you forgot that the game is a cash grab store game, aka blizzard will make millions of dollars off its in game cash real money store.
And that's where all development money went into. Making sure the Real Money Auction House is as polished as possible.
This game has been in development for how many years? And still they had to scrap a ton of features in the end to get it out of the door!
But ofcourse the Real Money Auction House is perfectly polished and tested, so it works perfectly to fill those greedy Actvision Blizzard suits pockets nicely!
Compare that to Diablo 3 from 1-13 in the open beta.
You can't even compare the two Diablo 3 is so far improved it's not even funny.
The graphics look great for what they are.
People need to take off the rose tinted glasses man. Diablo 2 for it's time was great, but just trying to play it now makes me want to pull my hair out. It has not aged well.
D3 graphics are "good enough" and have a nice enough style that they will hold up for many, many years even as graphics improve more and more because the game isn't trying to look realistic. This is the same reason why WoW still looks good because it has great art direction.
I give creds to the Path of Exile creators. I like what they are doing, but I've played the game and it in no way, shape or form comes even close to comparing to D3.
I pretty much check this site out once a day for laughs because the amount of horse shit flying around here is mind boggling and provides a good head shaking chuckle.
Compare that to Diablo 3 from 1-13 in the open beta.
You can't even compare the two Diablo 3 is so far improved it's not even funny.
The graphics look great for what they are.
People need to take off the rose tinted glasses man. Diablo 2 for it's time was great, but just trying to play it now makes me want to pull my hair out. It has not aged well.
D3 graphics are "good enough" and have a nice enough style that they will hold up for many, many years even as graphics improve more and more because the game isn't trying to look realistic. This is the same reason why WoW still looks good because it has great art direction.
I give creds to the Path of Exile creators. I like what they are doing, but I've played the game and it in no way, shape or form comes even close to comparing to D3.
I pretty much check this site out once a day for laughs because the amount of horse shit flying around here is mind boggling and provides a good head shaking chuckle.
Booting up Diablo 1 tonight.
Deal with it
"I will not play it nor any other MMO until they make it possible to obtain the best gear without forcing people to group up to do so." SwampRob
Well, we're still yet to hear any rational criticism from you. Just regurgitating stock phrases.. "kiddies!" "console friendly!".. and complete untruths like "not dark or gory".
What precisely is console friendly about D3 that wasn't the case for D2?
What precisely was so dark, gory and not-for-kids in D2 that is not present in D3?
I take it you haven't played the game yet.
You'll find out when you see the hacked up UI they implemented and the graphics.
Don't hate. No need to get upset, it's just a game, we can all agree to disagree.
Got into the closed beta months ago. Posted a couple of weeks ago on this thread what I liked about it.
What precisely is "hacked up" about the UI?
What precisely is wrong with the graphics?
Or did you just want to post and confirm for me that you have no rational criticism?
Is that so? So, did the bother to read the beta forums at all? You know nothing of the countless UI threads? About how they were designed for consoles and work like crap? Hmm, that's odd.
I've already addressed the graphics, it seems to me that perhaps you're the one who just wants to argue irrationally. You must be bored, only a couple of weeks to go so maybe you can spend your time on a different hobby other than trolling.
So instead of answering his legitimate questions, you accuse him of trolling. How typical. The UI works/looks just fine. It's clean and functional, and honestly works a HELL of a lot better than D2's UI. In fact, it's pretty much the standard PC ARPG UI that's been used for quite a while.
Just because it doesn't use lots of tiny icons & text doesn't mean its 'consolish'.
As far as the latency problems people are having there have been blue posts confirming there are no servers outside of north america for the beta. Post launch there will be more, Asia and europe im sure.
Well, we're still yet to hear any rational criticism from you. Just regurgitating stock phrases.. "kiddies!" "console friendly!".. and complete untruths like "not dark or gory".
What precisely is console friendly about D3 that wasn't the case for D2?
What precisely was so dark, gory and not-for-kids in D2 that is not present in D3?
I take it you haven't played the game yet.
You'll find out when you see the hacked up UI they implemented and the graphics.
Don't hate. No need to get upset, it's just a game, we can all agree to disagree.
Got into the closed beta months ago. Posted a couple of weeks ago on this thread what I liked about it.
What precisely is "hacked up" about the UI?
What precisely is wrong with the graphics?
Or did you just want to post and confirm for me that you have no rational criticism?
Is that so? So, did the bother to read the beta forums at all? You know nothing of the countless UI threads? About how they were designed for consoles and work like crap? Hmm, that's odd.
I've already addressed the graphics, it seems to me that perhaps you're the one who just wants to argue irrationally. You must be bored, only a couple of weeks to go so maybe you can spend your time on a different hobby other than trolling.
So instead of answering his legitimate questions, you accuse him of trolling. How typical. The UI works/looks just fine. It's clean and functional, and honestly works a HELL of a lot better than D2's UI. In fact, it's pretty much the standard PC ARPG UI that's been used for quite a while.
Just because it doesn't use lots of tiny icons & text doesn't mean its 'consolish'.
The only troll I see here is you.
It is not clean and it isn't very functional. It was designed for CONSOLES. Lol, you guys are too much. The name-calling gets silly real quick around here. If I'm a troll and a hater, I guess that would make you the fanbois. So, here you go fanboi...
The Skill UI
On the face of it, to a new player there is nothing amiss. 6 skill slots, 6 categories of skills that go in those slots. The process of skill swapping is relatively smooth if you follow Blizzard's intended usage: right click a slot, select a skill, select a rune, accept. When you unlock a new skill slot, you open up a new skill category. Eventually you will have six slots for the 6 categories of spells. Cool. Nice and simple.
