me a hater, tell me to go on my way, tell me to leave this site if I'm done playing.. but you know what? No! I spent 2 years of my life devouring everything about this game. I've earned the right to voice my opinion on here as long as I like.

I still care about the game, I still (for some insane reason) feel like it could get better. Heck, I even enjoyed the game while I played it to a point. But, the fact remains, that I feel like Blizzard pulled the chair out from under me and about a zillion other Diablo fans. Its their game, they can do what they want to with it, but man.. I feel like all the big (and to me annoying) game changes that came late in development were made just to accomodate consoles.

You can think Diablo 3 is a great game. As I said at the start, more power to you! I really am glad you like it. But, to take this IP which I love so Dearly and make it a Console game (at its heart) really bothers me.

I know some people say "You don't know Diablo, if you did you would know that Diablo was already on a Console, so this is no big deal". Well, your right, except that no one knows about that Console Version of Diablo for PS1 because it was SOO bad. And it should have been. Diablo was a pure PC ARPG, trying to put that in a console should never work.

Sadly, the reverse is true with Diablo 3. So, I feel the console version will work quite well. Heck, I'll buy it, I like console ARPGs. It was, after all, built to be a console ARPG.

Chris Metzen just announced

You can delete this - i was half a second slow

Path of Exile has my full attention - and it has since about 2 months ago.

I am one of the players who felt a bit betrayed (even though i defended it most of the way through Development) by Blizzard's massive change to the ARPG genre, and when asked about it only saying "we feel that this is how people should be playing".

They sold a TON of copies, so I can't really say they had it wrong, but to take somthing as basic (IMO) to this genre as having replaying/remaking/rebuilding/starting over with new characters be un-needed, was a bit of a slap in the face.

So, in short, for the group of people (like me) who think:
"D3 is too simple"
"D3 shouldn't have gotten rid of stat points"
"D3 shouldn't have gotten rid of skill points"
"D3 shouldn't have added a RMAH"
"D3 shouldn't have made re-rolling pointless / unneeded"
"D3 shouldn't have simplified itemization to the point of absuridty"

.. for those people, PoE will hit the sweet spot. I love it so far!

But, on a side note, the potential for D3 is still SUPER high in my opinion. As others have said, and there is no denying, the "nuts and bolts" of Diablo 3 are IONS beyond path of exile. The smooth and satisfying combat in Diablo 3 are unmatched. They just need to build a better game around the engine.

I was soo excited for D3. Ive put in 1000+ hours into D3 and have come to the sad sad sad, reluctant conclusion that its a failed game.

Not in the sense that I didn't enjoy it, and not in the sense that it is totally horrible, but in the sense that it doesn't do a number of key things that the Genre should do:

1: Replayability
In my opnion, ARPG's and for the love of god, Diablo, should focus more than anything on Replayability. Diablo 3 has very minimal replayability. I'm not talkking about grinding. Grinding for items is the "ultimate" goal in these gmaes. I'm talking about the need, desire and FUN of clicking "Create" and starting a brand spanking new character.

It should feel like a fresh new challenge and be somthing that you think of like this "I can't wait to start a new Templar - I wan't to try out "X" build and "X" skill sets.

Path of Exile, in my expirience in beta, has this in spades. In the beta thus far, I have made at least 10 characters and leveled them to 30+, each time was a new route on the tree and a different focus on skills.

In Diablo 3, after 1000+ hours and 8 months of release, I have 4 characters. I never even felt the need (or desire) to make the final class as all the items in D3 work for every class the same (for the most part).

2: Amazing Itemization

Diablo 3's items are HORRIBLE. They are somewhat addictive to hunt for (need that perfect roll!), but there is no thought behind your gear choices. You want Crit, Crit Damage, IAS and your primary stat. Throw in some stam and resistance if you can. Thats it for EVERY class. This genre should have that feeling of "Ohhh snap, that item I just picked up would be AMAZING for "X" class or "X" build.

Diablo 3 Fails at that big time. Path of Exile on the other hand. Oh boy! Again in spades! For example - I had been thinking about building a Templar that would Focus on Lighting Strike and and use as many Auras as I could get mana for reserve. So, I wanted to use Eldritch Battery (A passive that takes your Energy Shield and converts it to mana) for a big mana pool. Well.. i happened upon a simingly "bad" pair of Unique boots that SCREAMED to me "WoW! These would be PERFECT for that build. It has 100% increased Energy Shield - of course not end game, but for a start to making a HIGH mana pool-Eldritch Battery build it would be awesome!

This is just the tip of the ice when it comes to the amazing items in PoE - you have to "think" when you look at them. You have to have them in mind when chosing passives. You have to have items in mind when chosing your skills. In short, the itemization is spot, on, perfect!

3: Skill system that makes you want to make new characters

This goes back a bit to replayability, but Diablo 3 has, what I thought to be, a GREAT concept for skills. 5 ways to use every skill! Sounds awesome right!? Well it is, except that you can use them all at any time.. so.. there ends up being no real thought process behind the system at all. In fact, the interface for chosing skills is so straightforward, it needs to be exlpained BECAUSE of how easy it is: "So, where are my skills points spent?" Answer: "You don't spend skill points, you just choise your skill" - Uhh.. ok?

