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dotdotdash
Member UncommonPosts: 488
These forums are a sea of extremes; people either love or hate the game, but rarely work to occupying the middle ground. Sadly from my perspective these opinions seem largely forced, and I will explain why a little later on.
This is going to be a LONG post, so if you're allergic to reading you may want to skip to the parts that you most care about. I have, for want of a better reading experience, applied subtitles where required, so you can easily find the stuff you want to read.
Edit: No seriously. This post if really, really, really, really long D;
Obviously I'm not going to talk about ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING because... well... I don't have an opinion on absolutely everything (Edit: I had a pretty good go though ><). Surprisingly, some stuff in the game is just there... and I don't really take note of it. Maybe it's because it's not that good? Or, more likely, it's because it's not that important to me as a gamer.
And, again obviously, this is just my opinion; I am not trying to represent the masses, which is something I find absolutely detestable in most of the posters that do it on this forum. Anecdotal evidence provided by your three friends that parrot everything you say is NOT good source material to start going, "Yeah... EVERYONE agrees with me about everything I say." Stop doing it; you just look like utter fools. People will agree with you if they agree with you, and they really don't need you agreeing with yourself on their behalf before they've even had a chance to decide for themselves.
Anyway..
>>> The bit at the beginning
Diablo 3 is not a bad game. That's something I need to get out of the way right off the bat. It's actually a pretty good game. I've sunk over 150 hours into D3 across 2 characters, and I can't say that about many games I play these days. The price tag was a little steep, that's for sure, and I would encourage Blizzard to look into rewarding fans with lower premiums in the future, rather than wantonly exploiting us; just because we WILL pay you're "we're Blizzard" 20% premium doesn't mean we SHOULD pay that premium, although this is purely based on my own philosophical inclinations in this instant. I admit, it's subjective.
>>> The bit about how it looks
Diablo 3 is also a pretty game. No, it doesn't enjoy "WTF IS THIS REALLY COMPUTER GENERATED?!" graphics, but Blizzard yet again proves that artistry is not something that has to be achieved through realism. I personally would argue that the opposite is true; the most beautiful games I've played have rarely been those that strive to look as real as possible (and the same, I fear, is true of !@#$). Diablo 3 embraces, and excels in, that philosophy. From the claustrophobic dungeons of New Tristram, to the wide open skies of the High Heavens, Blizzard provides a visual experience that is significant enough to notice, yet subtle enough to not distract. I do feel however that ability effects are too understated; I can guess why this is, with an emphasis on multi-player, but when playing alone it's hard to see the power in the effects. This could have been resolved by adding in more vibrant schemas in single player, but it's not something that injures the game to the point of me not playing (obviously).
>>> The bit about what it says... and stuff
The story... is a story. What else can I say really? It was lacklustre, and felt overly lazy. The old-school "good versus evil" paradigm isn't really relevant in today's world to most people, because we've largely come to the realisation as a society that it's all just shades of grey. I was HOPING that Blizzard would explore this theme in Diablo 3, and take things "beyond good and evil" (hurhurhur I'm on my armchair now, boys). I was hoping for an exploration of the idea that Heaven, in all of its shining glory, was not out to aid Sanctuary, and that Tyrael wasn't the "saviour" he (wasn't at all) portrayed to be in Diablo 2. Seriously, that really got to me; this central character that had clearly been portrayed as a meddler and manipulator, an entity with an unknown motivation, suddenly became a decidedly 2-dimensional character, subject to a plot line that destroyed any depth he had enjoyed in the previous instalments of the franchise. Chris Metzen's dry and witless attempts at telling stories is getting old, and it's not because he isn't a good writer or storyteller. I, and most others, never really played Diablo for the story however... so... it's not that important. The story performs the function of shepherding us through the game, and I will credit it as not being tedious at any point (as in, and unlike most games, I have no problem with replaying through each area over and over and over and over again at all; it isn't painful).
>>> The bit about what it plays like, and the stuff I get, and stuff
Diablo 3 through Normal, Nightmare and Hell offers a gaming experience that I thoroughly enjoyed. The mobs are interesting and, as you approach, enter and progress through Hell, the game dishes out its fair share of (random) challenges. Affix combinations take on a level of infamy as move through the game, so that by Hell you love the easy and hate the hard; it's charming though because even the hard combinations don't throw you so much of a challenge as to be near-impossible to overcome, something that gamers of any calibre find endlessly frustrating. And your reward for completing and besting these challenges is loot, the centre piece of the game. We can argue all day about its lasting importance, but loot is "where it's at" and where it SHOULD be at; Diablo 3 - through Normal, Nightmare and Hell - rewards you as often as you like, offering a pleasant surprise around most corners. Even the lesser reward of items you can't use was - at least at the start of the game's life - still rewarding due to the mechanics of the AH, but this has largely diminished at this point due to the way any fixed-level game develops its economy (with the top end becoming the only end).
