Well item hunting was enough in Diablo 2 for plenty.
Something I've noticed looking at the properties for items is how boring the stats are - even unique items have really boring stats. I think it's compounded by the issue of how small pretty much every level is.
4) Put unique armor sets and special weapons loot tables on each boss & mini-boss
5) Let people create pvp/ pve characters with no access to the AH
6) At level 60 (or whatever max level) make players lock their characters spell,rune and passive skills into a saved Spec before they can enter Inferno mode. Once saved they could never change those abilities again.
7) Let us increase stats per-level up again
8) increase drop rate for rare Item level 60-63 items on all acts in inferno.
9) Increase the chance for usable gear to be made by the blacksmith. Lower the gold sink.
10) Bring back the mystic so we can put sockets on gear and maybe enchant items
11) Release an Expansion with 1-2 acts, bosses, item sets, more recipies and 2-3 new classes.
And that is exactly why I'm NOT playing D3 anymore....Auction Houses spoiled it for me. I played two classes to 60 and just couldn't start a 3rd. Every 5 levels I would go out and totally gear out my toons from the AH. Made it pointless to find items and got to the point where I was just selling Yellows as vendor junk.......
So sad...after waiting so long....so dissappointed....Oh Well..
Check out TorchLight 2! It promises to provide real Diablo-type action...
First of all, you have yourself and only yourself to blame for abusing the Auction house.
Second Torchlight 2 is nothing like Diablo 1 or 2... hell TL1 was worse than D2.
If you really want something similar to Diablo 1 & 2 check out Path of Exile or Grim Dawn.
Players always follow the path of least resistance. If that means always using the AH they will do that. You really cant blame the player if they are playing like intended.
I hope both TL2 and PoE will be good. At least they should be much better than D3....
The game is even better than I expected and for good reason.
1. This isn't a real mmorpg. It is a one player RPG that happens to have multiplayer features. For such a game they have done an awesome job.
2. No monthly fees although you can play online at anytime with other players, you never have to spend a dime on subs.
3. Auction house doesn't kill the loot system. I actually have a great time selling my useless gear for gold and then putting the best useless gear up for auction. The extra gold I get allows me to get a few rare pieces in the auction house but most of my good gear are earned in game. I can't imagine spending real cash for gear, lol, (but good luck to those who do).
4. Most RPGs or dungeon crawlers are only meant to be played through once. Blizzard created a dungeon crawler that can be played years to come and they are trying hard to make it a game to return to over and over again even now. D3 was and is more than worth the money I paid for the game and then some. I have no idea what some players are crying about.
*It would be nice to include some type of PVP system that earns you honor that leads to exclusive gear but that might be a bit much to ask for.
Highlighted in Orange.
No they are not. The action Rpg is known for high replayability with its higher difficulties, Procedurally generated content and constent item farming. Do you think it took players 10+ years to get through Diablo 2? They made hundreds of characters, farmed epic rare loot and played on the highest difficulties.
I see the point you are trying to make but consider your comparison is strictly to be compared with D2 (an amazing accomplishment by Blizzard). Titan's Quest, Dungeon Siege, Torch Light and Dungeons and Dragons are the few decent dungeon crawlers we can compare to and most are one player experiences that many who have played have played through once (not including expansions). Titan's Quest had online multiplayer options that was awesome but for the most part underappreciated by the gaming community.
I don't expect D3 to be D2 but even in spite of that, D3 has surpassed my expectations hands down. I don't expect games to "hook" me anymore (old school gamer). I simply expect it to be good enough for me to complete at least once (even mmorpgs). If a game is good enough to keep me coming back after I've completed it either with end game features, pvp or harder levels, it's all good. D3 does that. If some players want more, fine, it would be nice to get added features and a highly perfected, tweaked game experience... But come on, D3 is currently the best non sub multiplayer scratch that satisfies that looting itch. I'm more than happy with it. Can't wait to see an expansion.
*PS: I like some of your ideas for "improving" D3 but I don't believe it is broken at all. The other suggestion would be some way to create a fresh high level character once you reach the level cap. Having to go through the tedious job of leveling through the normal levels can be a bit much. Maybe one new character that starts at level 40 per each character you get to level 60. This would also help the game progression for those who want to start a new character at a harder level. If they increase the cap to level 99, this would be a nice addition.
