Author Topic: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...  (Read 64885 times)

[Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« on: April 23, 2012, 04:11:37 AM »
... who's going to take an occasional break from DotA 2 and buy the game for this?  :D

I'm sure there'll be a horde of monks and possibly several server crashes based on the open beta, but that's not going to stop me from playing one either. Having played the open beta and leveling a monk and a wizard to 13, I have the following observations.

Easy stuff...
1. Difficulty level - about the same as Diablo 2's, i.e. piss easy in the first 1/3 of normal difficulty Act 1, which is where the open beta took place. The Skeleton King is the equivalent of the Countess both in placement within the act, and roughly in terms of difficulty as well. The monk and the barbarian, which my brother played, both have no issues crushing him without so much as quaffing a single potion.  Btw can we just call the Skeleton King Leoric now? This is about as spoilerish as saying that Anakin becomes Darth Vader. But from what I've seen, the game has the potential to get much harder later on with the different mods that mobs can spawn with.

2. Presentation - Yeah it looks like a cross between WoW and SC2. Not a bad thing mind you, but you do need a computer that can handle SC2 decently. For the record, my jurassic 8 year old Core 2 Duo desktop handles fine at max HD res when running fullscreen windowed mode. It runs Windows 7 64-bit with 4gb ram and an nVidia 8600GT for reference. Diablo is the sort of game where better graphics, complete with fog and weather effects and good contrast/lighting, does lend a lot to the game, especially so in conjunction with the well-done orchestral ambient music within which you'll recognize Tristram's theme. Sometimes you can spot where Blizzard got lazy and re-used the same soundbites from D2, but who cares if it suits the game right? Quest presentation feels more organic despite their linearity because NPCs brief you along the way, and transition between areas is a lot smoother than D2X's, probably all pre-loaded during the course of the game.  Monsters climb up from cliff edges, rush out from bushes or dark areas, etc. It all makes the game world feel that much more alive. The ambience is a lot closer to D1 than D2 was.

Right along to the more important parts...
3. Gameplay - Controversial. Personally I feel that skill trees have been oversimplified - there are none now. You no longer need to choose whether to take Lightning Bolt now, or save that skill point for something else, nor need to assign any stat points (they're automatically assigned on level up). There's also no more quick-switching of skills. You get a signature skill on your left-click which is free to cast, an active on the right-click which uses up your class-specific resource, both of which can be augmented by runes which you will also get at pre-determined levels, and 4 special skills (in different categories) to assign to hotkeys. Skills on cooldown cannot be swapped and upon swapping, they automatically go into cooldown, so you'll have to plan ahead which skills you want to bring to a fight, e.g. when having 2 monks in a party, it might be useful to have one that blinds enemies and the other on healing duty since they both use the same hotkey slot. There IS some customization though, in the form of passive skills - learning some will preclude the learning of others. So yeah, gameplay has been simplified and streamlined to the point where you mostly just need to left-click and occasionally, right-click. Well, you can get followers (mercs from D2), of which only the templar is available in the beta, and if you're bored of left-clicking mobs to death (the wizard will want to right-click more), you can talk to them :x

4. ITAMZ PLZ - Too early to tell. With limited mods on a limited number of items available in the beta, I couldn't find many good things while exploring and even running Leoric for a day netted me all of a frickin' rare belt for the monk which he dropped as a quest reward. Crafting however seems to be where it's at. The crafting system is very similar to Hellgate: London's (one of the very few things that game got right). You can salvage magic and rare items, breaking them down into parts which you can then use to craft other items at a cost. You'll have to train your blacksmith/artisan up (costs gold) to gain access to new recipes. For what it's worth, some of the mods that I've seen on the early magic weapons are much more significant than the stupid +1 light radius mods that we used to see in D2. Despite that, expect your fair share of cracked sashes.

5. Systems - Loot is personal now. Your loot remains yours and cannot be picked up by others. Teleporting to party members involves just clicking on their banner in town. Before starting a quest, the game will send a message to everyone asking if they'd like to be a part of it. Responding with a yes teleports you to the quest area and starts it for the party. There's a 1 minute timer on the invitation. If not, you'll be excluded from the quest and cannot get the reward/drop even if you walk into the area and strike the boss. Stash and gold is shared, as is the blacksmith/artisan.