>>> The bit where I set the stage for more bits
It's a bit of a mixed bag at this point, right? Here's the thing: I'm having fun. The game up until this point has been thoroughly fun, to the point of capturing me for around 60 hours straight and not letting me go. I'm a grown man with some semblance of self control; the days where I will blindly play a game for excessive periods of time are long gone, but Diablo 3 brought me right back to that behaviour. On introspection it's a discredit to myself, but as a testimony to the game... there can really be no higher praise, in my opinion at least.
>>> THE BIT ABOUT INFERNO
And now we get to the bit where I stopped having fun: Inferno. Inferno would have, had I been one of the people that throws extreme opinions around (again, I'll come to this [b]shortly[/b]) (Edit: No, Matt, you won't...), ruined the game for me quite effectively, but I'm not unreasonable. It simply ruined the [i]end [/i]of the game for me ;D
Act 1 Inferno is well done, to a point. It feels like the "introduction" it should be, and offers challenge aplenty without being so hard as to present itself as an impenetrable wall. The rare mobs are really intimidating, but offer significant reward, and it's at this point in the game that you find out whether you know your class or not. If you don't, you die. If you do, you die... but not so much as to dishearten you. And then Act 2 happens...
Act 2 ISN'T the step up in difficulty that it should be. I can entirely understand Act IV, or even ACT III, presenting an unrelenting challenge to me as a gamer, but my opinion of difficulty progression is that it should be as smooth as is possible. The step from Act 1 to Act 2 should be noticeable, but it shouldn't be the defining factor of the jump. You shouldn't, for example, entering Act II from Act I (where you've got the hang of farming at least some of the rare mobs) just to die in a haze to white mobs that seem to hit you for 1/3 of your health. Yes, that's difficult but it's also disheartening, and it's certainly not enjoyable.
Another thing that shouldn't happen is: being 1-shot by rare mobs. I was under the impression that the difficulty presented by damage was in MANAGING it, but Inferno seems to point to the idea that it isn't. I can't manage damage that hits me for my entire health pool. Obviously this is being addressed in 1.03, and I wait to see what Blizzard does to remedy this current problem.
Without whining for too long (Edit: That, readers, was a lie), the problem with Inferno isn't necessarily that it's "too unforgiving" but that it's just not presented in the way that I think it should be. The entire point of Diablo is loot - getting loot, finding loot, equipping loot - to get perfect stats. The compulsion to carry on is for that goal, and it's a compulsion that ALL people playing the game feel. What we are told is that Inferno is an extra difficulty level for the "die hard" players, but I would suggest that it isn't presented at all like that: if we accept that the idea of the game is to get better stats, that the longevity of the game is in that pursuit, then we also accept that any method of getting better stats becomes a central element of the game at its core. At this point Inferno becomes a necessity and less an "extra challenge" to the fundamental goal of every player.
So how can this be remedied? In my opinion, and you'll all hate me for this, the WoW team had the best idea when it came to "adding extra challenge": challenge mode. Challenge mode in MoP will be a timed, flat-stat difficulty that will be HARDER than standard group and raid content. It WON'T reward stat items, but instead will reward special item appearances that can be applied to the gear the player has. It is a true manifestation of "adding extra challenge", and does not compromise on the core drive of the game. In my opinion, Inferno should be rebalanced to offer a reasonable, and stressful, challenge to gamers, and an extra setting added to "buff" the mobs to an added stat level for those that REALLY want to test their metal. Their rewards: achievements, banner additions and, possibly, a similar "custom appearance" system added to the blacksmith that would allow them to "show off" their talent and ability through a visually significant medium in PvP.
The idea is simple: those truly looking for added challenge do so for the challenge, whilst the loot is largely superfluous. I've had the pleasure of being in a world first guild (or two), and for most of us the pleasure was in getting world firsts (or as near to as we could) and not in the loot. The loot was a means to an end; I know, from talking to old guildies as well as those I know from other guilds of the same calibre, that we play for the challenge and could really do without the loot. I've also competed in sport at a national level, fencing to be precise, and I did not relish it because I got a better sabre drop from the people who I was competing against. The boons were nice, but they certainly weren't required.
