**OFFICIAL** Diablo 3 Thread

[LurkerPrime]

seems like everyone is in the beta. why not meeeeeee

Keep checking on your battle.net account. I got the email 2 days after I had noticed my account was beta activated on battle.net.

 

[HumblePie]

I can say I will not be getting this game at release based on the current gameplay. It's just to boring. I got my monk up to level 13 by doing black skeleton king runs over and over. The drop loot is craptacular. The sole purpose of any of the loot is to break it down into crafting parts. Crafted loot is damn good and well beyond anything I had drop for me. The story is alright and I do like all the voice acting. The dumb down level of the gameplay and strategy less gameplay is just too boring.

D1/D2: You had control over character development. With D2 you had direct skill trees to control as well as stats and "item" management to min max or at least create your character the way you want.

You couldn't sit still in a dungeon. Unless you cleared a large swath of the current level of the dungeon you were on the roaming monsters would come get you. Some areas were so literally jam packed with monsters it was a blood bath in trying to survive without proper strategy for your character type and skill usage. When hundreds of monsters came at you the chances of being overwhelmed were high. Death happened, and happened a lot in D1/D2 unless you were meticulous in planning everything you did.

Loot and itemization meant something. You had to decide did you get bonuses to X or Y stats. Did you boost a stat to wear a certain piece of loot to enhance a skill you needed. It made for some tough calls on what to wear and what not to. What someone wanted to wear didn't mean that something they were willing to throw away was junk. Chances are it was something that someone else really wanted and allowed to a thriving trade community (despite the hackers just creating junk on the fly). You were excited to do boss runs and especially Act boss runs for the loot drop. Not to mention the bosses required a bit of strategy for each one to finish. So your first time through was always a major learning experience.

D3: The entire focus it on loot, which really means nothing in the end. It's all about DPS and damage mitigation. Everything else is junk. The vast majority of loot, even that dropped by the Act Boss at the end of the Act 1 beta, has been pure junk meant to be turned into scraps to be crafted. There is no other form of customization as of now. There talk of a rune system, which right now is all rumor mill as far as how the runes are going to be implemented, that may change available character customization somewhat. However, I don't think it will change character customization to that great of an extent.

Do to what is called "skill scarcity" in how characters are setup for a dungeon run, it allows little room for customization. The whole point of moving away from character stat and skill trees was to prevent FoTM and min/maxing. Sorry there is no way to prevent that if you allow any sort of choice. Even "skill scarcity" of only being able to have a limited number of active skills to use at any given time from your whole repertoire of possible skills still forces characters to min/max the best active skills. All you need is your best "attack" skill, your best "defense" skill, and your best "oh shit" skill on a character. Everything else is just icing. There are no huge areas full of monsters. In fact there biggest monster area I found was about 30ish in a group. Everything averages between 1-12 monsters clusters up together. All of which is boringly easy right now. You can almost go to sleep with any character and just hold down the left mouse button if your best active attack is tied to the left mouse. Which if it is you attack anything your cursor is over and you'll move to the cursor if there is no monster under it instead.

Nothing takes any strategy. There is no pot spamming. There is no sense of danger at all. The Act boss was a complete joke. I just held down left click on him and waited a minute until he was dead. I don't think I ever even used healing potion the entire time I played the game. It was that stupidly easy and boring. There is no sense of fear, the monsters don't scare me, and they are all stupid. Sure it is Act 1 only we get to try in Beta. Yes I know the Act 1 monsters in D1 and D2 were also easy. But there was some strong ones here and there. I just hope later Acts get much more dangerous as they did in previous incarnations of Diablo. Otherwise the game is going to be a snooze-fest.


I'm still going to try all the other classes and put them through their paces. Maybe it was just the monk that was to overpowered that made the game so ridiculously easy. I highly doubt it, but I'll try the rest. I don't have much else to do until SWTOR is released

 

[Alienwho]

snip

I felt the same way about my first play through as a wizard. It feels like they don't want any customization. Everyone's characters are going to be exactly the same.

 

[Schfifty Five]

<snip>

Some valid points, but I feel you are overanalyzing a very limited beta.

 

[Snock514]

Yes I know the Act 1 monsters in D1 and D2 were also easy. But there was some strong ones here and there. I just hope later Acts get much more dangerous as they did in previous incarnations of Diablo. Otherwise the game is going to be a snooze-fest.

The first third... Of the First Act... Of the First (out of 4) difficulty(ies). :ninja:

 

[DrunkenSano]

Raikchu, that lightning fallen was scary in Hardcore.

 

[slayer202]

The first third... Of the First Act... Of the First (out of 4) difficulty(ies). :ninja:

yeah, people really need to keep this in mind while critiquing the game. imagine playing through half of act 1 of D2 on normal and complaining about the game.