It currently feels like D2X with some of D1's atmosphere and with graphics done right. Well it feels good enough for me to buy if it's not stupidly expensive like SC2 was (and I still bought that, wtf?) and play through at least once, and possibly go online with it again. Whether it will stand the test of time as D2/D2X did though, I don't know.
« Last Edit: April 23, 2012, 04:16:05 AM by ApharmdB »

Amraphenson

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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2012, 04:20:07 AM »
Not a fan of the oversimplification I'm hearing, but probably gonna buy it anyway.
Sugoiiii~
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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #2 on: April 23, 2012, 05:09:41 AM »
sorry can't read.

I'm planning to be either a witch doctor or a demon hunter, and of course I'm going to buy the game.


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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #3 on: April 23, 2012, 06:29:47 AM »
Pre-ordered my copy month ago. I managed to get into the game yesterday to test out my sorcerer.

Visuals - Well. I expected bit more detail in this game. This all looks bit vague and texture do not look very sharp. Sure, the rest of the areas have been done nicely and I guess there is enough that pleases the eye. Though they took so long to produce this game, they better be having promising things. Else it is just going to be another Duke Nuke em forever thing.

Gameplay - Who ever designed "walk over loot to collect" is an idiot. I hope you can turn this off (haven't looked whether I could). Because nobody wants to pickup every single item that drops from mobs. Movement through areas seems smooth, your original left/right click thing. Though I have to heavily agree on the skill tree thing.  I cannot believe they would do this. Guess it is to please the coolkidzzz these days.

Feels to me that Diablo3 is rushed. We all know how awesome 3rd episode of games/movies are. But I guess the full game will tell.

Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #4 on: April 23, 2012, 09:03:49 AM »
What about Battle.Net
Server connections. Can everyone play with everyone or is it like SC2 region shit. Noone wants to play with 80% russians on the servers

Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #5 on: April 23, 2012, 11:25:17 AM »
It uses Battle.Net 2, which is the same system as SC2, so there is the very real, stinking possibility of region-locking. I hope not though. The beta was somewhat region-locked in the "Korea / Rest of the World" sense, so cross your fingers. Unless you live in South Korea.

I didn't think the auto-collection of loot was that bad. Not sure if it can be turned off, but it only seems to work on gold and those health globes anyway. To be fair, most of the last decade was probably spent milking the WoW cow and since that's going to dry up eventually, they have to look for some other cow. COWS. OGOD. *looks at resident cow*

I read Blizzard's justification for their mutilation of the skill trees and while it might make sense from the money-making perspective, I really don't like how game companies are going down this "catering to the lowest common denominator" route. There had better be some damn compelling end-game content to make up for the potential boredom of a left-click farmfest. At least I'll be playing through it for the story (I'm weird that way) once, possibly with all classes. Beyond that, we'll see. :P

Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #6 on: April 23, 2012, 10:42:43 PM »
eh i think ill have to pass on diablo3, guildwars2 is more my cup of tea

Edible

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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #7 on: April 23, 2012, 11:28:50 PM »
It uses Battle.Net 2, which is the same system as SC2, so there is the very real, stinking possibility of region-locking. I hope not though. The beta was somewhat region-locked in the "Korea / Rest of the World" sense, so cross your fingers. Unless you live in South Korea.

DIII is region-free (it defaults to your base region but you can set it to play in other regions if you choose).  However, the real money auction house is region-locked.

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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #8 on: April 24, 2012, 12:41:32 AM »
I ordered a copy after the open beta weekend, expecting a mediocre game.
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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #9 on: April 24, 2012, 08:18:41 AM »
not sure if i should excited or not...
gonna see if you guys enjoyed the game or not first
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Pesco

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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #10 on: April 24, 2012, 08:21:27 AM »
It's looking too build-restricted for me to like. I'll just keep at it with D2.