Except that's wrong. This hand-held experience is hiding the underlying truth of the game. There are only 3 categories of spells: primary (cheap/generator damage), secondary (expensive/spender damage), and utility (everything else). These have been essentially shuffled into the 6 categories we have now.
The other truth that is being hidden is that you can put any skill in any slot. Your build is not restricted to the 6 arbitrary groups noted above. If you decide you want to use two skills from the same category, you might go looking for an option. But there's no reason someone *should* think that's even possible. The skill UI makes it quite clear how the game works (and it's wrong).
Once you do discover elective mode, you find that the UI experience is sacrificed at the altar of the default mode. Now that you have the capability of playing the game as it was designed (sigh) you find that it's extremely clumsy to take advantage of your new-found freedom.
There is no easy way to compare two skills that you don't put on your bar unless they happen to be in the same category. Paging through 6 categories to find one spell is extremely annoying. Much of the interface is unintuitive. Take moving spells between buttons, for example. Drag and drop works there, but not in the skill pane itself.
All of this is unnecessary pain. Either get rid of non-elective mode and streamline the UI, or give us a different UI for elective mode. You can achieve a guided experience for new players without straitjacketing everyone else.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Originally posted by Zekiah Is that so? So, did the bother to read the beta forums at all? You know nothing of the countless UI threads? About how they were designed for consoles and work like crap? Hmm, that's odd.
No specifics beyond "some people on the beta forums don't like it"? Thanks.
Designed for consoles? I've asked you already "how so?" and you've repeatedly proven yourself unable to answer.
Diablo 2: left-click to move and primary attack, right-click for secondary attack, fkeys to use different skills. Diablo 3: left-click to move and primary attack, right-click for secondary attack, numeric keys to use different skills. Yep, totally changed in order to work on consoles, I see it clearly now.
Originally posted by Zekiah I've already addressed the graphics, it seems to me that perhaps you're the one who just wants to argue irrationally. You must be bored, only a couple of weeks to go so maybe you can spend your time on a different hobby other than trolling.
OK, to be fair, you did give an explanation earlier of what you don't like about the graphics. "The graphics are not blended well and there's not enough edge contrast, colors blend together into a muddy pool. You can see it clearly in the environments." That's are area where I'll agree to disagree: Blizzard have stated that their aim is a low-contrast backdrop and a high-contrast foreground. The low-contrast backdrop does blend together into a somewhat blurred effect. Personally I like it, I think it has a painted feel to it. But I can understand that some wouldn't.
The other stuff you said about the graphics ("cartoony", "not dark", "not sinister", "designed for kiddies") is transparently false based on what we've seen so far (first part of act 1) and almost certain to become even more false in later acts (based on the history of the previous Diablo games).
everyone saying d3 is great hasnt posted a single reason why it is great. just silly fanbois jumping on the next new thing.
d3 is clearly a step back from d2. you cannot allocate skill points or stat points. everyone is the exactly the same. how are you fanbois gonna justify that?
its too easy even on normal and it doesnt have that gothic dark atmosphere. i dont know why they went with cartonny rainbow graphics? the graphics engineering-wise are terrible. really backward.
im all for change if it means extending the depth of a game. removing skill/stat points and making the game kid friendly is just stupid.
just accept reality. old blizzard is dead, its all about the money now. i think you fanbois should wake up and realise that buying this hyped turd is going to result in more hyped turds.
I will give a few reasons why D3 is great.
The character customization is you and how you want to play that avatar. Of course others will argue here that they can’t use specific weapons but the fact is, that in D2 many of those builds just could not get past NM. The developers are keeping you from play a gimped class. If this is a big issue then do go elsewhere because it will make better that you don’t play than find you’re so useless that no one will even play with you unless you stick to some form of the class you pick. The stats don’t matter as much as the loot so why waste time clicking on some useless stats anyway? If you really want to pump the stats then get the loot to change them. There are items in the game that double you stats. You are not tied down to any cookie cutter build that others are using because there is MORE freedom. Much more freedom than just making minor changes to your character.
Skills are useable through the game life because they are not fixed numbers but percentages of your weapon that you carry. Level 1 skill is still useful throughout the lifetime of gameplay. Your not doing enough damage then get a better weapon. Just because x skill look better than y skill does not mean it is since the rune may make x skill better than y skill through the progression until y rune is better than x rune.
Because of the first two paragraphs you will soon learn that swapping out skills and strategy play a bigger role in achieving the end game. Every skill of your class is situational. I hear many say the game is dumbed down but the truth is that your going to get your ass handed to you in inferno if you think one specific build (six skills and runes) is going be the end all. It starts easy and progressively more difficult because mobs get smarter, faster and tougher which requires a bit of thinking. It is not dumbed down people. God forbid they make a game different and require some though process.
Hardcore is now a challenge. When you die you don’t drop items and no one can loot you. I want it it challenging as do many other hardcore players. You can’t spam potions, town portals or alt+F4 you’re going to have to actually pay attention to what the hell you're doing. If HC is to difficult then play SC but please don’t ruin my HC by asking them to change it. I played D2 for almost 4 years, most being hardcore, and in my view they fixed the really shitty things wrong with the D2 HC game design. As a matter of fact, they fixed the things wrong with the game design period
Over all this game is going to be more challenging and more difficult than you think.
