Posts by Sentura

  • Diablo 3

    i always find it funny when people mention him for humorous value. pretty much every game i've played that he has reviewed i agree with; why? because he consistently points out logical flaws in those games.

    also lol @ skjalg, still defending his blizzard

    disclaimer: no offense to blizzard employees, though i'm sure if you guys were in charge, you'd do a better job at designing the systems in this game. i have no quarrel with the departments in this matter, i only have a quarrel with the designers/producers/directors

  • Diablo 3

    videos are absolutely spot on with everything. i also agree on the narrative, though in some parts, it really shows that it had such potential to be better. examples:

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    tyreal, fallen angel. brilliantly thought out, poorly executed. diablo, rising this time from a female form, HAS FEMALE ASPECTS (look at the cinematic walk animation, no male would walk like that)

    .

    to me these, among others, were hints that at least one person on the diablo team knew that there was something worth going for in terms of story, but then got shat on by basically whoever the fuck was in charge of the production. i'm getting reminded of that guy who removed dialogue from garfield in some of the garfield strips, which made the comic much more interesting.

    Quote from Taylor

    I also found the amount of environments pretty lacklustre. The Cathedral being gigantic for no reason was okay because it was filled with some nice interactive objects and monster spawners, but when you're just doing miles of sewer, ruins, ramparts and cellars you get bored pretty fast. I honestly can't remember what Diablo 2 was like in this regard, but I know I dread playing through act 3 again.

    i actually came to this thread to post this as an addendum; even though i sort of referred to it before (by saying acts weren't memorable). for me, act 2 and 4 were definitely the most invigorating to play through, because they had strong thematic references. act 1 felt like it was planted there, because TRISTRAM LOL, WE GOTTA REFERENCE THAT and not much else.

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    the fucking coven sound like a bunch of dipshits running around not really doing anything; there is no narrative that really explains what else they do or where they come from other than just being thrown into the whole CULTS ARE BAD deal. ok so some of them are vessels that turn into demons, fair do, but the rest really have nothing going for them.

    act 3 feels out of place because you're going from one type of desert to the next. the environment is still barren, but this time you're stuck in a fort that apparently is the size of a fucking major present day city, counting all the areas you're getting into. the barren land worked for act 5 in diablo 2 because there was a narrative progression about it. you were constantly going in and out of a huge fucking mountain, which allowed both for foothills as the main areas, and caves that CONTRASTED said foothills. still, act 5 was probably the worst act in terms of art and narrative direction. i was actually going through my head here while thinking about this, and i kept coming back to the reasoning behind act 3 was

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    asmodan needing to be a warlord over some epic army, and the only place in the game world they could realistically carry this out, would be somewhere as open and barren as where the barbarians lived (having looked at the map)

    . but then i thought, this guy is a lord from hell. narratively, he is strong and influential as fuck. so why the fuck does he push his minions over a vast barren, cold, crate-like wasteland just to get to a fucking fort at the end of it? wouldn't his troops be in better shape if he deployed them closer, or failing that, created CAMPS closer to the fort? in the cinematic for act 5 in d2, baal goes straight up to whatever town there is and gives no fucks about killing some elder trying to protect it, yet in d3 asmodan choses to sit on his venerable fat ass and lets his half-assed legion do his work for him. and this guy is supposed to be a master tactician and strategist? scoot over genghis khan, you got nothing on this guy.

    anyway, even when they went through with this direction, they could have made it more influenced by him.

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    the inside of the mountain or cave or whatever the hell you're inside at the end of the act for the most part is just generic CAVE, with a little bit of demonic influence in parts. with how far his troops have spread, and arguably by that his influence as well, how haven't the outskirts of the cave turned into something along the lines of act 4 in d2?

    i mean, that would be a change of scenery that would actually mean something narratively; namely, that asmodan isn't just a lard ass sitting inside a cave waiting for his minions to do his dirty work, like the dr. robotnik of the diablo universe, but that his power corrupts the world around him.

    with this sort of direction going on, and a lot more focus on asmodan's INFLUENCE, act 3 would definitely feel a lot less tedious than it does. but, honestly, what d3 needed as an interim act would be something along the lines of act 3 in d2. why: GREEN scenery. urban planners don't put fucking parks everywhere because they don't make a difference, but because PEOPLE FUCKING LOVE parks and trees and all that shit. act 3 in d2 was a respite from the desert that was act 2 (and even though i seriously LOVE desert themes, they do need to be contrasted properly), both in terms of environment, but also in terms of how the act progressed. lut gholein was a friendly city that was overcome with problems, whereas the "city" in act 3 is whoever the fuck escaped down to the docks before the main, major city fell to corruption. and i mean, this is in no way the best narrative or environment ever, but what it produces from how the parts are pieced together (by the player, mind you, not by the game) is an involving experience. and even when you're on your 60th playthrough of the game, and the narrative feels much less involving, the contrast of the environment and the experience STILL STANDS.