CloverNaght

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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #11 on: April 24, 2012, 08:24:47 AM »

Gameplay - Who ever designed "walk over loot to collect" is an idiot. I hope you can turn this off (haven't looked whether I could). Because nobody wants to pickup every single item that drops from mobs. Movement through areas seems smooth, your original left/right click thing. Though I have to heavily agree on the skill tree thing.  I cannot believe they would do this. Guess it is to please the coolkidzzz these days.

Feels to me that Diablo3 is rushed. We all know how awesome 3rd episode of games/movies are. But I guess the full game will tell.
what the heck....srsly?
if that only applies to golds scattered on the floor then i like it but for items?!?
EDIT : nvm apharmdb alr stated that autoloot only works for golds and health globes
« Last Edit: April 24, 2012, 08:28:42 AM by AkurouNyan~ »
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CadrinHaverit

Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #12 on: April 24, 2012, 09:05:50 AM »
About the restrictions of skills: eh it seems to me that there no longer are any useless skills like some of those available in Diablo II, meaning there is no longer a way to mess up your character completely and you don't have to strategize much about allocation of skill points anymore.

Diablo III felt simpler in every way possible than Diablo II, but it got rid of most of the bullspit present in the first game, like useless modifiers (light radius, as mentioned here already, being a prime example), counter-intuitiveness, uselessness of gold, various sizes of items, forcing you to play a game of Tetris every time you wanted to maximize the amount of room available in your inventory, and got plenty of neat features like being able to convert your game to online game at any time, autopick for gold and health globes, no keys, scrolls of identification, talismans, scrolls of town portal that all used to clutter up your inventory.

Me gusta so far. The game is crazy expensive at the moment, but I think I'll pre-order it anyway.
« Last Edit: April 24, 2012, 09:11:33 AM by Cadrin »

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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #13 on: April 24, 2012, 09:15:58 AM »
I too played the beta and I had some mixed feelings... The game is painfully easy, I mean I completed the entire beta without ever using a single potion, and never seeing my healthbar fall below 3/4 full, it's THAT easy.  The oversimplification of the leveling and customization is also bullcrap. Given how easy the game is, and how simple the customization is, wtf is there challenge? It's like, run around, click to win.

Fortunately, the beta was really short, and it's possible that they make the difficulty scale as you get further in the game (before you say duh, I found 2 didn't actually do this much excluding a jump at the start of act 3, and another during the start of act 5, which magically gets easier as soon as you reach indoor areas).
The item crafting was excellent, and the autoloot (only works for gold and pots for me too) was a godsend. It's like the game is more polished by far, but the actual depth of the game is a joke...

I'm honestly rather nervous about what the end result will be, having an online auction house thingie isn't really turning me on either. I'll honestly be absolutely floored if I find it's better than titanquest though, I really don't see why anybody prefers D2 over it.

Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #14 on: April 24, 2012, 11:25:14 AM »
Diablo3 rushed what?

Edible

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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #15 on: April 24, 2012, 05:33:19 PM »
It's looking too build-restricted for me to like. I'll just keep at it with D2.

It's the opposite of build-restricted, though. <_<

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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #16 on: April 28, 2012, 10:48:41 AM »
Oversimplified gameplay puts me off. I don't get why they did that too well, but oh well. I'd still think it looks quite worthwhile to buy it, but then again in Australia things are overpriced to hell (100$ AUD for SC2 on release orz and it's still something like 70$).

@Helepolis:

>blizzard game
>rushed
lolusrs?

Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #17 on: April 29, 2012, 12:06:57 PM »
Count me in on the "Diablo 3 rushed. What?" crowd. Sorry Hele. :P



SC2 went for $90 over here. Bought it, played through the decent single player campaign once, tried out SOTIS, then realized I'm probably done with the game. For some reason I never had it in me for any more RTS games after WC3.

I'd withhold judgement on the depth of the game for now, as well as its difficulty level. I mean, Leoric's supposed to be the equivalent of Blood Raven, or that boss in Tamoe Highlands in Act 1, in D2 parlance and let's face it, D2's Act 1 Normal wasn't any more difficult.

I wanna know how mod-friendly D3 would be though. So far it's not looking good at all in that direction... *thinks of Touhou mods for D3* *realizes Blizzards ass-tastic track record in mods* *okay....*

Ghaleon

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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #18 on: April 29, 2012, 03:17:11 PM »
Hele didnt say it was rushed, just that it FELT rushed, and to be frank, the way they just went "too hard, bubleted" with all forms of level customization, i can see where he's coming from.