>>> The bit at the end
Diablo 3 is a really good game up until Inferno. Inferno doesn't, to me, represent a optional challenge and more a brick wall you're required to smash through. As a gamer, someone who's looking for entertainment, I do not like to hit brick walls... and I especially do not like them when the motivator is the same as the motivator for me to play the rest of the game. As I've said it doesn't represent added challenge, but required gruel and frustration.
All in all I will carry on playing Diablo 3 for a while yet. There are several classes for me to enjoy, and the promise of PvP in the (hopefully) not too distant future. As it stands now Diablo 3 is a more than worthwhile wastage of my time.
For want of a better metric: 7/10 (which is like... a 9/10 score on IGN).
2 for nailing the general feel. 2 for graphics. 2 for game play. 1 for story. 0 for Inferno.
>>> The other bit at the end
So at the start of the post, and somewhere in the (what-I-thought-at-the-time-would-be) the middle bit I mention these people:
People either love or hate the game, but rarely work to occupying the middle ground. Sadly from my perspectives these opinions seem largely forced, and I will explain why a little later on.
What do I mean by that? Well... let's take a look at Mass Effect 3.
Mass Effect 3 was, for the most part, a pretty entertaining game. Whilst it certainly wasn't perfect, and wasn't what I would call an RPG, it was - for whatever it was - a pretty good take on whatever it was. Right at the end there's this bit though where everything you've done for the rest of the game is undone by an explosion. That is to say that, no matter what you chose, how you got to the point where you chose, you always get an explosion that results in PRETTY MUCH the same ending right across this "non-linear" storyboard. There is no variety, nothing personal to it. It is the gaming equivalent to the spam sketch by Monty Python, although not nearly as funny (because nothing is funny when the joke is on me).
No one can argue that, for a "non-linear, choice driven" game like Mass Effect 3, that particular resolution was good. It was immersion destroying, and undid a large part of what you were doing when you were playing the game. Your goal with the dialogue system was to end at a particular point of your choosing, and that was rendered impossible by the pretty much static ending.
The question is, however: did it ruin the REST of the game? The answer is: mostly not. Yes, it undermined the story (to a degree, although this is highly debatable), but it didn't undermine the brilliant combat, or the brilliant characters, or the great multi-player, to name but a few.
There are those who would allow something like the above to ruin the rest of the game for them. To them I say this; it's on your head. You chose to let it ruin the rest of the game for you, but it doesn't. It doesn't diminish the fun you had playing, or the fun you had making the choices, and the idea that it does is something you've constructed in your own head.
And this is what I mean by "these opinions seem largely forced"; they are.
Comments
Nice read man. I'm drawn again to Dark Souls as I read through your Inferno woes. There is a major difference in Challenge and Difficulty. Ramping up Mob stats to just [as you say] one shot you is not the same as Challange. I think the developers at From Software balanced Challenge/Difficulty perfectly. It never felt like you were being unfairly punished and you almost always conceeded death as part on your own fault.
Ultimately though, I haven't reached Inferno as of yet so I don't want to say too much without the experience of said difficulty but I did enjoy your outlook on things.
Cheers, although I fear it's slightly too long for people to read D;
Maybe they'll suprise me.
I haven't gotten Diablo 3 myself yet, but I did play through and enjoy both D1 and D2 so I've been keeping a close eye on the reviews/threads/bitch fests on MMORPG like this one. At least yours seems to be very well thought out, and the woes you had at Inferno I probably wouldn't encounter since I don't find playing the same material with the same character over and over again through multiple difficulties above the first two much more entertaining than ripping my own eyes out with rusty spikes. I'd probably play through it through one or two difficulties with multiple chars.
Given that, do you think I should give it a spin?
Where's the any key?
I've finished it on normal and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Then again, I've been looking forward to it for awhile, so... I'm biased
All joking aside though, it's a well crafted game. Very atmospheric and in all fairness, as trivial as the story is, I thought it was still enjoyable.
People argue points with extremes, doesnt mean they live there. I didnt read your wall of text, ok its not really a wall, thats an analogy to point out that it is a larger post than most. Why did I need to point that out? maybe I'm a troll, ok troll is a mythical creature that evokes derogatory imagery of lurking for malicious purposes. I'm not really with malicious intent, but you're welcome to argue otherwise.
Great post-
I agree with it all,
But it really hurt to read it all. Was just a bit to much.
pretty honest except I liked the story, I am not jaded and dont like the cliche of everything being grey. I also like all the back story on all the characters
Nice read.
