Auction House Online: The Game (Diablo 3) is a MASSIVE decline

That fucking bastard is actually being honest!

 

Ok, fine, I will stop being a dolt, and put on my seriousness mask. Now when I see people on this forum complaining about stats, I ask mysefl, "why?" -Well, because there are no stats... it has to have stats. That's seriously the only thing that remotely resembles an argument I have seen on this. Then why? Just because diablo 2 had it? How essential was it really?

Same goes for linear skill unlock. "Why is it bad?" -Because it is not a skill tree. Yeah, and so what if it isn't? Actually, it is not quite right, in essence it is equivalent to a skill tree with free respecs , but with all the unneeded bullshit that follows with such a system removed. They have traded replay value for people that like that have locked choices and replay the same game to try out 2, maybe up to 10 for the very patient people, other builds, for the ability to try out very many builds in a short time frame. Now you might be of the opinion that this is bad, but I can't see how anyone can say that this is inherently, objectively bad.

And teleport again, this is essentially just the same as diablo 2, but with the removal of "pp" followed by "tp please" http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-a-massive-decline.71430/page-25#post-2075432 (this also teleported you directly to your bros without the need to run around pissing your pants, remember?). It's just removal of redundant bullshit.

Now if can indulge me in some really good counter arguments, I might change my mind. Hell, I'm not that much into blizzard as you might think, I'm just tired of the anti blizzard anti diablo 3 bullshit on this forum.

 

Hmm, he starts off with a bald faced lie though. Diablo 3 is not forcing you to always stay online, because it was designed to be co-op, it's because of the DRM protection it gives. I don't see why they even bother repeating that bullshit over and over again, who buys it anyway?

 

Well, why do some people prefer games with stats?
They act as a represeantation and definition of the character in the game world. In a carefully designed system, stats determine the basic physical/mental capacities of your character and pave the way for a further refinement through skills/talens/perks/whatever.
Optimally every stat has its use. Depending on your character not every stat may be equally useful, but they all should give you something tangible in return (one game that did it reasonably well, imho, was Divinity 2, where putting some points into "out-of-character" stats was actually useful):
Strength might determine damage output and carrying capacity, Dexterity to-hit and evasion, Intelligence mana and magical abilities, etc.
Therefore one might say that stats provide an certain layer of complexity in tweaking your character to the task at hand (killing things) and/or help to identify with a character (because it's your character, you build it and it's fairly unique).

Now, are they necessary in an action game like Diablo? Perhaps not i(f you are fine with giving up the most important rpg aspect), but they have been part of one of the motivational forces in past Diablo games, i.e. character advancement through level-ups. It seems that in D3 this has been mostly replaced with item-hunt and grinding (both of wich were present before, only now they have become even more important).

 

If a person is incapable of understanding why build permanence matters, why stat requirements matter, and they label basic obstacle game mechanics as "redundant bullshit"... just move on.

The brain of such individual is incapable of understanding any kind of fun other than the immediate pleasure feedback coming from bashing shit and taking its stuff. Anything that stands between them and their basic shiny-hoarding instincts, will be neither appreciated nor comprehended until they get older, and no amount of external convincing will make an iota of difference.

 

If you purchase Diablo 3, and you post here regularly, you are a weak, gutless individual.

 

DRM? Blizzard could care less about DRM that will still be broken in weeks even with the protection they have now (see: SC2). It's all about the item shop. Blizzard&Kotick's greatest nightmare is making the mistake of releasing another game for $50 that millions of people play for a decade without paying a single extra dollar, actually losing them money in the long run as they won't be playing the newest bi-yearly CoD release.

 

D3 always online DRM won't be broken for a very long time. Someone would have to completely create the server and game from scratch since all monster spawns, item drops, etc are server side like WoW.

 

No one with the brains to do so would play D3 in the first place.

 

Yeah, they finalized the fees/retard-rebates: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/services/auction-house/how-to#fees

​

 

Yes, because Diablo 2 had it. And Diablo 1 before had it. If you have some core mechanics established in a series it's generally good idea to not throw it out.

If you do throw it out then don't claim you haven't.
*All* games have stats, the key difference that sets apart RPGs and all the auxilary subgenres including mindless H&S is having ability to modify those stats themselves in a way that makes modifications stick. Gear you can equip and change at will doesn't count.