I've been playing the game for a few weeks now and have almost 200 hours invested in the game between three different classes, 150 of those spent on one class. On one hand, I understand peoples' complaints about the AH and lack of useful item drops. On the other hand, the AH is optional, and you don't have to be able to beat the game on the highest difficulty to have fun. For me, beating Diablo in Inferno is the long term goal, but right now my gear is insufficient to finish the last few acts of the highest difficulty settings. Which is fine. I don't have to beat those acts. I can go back and play the less difficult settings and the game is still fun, in fact it reminds me a lot of the Gauntlet series of games I used to play on my playstation back in the day. I like to play the Auction House, but I don't expect to get rich any time soon. It's going to take me a long time to get the gear I need to progress to the end of the game. If I get bored before that happens, so what?
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
The game is fine, let's not nitpick whether 100 hours is "worthwhile". Many single player games have given more or less than this total amount and I still felt were good investments. Heck plenty of terribad games I paid $60 for then played for less than 5 hours and never went back.
Those coming from D2 know that Blizzard removed the biggest time-sink in the game. Rerolling. I spent thousands of hours playing D2, not for some auction house, not for buying/selling items, not for "beating the game" but having fun with different specs, and Blizzard would continually change the game making some specs more/less viable and it would be fun to have all these different specs of toons... now... you can level through the game 5 times and be done with all the rerolling. Went from 1000 hours of rerolling to 100 hours of rerolling.
I really think Blizzard tried to make a World of Diablocraft and thought about how people hated respeccing in WoW... forgetting what people were actually doing for those thousands of hours played.
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
So, I wonder if the game was released without an AH and an always on-line requirement, if the hate for the game have reveived so much hate.
I guess developers in the future had better listen to the random people on the forums when designing their games instead if following their vision of what the game should be because randomforumguy75 knows better.
So, I wonder if the game was released without an AH and an always on-line requirement, if the hate for the game have reveived so much hate.
I guess developers in the future had better listen to the random people on the forums when designing their games instead if following their vision of what the game should be because randomforumguy75 knows better.
They can make all the games they want that follow their vision. The problem is at the end of the day they want to actually SELL the game to randomforumguy75. In that case maybe they should take one or two of his opinions into account
So, I wonder if the game was released without an AH and an always on-line requirement, if the hate for the game have reveived so much hate.
I guess developers in the future had better listen to the random people on the forums when designing their games instead if following their vision of what the game should be because randomforumguy75 knows better.
They can make all the games they want that follow their vision. The problem is at the end of the day they want to actually SELL the game to randomforumguy75. In that case maybe they should take one or two of his opinions into account
You know what, I'll bet that randomforumguy75 has some pretty good ideas. However, so does the other 6 million randomforumguys. Untimately, someone has to make decisions. Maybe they stick with their own ideas. Maybe they run with randomforumguy75's idea. Or maybe randomgforumguy 213 or randomforumgirl69's idea. But no matter what they do...the leagion of other super awesome ideas from people will not be picked and those people will all scream bloody murder because Blizzard doesn't listen to it's fanbase...
I'm not sure when gamers decided that THEY were the developers...but I don't think it can work that way. Too many ideas/opinions and not enough room for them all.
Diablo 3 has less features that Diablo 2 had. The classes are not diverse in any way, you're restricted to what they pretty much cookie cutter set for you, no PVP, constant connection their broken laggy servers, boring story with flimsy "companion" stories tossed in, feels less replayable than 2 or 1 ever did. All for the price of 60 dollars, a Blizzard is getting shittier and shittier with each new product they dump out. I don't see why there is a reason to play this game, at all to be honest. It's not worth multiple play throughs, and it isn't even worth a single play through with how boring the plot and class progression is.
I've logged 200+ hours with multiple play throughs and have 3 level 60's so far. It's exacly what I expected, and I'm happy with my purchase. The Diablo series have been always been linear and a gear hunt, this is no exception.
I don't view the comments issued are an admission, as much as I view it as a "duh" statement; an attempt to help the playerbase understand D3 is not WoW. This is not an admission of a "bad game". Bashiok's statement is being blown out of proportion.
