Diablo 1 is pretty swell

[DawnrazorDCLXVI]

I loved the tome system, it encouraged player exploration.

 

[Siobhan]

The bard and barbarian don't exist in unmodded hellfire.

Weird definition of unmodded. They come with the official 1.01 patch, you just have to unlock them by creating the command.txt. They might be easter eggs, but they're part of the official game. Just like the Bovine Plate. And they were widely advertized easter eggs, as in, I remember seeing unlock instructions in the hints section of several gaming magazines right after the patch was released.

 

[Aenra]

They were neither an easter egg nor a part of the 'official' game.

Both classes were incomplete at the time of shipping, lacking their own animations, balancing runs, etc, so they were made unavailable. They didn't delete them since they were hoping they would be iterated upon further post launch, which of course never happened
It's why all the files are still there.

 

[Sykar]

Diablo 1 > Diablo 2

Both >>>>>> Diablo 3.

 

[Reinhardt]

Both >>>>>> Diablo 3.

All three >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Dungeon Siege 3

 

[Ismaul]

and yet it still remains that

urmom >>>>>>>> Diablows


A guy doesn't want to spend all his night grinding. At some point he needs the experience to go further. Otherwise, y'know, blue balls.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

Both >>>>>> Diablo 3.

Honestly I think Diablo 3 might've been salvageable if the gameplay wasn't such a monumental step backwards to make the game more appealing to console audiences. I mostly mean that the writing behind the game wasn't terrible. I'll grant that it wasn't as good as either of its predecessors, but a lot of it definitely wasn't bad for a Diablo game. It was acceptable enough to inspire me to actually finish the damn thing.

 

[DawnrazorDCLXVI]

Removing the findable runes was the last step in gutting the RPG from roleplaying game.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

When you get rid of a game mechanic that was represented by items, all it makes me think is "Where the fuck did all of them go? Did my character use every single one in the entire world in the last game?"

 

[Trodat]

Honestly I think Diablo 3 might've been salvageable if the gameplay wasn't such a monumental step backwards to make the game more appealing to console audiences. I mostly mean that the writing behind the game wasn't terrible. I'll grant that it wasn't as good as either of its predecessors, but a lot of it definitely wasn't bad for a Diablo game. It was acceptable enough to inspire me to actually finish the damn thing.

Diablo 3 suffered from boring-ass areas. First act was good but after that it was fast down fall. I couldn't bring myself to finish the 3rd act.

 

[Malignant Manor]

The rune system is good in theory (they could have used item runes and still keep that system). Some of the runes actually changed abilities instead of increasing dps. Most of them had basically only one valid choice as best. Switching up gameplay is pretty nice when you are forced through the same game with the same character 4 times. You probably had all basic abilities unlocked by the end of the first game. I think they added even more grinding on the end (paragon levels?). They they finally announced freeplay and endless dungeons in the expansion. They made a ton of money and could afford 4 different campaigns but the hardcore vocal will play the same shit over and over again.

I'm not sure how far I played in D3. I remember a spider cave with a lame reoccurring boss and playing a little past that. This was the console version with two friends. They were too lazy to even allow two people to go into a menu or shop at the same time yet they stressed 4 players. This was standard back with Champions of Norath when people had smaller sd tvs. It was extremely slow when people looked at loot and the radial menu fucked that up even worse.

 

[groke]

Diablo 1 is pretty swole.

 

[DawnrazorDCLXVI]

Diablo 3 suffered from boring-ass areas. First act was good but after that it was fast down fall. I couldn't bring myself to finish the 3rd act.

Really? I found the areas more dynamic than in past games, especially with the level of destruction you could cause.

The find three buttons style of questing turned me off, but Act V hearkened back to D1 better than D3 ever did. And Whimsyshire was just brilliant.

 

[Neanderthal]

All three >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Dungeon Siege 3

Probably gonna get stoned for this

Spoiler

Jehovah

but I thought Dungeon Siege 3 was pretty fucking good apart from the physically uncomfortable controls, especially when compared to Dungeon Siege 1 which played itself, the narrative even managed to get rid of some of the suckiness that the Dungeon Siege world was built on. There were quite a bit of choice and consequence as well, and the ending slides could really change depedning on what you decided on during the game.

Nice and fucking hard an all, as well as having some pretty good areas and backstory crafted, thought the remains of the tenth legion, the sorcerers lair with the gods heart and pretty much all of the expansion was fucking good shit.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

So after finishing Diablo 2 last weekend I decided to move on to Path Of Exile and honestly I'd have to say this game is better than both Diablo games. That's extremely difficult for me to say, given how beloved for myself that 90s-Blizzard is, but it's true as far as I'm concerned. This game wins massive points for me in its world-building and atmospherics, which are the only two tools available to you for maintaining a story hook in a hack and slash RPG since you can't tell the story of the world through exposition and characterisation as well as in other types of RPGs. The gameplay itself is also hugely improved over the base formula, the skill system and the passive tree both provide huge amounts of build customisation to players whilst still leaving you with the brutal "oh shit I ruined my build and now the game is harder than it should be" gameplay of earlier genre entries. There's also fairly good artistic direction with levels, and enemy variety is great. Suffice to say I'm pretty goddamn hyped for Ascendancy.