    you know, i kind of expected that blizzard would screw diablo 3 over, because i knew blizzard and blizzard north were studios with very different ways of handling direction. what surprised me though, was how much they didn't cater to the original playerbase of diablo 1 and 2. however you look at it, this game wasn't made with those people in mind as the major demographic group - it was made to serve as an introduction to the diablo universe for fans of blizzard that came after world of warcraft. everything is set up so that a world of warcraft player would have an easy time adapting, without thinking too much about skill or whatever. or, actually, without thinking too much at all. i'm gonna go back to saying that the best people employed at blizzard are their business strategists and marketers, because they sure as hell know how to make a great product for their demographics. but then, as seen here once again, a great product doesn't necessarily mean a great game.

  • Diablo 3

    Quote from Skjalg

    lol so much hate.I think diablo 3 is fucking awesome. There is no such thing as insta kill bosses on normal, its just you being shit at the game

    edit, ofcourse you get instagibbed if you dont equip what drops or if you dont move when the warning signs appear.

    keep living in denial bro.

  • Diablo 3

    yeah pardon me for thinking the game scales linearly, just like its predecessor would. but, i obviously wasn't speaking for nightmare hell or inferno difficulties, just from what i've experienced in normal. the only times i died was either at instakill bosses (1 hit was more than my entire life total), or due to lag (which seems very prevalent, esp. when entering new areas).

  • Diablo 3

    Quote from Taylor

    Everyone else is saying how unfairly hard it is and you're saying how easy it is. You also haven't unlocked half your skills. And blues outclass yellows mainly due to ilvl scaling (which is an inferno thing).Normal difficulty is a non-event. This isn't a good thing, but a lot of your complaints are addressed on harder difficulties. Then there are the real problems.

    i dont know how you got i was the only one who thinks it's too easy. i mean you said yourself normal isn't hard. i'm guessing whoever made that video was right, but personally i just don't have any incentive to play on. drops aren't exciting, so bosses aren't exciting, and once you've played through normal you have the entire story. this is one of those games i wish i couldve taken back.

  • Diablo 3

    Quote from Vilham

    I killed diablo at lunch today so im hoping their are item sets in nightmare, because so far ive been very disappointed with just blue and yellow items. In diablo 2 there were a bunch of rarities and sets it was fucking great, gave you a goal to try and get a whole set for the benefits.Also the skill system in 2 was far superior.

    my sentiments exactly

  • Diablo 3

    Quote from Private

    Did you consider playing a hardcore character? I mean, you are complaining that your character can't fail in any way, when you have made it so.

    The boss battles are tame, I agree. Hardcore helps.

    I don't understand your problem with the items. You are presented with an endless steam of randomized junk, and you have to pick out the things that are good. Would your loot be better if it was orange? The added pressure of staying alive makes loot much more important. Hardcore helps.

    I would have liked a skill tree - I would have liked to have been forced to chose, but I think it's somewhat unfair to claim that the skill system is "missing complexity". Firstly, the lack of info is an interface thing, there's an option (off by default) that will tell you rather nicely how much damage you can expect from your skills. Secondly, I don't understand how you can claim that there are no synergies. Synergies are not passive, as they were in D2, and rarely explicit. But are you claiming that all combinations of skills work equally well? With different gear? Others players? Come now, you are smarter than that. The synergies in D3 are subtle, found in the interplay between your active skills (and those of other players). The synergies in D2 were explicit and static because you were limited to two active skills. If you just "sit and right or left click with just a single skill" in D3, you are hardly unleashing your full potential?

    i did actually consider it, but being that lag spikes are sudden and extremely deadly for my character, i chose not to. i can't count on one hand the times the game felt like lagging just as i was entering an area with a lot of creatures.

    the thing about items is that apart from rares and magic items being very close to each other in terms of what they do for your overall item build, is that it just doesn't feel like there's a major effect from them. of course it's about picking the best loot and continuously updating it, but it's gotten to the point where i'm constantly salvaging rare items simply because they are useless in comparison to the magic items i can get my artisan to craft. this is not what i wanted from a diablo game.