Its not enough because the drop rates and the quality of drops is shit. If Diablo himself drops garbage than you have a problem. Hell I stopped playing because with every character I hit a wall where I got nothing but trash for hours and would not be able to go on without resorting to buying crap on AH.
He goes on to say... "But we couldn't really care less. It was the best selling game in history so suck it consumers!"
I'm pretty sure what he REALLY said (or wanted to say) was "Ultimately, it doesn't matter what we add or leave out of the game. Haters are going to hate. Even if we did everything perfect, people will complain non-stop. Sometimes I wonder why we even bother trying. Nothing is ever good enough. May as well not make games anymore and let the whiney bastards go find a new hobby..."
I'm pretty sure what he REALLY said (or wanted to say) was "Ultimately, it doesn't matter what we add or leave out of the game. Haters are going to hate. Even if we did everything perfect, people will complain non-stop. Sometimes I wonder why we even bother trying. Nothing is ever good enough. May as well not make games anymore and let the whiney bastards go find a new hobby..."
I do get where you are going with saying that gamers can be whiney bastards, but I feel that there *is* something not quite right about D3, at least in my view.
I am a huge ARPG/dungeon crawler fan since Gauntlet days, and yet I can't bring myself to log into D3. The itch to play is not there and was not there since the third week of release. I may have played grand max 60 hours. I haven't logged in for a month.
I couldn't tell you what is wrong, but there is something wrong. The game is not compelling enough. Is it loot? Is it character progression? Is it the way the maps are drawn and aren't really randomized? Is it the size of the maps and the length of the game? Is it the AH and RMAH? I bought one thing from the gold AH. I just can't get into the game. Maybe it is all of it.
I don't like the gist of what the OP is saying: it is saying that item searching isn't enough, but for D1 and D2 it clearly was and it was a very big part of both. What are they planning next and will it be something we have to pay extra for? And more importantly, will it wreck the Diablo series already more than it has been messed up?
The game is fine, let's not nitpick whether 100 hours is "worthwhile". Many single player games have given more or less than this total amount and I still felt were good investments. Heck plenty of terribad games I paid $60 for then played for less than 5 hours and never went back.
Those coming from D2 know that Blizzard removed the biggest time-sink in the game. Rerolling. I spent thousands of hours playing D2, not for some auction house, not for buying/selling items, not for "beating the game" but having fun with different specs, and Blizzard would continually change the game making some specs more/less viable and it would be fun to have all these different specs of toons... now... you can level through the game 5 times and be done with all the rerolling. Went from 1000 hours of rerolling to 100 hours of rerolling.
I really think Blizzard tried to make a World of Diablocraft and thought about how people hated respeccing in WoW... forgetting what people were actually doing for those thousands of hours played.
Ditto.
Hate to go off-topic here but that is my complaint with Cata and MOP. The talent trees have been pruned to excess. WOW is just not as fun anymore.
In D3 I did not see more than 2-3 builds that I would play on any class. There just wasn't enough to keep me interested and I quit the game in Act 2 of nightmare.
This is the bottom line. What I find confusing is Blizzard saying that end game was the issue and not the fact that they decided to release D3 without pvp. What kept D2 going for year after year after year - pvp! In one sense it is sad. The old Blizzard (pre-Cata) knew the players better. The old Blizzard would have known to hold off release until pvp was ready. The new Blizzard would be a sinking ship except that the RMAH has made a ton of money for them and Call of Duty Online in China will make a boatload more. Yes, this new Blizzard is all about making money - not better games. It is not sinking - it is just going to the dark side.
He goes on to say... "But we couldn't really care less. It was the best selling game in history so suck it consumers!"
I'm pretty sure what he REALLY said (or wanted to say) was "Ultimately, it doesn't matter what we add or leave out of the game. Haters are going to hate. Even if we did everything perfect, people will complain non-stop. Sometimes I wonder why we even bother trying. Nothing is ever good enough. May as well not make games anymore and let the whiney bastards go find a new hobby..."
Blizzard can stop making games for all I care. I won't shed a tear.
Was never into the grind, I usually play for the story. If I feel like grinding or I'll play an MMO. Finished Diablo III a few times, sold a bunch of items... uninstalled the game... went back to Starcraft: Star Battle lol
Comments
Well item hunting was enough in Diablo 2 for plenty.
