**OFFICIAL** Diablo 3 Thread

[thespyder]

The biggest complaint about the game is the loot system is pretty bad. I can see them doing a major overhaul patch changing it completely or when the first expansion hits.

I am not sure this is the "Biggest" complaint. I think the Always Online DRM is up there.

For me, I think the graphics are a significant improvement over D2. I wouldn't say they are revolutionary for today, but they are good and enjoyable. And they are in the appropriate vein of the game.

I think the game play, click to attack, gather loot, kill increasingly big bosses, is all consistent with the genre and the series. it feels very familiar to a fan of the first two games. Even the several times so far that I got jumped and owned (or almost so) by monsters. Although the game isn't rich with tactical combat, neither were the previous two, so I would say this is about on par.

The skill tree is where I start to have some issue. Nothing feels like it actually improves as you progress. Skills open up and scale with your weapon (???) but I don't feel like there is any real differentiation within the class choices now. Where before, if you were a summoner necromancer, you were a very different character from a ranged damage necromancer. Amazons differentiated between spears and bows. etc... Now, you are a generic Witch Doctor who has the same abilities as every other Witch doctor.

I did feel like there were some cheap and obvious money grabs in this generation. The fact that you have to BUY slots in your storage chest, or the fact that you have to pay to upgrade the blacksmith, just seem cheap and exploitative attempts to get you to gather more gold. I would imagine once you reach a certain point, gold no longer becomes an issue, but early on, this just seemed like something a marketing guy came up with that got implemented.

I personally feel that the items you find are a bit lack-luster. It appears that certain abilities are limited to certain item types, thus limiting the variability. but I don't see this as a "Bad" thing, just slightly disappointing.

In the end, the major issue I have with it is the always online requirement even for the single player portion of the game. This, more than anything else, impacts my game play. Not only do I have to have an online connection, but I have experienced significant lag and 'jumping' as a result of having to play on their server. And for a single player experience this is unacceptable in my mind.

I would rate the game overall a 7.5 out of 10.

 

[cronos]

Ok thanks, can't look at this at work but will dig through it later!

I found it for you!
The direct link:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5149619846?page=29#571

Bashiok (blue poster) says:

We've been taking the situation extremely seriously from the start, and have done everything possible to verify how and in what circumstances these compromises are occurring. Despite the claims and theories being made, we have yet to find any situations in which a person's account was not compromised through traditional means of someone else logging into their account through the use of their password. While the authenticator isn't a 100% guarantee of account security, we have yet to investigate a compromise report in which an authenticator was attached beforehand.

If your account has been hacked, please view the previous post for information on contacting our support department.

 

[KaOTiK]

I am not sure this is the "Biggest" complaint. I think the Always Online DRM is up there.

Well excluding the always online/RMAH/server issues. I meant more game play wise, but I agree.

 

[EDUSAN]

Now, you are a generic Witch Doctor who has the same abilities as every other Witch doctor.

i felt the same way at the beginning but i started to find out that is not true.

you can actually "see" different builds in the same characters just by looking at the skills that you are being given in each level

my wizard started to learn different kinds of armor and i was like "WHY I HAVE THIS SKILLS?!?" a chillling armor, one that absorbs damage ...it made no sense to me, until i learnt a skill named "explosive" or something like that that hits everyone around me and got a rune for the arcane orb that changes it, making the orbs circle around me and exploding on impact...

when i saw all that i said "with all these skills, some kind of melee mage seems to be possible"
so im trying it out and its working ok... I cast my electric armor, my other absorbing armor, cast my arcane orbs "armor", teleport into the fight, cast explosive and the enemies EXPLODE AOE style

so... i dont think there is 1 way to play each character even though all of us have the same skills

 

[Ashenor]

as i said.... *i* consider it worth my time. 5 seconds to enter a number is not that big of a deal to me. apparently it is to you. to each his own.