Path of Exile uses what SHOULD have been the great concept in D3 and does it right. D3 originaly had Skill Gems - the thought of finding skills in the world was AWESOME! I remeber being VERY sad when the scratched the idea. They said "it was to hard to implement" or in other words "They didn't trust their players to be smart enough to be able to handle the inventory".

Enter PoE. Skills gems working beautifully and I love it! The room for expasnion to the system is endless. It truly is a thing of beauty!

4: Economy

Look, Diablo 2 (two!) did it wrong. Players had to make their own currency (Jordans) - Diablo 3 tried to make it so easy to trade your items that you barely have to think. The result - actual item hunting is nearly pointless. You instead are grinding gold / items you dont want but can sell / so that you cna make that next purchase.

PoE, once again, hits the nail right in the face. The economy seems SO great from my expirience in the beta.

I wanted a Tempest Shield Skill Gem recently. I could have replayed the first act and grabed one from a quest reward, but I had a Jewelers Orb and someone else with a Tempest Shield Gem was willign to trade. Was it fair? WHo knows really, but I was happy and he was.

Having an Auction House was such a bad idea in Diablo 3. It made items totally worthless - over time it has made only the absolute BEST rolled items worth anything at all.

You should have to do a little bit of work to trade your items in a game like this - why? Because some (most?) people won't bother. They will either save the item or discard it rather than search for a fair trade - that preserves the economy!!@!

5: End Game

This one is short: Diablo 3 had none at launch. Now it has a endless grind for a remakeable legendary ring. Soon, it will have craftable ilvl63 (endgame) 6 prefix gear to re reoll over and over and over. I'm sorry, but this doesn't cut it nowadays.

Path of Exile - Maps. Holy heck what an amazing idea (I know they didn't toally invent the idea) Having Maps be an itemzied system with rarities and properties is just awesome! So awesome! Your still doing the "grind" but in a fun way!


Lastly - I cant wait to devour this game (PoE) once the final reset happens tommorrow. I fully intend to play this game for a very very very long time. Everything I dislike about D3 is done right in this game - and I couldn't be more excited!

As someone who basically has given up on D3 (and who was more excited for it than any game ever pre launch) - I can't help but be happy about this.

I like Jay. I really really do. Everytime I hear him speak I think "I bet he's awesome to hang out with in real life".

I've even liked some of the directions he took D3.. and of course, I feel a bit of an attachment to him as no other game director have I personally scrutinized to the extent I did with Jay.

All that said, so many of the choices, design goals, and ultimately the direction the entire game has gone in are in places that I feel are not good for the longevity of the game, nor for my continued enjoyment of the game - that I feel this is good news.

This at least gives me hope that the "new lead" is willing to revisit some of the choices that have been made.. perhaps take the expansion in a new direction.

Time will tell - Best of Luck Jay - hope the future works out for him!

Wow.. just.. wow.

I spent soo many hours (years!) looking forward to D3.. theory crafting before we even had anything to theory craft.

I've played TONS of D3 and for the most part enjoyed the time - so I can't really say that I think the game is a terrfic failure.

But does it / has it fallen WAY short of my hopes and dreams? Absolutely.

The last two months or so have been a "wait for PvP" time for me - hoping that my D3 love would be rekindled.

Now with this news.. I'm ready to really and actualy move on. Path of Exile is SO amazing (been in the beta for almost half a ayear and it just keeps getting better and better with every patch). I'll be playing the heck out of it.

I'm not calling D3 a failure, or a bad game. Its not. But its nothing even remotely close to what I hoped it would be (for me at least) while spending over a year of my life devouring every piece of development news.

I'll of coruse keep tabs on the game - I'll give dueling a try - I'd also be lying if I said I wont still be hoping / praying for a better game to come of it all with future patches / expansions. But for the time being.. I'm moving on to PoE.

Been fun hanging out here (not been around alot of late), espacialy during development.

Simlilar to what other's have posted above - I was pretty excited for this patch. I had been playing D3 consistantly since launch, but set the game down when MoP came out.

Today, I went back to it to try out the new stuff. I loaded up MP level 7 - started act 1 and played.

It was fun to play a different act. I got 2 legendaries to drop in 2 hours. (both garbage)

After two hours, it was raid time in wow. I logged out and that was that.

So.. I looked forward to Diablo 3 more than I can explain. I was one of those "check D3 news 10 times a day" people back in development. But after playing two hours in this patch, and especaily after a long break from the game, if I'm honest with my self - its just not that fun to grind in this game.

Everyother game in this genre has had an immportant mechanic to battle the bordem that comes up - roll a new character. I've come to the conclusion (personally) that the freespec/skill system is ultimately the thing that is going to keep me from playing D3, at least as consistantly as I hoped pre launch, long into the future.