I dunno where you read king leoric is supposed to be the equivilent of blood raven, he certainly drops loot like a final act boss. Not saying he IS a final act boss, but i certainly think hes supposed to be more than blood raven.
Last, im not sure what "asstastic" means, like, it sounds negative, but blizzard games are normally very moddable. Both diablo 1 and 2 had modding communities only trumped bu elder scrolls, and sc 1,2 and warcraft 3 all have great map editors with their own scripting languages for you. Hell, even WoW is relatively mod-friendly as far as mmos go (ui only for obvious reasons).

Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #19 on: April 29, 2012, 03:40:09 PM »
King Leoric being the equivalent of Blood Raven or that Tamoe Highland boss is in reference to his position within the act. He's definitely not the Act 1 boss and it's stated on the BNet fora that he's only at the 1/3 mark or so within Act 1.

And honestly, modding Blizzard games is about as great an experience as eating glass. I tried my hand at modding D2 a long time ago and am currently editing the DotS map and honestly, with my experience in modding other engines (Source and the UT engines), I'd rather not do this again. The number of bugs in D2 and WC3 that modders have to work around is astounding. People develop entire systems to get around them. To me at least, availability of modding tools != moddable. Hammer has a very steep learning curve, but generally what you make in it works. In WC3, it's pretty much a crapshoot because until now there're still undocumented JASS bugs, and it's been what, over 10 years since that game was released. O_O

Pesco

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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #20 on: April 29, 2012, 05:14:06 PM »
D2 mod channel mentioned that D3 might get a MLP reference thrown in. That'll definitely guarantee my out from wanting to play it.

My modding experience of D2 so far is that it's a huge load of effort if you want to make things work exactly as you want them to. A lot of my stuff is severely limited by the D2 engine and because I haven't ventured into the realm of code editing. What I do get to work with is relatively stable because there's been 10 years of mod pioneering by people who've put up with Blizzard's system so the noob modder like me doesn't have to.

Edible

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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #21 on: April 29, 2012, 05:51:48 PM »
D2 mod channel mentioned that D3 might get a MLP reference thrown in. That'll definitely guarantee my out from wanting to play it.

Might?



(not fanart)

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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #22 on: April 29, 2012, 05:54:46 PM »
well I hate everything

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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #23 on: April 29, 2012, 05:57:12 PM »
Might?
(not fanart)

My face just exploded

Pesco

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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #24 on: April 29, 2012, 06:21:24 PM »

Ghaleon

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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #25 on: April 29, 2012, 06:51:24 PM »
I cant say ive made a full blown d2 mod myself but i have tweaked others many times. Furthermore most of the resources with supposedly 10 years of development have been out for over 10 years. I used to religiously. I used to visit the phrozen keep long ago and i can say that site had a larger variety and number of mods than ive seen any game other than UT or Oblivion/skyrim. Bear in mind too that Diablo is OLD, and had its modding community long before most people even HEARD of modding. So i think a game developed long before anybody even heard about/wanted to mod games should have some slack about how slick it is to mod.

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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #26 on: April 29, 2012, 07:28:34 PM »
Not sure why some people are so down on this game here.

I'm personally going to experience Diablo 3 as a "monster beat-em up with appropriate levels of difficulty". You kill, you get loot, rinse and repeat. Isn't that what made D2 appealing to so many players since its release? And there's a fairly well known thread that argues how Blizzard's design for D3 attempts to fix glaring issues with D2. Here it is, read it all. It is good and I agree with the OP's analysis.

My concerns for the game include whether the difficulty in Hell and Inferno matches Blizzard's hype. I actually think it will based on their "You Will Die" video and the damage numbers dealt onto Nightmare Act 1 zombies barely denting their hp bar. A little worried about power creep, but if they can make the numbers work, I won't complain when I can 2 shot Normal Leoric with my lvl 60, but get shit on by Inferno Azmodan. With the fact that characters get every single skill and rune available by lvl 60, there is a lower incentive to roll a new character after you have your 5 made. Replayability would suffer from this so it makes sense for Blizzard to make the game harder at release so the content isn't sped through.