I use the one on my iPhone so its more of tracking my phone down if its not next to me everytime i log in.

 

[Aikouka]

if i log in from a different IP it will ask me if not its good for a week.

The worst part is when you log in from a vastly different IP address. I went back home to New York, and logged in using my parent's Internet connection. WoW refused to let me log in, and Battle.net went so far as to require a password change.

Seems a bit excessive.

For me, I think the graphics are a significant improvement over D2. I wouldn't say they are revolutionary for today, but they are good and enjoyable. And they are in the appropriate vein of the game.

I think the graphics are just fine. I recall seeing quite a bit of the background while playing, and it just meshes very well together. Sure, the player models may not have as many polygons as some other games, but honestly... they don't because you're almost always zoomed out so far that you can't tell anyway. They only look slightly awkward if you zoom in or when you're seeing them head-on (character select screen, etc.).

I think the game play, click to attack, gather loot, kill increasingly big bosses, is all consistent with the genre and the series. it feels very familiar to a fan of the first two games. Even the several times so far that I got jumped and owned (or almost so) by monsters. Although the game isn't rich with tactical combat, neither were the previous two, so I would say this is about on par.

I haven't played Nightmare yet as I told a friend that I would play with him (on a side note, the annoyance in syncing schedules is why I don't normally play with others). However, in normal mode... the drops just weren't very satisfying. Interestingly enough, I didn't really even notice it until I started playing Torchlight II last night, and I would get drops maybe every 10-15 minutes that I would end up using.

Actually, I think I just realized the biggest difference. Torchlight II will drop gear that you cannot use yet. There were plenty of items that I received where I didn't meet the level requirement or the attribute(s) requirement (TL2 requires that you meet one or the other). This is something that I honestly never saw in Diablo III while leveling. All the gear that dropped was typically 4-5 levels below where I was currently at. You might say that was because I was too high level, but Blizzard said you should finish normal at level 30, and Diablo certainly doesn't drop level 30 gear.

The inclusion of the auction house is actually kind of disappointing. I feel like Diablo III is more of an "Auction House Crawler" than a Dungeon Crawler, because that's the only decent way to get loot. Although, I'm sure Inferno is vastly different since you cannot level beyond 60.

The skill tree is where I start to have some issue. Nothing feels like it actually improves as you progress. Skills open up and scale with your weapon (???) but I don't feel like there is any real differentiation within the class choices now. Where before, if you were a summoner necromancer, you were a very different character from a ranged damage necromancer. Amazons differentiated between spears and bows. etc... Now, you are a generic Witch Doctor who has the same abilities as every other Witch doctor.

I think you definitely lose the niches that you may have had in the past, but you can still create some interesting builds. For example, I can setup my Monk so he has over 60% dodge rate with procs and passives or switching him to a different build will end up with around 20-25%. Chances are you would combine this setup to create a Monk that's more of a "glass cannon" as you would rely more on dodging than mitigating.

I use the one on my iPhone so its more of tracking my phone down if its not next to me everytime i log in.

I use my iPhone as well, but I'm considering taking my recovery code and implanting it into my old iPhone 3GS. If I do that, I can leave my 3GS by my computer, and if I cannot find my phone for some weird reason, I can simply use my 3GS.

 

[slayer202]

Wow there are a lot of posts just from today.

Anyway, my first impressions on the game:

I'm a lvl 53 wizard in Hell(does it really matter what act, you can just skip everything!). I was hesitant about the skill system before the game came out, but it isn't terrible. I would imagine the reason they made it like this is so you can change up your skills based on the area/monsters/boss you are fighting. Ok, fine.

I have to admit I'm awfully bored with the quests and it's all just about getting to lvl 60. And once you get to 60 there is no need to create another character of the same class. So until I reach 60 I can't really comment on the staying power of the game.