    also i don't know what you are referring to with orange items. crafted for d2? or some reference to world of warcraft?

    as for the skill system: look up how guild wars did a similar system that works much much better. i spent hundreds of hours making different skill builds in guild wars because the synergies were subtle or hidden, but were extremely powerful once found.

    i'm aware of that there are synergies in d3 as well, but those i've found seem more like i'm breaking the game using them than something that is actually intended for use. for instance, i'm using a mantra on my monk that costs a lot of spirit to use while using the passive that gives me life every time i use spirit. so basically i get a 50% heal at no cooldown for a resource i get back in 2 or 3 hits.

    as for synergies being passive - by synergies i didn't mean what they implemented in path 1.10 with the yadda yadda "skill this up to get +% in another skill". i actually meant using skills together (like rolling over function keys to get the different skills), which i used to do a lot. the thing about the limit of just having 2 skills at once allowed for some creative ways of cutting past the system, and let the game depend more on timing and skill than just having a button that instantly heals you infinitely much at no cost.

  • Diablo 3

    i almost forgot to mention the repeated lines of the merchant NPCs. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST CAN YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP I DONT WANT TO HEAR YOU SAY TEH SAME THING EVERY TIME IM COMING TO YOU TO SELL MY SHIT.

  • Diablo 3

    so i finally got to check it out past deadlines and shit. i'm gonna try the warby approach for this

    + looks decent, albeit the choice of art style really feels like it's limiting how good the game could look

    + plot is fairly interesting,

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    i was gonna say it sucked that they gave an angel a face, but after watching the act 1 end cinematic, it makes a lot of sense and gives more depth to the characters

    + DESERT LEVELS

    + boss cinematics

    + better at showing player progression than D2 (in-game)

    + overall production values are high

    + somewhere around 25-50% feeling of nostalgia, explained below:

    - skill tree system. i thought this was bad in the beta, but i thought i'd give blizzard the benefit of doubt until release. it's still badly designed. the way unlocks work and how skills aren't synergizing with each other really makes me not want to play the game. i didn't buy this game just so i could sit and right or left click with just a single skill during the entire game. adding to that is that there is little customization or addition between the skills, and no numbers on the skills showing what exactly they do, which really removes the metagame of min-maxing the game to a personal level.

    the funny thing is that guild wars actually made a better version of this system years back, so it seems like whoever the game designer(s) on this project were, really were unable to work with what they're given. they could easily have made the game skill/attribute based and made attributes and/or skills be respeccable.

    - no visible mapping between skills and equipment. i'm playing as a monk, a class that has a restricted weapon type specifically made for monks, yet whenever i equip and use it, all i use is my hands instead. it's actually breaking immersion for me so much that i'm avoiding using staff based weaponry because it removes a lot from the overall game experience.

    - items, item stats and rarity. i don't know if this is because of the auction house for real money thing, but drops seem much less interesting now. it's almost always magic items that drop regardless of MF%, and the rares are rarely better than a good magic item. i have yet to find one unique item, which is also all kinds of bullshit.

    - acts feel less memorable. while the cinematics are really enjoyable to watch, what happens between them seems really boring. the quests are boring, and there's a general thing of just too much fucking around. in D2 there was a clear major objective (save cain/horadric staff/khalim's flail/soulstone) in each act. there is no such thing here, and that definitely affects how it is remembered.

    - boss battles. yeah it seems entirely reasonable that

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    some king built an arena with fucking fire coming out of the floor. it's entirely reasonable to expect a demon to be summoned in that exact arena, AND that he can manipulate said fucking arena.

    NOT.

    - no pvp. i used to enjoy playing iron man runs with others in hardcore mode, but i guess that's coming somewhere within the next 2 years.

    - feels too casual. everything is just so dumbed down that it feels like the game has no depth. it seems like no matter what i do i can't make my character fail in any way, which makes the game uninteresting because i'm at all times certain that i'm doing well enough to complete the game, given enough time to complete the often tedious quests. also, health shrines and healing skills are so prevalent that i barely ever use healing pots anymore. and there's no resistance measurement. fuck.

    so, in summary ill rate it like 4.5/10. good production values, but too casual/streamlined, missing complexity from earlier games, and almost no uncertainty of how you will proceed in the game. it's almost like they didn't want us to play the game, but just to go through it and watch the cinematics.

  • Prometheus

    3d is the worst bullshit gimmick ever invented, hands down. words can't describe how pissed off i get when i have to take off my 3d glasses because i'm getting headaches from watching a movie with them