Diablo 3 - Reaper of Idiots

[Castozor]

I might be able to do it depending on whether or not they made a new season. If they did I'd have to level up again myself but I personally don't mind some co-op leveling fun.

 

[shihonage]

You might be prioritizing different things. D3 ROS is actually playable now, unlike D3 vanilla, largely due to removal of RMAH, massive changes to loot (and if you're gonna tell me D3 should be about something else than being a Skinner's Box... well, I have bad news for you), a fairly major difference in post-Vanilla art style, seasonal "ladder", Horadric Cube, better netcode and other such things. Obviously it's not D1 or D2, but it's not an unmitigated pile of shit either.

Diablo2 actually had strategy, which I enjoyed in both Paladin and Necromancer builds. It offered more player agency in every area, from how to level your stats, to where you put town portals. It provided a proper downtime in town for identifying items and managing inventory (in D3 your meathead barbarian is also an wise wizard who can identify unknown items).

It had character-specific items. It didn't follow the retarded mechanics where a wizard holds an axe which increases his spellpower by its base damage attribute. Or a monk holds an axe which boosts his emptyhand moves in same manner.

It didn't have an overwhelmingly mind-boggling confusing bland story spread over many retarded NPCs who interrupt gameplay when they speak. Even the unique death animations for all critters added a certain feeling of reward, instead of just using a lazy ragdoll system of D3.

Oh, and let's not forget. Diablo2 had true random dungeons which provided actual replayability. Diablo3's dungeons consist of massive blocks which are re-arranged. They hardly even change. The feeling of sameness and blandness is overwhelming. This is in a series which started as a realtime roguelike at heart.

D2 was a richer, more thought-out and lovingly crafted gameplay experience in every aspect. The amount of retardation in D3 was massive on launch, and nothing has really been fixed. You can't fix stupid.

 

[Zed]

Diablo 2 has more variants of floors than Diablo 3, but I wouldn't call it "true random".
A lot of the stupid stuff with Diablo 3 has been fixed, actually to the point where the game can be fun every season reset for a couple of days.

Diablo 3 at this point has more tactics than Diablo 2.

I think Diablo 2 is the better game, I'm just setting the record straight.

 

[shihonage]

Diablo 2 has more variants of floors than Diablo 3, but I wouldn't call it "true random

I was, obviously, referring to the granularity of the dungeons, not the amount of different floor tiles. There's massive difference between a dungeon made from 1x1 or 2x2 blocks, vs. one made from several static 15x15 blocks. While I don't know the exact comparative size of the blocks, the Diablo3 dungeons don't feel random. These huge blocks are tied to art assets, so it's not something you can "patch out", either. It's broken on fundamental level.

 

[Zed]

Diablo 2 has more variants of floors than Diablo 3, but I wouldn't call it "true random

I was, obviously, referring to the granularity of the dungeons, not the amount of different floor tiles. There's massive difference between a dungeon made from 1x1 or 2x2 blocks, vs. one made from several static 15x15 blocks. While I don't know the exact comparative size of the blocks, the Diablo3 dungeons don't feel random. These huge blocks are tied to art assets, so it's not something you can "patch out", either. It's broken on fundamental level.

Rifts feel pretty random to me, even tho they can be made out of these big chunks.

 

[shihonage]

Rifts feel pretty random to me, even tho they can be made out of these big chunks.

Yo, proper random dungeons are supposed to be the core experience of this genre. In Diablo2 every dungeon felt like a different adventure. Diablo3 tries to patch these holes with new scarce features, and hooray, the new act is more like the old games? One act? Fuck you, Blizzard. I am not paying 20 extra bucks just to get a small fraction of the sequel I wanted 4 years ago.

 

[Zed]

Rifts feel pretty random to me, even tho they can be made out of these big chunks.

Yo, proper random dungeons are supposed to be the core experience of this genre. In Diablo2 every dungeon felt like a different adventure. Diablo3 tries to patch these holes with new scarce features, and hooray, the new act is more like the old games? One act? Fuck you, Blizzard. I am not paying 20 extra bucks just to get a small fraction of the sequel I wanted 4 years ago.