My main complaint is the item system. I would imagine that most people want rares to be the most popular items, rather than the "generic" uniques. But the problem is that all you have to look for is vitality and your class specific stat. Wizard, I need vitality and intelligence, done. Got a socket? More vit or int. Anything else is an add-on, maybe some resistance. No fun mods like D2, which maybe they are saving for expansion....lame. Everything is so bland!

 

[PowerYoga]

I found it for you!
The direct link:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5149619846?page=29#571

Bashiok (blue poster) says:

Well then. Time to see if I can order it from somewhere.

 

[thespyder]

i felt the same way at the beginning but i started to find out that is not true.

you can actually "see" different builds in the same characters just by looking at the skills that you are being given in each level

my wizard started to learn different kinds of armor and i was like "WHY I HAVE THIS SKILLS?!?" a chillling armor, one that absorbs damage ...it made no sense to me, until i learnt a skill named "explosive" or something like that that hits everyone around me and got a rune for the arcane orb that changes it, making the orbs circle around me and exploding on impact...

when i saw all that i said "with all these skills, some kind of melee mage seems to be possible"
so im trying it out and its working ok... I cast my electric armor, my other absorbing armor, cast my arcane orbs "armor", teleport into the fight, cast explosive and the enemies EXPLODE AOE style

so... i dont think there is 1 way to play each character even though all of us have the same skills

So, absolutely you can mix and match the skills into different playing styles. And you can augment these based on equipping the appropriate augmentations to match that style. And there are some good combinations to be sure. But at the end of the day, you can mirror any given build at any time, merely by selecting different skills. there is no commitment to a given path to the exclusion of others. No specialists that can achieve something that every other character of that class can't to just as well. it's all so generic.

It is one of my pet peeves that every single game developer today seems to think that 'Balanced' equals 'The same'. Every character starts off with the potential to do everything. You play Skyrim and your character starts out with the ability to pick locks and cast spells even if they are intended to be a Warrior. Same with KoA:R. Balanced doesn't have to be the same.

Even in Diablo 3, (in so far as I have played) every class has defensive abilities, and slow down abilities. Wizard has ice attacks and slow time. Demon Hunter has slow traps. Witch Doctor has that one where the arms come out of the ground. Different appearances and names for the same ability. Show some variety. Balance doesn't equal the same.

 

[EDUSAN]

well... cause having to redo every class from lvl 1 to have a different build that you couldnt reset was fun in d2

i agree about the different skills being basically the same but with different visuals or with a tiny difference like being single target or aoe... but that has been like that forever i think

d2 didnt have that many difference... you could charge with the paladin or you could jump with the barb... you could caste fireball in the wizard or you could cast bone spirit in the necro

there were a couple differences like the "hit each other" curse but they were only a few i think...

anyway, my witch doctor summons a zombie that charges into the enemies while it crumbles... beat that!

 

[tedrodai]

It is one of my pet peeves that every single game developer today seems to think that 'Balanced' equals 'The same'. Every character starts off with the potential to do everything. You play Skyrim and your character starts out with the ability to pick locks and cast spells even if they are intended to be a Warrior. Same with KoA:R. Balanced doesn't have to be the same.

Even in Diablo 3, (in so far as I have played) every class has defensive abilities, and slow down abilities. Wizard has ice attacks and slow time. Demon Hunter has slow traps. Witch Doctor has that one where the arms come out of the ground. Different appearances and names for the same ability. Show some variety. Balance doesn't equal the same.

Well, I get what you're saying, but Skyrim is a bad example. The series has been like that at least since Morrowind (was the 1st one I played), but I'd venture to guess that every TES game has been like that. That's just part of the game, and one of the reasons I love it, actually. It has nothing to do with the game's balance...it's just a sandbox style game, not only in where you can go and when but also how you build and play your character.

I definitely don't want EVERY game to be like that, and I haven't figured out whether I like it in D3...I guess I'll decide once I have one or more classes at 60 and never have to level another one unless I play hardcore.