So, I recently got into the Diablo 3 EU beta and wow. Seriously, wow. This game is BAD. I'm shocked it managed to get past even the new Blizzard's QA team.
I'm getting 200ms ping and having that registered as "good" (ie. in the green in terms of latency) by the game, with random 500ms lagspikes. It's entirely possible that the EU beta's servers are set up in the US, but I get at least 160ms from US servers in every other game, and god only knows. This leads to a shit tonne of artificial difficulty and near death experiences.
The CoD-esque levelling mechanics are laughable, as are the ways abilities work. Every level, you get a new ability or a new upgrade for one of your abilities, and you will ALWAYS have every ability at max level. You have no choice in what order you get them. The only thing that distinguises you from other players is gear.
Switching out abilities gives you a 10 second (or thereabouts, not sure on the exact figure) cooldown on that ability, which means switching out abilities or having more than six active abilities is unfeasible, which can lead to situations where you get attacked and don't have the right ability for the situation.
All this just feeds into having the easiest general loadout and spamming the attack until everything is dead, regardless of the situation. You approach everything in the same way, deal with it in the same way and the like. You won't vary from other player's experiences either, as they're ALSO doing it in the same way.
Don't get me started on how horribly the classes are in general. They're not archetypal, they're not very balanced (heavy armoured barbarian / monk more easily kills stuff than the flimsy wizard?) and they're just not very fun. Witch Doctor is a bad necromancer clone, Demon Hunter is like a crappy D2 assassin, Wizard is just a poor man's sorceress, Monk is actually alright in terms of overall design and Barbarian is just a straight rip from D2 and therefore the best class in the game.
The healing potion / healing orb issue just shows how schizophrenic the design team is. On the one hand, you have healing potions which allow you to decide when you need healing and use them when you need them. On the other hand, you have healing orbs which drop randomly off mobs and heal you when you walk over them. Of course, due to this, healing orbs are utterly useless, or at least could be better replaced by healing potion drops, and is a fine example of "lol wut are we meant to be doing again???".
Graphically, the game is horrible. It reminds me of Icewind Dale 2 in terms of looks. You could say it has a certain style to it, if you thought style could mean "looks like it's from early 21st century". Low polygon models, ugly arse textures and a general bad colour scheme just makes the game seem faded and already aged. Compare it with, say, Diablo or Diablo 2 in modern resolutions and they don't look nearly as aged as this game.
Controls-wise, the game's okay-ish. Everything's pretty much the same as Diablo 2 (shift to stay still whilst you attack, ctrl to view thingies, alt to view items etc), and everything is therefore okay.
I just fail to see how this is a Diablo game. To me, it feels like a poor Korean Diablo-wannabe that made a bunch of bad design decisions because they had a massive budget, a lot of time and no idea how to improve on the original.
The graphical changes, gameplay changes, EVERYTHING changes have just ruined the overall experience and turned it into a game worthy of nothing more than the award of "Worst AAA Game of 2012".
It is not clean and it isn't very functional. It was designed for CONSOLES. Lol, you guys are too much. The name-calling gets silly real quick around here. If I'm a troll and a hater, I guess that would make you the fanbois. So, here you go fanboi...
The Skill UI
On the face of it, to a new player there is nothing amiss. 6 skill slots, 6 categories of skills that go in those slots. The process of skill swapping is relatively smooth if you follow Blizzard's intended usage: right click a slot, select a skill, select a rune, accept. When you unlock a new skill slot, you open up a new skill category. Eventually you will have six slots for the 6 categories of spells. Cool. Nice and simple.
Except that's wrong. This hand-held experience is hiding the underlying truth of the game. There are only 3 categories of spells: primary (cheap/generator damage), secondary (expensive/spender damage), and utility (everything else). These have been essentially shuffled into the 6 categories we have now.
The other truth that is being hidden is that you can put any skill in any slot. Your build is not restricted to the 6 arbitrary groups noted above. If you decide you want to use two skills from the same category, you might go looking for an option. But there's no reason someone *should* think that's even possible. The skill UI makes it quite clear how the game works (and it's wrong).
Once you do discover elective mode, you find that the UI experience is sacrificed at the altar of the default mode. Now that you have the capability of playing the game as it was designed (sigh) you find that it's extremely clumsy to take advantage of your new-found freedom.
There is no easy way to compare two skills that you don't put on your bar unless they happen to be in the same category. Paging through 6 categories to find one spell is extremely annoying. Much of the interface is unintuitive. Take moving spells between buttons, for example. Drag and drop works there, but not in the skill pane itself.
All of this is unnecessary pain. Either get rid of non-elective mode and streamline the UI, or give us a different UI for elective mode. You can achieve a guided experience for new players without straitjacketing everyone else.
I fail to see why this means that the UI was meant for consoles. So on one side, people can easily play the game without Elective Mode. For newcomers this is pretty much the best way to learn Diablo 3. Less chance that they end up with skills that don't build up discipline (as an example) and can't use their abilities anymore. Though I found myself a bit restricted when I played the Open Beta. Elective Mode sounds really nice to me. Yes, the UI is clearly build around the default option, but I can't imagine it gamebreaking in any way. Perhaps a minor hassle. Then again, I'm not planning to change all my skills every few minutes.
About the strange "it's meant for CONSOLES" argument, that's really weird. The default option is just the prefered, more balanced way of playing Diablo 3. Perfect for my dad The Elective Mode is more for people like me, who like building characters and all. But because of the 6 trees you mentioned in your posts, this is totally NOT made for consoles. If I play on a console, I hate switching through all those menus. The less screens, the better.