I've played both games a lot.
In Diablo 2, the core experience is running bosses like Mephisto, Pindleskin, and Bhaal, over and over again. It is hardly a spelunking exploration-heavy game.
In Diablo 3, the core experience is running rifts and greater rifts. It gets repetitive over time, but not nearly as repetitive as running the same boss over and over again.
The new act in the D3 expansion is shit, and I don't know from where you've heard it's more like the old games.

 

[shihonage]

I've played both games a lot.
In Diablo 2, the core experience is running bosses like Mephisto, Pindleskin, and Bhaal, over and over again. It is hardly a spelunking exploration-heavy game.
In Diablo 3, the core experience is running rifts and greater rifts. It gets repetitive over time, but not nearly as repetitive as running the same boss over and over again.
The new act in the D3 expansion is shit, and I don't know from where you've heard it's more like the old games.

I'm not this type of player. I don't rush to the endgame, I smell flowers as much as possible along the way, because 99.99% of the actual game is there, not at the bosses. So I can't even relate to these comparisons.

 

[Great Deceiver]

While I'm all for diversity in playstyles and I myself was never a D2 meph run nut, it's at the very least naive to think that D2's longevity wasn't due to boss runs.

I agree that D3 is playable now for 2-3 days after a season patch lands; it's still a fundamentally retarded game, but at least now there's a lot of content and flexibility.

 

[Xor]

Diablo 2 was never designed to be a loot farming simulator, that was just born out of battle.net play and the rarity of the best items, and then further encouraged through patches. The framework of the game, however, is all about exploring huge dungeons and action-oriented gameplay, providing a huge number of character options through the skill tree system. In Diablo 2, the focus of the game was on the gameplay itself first, and that's what made farming for loot fun. I think Blizzard forgot that when they sat down to work on Diablo 3, so what we got was a loot farming simulator that came with a 50-hour prelude (or however long it took) because there had to be a campaign.

RoS acknowledges a lot of the problems with the original game, and fixes it probably as much as it could possibly be fixed short of just starting over from scratch. It's still a game built around farming for items, but at least in RoS it feels like there's a point to farming items beyond just hoping you win the RNG lottery and find something to sell for a few hundred bucks on the RMAH.

 

[Mastermind]

I'm gonna cram an axe in the skull of the next dumbfuck who cries about weapon damage increasing spell damage.

Grim Dawn is mediocre at best.

It beats Diablo III by a landslide.

Grim Dawn doesn't even come high enough to sniff its jockstrap.

 

[Mastermind]

Playing Grim Dawn ATM and realizing that I will probably never touch Diablo III again.

This was of course after trying it out for no more than an hour the one and only time I played it.

What I hope for the future of the Diablo IP is that Blizzard returns to Diablo I's horror roots.

This would be pretty tough if not altogether impossible to pull-off with an isometric POV, though some new games like Stasis try.

However, with the bullshit that is Overwatch, I doubt that Blizzard will ever return to what made the first Diablo game great.

Horror works horribly for Diablo-like games, ironically enough. The goal of a horror setting is the exact opposite of that of a game where you are slaughtering your way through hordes of monsters. Diablo gameplay was pretty shitty, I'd take nearly any diablo clone over diablo 1 in terms of gameplay, but that also made it work with a horror setting so well. I hope Blizzard doesn't ever try to molest the corpse of the original, I can't imagine an adventure game made by them ever being decent given the horrible plotlines in Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2.

 

[shihonage]

I'm gonna cram an axe in the skull of the next dumbfuck who cries about weapon damage increasing spell damage..

And you can defend this "feature" how? It's clearly lazy coding and equally lazy design.

 

[Mastermind]

I'm gonna cram an axe in the skull of the next dumbfuck who cries about weapon damage increasing spell damage..

And you can defend this "feature" how? It's clearly lazy coding and equally lazy design.

There's nothing lazy about it, it increases the number of viable builds and allows people to make quirky builds they might otherwise not be able to. There's also no real life rules for how magic works so spells being based on weapon properties is no more out of the ordinary than any other fictional spellcasting.