Something I've noticed looking at the properties for items is how boring the stats are - even unique items have really boring stats. I think it's compounded by the issue of how small pretty much every level is.
THis is how you fix Diablo 3
1) Increase the level cap to 99
2) Add in a ladder system that resets
3) Open pvp public games
4) Put unique armor sets and special weapons loot tables on each boss & mini-boss
5) Let people create pvp/ pve characters with no access to the AH
6) At level 60 (or whatever max level) make players lock their characters spell,rune and passive skills into a saved Spec before they can enter Inferno mode. Once saved they could never change those abilities again.
7) Let us increase stats per-level up again
8) increase drop rate for rare Item level 60-63 items on all acts in inferno.
9) Increase the chance for usable gear to be made by the blacksmith. Lower the gold sink.
10) Bring back the mystic so we can put sockets on gear and maybe enchant items
11) Release an Expansion with 1-2 acts, bosses, item sets, more recipies and 2-3 new classes.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Players always follow the path of least resistance. If that means always using the AH they will do that. You really cant blame the player if they are playing like intended.
I hope both TL2 and PoE will be good. At least they should be much better than D3....
not a bad idea..
I look at D3 as a re-imagination of the series.. The xpac better take a step forward..
Back when D2 launched, I bitched at that game so hard, but the xpac made it way better..
Find it nice that they are being vocal, but let's see where the patches take us..
*PS: I like some of your ideas for "improving" D3 but I don't believe it is broken at all. The other suggestion would be some way to create a fresh high level character once you reach the level cap. Having to go through the tedious job of leveling through the normal levels can be a bit much. Maybe one new character that starts at level 40 per each character you get to level 60. This would also help the game progression for those who want to start a new character at a harder level. If they increase the cap to level 99, this would be a nice addition.
I've been playing the game for a few weeks now and have almost 200 hours invested in the game between three different classes, 150 of those spent on one class. On one hand, I understand peoples' complaints about the AH and lack of useful item drops. On the other hand, the AH is optional, and you don't have to be able to beat the game on the highest difficulty to have fun. For me, beating Diablo in Inferno is the long term goal, but right now my gear is insufficient to finish the last few acts of the highest difficulty settings. Which is fine. I don't have to beat those acts. I can go back and play the less difficult settings and the game is still fun, in fact it reminds me a lot of the Gauntlet series of games I used to play on my playstation back in the day. I like to play the Auction House, but I don't expect to get rich any time soon. It's going to take me a long time to get the gear I need to progress to the end of the game. If I get bored before that happens, so what?
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
The game is fine, let's not nitpick whether 100 hours is "worthwhile". Many single player games have given more or less than this total amount and I still felt were good investments. Heck plenty of terribad games I paid $60 for then played for less than 5 hours and never went back.
Those coming from D2 know that Blizzard removed the biggest time-sink in the game. Rerolling. I spent thousands of hours playing D2, not for some auction house, not for buying/selling items, not for "beating the game" but having fun with different specs, and Blizzard would continually change the game making some specs more/less viable and it would be fun to have all these different specs of toons... now... you can level through the game 5 times and be done with all the rerolling. Went from 1000 hours of rerolling to 100 hours of rerolling.
I really think Blizzard tried to make a World of Diablocraft and thought about how people hated respeccing in WoW... forgetting what people were actually doing for those thousands of hours played.
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
D3 isn't an MMO. Why is it on this site. I'm confused...
So, I wonder if the game was released without an AH and an always on-line requirement, if the hate for the game have reveived so much hate.
I guess developers in the future had better listen to the random people on the forums when designing their games instead if following their vision of what the game should be because randomforumguy75 knows better.
They can make all the games they want that follow their vision. The problem is at the end of the day they want to actually SELL the game to randomforumguy75. In that case maybe they should take one or two of his opinions into account
You know what, I'll bet that randomforumguy75 has some pretty good ideas. However, so does the other 6 million randomforumguys. Untimately, someone has to make decisions. Maybe they stick with their own ideas. Maybe they run with randomforumguy75's idea. Or maybe randomgforumguy 213 or randomforumgirl69's idea. But no matter what they do...the leagion of other super awesome ideas from people will not be picked and those people will all scream bloody murder because Blizzard doesn't listen to it's fanbase...