I really thing this game is going to hit on a lot of platforms. I wouldn't be surprised this game would be the first huge thing on smartphones. Android and IOS could be a great hit for this game. PC and Console versions are far from what a AAA game should be.
But hey... Bejewel is not a AAA game and I bet it has more play hours than Skyrim. There is a buisness there and Bliz wants a cut.
@OP: I don't know what you've been playing, but the game I got to test was a real Diablo game in its essence, with some of the old mechanics (which look just stupid viewed from now) improved.
I also don't get the "UI is meant for consoles blah blah blah". This game isn't releasing on consoles.......is it?
I believe that they were looking for options to release it on consoles, much like how CD Projekt RED did it with The Witcher 2. First make it for the PC, then tune it down for a console release.
On the whole though, I don't get a lot of the negative arguments people list. The graphics aren't the best, that's true, but it enables a broader range of PC that can run the game. The aesthetics I personally really like. I've always been a fan of interactive environments. The destrucable terrain in Dawn of War 2 for example, while not really having a gameplay impact, helped to make the game alive. That's the same feeling I got in the Open Beta of Diablo 3. So many things can be destroyed/used, I really like it. Destroying lanterns makes light disappear, etc. Small things, but it's clear that Blizzard put a lot of detail in the game.
I saw a post in this thread that listed the absence of identity scrolls as a negative. Seriously? That stuff is redundant. Same goes for the townportal scrolls. I'm glad that they are gone. The crafting system is a welcome addition. It's a bit too simple perhaps, but I liked it. I only used the vendors in Diablo 1 & 2 for selling and once every blue moon they sold a nice item.
In my opinion Blizzard removed/changed a lot of the outdated things and improved on the core gameplay. The essence of Diablo, for me that is, is dungeon crawling, finding loot and just destroying wave after wave of monsters. Diablo 3 is pretty much that. At least for me. In these 13 levels I already did more varied attacks then I did in Diablo 2 for most of the game. For me it put the "action" back in this action-rpg series.
I've to admit though, that in my first hour I got the feeling that the game was really easy and that Blizzard just handed everything to the player without the player earning it. Then I realised that I never had to make two paladins, etc. because you can just switch specs. Skillpoint customization comes mostly in the form of gems, that you can equip to get the stats you want. You can also reset the questprogression, so can see the cutscenes etc. again. Personal loot in Co-Op and no bloody, silly "PvP" feature like in Diablo 2 sealed the deal for me. My last fear was that the Open Beta (more like demo) was very easy, but I will give Blizzard the benefit of doubt here.
The last negative argument that strikes me as weird, is that some people find the game "too bright/too light" compared to the last entries. Diablo 1 was dark, true. Diablo 2 however, wasn't. Act 3 was in a bloody jungle, fighting pigmies. So much for the "dark, gritty and scary" what some people label to Diablo 2. Unless you have a phobia for pigmies :P
funny thing is.. most people complainning will buy Diablo3, most not complainning already did.
put it in anyway you want to, Diablo3 will be a game played by loads of people, will be a game giving cash to a lot of people, and will be a game people will write about for a loooooooong time.
even me who like Path of Exile better might actually buy it.
Who's everyone? I admit, my expectations were pretty damn low, so I'm not too difficult to please.
"Every level, you get a new ability or a new upgrade for one of your abilities, and you will ALWAYS have every ability at max level."
- abilities do not have a level in this system. Never try to push mechanics of one system into another, it never works and makes you look stupid. There are no levels here. Just runes on abilities. Yes, every level you get new abilities or variations on them.
"The only thing that distinguises you from other players is gear."
- this is false simply because each player can only have 6 active skills + 3 passives at a time. The combinations of skills and passives will drastically differentiate players from each other.
Furthermore, in Nox, you can use ALL your abilities at the same time at all times. Nevertheless, Nox actually has "builds" (loadouts) simply because nobody can cast them at the same time (say a Wizard has ~50 skills). So even if you didn't have a limit on how many skills are available at a time, you'd still be wrong. Choices have to be made as to what skills take priority.
People have playstyles, or some have theories, and those will define what skills people chose to use. You can already see this in Guild Wars 2 which has a slightly similar system, except with far less variety, yet even there people manage to construct builds that differ from each other, such as a tanky flamethrowing engineer or a rifle-concentrated engineer or w/e.
"Switching out abilities gives you a 10 second (or thereabouts, not sure on the exact figure) cooldown on that ability, which means switching out abilities or having more than six active abilities is unfeasible, which can lead to situations where you get attacked and don't have the right ability for the situation."
- no, it means you actually have to create a build and stick with it instead of trying to exploit the system. This will be further reinforced by the Nephalem Buff in Inferno, but for now they let you play around. You're not supposed to have more than 6 abilities. I don't get how you can complain about this when you just said you can't choose your abilities.
"All this just feeds into having the easiest general loadout and spamming the attack until everything is dead, regardless of the situation."
- half the builds in DII consisted of spamming Frozen Orb or something. DIII actually has skills devoted to CC, movement, buffs/debuffs, etc., THAT YOU CAN AFFORD TO TAKE (without gimping your DPS). Wtf are you talking about? Wtf are you gonna spamm when you have a Nightmarish Molten elite putting you into a prison and surrounding you with a wall?
It seems you are actually very bad at understanding DIII's system and its consequences. That explains why you're unhappy with it.
"Of course, due to this, healing orbs are utterly useless, or at least could be better replaced by healing potion drops, and is a fine example of "lol wut are we meant to be doing again???"."