I would've probably enjoyed Diablo 3 if I could get over the fact of the forced online single player experience which I happen to be allergic to. Although at the same time it amuses me because that same 'feature' is biting Blizzard in the rear atm. But I feel for the players who can't play atm. Anyway, these issues will probably be resolved and I expect that the many haters will fade away in the background then.
I'm actually considering recording this post as a vlog or podcast now lol
Awesome read. I also wish there were more people that walked the middle road and that showed more common sense and reason in the way they express their opinions and impressions of a game.
Feels like a lot of people think that the best way to make their point about a game is in extremes, either a game is extremely good with no flaws at all, or it is extremely horrible with no redeeming qualities, even if it's only an ending or a feature they might've detested.
Less talk, and more... uhum... talk!
Yeah, that's right.
It's a great write up. You did a nice job of explaining yourself well and being slightly funny to keep the mood light.
I disagree with your views on inferno. I think the challenge needs to be there and the reason most people are having problems with it that they trying to progress to the end almost straight away. Inferno is a grind and it is meant for grinding, but most people are just trying to do it in one go. Farm, improve gear, progress a little, farm, improve gear... It know it isn't everyones cup of tea but without the auction house the whole game is a completely different experience (try it with a new character) and because there isn't enough of the top end gear going around most people simply arn't geared for Inferno. It's that simple really, those with major problems in act II simply arn't geared for act II.. but Blizzard have caved and will be making it easier. Pretty disappointing result for some people.
What are you waffling on about? That was one of the most pointless retorts I've ever read, if you can call it that.
That's not the problem though.
I played WoW pre-TBC. I farmed fire res gear and rep with the lovely waterlords just to get past Raggy. I know what grind is, and I'm not against it (per se, although I think we've come a little further on in terms of what we CAN be doing with tech to break it all up... but that's another discussion entirely).
The problem I have with Diablo 3 is that the challenge of Inferno is far too steep, and it does not match the reward system the game sets out.
In D2 hell, rare mobs etc were hard. They could 1-shot you if you weren't paying attention, and you had to be on the ball. The thing was, however, that it didn't take long for you to get to a point where you were capable of taking them on with confidence, but you always had to be on the ball. When you died - and you did die - you died because you did something wrong; the game never made me feel like it was simply stacked against me, both in terms of difficulty and in terms of loot, and more that >I< had done something wrong to get myself killed.
The problem with D3 Inferno is many fold, and I avoided going in to too much detail in the write up because it would have made it far longer than it already was... which would have been a pain for you I'm sure :P I'll do so now however:
First and foremost, let me say that I don't have a problem with 4 affix combos. They're a good idea, a challenge in theory. What I have a problem with is how they scale. Right now, damage is ramped up by quite a margin on single affixs, so when you get particular combinations in particular orders... they're simply unbeatable. The problem with this is that, as has been pointed out by the devs, rares, elites and champions are the bread and butter of gear progression in the game. This links to another point I'm going to make in a bit, but if this is true - which it clearly is - then throwing unbeatable affix combinations is the game's way of robbing you of loot. My gear is particularly good for what it is. I'm a Monk with 14K damage unbuffed, 65% damage reduction, 1000 life on hit, 2.02 attacks per second, etc (if you know Monks, you'll know those are pretty good stats, and triple what you come out of Hell with), and yet even in Act 1 there are certain mob and affix combinations that I can't beat, regardless of the skill set up I use. Now, you're free to point at my abilities as a gamer but... I'm pretty confident of my own abilities, and am well aware that there are certain things I could possibly be doing better than I am... but that would put me right on the edge of my seat. As I pointed out in the article, people are playing for loot... so anything that has loot hidden behind it is something MOST people are going to want to pursue. MOST people aren't happy playing on the edge of their seat for several hours a day, especially when the rewards are diminished by the game itself. I'd hazards - are forgive me if I sound arrogant - that MOST people aren't capable of getting past Act 1 Inferno, let alone Act 2.
For the record, I'm half way through Act 2.. and hating every minute of it. However I'm a man of principle, and the principle here is: "I HATE THIS GAME SO I SHALL BEAT IT INTO THE DIRT." Don't ask; I had a difficult childhood.
