Diablo 3

    Ok, this is crazy shit. The art of Act 5 is amazing. HP, you gotta give us an art breakdown once the game is out bro! All the new changes really save this game. I'm going to call it! Because adventure mode kicks ass. I like the Crusader class even better than the Barbarian. I'm at level 10, so it's a bit early, but I'm loving it so far. Doing bounties and stuff. I'm going to go to do my first Nephalem Rift now. This is the Diablo I wanted man!

    You guys ask, Sprony delivers:


    I might repeat some stuff I said earlier and some minor things could be spoiled. Be warned!


    Adventure Mode:


    When I started I made a new Crusader character and choose the campaign option. I started in Act 1 and I immediately got nightmares due to horrible story and retarded quests of the original. I quit because I never want to play through that again. I decided to select adventure mode. The first thing you notice is the changes they made to the difficulty settings. No longer are you forced to finish each difficulty level. Instead you can immediately choose between normal, hard and expert. Master and torment have to be unlocked. Made the wrong choice? Don't worry. You can lower the difficulty setting during the game or you can change the Paragon levels to give you a bigger challenge. It also let's you switch between characters effortlessly and the entire thing is very customizable. In adventure mode you have access to the entire map of each act. All way-points are immediately accessible and you can jump to any point you want in the game and start going at it.


    Bounties:


    On the map you will find different bounties which seem to change each time you play. These bounties consists of assignments like killing a boss, completing an event or clearing a dungeon. You can jump between bounties throughout all acts. You don't have to finish them. You can abort anytime. Completing them will give you loot and experience points. This mode takes away a lot of the repetitiveness and completely avoids Diablo's story.


    Nephalem Rifts:


    Completing bounties results in unlocking keys for Nephalem Rifts. These are basically loot runs or boss runs from Diablo 2. They teleport you to a special dungeon which is completely randomized. It looks nothing like the usual maps found throughout the acts and event the enemies and bosses are random. Once you start you get a progression bar which fills up after slaying monsters. As soon as you hit 100% a random boss appears. After defeating the boss you can find more loot and earn experience.


    Loot 2.0:


    This is a completely different system than regular Diablo 3. Remember all those useless items? Gone! Remember having a ton of stuff for classes you don't play? Gone! Instead the drops are tailored to the class you are playing. In 15 levels I only found 3 items which couldn't be used by my crusader. Also, you don't get flooded with items anymore. You'll find little items with no color, you'll find blue items that actually advance as your character progresses and the yellow items are more valuable to you. I managed to acquire a better set of stuff for my character than I ever had in Diablo 3.


    Crusader:


    This class kicks ass. It's basically Dante from Dante's Inferno. You get a lot of cool skills and runes and you'll feel like a total bad ass while playing. Think of it as mix between the Barbarian and Paladin class from Diablo 2. I don't want to spoil any skills but you'll love it.


    Gameplay:


    This is more of the same which is a good thing. Especially with the changes mentioned above. The only thing that sticks out is the increase amount of random events. Which in turn brings more variety to all the hack and slashing. Act 5 is drop dead gorgeous and far more dark and macabre than the original game.


    Questions? Feel free to ask!

    Level Select is an curious feature to add to a traditionally story-based game. Bounties and Nephalem Rifts (which are completely independent and could easily appear in campaign?) sound infinitely more fun than grinding cow levels.

    Quote from SpronyvanJohnson

    Instead the drops are tailored to the class you are playing. In 15 levels I only found 3 items which couldn't be used by my crusader.


    What? I think this is a bit shit. Part of the fun of Diablo was hording items for your other characters and pimping them out.


    Do you still get random drops that aren't good for your character?

    Quote from PogoP

    What? I think this is a bit shit. Part of the fun of Diablo was hording items for your other characters and pimping them out.


    Do you still get random drops that aren't good for your character?

    I can see your point. But I for one am glad I flooded with crap I don't need

    Haven't experienced that yet.

    Received an invite today and I can't wait to check out the new features! I am really excited about the customisation and transmogrification. How have you experienced it so far Sprony?

    Just finished playing for about 2 hours and I am definitely liking the changes thusfar. The loot is far more interesting as they mostly have stats that are relevant to my class.
    I copied over my Wizard that had a critical mass build and that the way I played before no longer works in the beta. This is actually very nice and gets me to experiement with my skills in order to survive.

    Enchanting and Transmogrification:

    Basically you select an item you want to enchant and select a stat you're not interested in and pay approx 30k gold to exchange it for another random stat.
    You get to choose between two options. This could potentially increase the amount of upgrades you can find. Downside is this stuff gets soulbound after doing so.
    After this it was time to dye and transmogrify my gear. Again very simple system where you place your item in the slot and pay (currently 500g) to get another look. You get to choose between a bunch of options. I managed to make my Wizard look pretty bad ass imho.
    [Blocked Image: http://dennisgriesheimer.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Wizard.jpg]

    Nephalem Rifts:

    Every now and then you get a Rift keystone from a slain enemy. These stones can unlock random instances where you have to defeat many enemies till the bar reaches 100% before the boss is accesible. Lots of loot and experience. They can take up a lot of time though.

    Stats and Paragon levels:

    You can now change some stat points in a few categories when clicking on the Paragon level button in the inventory. The way damage and armor is displayed has also changed.
    It is replaced with toughness. Also the damage on items has been changed to percentages instead of flat numbers. This makes looking at higher items a bit easier.
    (instead of a new weapon doing 3000 dps more it is now displayed as 1% increase over what you currently have).

    Im still scraping the surface here but overall impressions are good.

Participate now!

Don’t have an account yet? Register yourself now and be a part of our community!

Register Yourself Login