- orbs are useless? How the fuck is your only proper source of HP is useless (potions have a CD)? And how is forcing the player to chug chug chug potions anything other than an archaic mechanic that trivializes content since it's easy to be at full HP 24/7? You know, I'm just gonna stop reading there, the stupidity is too much. How the hell did your kind ever manage to get anywhere in DII? Oh, I get why. You read cookie cutter guides where everyone tells you what to do.
Who's everyone? I admit, my expectations were pretty damn low, so I'm not too difficult to please.
"Every level, you get a new ability or a new upgrade for one of your abilities, and you will ALWAYS have every ability at max level."
- abilities do not have a level in this system. Never try to push mechanics of one system into another, it never works and makes you look stupid. There are no levels here. Just runes on abilities. Yes, every level you get new abilities or variations on them.
"The only thing that distinguises you from other players is gear."
- this is false simply because each player can only have 6 active skills + 3 passives at a time. The combinations of skills and passives will drastically differentiate players from each other.
Furthermore, in Nox, you can use ALL your abilities at the same time at all times. Nevertheless, Nox actually has "builds" (loadouts) simply because nobody can cast them at the same time (say a Wizard has ~50 skills). So even if you didn't have a limit on how many skills are available at a time, you'd still be wrong. Choices have to be made as to what skills take priority.
People have playstyles, or some have theories, and those will define what skills people chose to use. You can already see this in Guild Wars 2 which has a slightly similar system, except with far less variety, yet even there people manage to construct builds that differ from each other, such as a tanky flamethrowing engineer or a rifle-concentrated engineer or w/e.
"Switching out abilities gives you a 10 second (or thereabouts, not sure on the exact figure) cooldown on that ability, which means switching out abilities or having more than six active abilities is unfeasible, which can lead to situations where you get attacked and don't have the right ability for the situation."
- no, it means you actually have to create a build and stick with it instead of trying to exploit the system. This will be further reinforced by the Nephalem Buff in Inferno, but for now they let you play around. You're not supposed to have more than 6 abilities. I don't get how you can complain about this when you just said you can't choose your abilities.
"All this just feeds into having the easiest general loadout and spamming the attack until everything is dead, regardless of the situation."
- half the builds in DII consisted of spamming Frozen Orb or something. DIII actually has skills devoted to CC, movement, buffs/debuffs, etc., THAT YOU CAN AFFORD TO TAKE (without gimping your DPS). Wtf are you talking about? Wtf are you gonna spamm when you have a Nightmarish Molten elite putting you into a prison and surrounding you with a wall?
It seems you are actually very bad at understanding DIII's system and its consequences. That explains why you're unhappy with it.
"Of course, due to this, healing orbs are utterly useless, or at least could be better replaced by healing potion drops, and is a fine example of "lol wut are we meant to be doing again???"."
- orbs are useless? How the fuck is your only proper source of HP is useless (potions have a CD)? And how is forcing the player to chug chug chug potions anything other than an archaic mechanic that trivializes content since it's easy to be at full HP 24/7? You know, I'm just gonna stop reading there, the stupidity is too much. How the hell did your kind ever manage to get anywhere in DII? Oh, I get why. You read cookie cutter guides where everyone tells you what to do.
I had a post for this thread, but u said it all. All i can say is:
Originally posted by Irus "The only thing that distinguises you from other players is gear." - this is false simply because each player can only have 6 active skills + 3 passives at a time. The combinations of skills and passives will drastically differentiate players from each other.
I agree with 95% of what you posted, but on this issue, I think that what the OP meant was that everything other than gear that distinguished you from another player, they could remove that distinction instantly by changing skills & runes. Sure your choice of 6 active and 3 passive skill might make your character play completely differently from my character of the same class - but give me one 10-second cooldown, and I can be identical to you.
What we have here feels a little like Guild Wars. Except at least GW made you return to town to rearrange skills, resetting your progress on an explorable zone or mission, you couldn't do it mid-adventure. And you had to gather skills to broaden your options - I thought D3 was going to use runes to achieve a similar effect, and was a little disappointed that the design was switched to all skills & runes simply being unlocked by levelling.
"The only thing that distinguises you from other players is gear."
- this is false simply because each player can only have 6 active skills + 3 passives at a time. The combinations of skills and passives will drastically differentiate players from each other.
I agree with 95% of what you posted, but on this issue, I think that what the OP meant was that everything other than gear that distinguished you from another player, they could remove that distinction instantly by changing skills & runes. Sure your choice of 6 active and 3 passive skill might make your character play completely differently from my character of the same class - but give me one 10-second cooldown, and I can be identical to you.
What we have here feels a little like Guild Wars. Except at least GW made you return to town to rearrange skills, resetting your progress on an explorable zone or mission, you couldn't do it mid-adventure. And you had to gather skills to broaden your options - I thought D3 was going to use runes to achieve a similar effect, and was a little disappointed that the design was switched to all skills & runes simply being unlocked by levelling.
That's only remotely right. GEMS will make the distinction. Even with the same gear, you might gem differently. When a level up gives you only a few stat points, and a top level gem gives you +58!!! to a stat, i think you and your identically geared friend can be different in a lot of ways. You can be a melee sorc, a tanking witchdoctor etc. if you gem for that. Yes, two people will be the same, those with exactly the same gear and exactly the same class and exactly the same gems and exactly the same skills and exactly the same... ok i'll stop now
To all the people that bitch without doing their research (and every other day there's a topic inflaming spirits on D3, either on "no customisation" or the RMAH), there's a mammoth post which kinda summarizes lots of info for you, from the US forums, it's been posted and re-posted, gonna do it again here:
"The only thing that distinguises you from other players is gear."