This game is probably the first ever in the "let's copy Diablo 2" genre since... uhh... uhhhh... Well, it's probably the only instance of it ever.
I mean let's look at the other games in this genre: Titan Quest was, at best, "not as good as either of the Diablo games but at least finishable", Hellgate: London was "as good as Diablo 2 but not any kind of significant improvement outside of its crafting/socketing system" (for me), and let's please not even mention Torchlight, that game was just another completely uninspiring nostalgia cash-in and every single one of you knows it.

The game is free so nobody has an excuse for not looking at it aside from time.

 

[DawnrazorDCLXVI]

PoE is a poor man's Diablo 2.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

It looks like that if you've never actually tried to play it.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

The game is free so nobody has an excuse for not looking at it aside from time.

Or you know, always online shit. I value games primarily for their single player experience and can't stand MMORPGs or any of their features (including the abbreviated moron speak typical for multiplayer junkies).

People are again making the mistake of lumping first Diablo with the rest because it's part of the same franchise and has some superficial similarities. Diablo 1 is basically a real-time semi-roguelike with a genuinely dark, gothic atmosphere that doesn't deviate from that tone the entire game (which is rare in the case of video games, to have such thematic consistency), it's an audio-visual masterpiece that is dripping with atmosphere and possesses a somewhat limited base gameplay (but which works well within the scope of the game). It's a damn shame nobody tried to recapture that setting and make a full-fledged RPG out of it, instead we always get rainbow cartoony shit and/or generic high fantasy with elves and dwarves. What first Diablo also does well is conveying the wholle story to the player through bits and pieces like scared townsfolk (largely unaware of the big picture) or tomes scattered throughout dungeons (written by Lazarus), somewhat akin to Thief games.

Diablo 2 on the other hand is a derpy, multiplayer focused treasure hunting-sim. It's very well executed and addictive in that regard but in my eyes has very little in common with the first game and its strengths. Diablo 2 clones are dime a dozen and PoE may be the best of the bunch but that means very little if you don't have a particular liking for that formula in the first place, no matter how well executed.

 

[DawnrazorDCLXVI]

Except I've played PoE.

Agree with statements above.

 

[prodigydancer]

Diablo 3 suffered from boring-ass areas.

Not sure about boring but from a purely utilitarian point of view D3 maps were terrible because they mostly consisted of narrow tunnels that destroyed any mobility-oriented playstyle. Add high enemy movement speed here and you'll know why all ranged classes in D3 had weird melee builds that everyone switched to in the endgame.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

It's a damn shame nobody tried to recapture that setting and make a full-fledged RPG out of it

I agree with the way you described Diablo 1, but this is something I agree with especially.

Diablo 2 on the other hand is a derpy, multiplayer focused treasure hunting-sim.

As opposed to being a single-player treasure hunting-sim with limited gameplay that's only really redeemed by its sense of atmosphere like its predecessor? Diablo 2 seriously improved upon the first game in nearly every single way outside of its MMO town mechanics. "Diablo 1 is better" is an opinion that's often poorly justified, even in your case.

As for the MMO shit in PoE, general chat can be disabled and the microtransactions are limited purely to cosmetics (i.e there is zero pay-to-win) and their presence is mostly justified because they're a small studio that has bills to pay.
But even if it wasn't a free game with microtransactions in it, I'd probably have still gone out and bought it. Because it's good. The level of polish that it has is at least as good as the game it's trying to copy.

 

[Lhynn]

Diablo 2 seriously improved upon the first game in nearly every single way outside of its MMO town mechanics.

How? Sounds to me like you are the one with poor justifications (as in, you havent given any)

 

[Akratus]

Now that I've really for the first time played it more extensively I've found Diablo 1 to be a bit better designed. The enemy missiles are generally not very fast, and this creates that Doom situation where it's not just about killing efficiently but dodging as well.

I think Diablo 2 could be a much more enjoyable experience if everything was just that much slower.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

It has better spell variety, far greater class variety (and all of them are far more unique from one-another unlike in its predecessor where the differences were pretty much limited to the maximum on certain stats), the game has far greater variety in locations throughout the course of it, far greater item variety with the addition of sets and rares, and it adds new mechanics like sockets (gems + runewords) and crafting with the cube.

The game was an improvement in almost every single aspect. The opposite opinion when an attempt is made at objectively justifying it is just hipsterism. Not even the kind of hipsterism where casuals snub their nose at you for saying Fallout 1/2 are better than Fallout 3 because they have too much ADHD to actually try them, I mean the real kind where you pretend to have reasons other than "I just liked it more".

 

[Akratus]

One big problem I have with Diablo 2 is that most skills are just useless. They're a waste of programming. You just put in enough points to get to one of the lowest skills on there, increase it's damage through whatever means, and spam it the rest of the game.