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

Cynic

Arcane
Joined
Feb 22, 2011
Messages
1,850
Okay so was playing last night. Killed a whole dungeon of goat men, went back to town, was checking out new gear, suddenly get d/c. Apparently they only need to tell you the servers are shutting down 10 fucking minutes in advance. Oh also you can't see this message it you are in a shop.

Restated the game, was about 1 hour behind our progress. All loot maintained but all maps show no progress and mobs have all respawned.

No excuse for that. Game needs to have a manual way to write your progress to the server.

No doubt about it this is a total clusterfuck. But you know what, I'm actually happy lots of people bought it. The problems are universal. There are people defending it, sure. But there are also huge numbers of people who are pissed. Grim Dawn reached ALL of its stretch goals and it was short about 150k on launch day of this shit.

I think people are morons, but they are not all dumbfucks. Whichever way you look at it, this is not how this kind of game should be done. Server tech and global Internet speeds are just not there yet. It seems like some major online outlets are openly complaining about always online. That's a good thing because frankly, the next game that tries to pull this always online crap is not going to sell. It doesn't work for this kind of game the internet is just not ready yet.
 

Deleted member 7219

Guest
so, should i buy D3 from the store, internet store or TPB?

or not at all?

Not at all.

I got it for free because of my WoW subscription (piss off), but I would strongly urge even my worst enemies not to spend money on this fulminating pile of effluence.
 

sea

inXile Entertainment
Developer
Joined
May 3, 2011
Messages
5,698
Okay it's actually pretty fun, though I'm not sure if the fun comes from the game or just playing it with friends and beer. Well, three friends, that is.
This is basically it. Diablo, like Blizzard's other games, is less about interesting and engaging mechanics and more about spending time with a bunch of other people. It's more high-impact than something like Warcraft, but their games are just not very entertaining to actually play unless you have people around to socialize with. That's the real "magic" of the Blizzard experience - they create spaces with goals and structure, not games.
 

Zed

Codex Staff
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2002
Messages
17,068
Codex USB, 2014
could-have-been screenshots of diablo3
the first screenshots look like act4 and the others a bit like act 3.

I dunno why people are graphics-whoring so much about this game. character armor is dumb as shit, but the environment is gorgeous.
I prefer the smoother painterly style. it's a lot easier on the eyes when playing for 5 hours +.

not all character designs are dumb as fuck either... some monsters are actually nice-looking. especially those in later acts.
 

DakaSha

Arcane
Joined
Dec 4, 2010
Messages
4,792
Does the game have hardcore mode or did they remove that as well. only way to play diablo 2 imo
There is Hardcore mode, at least there certainly are achievements for it. Not sure if you can get it from the get-go or after 1st playthrough, can check once I'm home.

Got to Act 3, shit's finally getting real, getting my resist/survivals-free Barbarian two-shot by some mobs a lot if I don't pay attention.
In D2 you could edit the registry to get it right away. Seeing that this release is all server based that may well not be possible (information is prob stored online)
 

SerratedBiz

Arcane
Joined
Mar 4, 2009
Messages
4,143
It'd take our resident D3ers all of twenty seconds to check their character creation screen for the hardcore option at the bottom to clear up this question.
 

Luzur

Good Sir
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
Messages
41,732
Location
Swedish Empire
so, should i buy D3 from the store, internet store or TPB?

or not at all?

Not at all.

I got it for free because of my WoW subscription (piss off), but I would strongly urge even my worst enemies not to spend money on this fulminating pile of effluence.

been seeing some youtube vids about it, and i think i go with the TPB option, just because i used to like the first 2.
 

Stabwound

Arcane
Joined
Dec 17, 2008
Messages
3,240
There is no TPB version and I would put good money on there never being an acceptable one.

That screenshot someone posted with the blurred wall shit is exactly why: virtually everything in the game is server-side unless they've used some extreme disinformation tactics. By all accounts it seems that everything - random dungeon generation, monster spawns/abilities/AI, skill functionality, NPCs is stored server-side. Basically, someone would have to recreate all of that from scratch, so even the best effort would likely not even be close to accurate compared to the real thing. Hell, it almost seems like the random maps are generated on the fly to prevent the use of maphacks, if the way the game stops generating dungeon parts on server disconnection is any evidence.

It's virtually an MMORPG system scaled down and instanced to groups of 4 players max.