 

[shihonage]

There's nothing lazy about it, it increases the number of viable builds and allows people to make quirky builds they might otherwise not be able to.

Huh? Like what?

There's also no real life rules for how magic works so spells being based on weapon properties is no more out of the ordinary than any other fictional spellcasting.

Yet there is a common knowledge which comes from gigantic collection of various mythos where mages/sorcerers draw spell power from objects of magic. I have not seen Gandalf pick up an axe to cast a fucking spell, just as I have not seen Aragorn bash people on the head with Gandalf's staff. Give me a fucking break.

You can dress it up whatever way you want, but it is just lazy shit design to avoid creating different classes of items. This is Bethesda-level retardation right here. Pete Hines would be proud.

 

[Angthoron]

Yep, they definitely cut corners when it came to weapons, especially in vanilla. Damage working the same way off same items for nearly all classes is very lazy. However, there's also the gemming... And that's another can of worms. Essentially the only gem you ever want in your weapons is Emerald (+Crit Hit Damage), everything else loses by a mile in 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999% of the cases.

The more interesting stuff comes from the interplay of unique/set boni, the traits, legendary gems and the Kanai Cube legendary boni. If you're not playing "competitively", there's actually quite a lot to play around with. Unfortunately, all this stuff is in the endgame.

 

[Doesn'tmeananything]

I have boni for you in my pants.

 

[Angthoron]

Ah yes, the productive 2015 members meme, well memed, friend.

 

[Mastermind]

There's nothing lazy about it, it increases the number of viable builds and allows people to make quirky builds they might otherwise not be able to.

Huh? Like what?

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/sky-splitter

The legendary ability applies to all attacks, including spells. So you can channel disintegration and have enemies get hit by lightning as well.

Yet there is a common knowledge which comes from gigantic collection of various mythos where mages/sorcerers draw spell power from objects of magic. I have not seen Gandalf pick up an axe to cast a fucking spell, just as I have not seen Aragorn bash people on the head with Gandalf's staff. Give me a fucking break.

That's true, he picks up a sword to cast a spell:



This is an incredibly bizarre and stupid argument. Not only can you find plenty of mages using melee weapons, but it implies there is some sort of rule people have to follow when designing mages and all creativity should be haram.

You can dress it up whatever way you want, but it is just lazy shit design to avoid creating different classes of items. This is Bethesda-level retardation right here. Pete Hines would be proud.

Except there ARE different classes of items... Just like Diablo 2, you can wield anything that isn't class specific, only a particular class can wield class specific items and only certain characters can dual wield. Wielding 2h items with one hand has been transferred from the barb to the crusader. Most wizards are not gonna use an axe anyway, they will use wizard specific weapons that expand one of their skills since it's usually the more effective route. what it does is allow you to both better survive when building up your arsenal and try out builds that are fun to play even if they're not the best ones possible.

May I ask why you're in this thread when you know so little about the game? It takes a particularly sick mind to obsess about a game they don't play to this extent years after release.

 

[shihonage]

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/sky-splitter

The legendary ability applies to all attacks, including spells. So you can channel disintegration and have enemies get hit by lightning as well.

I don't get it. How is this superior to any of the multi-attribute items in Diablo2?

That's true, he picks up a sword to cast a spell:

Yeah, and I am pretty sure that Rocky knew how to read, but there's a reason we don't get a movie where he spends all his time at the library.

This is an incredibly bizarre and stupid argument. Not only can you find plenty of mages using melee weapons, but it implies there is some sort of rule people have to follow when designing mages and all creativity should be haram.

I have no problem with the idea of a mage using a melee weapon, which is shown in his hands, and deals damage according to mage's other attributes. I.E. a mage is usually much more frail than a fighter, so his damage with an axe should be far less.

However, mage taking an axe, and then that axe's physical damage is transmuted into magical damage, is an arbitrary and uncommon concept, the origins of which were strikingly clear and aligned with the rest of the lazy disaster that is Diablo3. Incompetence, laziness, nothing more.