Some of the later armor sets are fugly as hell, but as long as the action is good, I will enjoy it. Also, so what if there's a Secret Pony Level based on MLP:FiM? It should not detract from the whole of the game.

I have no comments on the modding of this game and the difficulty of doing so. Groups will attempt it and if something as enjoyable as Median XL comes out for D3, all the better for the community.

I played the beta since the last 3 beta patches, building again after server wipes and it's just a good time to be had even with the about 1/48th of the content currently known. I'm getting my CE at midnight, gonna get a few hours in B.net servers willing, sleep-walk through work and then play loads more that evening. Probably rolling monk first and might solo my first play through of the game. Kiro#1584 is my battletag and you will see me on B.net for a long time after May 15th.

Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #27 on: April 30, 2012, 01:05:59 AM »
I cant say ive made a full blown d2 mod myself but i have tweaked others many times. Furthermore most of the resources with supposedly 10 years of development have been out for over 10 years. I used to religiously. I used to visit the phrozen keep long ago and i can say that site had a larger variety and number of mods than ive seen any game other than UT or Oblivion/skyrim. Bear in mind too that Diablo is OLD, and had its modding community long before most people even HEARD of modding. So i think a game developed long before anybody even heard about/wanted to mod games should have some slack about how slick it is to mod.

Um, the modding community existed before D2 I'm sure. Half-Life had a very prolific one and that game had more than its fair share of awesome mods besides CS. God I feel old now. I actually started map-making back in the days of Doom 1 (shit, now I REALLY feel old) but I think the game nearest to D2 in terms of complexity to mod should be HL1. The moddability of a game is somewhat related to how well coded the base engine is and while I can praise D2/WC3 for many things, this is sadly not one of them.

I will say this though: SC2 is a huge, HUGE leap forward, if only the Galaxy Editor didn't bring my ancient computer to a crawl. In fact, one of the two things keeping many WC3 modders from jumping over to SC2 is precisely the system requirements for that game, the other being BNet 2.0. I don't know if that has to do with the new staff at Blizzard, who might have hired some actually competent programmers to replace the team that left to make Hellgate London (harhar). I don't really keep myself up to date with regards to staff movement at Blizzard, but I really hope that the guys who did SC2 were also involved in some way in the coding of D3. Or at least have programmers of comparable competence on the D3 team, because that might actually make modding D3 not involve spending half the time guessing at bugs. For what it's worth, the D3 beta ran much better than D2 ever did, so that's a reason to get hopes up. I love D3's "hand-painted" art style and it'll be terribly disappointing if the game were to turn out like WC3/D2 in terms of moddability (regarding bugs).


Regarding the difficulty level of D3: I hope Blizzard does something more than just adding hp/defences to monsters. I like the new mods on the elite mobs and it'll be interesting to see what else there are in the full game. I wonder if the AI for mobs on higher difficulty levels will be better - tall order to write AI for all the different mobs I know, but I find going against smarter mobs more interesting than hitting a larger brick wall. This will probably be partially addressed by combinations of mods on them. Heh, remember the good ol' days of MSLE or Cursed Extra Strong mobs....

As for the MLP stuff, here's my reaction again, seriously this time:



Wut.
« Last Edit: April 30, 2012, 01:12:42 AM by ApharmdB »

Amraphenson

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Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #28 on: April 30, 2012, 04:45:44 PM »
I'm still convinced the entirety of the mod community for WC3 and D2 are masochists. Brillioant masochists, but masochists.
Sugoiiii~
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[23:20] <Stuffman> enjoy your personally crafted hell Amra

Re: [Diablo 3] In anticipation of May 15...
« Reply #29 on: May 02, 2012, 05:17:00 AM »
Lol thinking about modding D3 was useless. Modding D3 is apparently prohibited.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/08/01/diablo-3-mods-expressly-prohibited-by-blizzard/

I hope that's incorrect, but.... :(

There went my dream of creating an RPG in Gensokyo using the D3 engine. :(
« Last Edit: May 02, 2012, 05:33:35 AM by ApharmdB »