Ok, I'll type slowly, so you can understand it:

It's bad, because it prevents builds. With unlimited free respecs you can at best have temporary tactics.

Is being retarded inherently, objectively bad?

Because you seem to actually enjoy it.

Getting to your party across hostile territory it's hardly "redundant bullshit" when it matters, when it doesn't, then a party member can cast you a portal.

Or what shihonage said, basically, hence "what a faggot".

 

You say that like populating areas with monsters in random positions is hard or making good items drop better than 0.00003% of the time is a bad thing.

 

Wow, I really regret putting on my seriousness mask, as I for a moment thought that DraQ and shihonage would have the ability to string coherent arguments together. I was giddy as a little schoolgirl skipping to this forum, eager to learn what awesome new insight they had, that I hadn't had about diablo 3.

Imagine my surprise and disappointment. Now listen, you seem to be of the impression that I am losing this discussion badly, and you are right. With power arguments like "it's wrong because it's wrong", "a system that is designed for you to try a shitload of builds prevents trying builds" and the good old "THis one does not understand all that we understand, therefore just move on", I can not possibly hope to say anything that would even remotely counter this.

Sarcasm aside, I'm not going to bother discussing this anymore with you. If you are only able to reiterate "what a faggot", you are simply reiterating that which I already thought, you don't have shit. Now as an extra bonus, you can try to figure out how it makes you look stupid as fuck, when you write "I'll type slowly so you can understand this" on a fucking forum, you will get 10 points if you can do it.

 

Funny. I was hoping you will actually be able to actually say something sensible once you've put on your seriousness mask. Maybe even actually manage to digest some of the arguments levelled at Diablo 3, but alas it was just that - a mask.

You won't let anything through your thick skull, not even something as basic as the fact that being able to change your build at will means there are no builds. Hell, let me use an analogy to demonstrate how you won't get it this time either:

you want to build a car, two possible approaches:

1. you can either make one that will have to go entire length of the track (*varied* track) without allowing changes in mid-track (but you can try again with different design).

2. you are free to rearrange the components at any time


Now which one will yield a properly *built* vehicle:

1 where you have to have something that can actually move and negotiate the terrain?
Or 2 where you can essentially just move loose pile of pieces forward by hand while making engine noises with your mouth?

gaudaost's comprehension failure in 3... 2... 1...

P.S. There is one thing I don't get though - why get all upset about people calling you a retard and faggot, then moving on?
I thought you were a big fun of cutting out redundant bullshit and how are futile attempts to reach your little malformed brain anything but?

 

More insight and surprising revelations from gaudaost:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...the-must-play-games.55367/page-6#post-2075120

"Secondly, what is wrong with linear games? There's a shit-ton of great games that are all linear, in fact, most great games are linear. There are some games which are truly open ended, which generally falls into the sand box category, and some of them are great, but there is always the "because it is open ended" attached to that sentence. Thirdly, why the hell is it essential to have an active choice? It's a game, not the real life. We play games to escape reality not to live while we live, there's nothing inherently wrong with being shoehorned into specific roles, especially not for people who likes to have a fun time, but don't have any fantasy, like me.

Fourthly, your summary: "farmboy/girl discovers that he/she is special and has special powers" is incredibly stupid. It might seem clever to you, and it would have been, if it wasn't for the fact that this kind of deconstruction can be done for every single story that was ever fucking crafted. Fallout has a dumb "Fed-EX fetch the waterchip" plot, PS:T has a dumb "amnesia plot with some loser trying to string together his story and fighting a retard in a fortress".

It's full of win like "most great games are linear" and "active choices remind me of my sad life", but "some open-ended games are great but only because they are open-ended" is truly my favourite (as well as "you can customize stats with items" from this thread).

 

BAN THIS FUCKER

 

Coming onto the forum and reading the opinions of this gaudaost is like suddenly catching the scent of some rotting animal corpse

 

Why waste any more words on an obvious moron?