- this is false simply because each player can only have 6 active skills + 3 passives at a time. The combinations of skills and passives will drastically differentiate players from each other.
I agree with 95% of what you posted, but on this issue, I think that what the OP meant was that everything other than gear that distinguished you from another player, they could remove that distinction instantly by changing skills & runes. Sure your choice of 6 active and 3 passive skill might make your character play completely differently from my character of the same class - but give me one 10-second cooldown, and I can be identical to you.
What we have here feels a little like Guild Wars. Except at least GW made you return to town to rearrange skills, resetting your progress on an explorable zone or mission, you couldn't do it mid-adventure. And you had to gather skills to broaden your options - I thought D3 was going to use runes to achieve a similar effect, and was a little disappointed that the design was switched to all skills & runes simply being unlocked by levelling.
Not having to reroll to play a different playstyle sounds like progressive thinking in the genre. I can't believe people honestly want to have to reroll their character because they messed up a couple of points going into the game.
That system is ancient, let it go. It wasn't better having to walk up snow in 12 inches of snow - get over it.
Comments
And that's where all development money went into. Making sure the Real Money Auction House is as polished as possible.
This game has been in development for how many years? And still they had to scrap a ton of features in the end to get it out of the door!
But ofcourse the Real Money Auction House is perfectly polished and tested, so it works perfectly to fill those greedy Actvision Blizzard suits pockets nicely!
Had to make another post.
Boot up Diablo 2 and start the game new.
Compare that to Diablo 3 from 1-13 in the open beta.
You can't even compare the two Diablo 3 is so far improved it's not even funny.
The graphics look great for what they are.
People need to take off the rose tinted glasses man. Diablo 2 for it's time was great, but just trying to play it now makes me want to pull my hair out. It has not aged well.
D3 graphics are "good enough" and have a nice enough style that they will hold up for many, many years even as graphics improve more and more because the game isn't trying to look realistic. This is the same reason why WoW still looks good because it has great art direction.
I give creds to the Path of Exile creators. I like what they are doing, but I've played the game and it in no way, shape or form comes even close to comparing to D3.
I pretty much check this site out once a day for laughs because the amount of horse shit flying around here is mind boggling and provides a good head shaking chuckle.
Booting up Diablo 1 tonight.
Deal with it
"I will not play it nor any other MMO until they make it possible to obtain the best gear without forcing people to group up to do so." SwampRob
So instead of answering his legitimate questions, you accuse him of trolling. How typical. The UI works/looks just fine. It's clean and functional, and honestly works a HELL of a lot better than D2's UI. In fact, it's pretty much the standard PC ARPG UI that's been used for quite a while.
Just because it doesn't use lots of tiny icons & text doesn't mean its 'consolish'.
The only troll I see here is you.
It is not clean and it isn't very functional. It was designed for CONSOLES. Lol, you guys are too much. The name-calling gets silly real quick around here. If I'm a troll and a hater, I guess that would make you the fanbois. So, here you go fanboi...
The Skill UI
On the face of it, to a new player there is nothing amiss. 6 skill slots, 6 categories of skills that go in those slots. The process of skill swapping is relatively smooth if you follow Blizzard's intended usage: right click a slot, select a skill, select a rune, accept. When you unlock a new skill slot, you open up a new skill category. Eventually you will have six slots for the 6 categories of spells. Cool. Nice and simple.
Except that's wrong. This hand-held experience is hiding the underlying truth of the game. There are only 3 categories of spells: primary (cheap/generator damage), secondary (expensive/spender damage), and utility (everything else). These have been essentially shuffled into the 6 categories we have now.
The other truth that is being hidden is that you can put any skill in any slot. Your build is not restricted to the 6 arbitrary groups noted above. If you decide you want to use two skills from the same category, you might go looking for an option. But there's no reason someone *should* think that's even possible. The skill UI makes it quite clear how the game works (and it's wrong).
Once you do discover elective mode, you find that the UI experience is sacrificed at the altar of the default mode. Now that you have the capability of playing the game as it was designed (sigh) you find that it's extremely clumsy to take advantage of your new-found freedom.
There is no easy way to compare two skills that you don't put on your bar unless they happen to be in the same category. Paging through 6 categories to find one spell is extremely annoying. Much of the interface is unintuitive. Take moving spells between buttons, for example. Drag and drop works there, but not in the skill pane itself.
All of this is unnecessary pain. Either get rid of non-elective mode and streamline the UI, or give us a different UI for elective mode. You can achieve a guided experience for new players without straitjacketing everyone else.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Designed for consoles? I've asked you already "how so?" and you've repeatedly proven yourself unable to answer.
Diablo 2: left-click to move and primary attack, right-click for secondary attack, fkeys to use different skills. Diablo 3: left-click to move and primary attack, right-click for secondary attack, numeric keys to use different skills. Yep, totally changed in order to work on consoles, I see it clearly now.
OK, to be fair, you did give an explanation earlier of what you don't like about the graphics. "The graphics are not blended well and there's not enough edge contrast, colors blend together into a muddy pool. You can see it clearly in the environments." That's are area where I'll agree to disagree: Blizzard have stated that their aim is a low-contrast backdrop and a high-contrast foreground. The low-contrast backdrop does blend together into a somewhat blurred effect. Personally I like it, I think it has a painted feel to it. But I can understand that some wouldn't.The other stuff you said about the graphics ("cartoony", "not dark", "not sinister", "designed for kiddies") is transparently false based on what we've seen so far (first part of act 1) and almost certain to become even more false in later acts (based on the history of the previous Diablo games).