So yeah, if you want to play this shit, buy it. Having said that, if you don't have a group of friends/bros/people to play with, it's possibly not even worth a purchase at all. Playing it solo (hardcore mode aside, maybe) would be as fun as playing Monopoly by yourself. With bros it's a pretty damn fun, if somewhat shallow, experience.
 

Deleted member 7219

Guest
Better yet just buy Diablo 2. I got it and the expansion for around £10, brand new, off PlayTrade (play.com).
 

abija

Prophet
Joined
May 21, 2011
Messages
3,018
Remind me to never try posting on the Battle.net forums ever again.

Point out a legitimate problem with game (shitty instanced bosses that mean replaying 5-minute fights every time you get one-shotted because your cooldown was 0.1 seconds off = replay the entire fight, fucker!) and all you get is waves of morons going "lern 2 play" and "co-op." No wonder Blizzard are so arrogant, for every person who criticizes them they have a hundred who are willing to put up with anything.

That's not a legitimate concern for this game. If they made you clear the previous level then you would have a point.
It's just amazing how a couple of days ago you were complaining about difficulty and now you want checkpoints during boss fights?
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,636
Remind me to never try posting on the Battle.net forums ever again.

Point out a legitimate problem with game (shitty instanced bosses that mean replaying 5-minute fights every time you get one-shotted because your cooldown was 0.1 seconds off = replay the entire fight, fucker!) and all you get is waves of morons going "lern 2 play" and "co-op." No wonder Blizzard are so arrogant, for every person who criticizes them they have a hundred who are willing to put up with anything.

That's not a legitimate concern for this game. If they made you clear the previous level then you would have a point.
It's just amazing how a couple of days ago you were complaining about difficulty and now you want checkpoints during boss fights?

This should really go without saying but 1-shot kills + lag = shitty game.
 

Stabwound

Arcane
Joined
Dec 17, 2008
Messages
3,240
If we're talking about Inferno, Blizzard literally said they expect you to farm items for a while before even attempting the difficulty. I'd personally expect to have to grind for almost every tough boss in hardcore mode. I'm not saying that's a good mechanic, but the game is virtually a farming simulator, so it is what it is.
 

RK47

collides like two planets pulled by gravity
Patron
Joined
Feb 23, 2006
Messages
28,396
Location
Not Here
Dead State Divinity: Original Sin
@
ScottishMartialArts

That is not a valid comparison at all, go back to Nightmare mode and just play, you're making a terrible argument. I will not excuse Blizzard for forcing people to go Online yet not providing a stable platform at release to play it. This isn't ISP issue mind you, while your pathetic Counterstrike example is. Most of the issues come from the server side not being able to cope with the load they themselves created, which I'm sure the millions of first day purchasers like you are to blame.
 

sea

inXile Entertainment
Developer
Joined
May 3, 2011
Messages
5,698
That's not a legitimate concern for this game. If they made you clear the previous level then you would have a point.
It's just amazing how a couple of days ago you were complaining about difficulty and now you want checkpoints during boss fights?
Fair enough. Let me elaborate.

One of the key design goals of Diablo III's combat system, which I think Blizzard were (kind of) successful with, was to get rid of instant death. In Diablo II, usually death, especially at high levels, was a result of running out of potions or simply getting one-shotted. This led to this war of attrition that revolved around dealing damage, drinking potions and running to town for more. In reality the biggest limiting factors were your fingers on the potion hotkeys and how quick you could return to town, not anything mechanical about the combat itself.

This is why health orbs were introduced and potions were given cooldowns. Blizzard tried to make combat more interesting by forcing alternatives to drinking potions, like using protection spells, slows, stuns and other stuff. For the most part, this was a success. However, there are a select few instances in the game where Blizzard break their own rules, most of them pertaining to elite or boss monsters.

For example, the ents in the first act leave behind plants that explode, and they are very, very lethal. While easy to see, almost all players will have at least one cheap death as a result of them because there is no way to know in advance what they are - it's either stand on plants and die, or don't and learn nothing about how dangerous they are. There's similar stuff like "molten" enemies, who leave behind small explosive fire orb things on death - less lethal, but still can be a big problem and combined with lag can lead to an easy death, or one when your guard is down.

Bosses also do this, like the Butcher's grapple attack and Azmodan's fireballs. Can they be avoided? Yes - but if your cooldown has run out, you don't have a healing potion to use, or you lag a little bit, you'll often die in a single hit (or immediately after). These fights primarily revolve dodging these particular attacks on a changing playing field (specifically, the floor deals damage, so you need to keep moving), and victory occurs when you dodge the insta-death attacks long enough.