I still plan to play this patch more, and I still plan to play PvP - and I'm sure I'll get the itch to farm up some more amazing gear too from time to time - but for now, I too have that feeling that D3 has about run its course for me

• "players will be back in the game world in every corner to find to the mysterious clues and objects, and then piece together the challenges purgatory system."
• "Purgatory device to challenge the players to have reached 60 to be eligible to enter. The official pointed out that this copy will be a completely new architecture, although there will be no new Boss and monsters"

These two lines, specifically (I know its translated but still) the word "Purgatory" and "completely new architecture" makes me thing that once you unlock the new system, it will be somthing like an endless dungeon with randomly spawning super bosses.

Quote from Khaleesi

Quote from Shanto94

Quote from Khaleesi

Wow PvP was playable in 2010 at expo's and was scheduled for "shortly after release"

Now their lieing and saying they originally said the end of the year???

And to add insult to injury are saying it wont be here till 2013?

Horrible public relations....I wonder why when it was playable in 2010 with full arenas with the schedule of launch(later being pushed back to "just after launch", they have failed this badly???

Hope lots were fired over the failure to meet deadlines.

That you fail to read isnt blizzards fault.

LOL im guessing your a new player...

PvP was avalaible in 2010 at expo's blizzard attended. They also stated during beta they were ment to have PvP at release but that it would be pushed back till shortly after release.

Then YOU FAILED TO READ:

""the original hope was this year, but they're focused on making its quality up to their standards."

Which is in the top line of the article were posting about and obviously implys that they dont have the resources to get it out this year, even though they had finished one of the systems and made it playable in 2010 and promised it to customers before release that it would be avalible shortly after.

I guess having the best selling video game of all time still doesn't give you enough money to be able to meet internal or even publically annouced deadlines even with 3 years of pre-development/their obviously small amount of staff

Its a bloody tough multi-billion dollar industry I tells ya.../sigh

Oh and speaking of failing to read:


SHow me in here where it says "shortly after release"?

Quote from Khaleesi

Wow PvP was playable in 2010 at expo's and was scheduled for "shortly after release"

Now their lieing and saying they originally said the end of the year???

And to add insult to injury are saying it wont be here till 2013?

Horrible public relations....I wonder why when it was playable in 2010 with full arenas with the schedule of launch(later being pushed back to "just after launch", they have failed this badly???

Hope lots were fired over the failure to meet deadlines.

Its because they are trying to figure out how to let people with 200k damage and only 500k ehp fight eachother with out it being really really really stupid (1 shot fest)

Any one else notice the promo guy on NFL on Fox sounds just like Tyreal? Any one know if thats him?

Quote from Grigori

Quote from MyNameIsNate

I would still like to know how they are looking at future nerfing OWE.

I bet they have no clue whatsoever on how to approach this skill. xD
Lets be honest, no one know how to do this, because it is impossible to do, without forcing players to switch items.

Change OWE to give you 50% all resist for ANY other elemental resist not just your highest. It would result in an effective 50% nerf to the passive, but not make our double reset gear worthless, while also making gearing as a monk easier (any double resist works)

If the goal is to not make Monk's current double resist gear worth less, than they have already indirectly done that with all the nerfs to inferno. 25% less damage means our double resist gear is 25% less necessary, so its less valuable.

I think the goal is to just not make us have to change gear - the above would do that, while also nerfing the passive, but sorta/kinda buffing Monk's gearing in general since any resist on an item would take advantage of the passive.

Just based on my own upgrade tactics - You should dump your first BIG amount of gold on a "end game" weapon with Life Steal.

When I got over 100Mil gold for the first time I sat in front of the AH just refreshing over and over for 1 handed weapons With a Socket, with over 1000dps (use average damage filter) and 3% Life Steal. Eventualy, after about 3 hours of refreshing I found my current weapon for what I considered a steal (20 mil). It has 3% Life Steal, 1120 Dps, 524 LoH and 100 Vit.

To me, starting your BIG upgrades out with Life Steal weapon is important, because as you upgrade everything else, your Life Steal gets more and more powerfull. I'm up to 68k damage now (when duel wielding) and the healing is MASSIVE. (like 3-7k per hit)

After you get a good Life Steal weapon, I would go for 2 piece Inna's (Either helm/pants for max damage increase or helm/chest for survivability) follwed by 2 piece Natalya's (Boots and Ring). Inna's gives 130 dex for 2 piece and Nataylas gives 7% Crit Chance.

You should be able to find each piece (4 pieces) for 50 mil each (for good ones, you can find them for like 20 mil each if they are trash) if your willing to spend the time refreshing the AH.

Oh, and I echo Jtveclipse12 and say, go for max damage - this could change when we see how they scale the /players feature in 1.05 and the Uber boss - we may need to go back to gearing for survivability, but for now.. as long as you have over 500 resists, damage is king.

THe good thing is, even if you use up Helm / Chest or Legs / Boots and a Ring on those four set pieces - you could still use Shoulders Chest/Legs and Belt for big "tough" stat pieces. Like high Vit High Double resists and %Life, if you just really want to have alot of health / Survivability.

But ya, for now, in the current state of the game, damage is where its at!