 

[thespyder]

Well, I get what you're saying, but Skyrim is a bad example. The series has been like that at least since Morrowind (was the 1st one I played), but I'd venture to guess that every TES game has been like that. That's just part of the game, and one of the reasons I love it, actually. It has nothing to do with the game's balance...it's just a sandbox style game, not only in where you can go and when but also how you build and play your character.

I definitely don't want EVERY game to be like that, and I haven't figured out whether I like it in D3...I guess I'll decide once I have one or more classes at 60 and never have to level another one unless I play hardcore.

TES games, and Fallout games (Ok, Bethesda games). But KoA:R as well. And The Witcher. And Two Worlds. And Gothic/Risen. Etc..... Adnausium.

Hey, developers. Balanced does not have to mean Same.

Sorry, enough of my rant.

 

[AlucardX]

just got this game last week. played about 1.5hr on friday without an issue. tried playing again last night and got black screen freeze up's every few minutes. while frozen, i could move the mouse cursor and hear sound, once it unfroze my character would be moved or the enemies would have been attacking me like the game was progressing by itself.

searched b.net and this issue is all over there as well. no real fix yet that i can find.

 

[Kalmah]

TES games, and Fallout games (Ok, Bethesda games). But KoA:R as well. And The Witcher. And Two Worlds. And Gothic/Risen. Etc..... Adnausium.

Hey, developers. Balanced does not have to mean Same.

Sorry, enough of my rant.

I entirely agree. When I first played my demon hunter I thought I was special because I could snare enemies. (must be a class specific thing huh!) Then I tried another class and was dis-amused when they also could slow the enemy. And after playing all classes I see the same pattern for every type of skill effect... they all have the same thing under a different guise.

When different classes have different specialties the need for teamwork is created. You need somebody to slow enemies: demon hunter, you need somebody to tank: warrior, you need somebody to aoe everything: wizard... They all have the same thing though. It's like sticking steak, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and an ice cold beer into a blender and making a diablo 3 shake. yummy!

 

[fustercluck]

Wait what's wrong with the loot system? Independent loot for the win! Otherwise it's like a Piñata with everyone trying to grab as much candy as they can.

I wonder if any real money item will go over $25 on the auction house when the real money AH launches. Will any item really be that rare? Hard to say right now.

edit: Woot! Got a 1337 knife for my witch doctor off the AH for a crazy cheap bid (4k) because of the big maintenance - Also, have wondered why you can't take screenshots of D3? Print screen doesn't work anyways, maybe they have a key assigned to screenshots?

 

[Keeper]

I entirely agree. When I first played my demon hunter I thought I was special because I could snare enemies. (must be a class specific thing huh!) Then I tried another class and was dis-amused when they also could slow the enemy. And after playing all classes I see the same pattern for every type of skill effect... they all have the same thing under a different guise.

When different classes have different specialties the need for teamwork is created. You need somebody to slow enemies: demon hunter, you need somebody to tank: warrior, you need somebody to aoe everything: wizard... They all have the same thing though. It's like sticking steak, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and an ice cold beer into a blender and making a diablo 3 shake. yummy!

I agree with your statement/position... But the GAME is STILL a helluva lotta fun.
Your blender anaolgy really sums it up... As a meal, those parts eaten or drunk seperately.... A fantastic experiance. Whatever sheet comes out of that blender.
ME NO WANT LOL.

 

[destrekor]

TES games, and Fallout games (Ok, Bethesda games). But KoA:R as well. And The Witcher. And Two Worlds. And Gothic/Risen. Etc..... Adnausium.

Hey, developers. Balanced does not have to mean Same.

Sorry, enough of my rant.

The Witcher 2 very much limits development. You can be quite balanced, but can only reach high-level skills if you specifically travel down certain paths. And some will be far more challenging than other skill-set paths.
Oh, and there is no undo, spent "skill points" can not be regained and placed somewhere else.