I will give a few reasons why D3 is great.
The character customization is you and how you want to play that avatar. Of course others will argue here that they can’t use specific weapons but the fact is, that in D2 many of those builds just could not get past NM. The developers are keeping you from play a gimped class. If this is a big issue then do go elsewhere because it will make better that you don’t play than find you’re so useless that no one will even play with you unless you stick to some form of the class you pick. The stats don’t matter as much as the loot so why waste time clicking on some useless stats anyway? If you really want to pump the stats then get the loot to change them. There are items in the game that double you stats. You are not tied down to any cookie cutter build that others are using because there is MORE freedom. Much more freedom than just making minor changes to your character.
Skills are useable through the game life because they are not fixed numbers but percentages of your weapon that you carry. Level 1 skill is still useful throughout the lifetime of gameplay. Your not doing enough damage then get a better weapon. Just because x skill look better than y skill does not mean it is since the rune may make x skill better than y skill through the progression until y rune is better than x rune.
Because of the first two paragraphs you will soon learn that swapping out skills and strategy play a bigger role in achieving the end game. Every skill of your class is situational. I hear many say the game is dumbed down but the truth is that your going to get your ass handed to you in inferno if you think one specific build (six skills and runes) is going be the end all. It starts easy and progressively more difficult because mobs get smarter, faster and tougher which requires a bit of thinking. It is not dumbed down people. God forbid they make a game different and require some though process.
Hardcore is now a challenge. When you die you don’t drop items and no one can loot you. I want it it challenging as do many other hardcore players. You can’t spam potions, town portals or alt+F4 you’re going to have to actually pay attention to what the hell you're doing. If HC is to difficult then play SC but please don’t ruin my HC by asking them to change it. I played D2 for almost 4 years, most being hardcore, and in my view they fixed the really shitty things wrong with the D2 HC game design. As a matter of fact, they fixed the things wrong with the game design period
Over all this game is going to be more challenging and more difficult than you think.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
No.
Google ability runes and figure it out. It's much deeper than you realize.
Shadow's Hand Guild
Open recruitment for
The Secret World - Dragons
Planetside 2 - Terran Republic
Tera - Dragonfall Server
http://www.shadowshand.com
I fail to see why this means that the UI was meant for consoles. So on one side, people can easily play the game without Elective Mode. For newcomers this is pretty much the best way to learn Diablo 3. Less chance that they end up with skills that don't build up discipline (as an example) and can't use their abilities anymore. Though I found myself a bit restricted when I played the Open Beta. Elective Mode sounds really nice to me. Yes, the UI is clearly build around the default option, but I can't imagine it gamebreaking in any way. Perhaps a minor hassle. Then again, I'm not planning to change all my skills every few minutes.
About the strange "it's meant for CONSOLES" argument, that's really weird. The default option is just the prefered, more balanced way of playing Diablo 3. Perfect for my dad
The Elective Mode is more for people like me, who like building characters and all. But because of the 6 trees you mentioned in your posts, this is totally NOT made for consoles. If I play on a console, I hate switching through all those menus. The less screens, the better.
Shadow's Hand Guild
Open recruitment for
The Secret World - Dragons
Planetside 2 - Terran Republic
Tera - Dragonfall Server
http://www.shadowshand.com
I like the game!
I really thing this game is going to hit on a lot of platforms. I wouldn't be surprised this game would be the first huge thing on smartphones. Android and IOS could be a great hit for this game. PC and Console versions are far from what a AAA game should be.
But hey... Bejewel is not a AAA game and I bet it has more play hours than Skyrim. There is a buisness there and Bliz wants a cut.
The complete game hasn't even been released yet. Not until the 15th of this month.
Speculation on what is wrong with the game based just on a beta version of the game.
I believe that they were looking for options to release it on consoles, much like how CD Projekt RED did it with The Witcher 2. First make it for the PC, then tune it down for a console release.
On the whole though, I don't get a lot of the negative arguments people list. The graphics aren't the best, that's true, but it enables a broader range of PC that can run the game. The aesthetics I personally really like. I've always been a fan of interactive environments. The destrucable terrain in Dawn of War 2 for example, while not really having a gameplay impact, helped to make the game alive. That's the same feeling I got in the Open Beta of Diablo 3. So many things can be destroyed/used, I really like it. Destroying lanterns makes light disappear, etc. Small things, but it's clear that Blizzard put a lot of detail in the game.
I saw a post in this thread that listed the absence of identity scrolls as a negative. Seriously? That stuff is redundant. Same goes for the townportal scrolls. I'm glad that they are gone. The crafting system is a welcome addition. It's a bit too simple perhaps, but I liked it. I only used the vendors in Diablo 1 & 2 for selling and once every blue moon they sold a nice item.
In my opinion Blizzard removed/changed a lot of the outdated things and improved on the core gameplay. The essence of Diablo, for me that is, is dungeon crawling, finding loot and just destroying wave after wave of monsters. Diablo 3 is pretty much that. At least for me. In these 13 levels I already did more varied attacks then I did in Diablo 2 for most of the game. For me it put the "action" back in this action-rpg series.