Except there ARE different classes of items... Just like Diablo 2, you can wield anything that isn't class specific, only a particular class can wield class specific items and only certain characters can dual wield. Wielding 2h items with one hand has been transferred from the barb to the crusader. Most wizards are not gonna use an axe anyway, they will use wizard specific weapons that expand one of their skills since it's usually the more effective route. what it does is allow you to both better survive when building up your arsenal and try out builds that are fun to play even if they're not the best ones possible.

This does not change anything. The need to include melee items which transmute damage into spell damage, means they couldn't balance the game to use different classes of weapons properly.

Inter-bleeding of functionality between classes is just part of the overall "streamlining" retardation that permeates Diablo3 design, which is why they got rid of real town portals, identify scrolls, level-ups, skill trees, and tetris inventory.

May I ask why you're in this thread when you know so little about the game? It takes a particularly sick mind to obsess about a game they don't play to this extent years after release.

I hate Diablo3 about half as much as I hate Fallout3. It is necessary to remind people why decline is decline, so they stop supporting companies that contribute to decline.

 

[Mastermind]

I don't get it. How is this superior to any of the multi-attribute items in Diablo2?

In Diablo 2 attacks and spells were treated differently, so unique procs would usually only work on attacks. Schaefer's Hammer, for example, would only proc on melee characters, whereas in D3 it would proc for pretty much any class.

Yeah, and I am pretty sure that Rocky knew how to read, but there's a reason we don't get a movie where he spends all his time at the library.

Gandalf doesn't do much spellcasting either. He probably spends a lot more time fighting with a sword and using his staff as a battering ram than he does casting anything.

I have no problem with the idea of a mage using a melee weapon, which is shown in his hands, and deals damage according to mage's other attributes. I.E. a mage is usually much more frail than a fighter, so his damage with an axe should be far less.

Yes, if you're swinging it. But a wizard channeling a spell through it?

However, mage taking an axe, and then that axe's physical damage is transmuted into magical damage, is an arbitrary and uncommon concept, the origins of which were strikingly clear and aligned with the rest of the lazy disaster that is Diablo3. Incompetence, laziness, nothing more.

It's no more arbitrary than any other magical system, nor is it even uncommon as you can find it in other arpgs. Do you think Grim Dawn has lazy design? And again, what is the problem with an original magic system? Why does everything have to be a copy of something else?

This does not change anything. The need to include melee items which transmute damage into spell damage, means they couldn't balance the game to use different classes of weapons properly.

What does this even mean? They could easily set up a flag or two that bans mages from using axes. The game's balance would remain just as good as it is, all it would do is reduce the number of possible builds for no rational reason.

Inter-bleeding of functionality between classes is just part of the overall "streamlining" retardation that permeates Diablo3 design, which is why they got rid of real town portals, identify scrolls, level-ups, skill trees, and tetris inventory.

Streamlining isn't always a bad thing, especially when you streamline useless shit like identifying, which was pointless and supremely annoying. Town portal is still there, it just works differently (namely, it's harder to escape stupid situations you put yourself in which is a good thing). Level-ups are still there. Skill trees were replaced by the same type of skill availability you can find in Guild Wars, which is the pinnacle of combat design in action rpgs, nor is there any good reason why skill trees are inherently superior to any other system (though I would prefer a version of it myself I have no problem with Diablo 3's system as you are still limited to how many skils you can use at a time). In fact it fixes a huge problem with D2's design, which is that many skills were one point wonders while others require considerable investment to be useful and yet others were so useless they had to patch them up with synergies to make people take them. Tetris inventory, like identifying, is a waste of time. I don't want to play tetris with my inventory, I'd much rather spend my time playing the game.

I hate Diablo3 about half as much as I hate Fallout3. It is necessary to remind people why decline is decline, so they stop supporting companies that contribute to decline.

But you are embarassing yourself with a monstrously cretinous argument that is beneath you. I mean "hurr durr magic doesn't work realistically in the game" is about as dumb as it gets. All this does is convince the handful of people who still pay attention that there aren't any genuinely good arguments against D3 (and for good reason IMO, it's a very good game now).