I got TW2 fairly recently, and now D3 has taken priority (both taking me completely away from BF3, btw soon, I hope, I shall learn the art of balancing multiple games). I never played the The Witcher, but everything I have read paints The Witcher 2 in a very different light in quite a few ways.

 

[JamesV]

well... cause having to redo every class from lvl 1 to have a different build that you couldnt reset was fun in d2

d2 didnt have that many difference... you could charge with the paladin or you could jump with the barb... you could caste fireball in the wizard or you could cast bone spirit in the necro

Spoken as a casual gamer that never fully explored Diablo 2, and probably mostly played single player.

It took literally one night of gaming to hit lvl 85 on a Sorceress in Diablo 2, if you knew what you were doing, and had items to twink them out.

First sorc is MF, second is max block boss run teleporter, and third is max static lightning build. Just like there was no problem with running bosses; there was no problem with stats and recreating characters.

Too many 'fixes of things that were not broken' in Diablo 3.

 

[darkewaffle]

I entirely agree. When I first played my demon hunter I thought I was special because I could snare enemies. (must be a class specific thing huh!) Then I tried another class and was dis-amused when they also could slow the enemy. And after playing all classes I see the same pattern for every type of skill effect... they all have the same thing under a different guise.

When different classes have different specialties the need for teamwork is created. You need somebody to slow enemies: demon hunter, you need somebody to tank: warrior, you need somebody to aoe everything: wizard... They all have the same thing though. It's like sticking steak, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and an ice cold beer into a blender and making a diablo 3 shake. yummy!

The ability to "slow" is far too generic an idea for such a comparison. And to assume something that broad is unique to your class is basically extremely naive. For real class abilities, your DH can't taunt like a barb, party heal like a monk, summon like a WD, or blink like a mage.

But they can all slow, to some extent. AoE, to some extent. Self-heal, to some extent. Escape, to some extent. Certain mechanics are just so basic that without them a class is unnecessarily crippled. Particularly when one of the keystones of the game is that any character and any group composition should be viable.

 

[EDUSAN]

Spoken as a casual gamer that never fully explored Diablo 2, and probably mostly played single player.
It took literally one night of gaming to hit lvl 85 on a Sorceress in Diablo 2, if you knew what you were doing, and had items to twink them out.

First sorc is MF, second is max block boss run teleporter, and third is max static lightning build. Just like there was no problem with running bosses; there was no problem with stats and recreating characters.

Too many 'fixes of things that were not broken' in Diablo 3.

I did that.
I actually hit lvl 85 in 1 day of playing and started doing baalruns from there with most of the chars
I had a MF sorc doing mephisto runs and pindleskin runs
I had at least 1 char leveled up for everything
I had chars named after what type of items they were keeping

I even had chars to lvl 90-92 of weird builds i wanted to try out

it was like that, but it didnt mean IT WAS GOOD. it was the only thing that could be done, yes. Now they can do something else, they did it. I find it better.

Now doing quests gives you exp so you have a little motivation to do it and not just being TPed to the last WP to skip the acts enterily and then returning to do the 1st quest that gives 1 skill point or do the act 3 quest that gives you the +max hp pot

i prefer a slower pace leveling instead of going to baal, doing runs until lvl 30~ before going to the next difficulty

if you still like that, go play d2, it has it.

you like to assume huh?

 

[Dominato3r]

The ability to "slow" is far too generic an idea for such a comparison. And to assume something that broad is unique to your class is basically extremely naive. For real class abilities, your DH can't taunt like a barb, party heal like a monk, summon like a WD, or blink like a mage.

But they can all slow, to some extent. AoE, to some extent. Self-heal, to some extent. Escape, to some extent. Certain mechanics are just so basic that without them a class is unnecessarily crippled. Particularly when one of the keystones of the game is that any character and any group composition should be viable.

