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

The lag, mother of god teh lag...

 

Well, okay, there are a lot of them. But a lot of them are minor variations on the same themes, and they wear thin a little too quickly for me. I would have loved to see some genuine jungle, or coast, or astral planes, a city, etc. Instead we get... square, boxy crypts over and over again. In fact I guess more of an issue is the lack of really distinct and interesting "pieces" that make up levels... yes, it's a sewer, but that doesn't mean you can't have *gasp* curved hallways or big open chambers. As much art as there is in the game, I'm still seeing the same old pieces frequently repeat themselves, with lootables in the same places, even on the same floors. Torchlight II is much, much better in this respect.

 

I just finished Act 1 hardcore with a friend.

Seriously, play this game in hardcore mode. Killing the act end boss, especially not knowing what to expect, and knowing that we'd be dead permanently if we died made for one of the most exciting experiences I've had in a video game in recent memory. I'm not shitting you, it was nervewracking as hell.

It's going to be painful to lose a character in Nigtmare/Hell/Inferno but I welcome it.

 

Unfortunately there are too many bullshit instadeath things that can happen, especially due to lag. Enemies that leave behind little things that explode after they die, for instance, and are impossible to see if you're a class that happens to spam lots of particle effects etc. I have died probably ten times or more because of that stuff, and I'd hate to lose a hardcore character just to random crap like that.

 

Okay, this is odd. For all the whining about "no customization," Codex opinion is pretty positive? Any insight onto how customizable individual characters are from someone who's played it. I whined about runes not being tied into exploration, and skills unlocking automatically, stat removal, so forth, so exactly how customizable are characters beyond weapons and armor?

 

All the customization options are not as effective as spending gold to buy your level of gear in the auction house which is currently underpriced since ppl have no idea of the real value of these low-mid lvl gear that could significantly power you through. Hence...people who didn't and crafted their own shit is still stuck in normal difficulty, while those who blew 10k in AH gear upgrade every 5 levels or so powers through and wondered what is the problem with the slow ones.

Try spending your gold now while it's more valuable. I guarantee you'll power through.

 

One has to wonder whether the item trading will eventually make everything but max level equipment ridiculously cheap. 99% of the players being stuck at max level trying to grind the .001% drop rate equipment and all low level stuff being massively oversupplied. No one would want low end stuff, it would be exceedingly cheap to buy it and then there is literally no reason to even look at drops (the only supposed "customization") until you are in the last difficulty.

Not that this is much different from D2 with muled equipment, but considering that there is now exactly 0 ways to effect character development other than items, just watch as everyone competent uses the exact same builds and equipment sets to power through the early difficulties.

 

Manatee, I suspect the AH would be dry of low-level items in a few months time when everyone is near max level. So those who actually have the gold to spend now, should hoard those lowbie power items to swap between chars. It makes complete sense IMO.

 

No /players 8 so you don't get the increased loot chance by yourself, but on the bright side the difficulty is on par or higher than /players 8 normal by yourself so it's not nearly as mind numbingly easy.

In fact biggest complaint I've got with the game so far (Apart from the DRM) is WAY WAY WAY THE FUCK less phat lewt than D2. Admittedly D2 has the benefit of an expansion and some patches which added more loot, but the number of uniques and set items is quite honestly 10-20 times lower than D2. They're leaning on rares (Yellows) a lot more.

People saying that are full of bullshitz and r00flers, as mentioned way the fuck back in the thread a few times. Quick summary, turn on "Elective mode" in the options which gives you full control over what skills you put on mouse buttons and keyboard, and lets you take multiple skills from the same "Type". Runes allow for a goodly amount of customization but are tied to levels so you have to play, but this isn't that dissimilar to not having access to infinite skillpoints at early levels in Diablo 2.
Items are nerfed from Diablo 2 from what I've seen. Less class specific benefits, few (To no) skill specific benefits. The stats are enough to keep item whoring satisfying but they seem to have less impact on build than in D2.

 

Same as with Skyrim - "It's fun.". As for the opinion, it was really negative around free beta weekend. I would assume that only the people who liked it bothered to spend money on it. And since it hasn't been cracked, you won't get any "I got the pirate bay version and holy crap, it's fucking shit" opinions.

In essence, taking piracy out of the picture turns the Codex into every other gaming forum.

 

Trying to play this at a hotel.

LOL.

Lag everywhere. Impossible to play. Great single-player action, indeed.

I'm enjoying the game, but this aspect of it is seriously fucked and I will not get over it. I don't even know why a person would even attempt "Hardcore" when a bout of lag could get you killed in a crowd of otherwise harmless monsters.