Add this to the unreasonably large health pools that rares seem to have, and you have a problem brewing. Consider that the game encourages you to go for defensive builds in Inferno, and you're mitigating your ability to do damage. I'm one of the few people I know that has gone for a damage set up out of the gate, purely because I think that in the not too distant future Blizz are going to plummet Inferno difficulty right down to favour damage builds (they suggested this in their recent "future of the game" post). However as it stands, with rares, champs and bosses one shotting people front, left and center, people are being forced to take horrendous amounts of mitigation and resistance over damage. This leads to nerfed damage, which means that the already outrageous health pools that rares, champs and elites enjoy is buffed up to have a staggeringly high effectively HP that takes you an eon to beat through, even if you manage to avoid getting one or two shot (from here on in collectively referred to as "WTF mobs" because I can't be arse to type out "rare, champ and elite" over and over again). To draw a comparison: in D2 you could get one-shot by similar mobs, as I pointed out, but you could also kill them quite quickly, so if you played around their main affix abilities you could out maneuver the game and achieve victory; it felt good, where as beating boss mobs in D3 really just feels cheesy and unenthusing (especially considering the lack of reward).
And that one shotting that's going on is generally being achieved with non-affix attacks; standard attacks are doing 200,000 - 300,000 damage in Act 2 Inferno before mitigation. I think that's unreasonable, personally.
Now maybe this could all be mitigated if the rewards were high. If the drop chance on yellows were leading to these groups dropping 2-3 yellows, 8-9 rares etc, without Neph, and 5-6 yellows and 10-12 rares with Neph, then perhaps we'd all suffer gladly because the rewards would be well worth the effort. The rewards would scale with the difficulty. As it stands... they don't. In Act 1 and Act 2 Inferno you're LUCKY to get 1 yellow from a rare group, and with Neph...2-3. And generally speaking you can't use them. Why? Because the game favours throwing out items 2-4 levels under you, rather than throwing out gear 2-3 ilevels higher than your average gear. In D2, you got gear that was better stat wise than what you were wearing quite often and, due to the way the game worked, you would have different sets for different purspose; MF, defensive, PvP, PvE, GF etc. You would ALWAYS (pretty much) get something you could do something with. After a while this diminished (obviously) so that once you got in to the last Act of Hell, or had been running bosses constantly for a few months, drops became rarer and rarer. But then, as they became rarer and rarer it was because youre gear was getting better and better and the difficulty was getting lower and lower. It made sense. In D3, it's rare to get good gear for your build right out of the gate... I and many others thing that fundamentally misunderstands the entire draw of the game.
As I said on the official boards:
The appeal is the loot; if I'm not getting the loot... there is no appeal.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion; I can certainly see why some would get enjoyment out of Inferno, which is why I suggested moving it to a special level of difficulty that offers visual rewards, and boasting rights. If you're in it for the challenge, you're in it for the challenge. However hiding the central premise of the game behind a level of difficulty that 80% of the player base aren't going to see is a ridiculous solution to that problem as far as I am concerned.
Forgive me if this post seems disjointed at all, and there's far more to it than I've specified, but I've not edited this one like I attempted to with the OP.
Feel free to bring any points you may have
Maybe we can get a constructive back and forth going on this :P
I have a refined British accent, well spoken... like a Royal.
I think it could work ;P
Like I said before, you explain yourself very well. It's hard to disagree with what you are saying because I can totally understand where you are coming from, even if my opinion does differ. You are definately right though, getting an item you will actually use happens once in a blue moon. Also, yes, there are affix combinations that are basically impossible to overcome; Invuln, Vampiric, Extra Health and Shielding for example. Doesn't bother me so much though, if I come across a group like that I just avoid them or use tempest rush to run right through them and move on (Tempest Rush is VERY underated so far imo, being able to move just about anywhere you want without restriction [except waller/jailer], even when surrounded, is very useful in Inferno).
This!!! The game is good. Very good. At the same time tho the risk is not worth the reward. What is the point of killing something 10x harder then act1 inferno if the rewards are the same. Keep inferno hard just give me more loot! If I knew I was going to get 7-8 items for that super hard elite I wouldn't mind dieing over and over instead of just running around it.
The first MMO you loved will always be the best. You will never get that feeling back stop trying.
I love the game and it is very fun but I refuse to grind gold just to buy someone elses gear. We should be able to gear out from act to act ourselves but D3 it doesn't seem to be an option. You need gear from higher acts to do the act you are on which doesn't make sense. Not saying we should get epic loot or the best gear but we should get gear to atleast play through the acts.
I am pretty much done playing the game for now since inferno just isn't fun at all without having high end gear and all the way to 60 I have had to continue to buy gear off the auction house with no drops ever worth even looting. It just isn't fun anymore.