 

[Josh123]

People that are complaining about the BETA being too easy need to go back and play the first of Diablo 2.

 

[LurkerPrime]

The first third... Of the First Act... Of the First (out of 4) difficulty(ies). :ninja:

Exactly. D2 didn't really get all that hard till Hell difficulty anyway. Also the potions are on a 10 second or so cooldown, so you can't chug them down excessively in D3. It's blizzard, I have faith that they will make the game challenging at the higher levels. Everyone also seems to be forgetting this is a beta afterall, and things are likely to be changed.

 

[Josh123]

Exactly. D2 didn't really get all that hard till Hell difficulty anyway. Also the potions are on a 10 second or so cooldown, so you can't chug them down excessively in D3. It's blizzard, I have faith that they will make the game challenging at the higher levels. Everyone also seems to be forgetting this is a beta afterall, and things are likely to be changed.

They have a 30 second cool down. I tried popping more after my first potion while surrounded then noticed the cool down........I died.

 

[HumblePie]

They have a 30 second cool down. I tried popping more after my first potion while surrounded then noticed the cool down........I died.

How the hell do you die? I never had to pop a potion even when surrounded. Damn near everything you kill drops a health globe that heals you instantly the moment you run over it. More of those drops of health globes in bigger/harder spawns.

 

[LurkerPrime]

How the hell do you die? I never had to pop a potion even when surrounded. Damn near everything you kill drops a health globe that heals you instantly the moment you run over it. More of those drops of health globes in bigger/harder spawns.

I haven't died either, but I guarentee if you have a really shitty weapon and you start that "globe of souls" (or whatever it is) event in the crypts, chances are you are going to die. Its the only part of the beta where you can get swarmed by alot of low level guys.

 

[Josh123]

How the hell do you die? I never had to pop a potion even when surrounded. Damn near everything you kill drops a health globe that heals you instantly the moment you run over it. More of those drops of health globes in bigger/harder spawns.

It was early in the beta on my Barbarian. I went into a cellar with maybe 3/4 health and ran right into the middle of the zombies. Well there was a special zombie in the bunch and I died.

 

[slugg]

Im jealous of all you guys. I wanna be in the D3 beta

Im getting memories of D2:LOD. I had so much fun with that game. Even the soundtrack was awesome.

 

[wheresmybacon]

D3 is easy as shit but it's incredibly fun. It's essentially a slot machine with exceptional audio effects and graphics just good enough to keep me smiling.

It's all about loot loot and more loot. I haven't played anything other than the default difficulty, but the skill required or developed is zero. If you can click a mouse you can play well.

I'm interested to see how the release difficulty is tuned. I don't have any experience with D2; I was hopelessly lost in Everquest and Quake back then...what were the incentives to play the harder settings back then? Bragging rights? Better loot?

 

[Soccerman06]

I find it surprising that everyone is complaining about how easy a1 is and everything. For those of you who never played d1/2, both of those games were extremely simplistic and boring for the first run through. Probably just as easy as this is, there was no challenge in normal until you got to diablo and he was only hard if you were bad or didnt use potions. Wait till hell or insanity before complaining about difficulty. Remember D2, there was very little in terms of loot up until hell, sure there was the occasional item that was good for a twink but who made a twink.

Difficulty will ramp up, elite mobs got scary in D2 in hell. Regular mobs in insanity could very well scare your hardcore char shitless.

Wheresmybacon, the only way to get better gear than ilvl 20 (30?) was to go up in difficulty, a boss can only drop gear up to their predetermined level. The only way to get the ilvl 90 gear was hell boss runs.

 

[heavyiron8]

Just got into the beta couple of days ago. Games seems surprisingly fun even without skill points/stat points. They've yet to put runestones into the beta. Probably never will. Can't wait for the real game to come out.

 

[SpeedZealot369]

Does anyone have a beta account they could let me use? I have good heatware

 

[Dumac]

I find it surprising that everyone is complaining about how easy a1 is and everything. For those of you who never played d1/2, both of those games were extremely simplistic and boring for the first run through. Probably just as easy as this is, there was no challenge in normal until you got to diablo and he was only hard if you were bad or didnt use potions. Wait till hell or insanity before complaining about difficulty. Remember D2, there was very little in terms of loot up until hell, sure there was the occasional item that was good for a twink but who made a twink.

Difficulty will ramp up, elite mobs got scary in D2 in hell. Regular mobs in insanity could very well scare your hardcore char shitless.

Wheresmybacon, the only way to get better gear than ilvl 20 (30?) was to go up in difficulty, a boss can only drop gear up to their predetermined level. The only way to get the ilvl 90 gear was hell boss runs.

No, there were some tought spots in D2 act 1. You are least used potions quite often.