 

Good one, but next time try harder.

 

Why did they ever think this was going to work? This is not an MMO where characters can just repeatedly swing at enemies with no necessary hit reactions or feedback, this is a HECTIC action game with a huge amount of monsters attacking, hitting, dying, exploding, different hit boxes for different abilities etc., It's basically like an online match of Street Fighter, but instead of one on one, it's one to four vs MANY mobs. Even then Capcom's net code does stutter if you are in different countries.

It was a fucking retarded idea and I hope they pay for it, and ultimately cave and offer a patch download to allow people to play with local or global characters.

I'm playing the game, and I'm having some fun, but last night JUST as we were about to get to a cool new area "SERVERS ARE SHUTTING DOWN IN 20 MINUTES" comes up. It's just retarded. On top of this, everytime we load the game up, maps are not explored, all still covered by fog of war. I haven't lost any loot yet, BUT, heaps of people have lost super rare stuff after suddenly being booted before a server write could happen.

It's retarded and there simply isn't a valid argument otherwise. I truly hope this bites them in the ass because it will prevent others from trying to follow suit as everyone did trying to build the next WoW killer, which they never did.

 

What, am I wrong? The game is mechanically dumbed down, has crappy art direction, awful writing, and always online DRM. You can still enjoy it if the core clickfest gameplay is enough to hold your attention, and apparently it becomes a lot better in coop. So yeah, "it's fun" is the only real reason people can like it, cause otherwise it's all shit.

 

Don't worry Cynic, a gold server pass will be offered to solve the problem.
Joking aside, yes, it's a serious issue, and Blizzard has no excuse. They can't say they're unprepared for this. They've had the same issue when WoW launch, I forgive them for that because it was their first MMO, but Diablo III launching with online only component featuring server side monster generation will require a LOT of servers due to the amount of unit boxes sold.

Not a good time to pile in on the Diablo III lobby.

 

I'm actually considering using "Low FX" option and seeing if there's less garbage spam on the screen during battles.

 

Indeed, it seems Path of Exile will be the real Diablo 3.

 

Yeah, and I'm calling you full of shit. The game is longer than both D1 and D2 and has better replayability, it's also more difficult than either of them and you'd see that if you got to at least act 2 on normal. Contrary to Diablo 2, you're using 6 skills at once, not 1. The game is relatively well optimised and bug-free, unlike your pathetic example. The co-op aspect also has been improved in comparison to D2 since it's no longer "who can steal the most loot".
As for writing and art-style, I'm not even gonna bother, because if you're looking at those things in a fucking hack 'n slash then you're clearly clueless.

 

If the writing wasn't important to Blizzard, then they shouldn't include it. If they include it, then it's a part of the entire package, and a thing must be judged on it's entire package. If a game gives me toast, I will judge the makers on their toast-making capabilities.

Likewise art direction. Video games are a visual medium., even dumb hack 'n slashes. If the art direction is mediocre, that's one giant step towards game mediocrity. Mediocrity in no way prevents a thing from being popular, but it does mean that it will be soon be forgotten.

"you just need to turn your brain off and enjoy it" If you keep turning your brain off, one day you're not going be able to turn it back on.

Co-op now is: He who can afford the best loot will outperform everyone else.

 

The thing about retards is, they don't know that they're retards.

 

Wake-up call: Inferno is already being cleared and by looks of it Inferno will be finished soon.

 

*cuts himself on the edgiest post of the thread*

Goddamn...I need bandages!

 

Should I need to buy it and play through it seven times before I can judge the difficulty? For the record, I randomly tuned in to a stream of two dudes playing through Inferno Act I, and they were mostly standing in place and spamming aoe. So yeah, given that even a bunch of Codexers managed to die in the open beta, I'll take your opinion on the sudden jump in difficulty with a grain of salt. And you know, you use even more skills while soloing in WoW, that should be a game to strike your fancy. Plus, it actually lets you log in, unlike the "optimised" and "bug-free" D3. Skyrim might've been buggy at release, but people could actually play it without having to wait for some fat fuck to lease more server infrastructure.

Honestly, bro, there's no need to get so defensive about this anyway. You can play the game with your friends and enjoy it, won't judge you for it. It's when people try to claim D3 is actually good or an improvement over anything that I get a bit annoyed, since the game is essentially decline given material form.

 

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4254464832?page=12#226

"I'm aware of internal bets on how many months it will take someone to beat Inferno."

Months. It took guys 2.5 days to clear act 2 on inferno.

Pure comedy.