I've to admit though, that in my first hour I got the feeling that the game was really easy and that Blizzard just handed everything to the player without the player earning it. Then I realised that I never had to make two paladins, etc. because you can just switch specs. Skillpoint customization comes mostly in the form of gems, that you can equip to get the stats you want. You can also reset the questprogression, so can see the cutscenes etc. again. Personal loot in Co-Op and no bloody, silly "PvP" feature like in Diablo 2 sealed the deal for me. My last fear was that the Open Beta (more like demo) was very easy, but I will give Blizzard the benefit of doubt here.
The last negative argument that strikes me as weird, is that some people find the game "too bright/too light" compared to the last entries. Diablo 1 was dark, true. Diablo 2 however, wasn't. Act 3 was in a bloody jungle, fighting pigmies. So much for the "dark, gritty and scary" what some people label to Diablo 2. Unless you have a phobia for pigmies :P
funny thing is.. most people complainning will buy Diablo3, most not complainning already did.
put it in anyway you want to, Diablo3 will be a game played by loads of people, will be a game giving cash to a lot of people, and will be a game people will write about for a loooooooong time.
even me who like Path of Exile better might actually buy it.
Best idea of the thread.
_________________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.
- John Wooden
Who's everyone? I admit, my expectations were pretty damn low, so I'm not too difficult to please.
"Every level, you get a new ability or a new upgrade for one of your abilities, and you will ALWAYS have every ability at max level."
- abilities do not have a level in this system. Never try to push mechanics of one system into another, it never works and makes you look stupid. There are no levels here. Just runes on abilities. Yes, every level you get new abilities or variations on them.
"The only thing that distinguises you from other players is gear."
- this is false simply because each player can only have 6 active skills + 3 passives at a time. The combinations of skills and passives will drastically differentiate players from each other.
Furthermore, in Nox, you can use ALL your abilities at the same time at all times. Nevertheless, Nox actually has "builds" (loadouts) simply because nobody can cast them at the same time (say a Wizard has ~50 skills). So even if you didn't have a limit on how many skills are available at a time, you'd still be wrong. Choices have to be made as to what skills take priority.
People have playstyles, or some have theories, and those will define what skills people chose to use. You can already see this in Guild Wars 2 which has a slightly similar system, except with far less variety, yet even there people manage to construct builds that differ from each other, such as a tanky flamethrowing engineer or a rifle-concentrated engineer or w/e.
"Switching out abilities gives you a 10 second (or thereabouts, not sure on the exact figure) cooldown on that ability, which means switching out abilities or having more than six active abilities is unfeasible, which can lead to situations where you get attacked and don't have the right ability for the situation."
- no, it means you actually have to create a build and stick with it instead of trying to exploit the system. This will be further reinforced by the Nephalem Buff in Inferno, but for now they let you play around. You're not supposed to have more than 6 abilities. I don't get how you can complain about this when you just said you can't choose your abilities.
"All this just feeds into having the easiest general loadout and spamming the attack until everything is dead, regardless of the situation."
- half the builds in DII consisted of spamming Frozen Orb or something. DIII actually has skills devoted to CC, movement, buffs/debuffs, etc., THAT YOU CAN AFFORD TO TAKE (without gimping your DPS). Wtf are you talking about? Wtf are you gonna spamm when you have a Nightmarish Molten elite putting you into a prison and surrounding you with a wall?
It seems you are actually very bad at understanding DIII's system and its consequences. That explains why you're unhappy with it.
"Of course, due to this, healing orbs are utterly useless, or at least could be better replaced by healing potion drops, and is a fine example of "lol wut are we meant to be doing again???"."
- orbs are useless? How the fuck is your only proper source of HP is useless (potions have a CD)? And how is forcing the player to chug chug chug potions anything other than an archaic mechanic that trivializes content since it's easy to be at full HP 24/7? You know, I'm just gonna stop reading there, the stupidity is too much. How the hell did your kind ever manage to get anywhere in DII? Oh, I get why. You read cookie cutter guides where everyone tells you what to do.
I had a post for this thread, but u said it all. All i can say is:
+1
What we have here feels a little like Guild Wars. Except at least GW made you return to town to rearrange skills, resetting your progress on an explorable zone or mission, you couldn't do it mid-adventure. And you had to gather skills to broaden your options - I thought D3 was going to use runes to achieve a similar effect, and was a little disappointed that the design was switched to all skills & runes simply being unlocked by levelling.
T2 WoW colorfull neon cartoon graphics, and only 4 classes even less skills and loot then D3. <Gag> no Thanks
That's only remotely right. GEMS will make the distinction. Even with the same gear, you might gem differently. When a level up gives you only a few stat points, and a top level gem gives you +58!!! to a stat, i think you and your identically geared friend can be different in a lot of ways. You can be a melee sorc, a tanking witchdoctor etc. if you gem for that. Yes, two people will be the same, those with exactly the same gear and exactly the same class and exactly the same gems and exactly the same skills and exactly the same... ok i'll stop now
To all the people that bitch without doing their research (and every other day there's a topic inflaming spirits on D3, either on "no customisation" or the RMAH), there's a mammoth post which kinda summarizes lots of info for you, from the US forums, it's been posted and re-posted, gonna do it again here:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3811455085
Not having to reroll to play a different playstyle sounds like progressive thinking in the genre. I can't believe people honestly want to have to reroll their character because they messed up a couple of points going into the game.
That system is ancient, let it go. It wasn't better having to walk up snow in 12 inches of snow - get over it.
Ummm...we are in the early 21st century? So youre saying the game is modern. Your post is nothing more than a rant OP, no critical evaluation here.