And D2 had tons of loot at every difficulty level, assuming you were at the appropriate character level for that difficulty level.

I'm just worried D3 will focus too much on crafting (like skyrim)

 

[HumblePie]

No, there were some tought spots in D2 act 1. You are least used potions quite often.

And D2 had tons of loot at every difficulty level, assuming you were at the appropriate character level for that difficulty level.

I'm just worried D3 will focus too much on crafting (like skyrim)

No shit. No one remembers the Butcher and how hard he was? There was plenty of hard stuff during parts of the first act of both games. The Skeleton King is a joke compared to the Butcher for example.

 

[Alienwho]

What are you guys impressions of the characters?

I played about 30 minutes with the wizard and got bored so started over as demon hunter. Beat the Skeleton King last night and I am really liking the demon hunter. I think I"l'l try the witch doctor next.

 

[Schfifty Five]

No shit. No one remembers the Butcher and how hard he was? There was plenty of hard stuff during parts of the first act of both games. The Skeleton King is a joke compared to the Butcher for example.

Skeleton king was in D1 as well right?

Both are King Leoric right?

 

[Josh123]

What are you guys impressions of the characters?

I played about 30 minutes with the wizard and got bored so started over as demon hunter. Beat the Skeleton King last night and I am really liking the demon hunter. I think I"l'l try the witch doctor next.

I started out with a Barbarian and loved it. It was great leaping into packs of zombies and cleaving through them.

I made a Monk next and it was fun too. I felt weaker than the Barbarian but I had more "Support" abilities like a blinding attack, a decoy, and a heal.

After the Monk I tried a Sorceress. She was definitely a lot more squishy than the other two but has some nice spells. Frost nova helps get out of jams as well as her Force Push ability. The only time I would run out of arcane power was when I used her magic ball that did AoE damage.

I got a Demon Hunter to level 4 but haven't tried her again and I've yet to make a Witch Doctor.


I kind of have mixed feelings about the Blacksmithing Artisan though but I'm sure it will be great in the final release.

 

[Fenixgoon]

No shit. No one remembers the Butcher and how hard he was? There was plenty of hard stuff during parts of the first act of both games. The Skeleton King is a joke compared to the Butcher for example.

the butcher and the skeleton king were both a pain in D1, especially in multiplayer where Leoric was surrounded by a legion of archers that could stun-lock you due to blocking.

in D2, bloodraven could sometimes pose a challenge. griswold was also a challenge because there were other heroes besides him in tristram and he proc'd amplify damage.

IMO, D1 was actually a better game than D2, it just lacked longevity. the atmosphere was vastly superior. god help me if i ran into a pack of acid hounds.

in terms of atmosphere, D3 is closer to D1 than D2 so far, but it still isn't all that scary/creepy.

and yes, i too hope blizzards ups the difficulty. perhaps on a somewhat exponential curve - Act1 starts out relatively easy, but the game as a whole gets significantly harder.

acts 2/3/4/5 of D2 had their PITA moments, especially on higher difficulty levels.

come to think of it, D1 was almost hardest on normal since you didn't have good gear and could find/buy awesome stuff at the beginning of nightmare (lvl20), whereas D2 scaled much better according to the gear you had and got vastly more difficult at the endgame.

 

[tedrodai]

Bashiok made replies a long time ago that basically equated to: "Yes, it's supposed to be easy in the beta. It's like an introduction and tutorial. Normal difficulty is easy. But it ramps up in Nightmare/Hell/Inferno."

Like it or hate it, I think it's gonna be a cake walk in normal, though it won't be quite as bad as it is just in the beta area. We'll just have to take their word on the "harder difficulties" (or not heheh) til we see more of the game.

The beta is hardly a near-complete version of the game, however. This isn't a defense of D3, but I think some of you guys are really jumping the gun in judging the game as-is. Yes, they're testing out some early game functionality (they've rearranged DH skills as a result of feedback, for instance), but mainly we 'beta testers' have been testing their network capabilities so far. I haven't done a good job of that personally, because they've given us such a boring version of the game (imo)...they don't have gems or runes in-game (thus almost no character customization), nor are they even confident about their item mods yet (see the legendary and set items on the official D3 website where Blizzard has been quoted saying the stats are just placeholders).

As far as the really crappy loot available at the moment, mostly this would be because we're stuck in the extremely low level section of A1, and the item mods they're still working on may or may not be affecting it. However, Blizzard has been quoted in many interviews that they're trying to get people away from 'boss runs' in order to make people want to continue exploring all the nooks and crannies throughout the maps. So you're supposed to have just as good of a chance to get good drops from random encounters (maybe random mini-bosses?) as from bosses like the skeleton king. Or, read another way, not as good of a chance at loot from your main boss type mobs than we're used to in the past.