 

I understand why people want skills and stats, no problem. Throwing out skills and attributes in a deep ruleset such as for example dungeon and dragons would suck, as it is designed to accomodate a set of diverse play styles, not only power gaming: Much of the fun in DND lies in trying to balance the skills out within a group of adventurers to try to play on each others strength and weaknesses. Now if diablo 2 were a party based non-linear choice and consequences deeply implemented in its attributes RPG, it would not be fine to remove this, as it would remove the soul of the game, but it wasn't and it nor diablo 1 or diablo 3 has never ever been marketed as such. It's always been marketed as a hack-n-slash action-rpg (or action game, if one insists on making that arbitrary distinction) and that's what it is. It's fine to criticize a car for having bad handling, but criticizing it for not being an air-plane is just... weird. And while it's fine and dandy that Divinity 2 implemented non-combat skills, I don't think it necessarily should be implemented in diablo 3, for all their similarities, they are after all, different games: Divinity 2 was a little more about role playing, while diablo is all about monster slaying, both are fine.

I can see the argument that getting to distribute 5 attribute points each level gives a level of complexity, I see it, but I don't really agree with it. To me, attribute-distribution in diablo 2 was something that was just... there. Everytime I leveled up I would do so, not on a whim, but according to a guide I had read to get the most of out of my characters, and I KNOW I was not the only one. By the nature of the skill system, there were only one right way to do it, and being designed for online, it was naturally designed for min-maxers in mind, so with a few exception, any deviation from the right way to do it, would eventually turn combat (and combat is essentially what diablo is all about) into a slow grind, where you die a lot, for no reason and for no gain. Now let me try to elaborate, by presenting the following scenario:

Imagine, in a parallell universe, that in diablo 1, you could twitch your ears with the 'wasd' keys. 'w' would make you twitch your ears forward, making it easier to make out sounds from monsters coming from the direction that the character is facing, 'a' would make it easier to make out sounds of monsters from the left, 'd' from the right and so on. Imagine now, that this got carried over in diablo 2, but was removed in diablo 3. Now, surely there would be an outcry. And one could argue that the twitching of ears made the gameplay more complex, but at the end of the day, it would simply be a feature that is there, without much purpose, because again, diablo is a hack-n-slash game, not a stealth-sneaker. It doesn't matter at all if you can hear better which direction the monsters are coming from, it's all about monster slaying anyway.

Finally, it might be true that has become more about item-hunt and grinding (was there really more to diablo 2 than that in the long run?), I will reserve judgement untill I see the final product. It does seem to me, however, that they have for the first time really nailed the impact and and satisfaction of mindless monster slaying though, though this might certainly also be wrong, I have not played the full game yet, nobody has.

 

Ear twitching isn't a long established RPG trope.

 

That is indeed very true. I don't see why diablo 3 has to necessarily cater to RPG tropes though, it's more important if it's a fun game or not, but that might just be me though.

 

Arthritis-inducing clickyclick isn't what made Diablo I & II 'fun', it was watching the numbers go up (and stay up).

 

Yeah, sure, if that is what made diablo 'fun' for you, you can still do that in diablo 3 though.

 

The thing is that when you remove elements like builds, Diablo becomes a game about clicking things to death, repeatedly. That's all there is to it, especially since D2, that got rid of persistence and having to work with what you find.

Clicking things to death over and over again is very shitty gameplay.

Wait, what.

How are non-combat skills even relevant to this discussion? Next thing you say that we want Diablo 3 to implement realistic driving model.

What a nifty strawman. I really enjoyed how you equated stats and skills that define your character's capabilities and form all that remains after you account for clicking things to death and taking their stuff with retarded, tacked on mechanics that:
a) Would be extremely clunky and inconvenient to use
b) Would have minimum impact on the gameplay
c) Would be completely incongruous with the game where you play neither elves nor furries.

But you know what?
I can still roll with it, just let me make some tweaks:

Imagine some parallel universe where Diablo came with additional mechanics - instead of just having light radius, you'd have FoV angle and light radius. FoV would automatically follow your cursor, could be modified by many factors (item bonuses, curses, helmets) and would be really well integrated with the gameplay, with certain monsters trying to sneak up on you by avoiding your FoV cone while you'd be attacked by high risk ranged attackers. It would contribute to visceral gameplay (otherwise consisting of clicking things to death and taking their stuff like in our Diablo) and would become a part of iconic image of what Diablo is about. Diablo 2 would also include this mechanics.

Would it be wrong to suddenly remove it in Diablo 3?

*Of course* it would be wrong.