In practice, this isn't very much fun, because when playing solo, you have to restart a boss fight, or run to where you died from the last checkpoint. Sometimes this means as much as 2-5 minutes of lost time. Blizzard's goal with death mechanics was to deter death without it really causing any loss of progress, and they succeeded... but only in a multiplayer context, because in those, time loss is minimal due to being able to teleport to others from town. In single-player, it means long walks back to where you left off, or replaying the same boss only to die again when he/she has 10% life left, etc.

So yeah, basically what I'm saying is - insta-death mechanics suck, and as implemented in Diablo III they continue to suck; they're very similar to dreaded "press X not to die" QTEs... except sometimes you can't always press X because your cooldown is still going, and then you've lost 5 minutes of your life doing something boring. The potion-guzzling hasn't really been fixed, it's only been obfuscated because there are more ways of surviving - mashing Q vs. the 3 button on my keyboard isn't really that different in effect, only aesthetic. And when you run out of buttons to mash, the effect is exactly the same as running out of potions to chug - you die.
 
Self-Ejected

ScottishMartialArts

Self-Ejected
Joined
Feb 24, 2005
Messages
11,707
Location
California
@
ScottishMartialArts

That is not a valid comparison at all, go back to Nightmare mode and just play, you're making a terrible argument. I will not excuse Blizzard for forcing people to go Online yet not providing a stable platform at release to play it. This isn't ISP issue mind you, while your pathetic Counterstrike example is. Most of the issues come from the server side not being able to cope with the load they themselves created, which I'm sure the millions of first day purchasers like you are to blame.

First off, I've yet to experience any lag or connection issues in my 20+ hours of playing the game. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying people aren't having lag and connection issues, just that I haven't yet experienced them aside from an hour of server downtime Tuesday afternoon.

Second, I wasn't even addressing the always online issue. The reason I posted was to refute the claim that any game that has both 1 shot kills and lag is bad. My argument was mostly implicit so let me spell it out:

Let's assume that Average Manatee's claim is true, that any game with lag and 1-shot kills is bad.
Counter-Strike is a good game.
But Counter-Strike has 1 shot kills and was very prone to lag in the WON, pre-broadband days.
So Counter-Strike is a bad game and CS is a good game, which is a contradiction.
Therefore, the claim cannot be true.

Is that really a pathetic argument? The only weakness I can see is the premise that Counter-Strike is a good game, because I'm sure some of you tards will disagree. Honestly though, if we can't agree on that premise, then your opinion on games doesn't matter much to me.
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,636
This should really go without saying but 1-shot kills + lag = shitty game.

By that logic, nearly any multiplayer game is shit. Remember Counter-Strike in the days when not everyone had broadband?

There is a fundamental difference between the two considering how you can handle the situation.

Diablo is a pure twitch game where the monster starts an attack and you have (attack charge time) to react. If ping / 2 > attack charge time, you die. If ping / 2 + minimal human reaction speed > attack charge time, you still die.

CS lets you maneouver so that you never need to run into the line of fire in the first place. If you are flanking someone you pretty much win immediately. Is there some way in Diablo 3 to completely negate the enemy's ultra moves without relying on twitch? No? Shit game. Diablo 2 had the same problem with the Diablo fight (uber lightning of death), but at least it was confined to one very limited part of the game.

I also don't recall CS lagging much at all even without broadband. Sure, if you intentionally load in on a server in another continent you are fucked, but that isn't the game's fault for screwing it up. Diablo 3 has horrible lag all the time, as demonstrated on page 1.

First off, I've yet to experience any lag or connection issues in my 20+ hours of playing the game. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying people aren't having lag and connection issues, just that I haven't yet experienced them aside from an hour of server downtime Tuesday afternoon.

Second, I wasn't even addressing the always online issue. The reason I posted was to refute the claim that any game that has both 1 shot kills and lag is bad. My argument was mostly implicit so let me spell it out:

Let's assume that Average Manatee's claim is true, that any game with lag and 1-shot kills is bad.
Counter-Strike is a good game.
But Counter-Strike has 1 shot kills and was very prone to lag in the WON, pre-broadband days.
So Counter-Strike is a bad game and CS is a good game, which is a contradiction.
Therefore, the claim cannot be true.

Is that really a pathetic argument? The only weakness I can see is the premise that Counter-Strike is a good game, because I'm sure some of you tards will disagree. Honestly though, if we can't agree on that premise, then your opinion on games doesn't matter much to me.

Because taking something totally out of context makes for an effective argument, amirite?
 

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