I'm not sure when gamers decided that THEY were the developers...but I don't think it can work that way. Too many ideas/opinions and not enough room for them all.
D3 = The Godfather 3
Diablo 3 has less features that Diablo 2 had. The classes are not diverse in any way, you're restricted to what they pretty much cookie cutter set for you, no PVP, constant connection their broken laggy servers, boring story with flimsy "companion" stories tossed in, feels less replayable than 2 or 1 ever did. All for the price of 60 dollars, a Blizzard is getting shittier and shittier with each new product they dump out. I don't see why there is a reason to play this game, at all to be honest. It's not worth multiple play throughs, and it isn't even worth a single play through with how boring the plot and class progression is.
Holy mmo-entitlement batman!
I've logged 200+ hours with multiple play throughs and have 3 level 60's so far. It's exacly what I expected, and I'm happy with my purchase. The Diablo series have been always been linear and a gear hunt, this is no exception.
I don't view the comments issued are an admission, as much as I view it as a "duh" statement; an attempt to help the playerbase understand D3 is not WoW. This is not an admission of a "bad game". Bashiok's statement is being blown out of proportion.
Its not enough because the drop rates and the quality of drops is shit. If Diablo himself drops garbage than you have a problem. Hell I stopped playing because with every character I hit a wall where I got nothing but trash for hours and would not be able to go on without resorting to buying crap on AH.
He goes on to say... "But we couldn't really care less. It was the best selling game in history so suck it consumers!"
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
I'm pretty sure what he REALLY said (or wanted to say) was "Ultimately, it doesn't matter what we add or leave out of the game. Haters are going to hate. Even if we did everything perfect, people will complain non-stop. Sometimes I wonder why we even bother trying. Nothing is ever good enough. May as well not make games anymore and let the whiney bastards go find a new hobby..."
Who the hell cares if D3 doesnt create sustainable interest? They just need box sales they are already rich, GG blizz.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
I do get where you are going with saying that gamers can be whiney bastards, but I feel that there *is* something not quite right about D3, at least in my view.
I am a huge ARPG/dungeon crawler fan since Gauntlet days, and yet I can't bring myself to log into D3. The itch to play is not there and was not there since the third week of release. I may have played grand max 60 hours. I haven't logged in for a month.
I couldn't tell you what is wrong, but there is something wrong. The game is not compelling enough. Is it loot? Is it character progression? Is it the way the maps are drawn and aren't really randomized? Is it the size of the maps and the length of the game? Is it the AH and RMAH? I bought one thing from the gold AH. I just can't get into the game. Maybe it is all of it.
I don't like the gist of what the OP is saying: it is saying that item searching isn't enough, but for D1 and D2 it clearly was and it was a very big part of both. What are they planning next and will it be something we have to pay extra for? And more importantly, will it wreck the Diablo series already more than it has been messed up?
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
pvp anyone?
Ditto.
Hate to go off-topic here but that is my complaint with Cata and MOP. The talent trees have been pruned to excess. WOW is just not as fun anymore.
In D3 I did not see more than 2-3 builds that I would play on any class. There just wasn't enough to keep me interested and I quit the game in Act 2 of nightmare.
This is the bottom line. What I find confusing is Blizzard saying that end game was the issue and not the fact that they decided to release D3 without pvp. What kept D2 going for year after year after year - pvp! In one sense it is sad. The old Blizzard (pre-Cata) knew the players better. The old Blizzard would have known to hold off release until pvp was ready. The new Blizzard would be a sinking ship except that the RMAH has made a ton of money for them and Call of Duty Online in China will make a boatload more. Yes, this new Blizzard is all about making money - not better games. It is not sinking - it is just going to the dark side.
Blizzard can stop making games for all I care. I won't shed a tear.
Was never into the grind, I usually play for the story. If I feel like grinding or I'll play an MMO. Finished Diablo III a few times, sold a bunch of items... uninstalled the game... went back to Starcraft: Star Battle lol
I'm not sure what people are expecting from the game. I was not expecting end game - raiding, pvp, etc. It's single player/co-op rpg - that's it.