Diablo 3

[Zyn]

http://www.diablofans.com/news/1216-dia ... tfix-list/

The word "hotfix" now means "nerf".

[Taylor]

Not suprised they nerfed Force Armour or Smoke Screen, nor that they fixed the infinite Spirit glitch.

Very suprised they nerfed Boon of Protection since without infinite spirit it wasn't actually that strong (and even with infinite Spirit it's not like Monks were OP). Apparently it's "ten-times over budget" but I've no idea how they would calculate that, though the Monks heals all having no scaling and being dead on arrival at level 60 may offer some clues.

[Algor]

Finished the game last night as... I think a level 32 monk on normal. Pretty good overall, though I definitely felt the first two acts were superior to the last two. I also felt most of the bosses were jokes, this is especially sad considering the bosses in WoW are really well designed with multiple stages and tactics. With the party I played with (myself + two others) I was the only one to get a legendary item (something like a level 9 monk fist weapon) in act 1. Then we started again on nightmare. Difficulty wise, this is what I wish the game would have been like the first time around, shame on you, difficulty locks.

[Sentura]

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,

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

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.

[Sentura]

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.

[-HP-]

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.

I agree, and it's not unique to Diablo3. Loads of games do this a lot, Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls, etc. It's such a fucking easy fix to! If played = don't repeat for x time.

[Taylor]

[Private]

*Stuff*

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?

[dux]

heh heh.

[selmitto]

":35eif7h9]

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.

I agree, and it's not unique to Diablo3. Loads of games do this a lot, Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls, etc. It's such a fucking easy fix to! If played = don't repeat for x time.

Agreed. It shouldn't be like the NPC always had something to say to me.

I already talked to him for hundreds of times. I already sold my items for him for hundreds of times. I know him, he knows me. He shouldn't open his mouth on every single interaction.

[Puddy]

You guys are so unthankful. I don't want to sell stuff to asocial mutes!

Blizzard worked their fingers to the bone to bring you these fine NPC-lines.

[selmitto]

You guys are so unthankful. I don't want to sell stuff to asocial mutes!

Blizzard worked their fingers to the bone to bring you these fine NPC-lines.

There is almost no blood on the items I sell.

[Taylor]

This is my inital reaction as well. The skill potential in Diablo caps out pretty fast – there are basically zones you shouldn’t stand in and that's it. If you’re melee things are a bit tricker because you have to navigate through these zones or coax enemies out of them, but after 60 hours you're pretty good at "don't stand in green cloud." As you go forwards what really gets harder is the numbers (except, again, for abilities like Monk heals).

I was going to write that the game “turns into Disgaea” which is all about just making insanely powerful characters with rather limited strategy. But it’s not really like Disgaea because that game has an insane number of ways to boost your statitics. Diablo has two: random drops and - dun dun duuuuun - the Auction House.

[Erratic]

It's not a fair comparison, Dark Souls has a combat system. Diablo has

[Sentura]

It's not a fair comparison, Dark Souls has a combat system. Diablo has

i'm sure there is a joke in here