Exactly. Due to the nature of classes like the WD, DH and Wizard, you need slows. The classes do specialize is certain things, such as the DH specializes in escapes like his somersault, going invisible, the shot that makes him backflip away... Wizard has snares and armor abilities instead

 

[Kelvrick]

Wait what's wrong with the loot system? Independent loot for the win! Otherwise it's like a Piñata with everyone trying to grab as much candy as they can.

I wonder if any real money item will go over $25 on the auction house when the real money AH launches. Will any item really be that rare? Hard to say right now.

edit: Woot! Got a 1337 knife for my witch doctor off the AH for a crazy cheap bid (4k) because of the big maintenance - Also, have wondered why you can't take screenshots of D3? Print screen doesn't work anyways, maybe they have a key assigned to screenshots?

I haven't tried it yet, but I always have steam running in the background and steam has their own screenshot option. That might work for you.

 

[slayer202]

Screenshots go into a folder just like in D2. Via Print Screen.

At least for me it's not in the normal D3 folder, but a documents folder where saved game data usually goes

 

[Keeper]

I need to make one comment.. LOL one more.
Folks,

its a game. Really. Thats all it is. Do you have fun? Do you have $60 wiorth of fun? GOSH I hope so. I so enjoyed the MIDDLE part of this forum. Around when the game came out. Questions were posted. Opinions were stated. Questions were answered. Opinions were either seconded or rebuffed.

I dig this community, I really do...... Cripes.... Lets lighten up a bit.

I get there are stat heads here. I get it. Had my head handed to me over a Dungeon Defenders post I made. Some guy was crazy analyzing the DPS his toon was putting out like he was curing cancer and the dicsussion went emotional. NOT FORM ME LOL...I tried t make peace.
Well that was an EPIC fail. It was like I was taking money out of his mothers pension fund or something.
Over a $20 buck game? WOW.
So I learned, and now I try and be a little more chill...

Here is the PREMISE of D3. If you expected anything differnet.... Shame on you.
I walk, I kill, I pick stuff up, I sometimes die.
I put different stuff on, I get differnet results.
Wash Rinse repeat.
Its a Dungeon crawl. Nothing more, nothing less.

I learned things AFTER I bought it... Like I cant play SP on MY PC IF the servers are down.
Had I know that before, would i still have bought the game.
YES....
Lets have fun, and lets make the world safe from the minions of hell.

 

[thespyder]

The Witcher 2 very much limits development. You can be quite balanced, but can only reach high-level skills if you specifically travel down certain paths. And some will be far more challenging than other skill-set paths.
Oh, and there is no undo, spent "skill points" can not be regained and placed somewhere else.

I got TW2 fairly recently, and now D3 has taken priority (both taking me completely away from BF3, btw soon, I hope, I shall learn the art of balancing multiple games). I never played the The Witcher, but everything I have read paints The Witcher 2 in a very different light in quite a few ways.

So I have started The Witcher twice and not gotten very far in it. I just assumed based on the beginning that it was like the others. But you still start off with potential to take any path and the practical ability to pursue (though not to any significant power level) throughout the game. So same difference in my book.

And it does seem to be a trend in gaming today. your initial avatar is this formless, nebulous jack of all trades. I am not saying that the Baldur's gate model is 'The Best' in that you have classes that have specific strengths and weaknesses, but it definitely has something different over the generic stuff that is ground out today. And to me (an staunch Wizard supporter), I think it cheapens magic as a whole if EVERYONE can cast it.

I wouldn't have thought that Diablo would succumb to the 'Balanced has to equal Same' paradigm. Given that the war/star craft games had at least some variation in the units, I would have thought that sort of logic would be at least present in this game. But apparently not.

And not saying it isn't Fun. Well, ok. Maybe I am. I think the guy from QFT said it best in that Blizzard tends to make more obsession games than actual fun games. You Absolutely HAVE to continue, not because of the fun factor, but because of the obsession to beat that next boss or find that next item or level up to 60 (or whatever). but maybe that is just me.