 

[shihonage]

Mastermind Riiight.

I never tried Grim Dawn. I still don't understand how your "proc" whatever example is superior. It just demonstrates interbleed of mechanics, streamlining retardation, erosion of uniqueness between classes.

Town portals do NOT exist in Diablo3. Instant single-person teleport is just the extension of Blizzard's anti-social "one man army" mentality when it comes to Diablo3. You're a rockstar, fuck everyone else. In Diablo2 they were one of the mechanisms which encouraged interaction between players.

Leveling up is NOT in this game, as a meaningful process that requires player agency. Much like the rest, it's part of the streamlined autopilotarded vision.

Saying that certain mechanics which allow for town downtime are useless because "they keep you from playing actual game", is highly subjective. This just means you think like Jay Wilson does, who believes that "the actual game" is when you're clicking on monsters and getting loot. You could as well say we should remove professions from WoW because you want to play "the actual game". Remove inns. Maybe even remove the distance between various places because you really really want to get to the core experience of "the actual game", which, according to you, is endless combat. Diablo2 designers understood the game as being more than that. Nothing in game design is an accident, because it all takes too much work.

Guild Wars 2 has shit combat. It is neither here as an action game, nor there as abstracted MMO combat. It is too imprecise, the netcode is not good enough to accomodate it, and the game itself has no depth. Don't get me started on the retarded single-player story woven into this 1/4-baked MMO.

Gandalf or not Gandalf, there are thousands of other wizards thanks to whom we all imagine mages in a certain way. The mental gymnastics you perform in order to validate the stupid axe-spell damage thing are remarkable, but lazy design is lazy design.

What does this even mean? They could easily set up a flag or two that bans mages from using axes. The game's balance would remain just as good as it is, all it would do is reduce the number of possible builds for no rational reason.

It means that if they didn't have such interbleed of usable items, they would have to pay more attention to what drops for mages, how often, and what damage it does. The way it is now, they just plan for a "generic class", then add a sprinkle here and there for those pesky mages. It's a lot easier.

nor is there any good reason why skill trees are inherently superior to any other system

Much like the retarded mages using axes for spellpower, it doesn't make much sense when a mage has vastly different skills all bunched together. It makes more sense that they would study a discipline, and then progress in this discipline. There have to be upsides and downsides to every build, as you invest deeply or shallowly in a series of skill trees. You're good at ice, you're weak at arcane. That's what makes them actually distinctive, and also engages a certain amount of player cleverness.

D2's implementation of trees was not perfect, but they improved it with synergies. WoW's trees were pretty damn good before they revamped it.

As for "handful of people who are still paying attention", they can decide if I am ragging on a decent game, or if you're covering for obvious flaws in a highly mediocre and streamlined product. I don't really care.

Note that you are defending Diablo3 in a thread which is called "Reaper of Idiots". There's a reason for this.

 

[Beastro]

I think Blizzard forgot that when they sat down to work on Diablo 3, so what we got was a loot farming simulator that came with a 50-hour prelude (or however long it took) because there had to be a campaign.

RoS acknowledges a lot of the problems with the original game, and fixes it probably as much as it could possibly be fixed short of just starting over from scratch. It's still a game built around farming for items, but at least in RoS it feels like there's a point to farming items beyond just hoping you win the RNG lottery and find something to sell for a few hundred bucks on the RMAH.

That's because between D2 and WoW Blizzard learned that addictions are more profitable than games and have made the former ever since the WoW formula worked.

It's why the recently admitted that they deliberately make Hearthstone starter packs unusually weak, to encourage people to get wired into power progression in a deliberate, calculating way.

 

[UglyBastard]

It's why the recently admitted that they deliberately make Hearthstone starter packs unusually weak, to encourage people to get wired into power progression in a deliberate, calculating way.

You got any source on this?
Or are you just referring to some basic cards being bad?

 

[Beastro]

It's why the recently admitted that they deliberately make Hearthstone starter packs unusually weak, to encourage people to get wired into power progression in a deliberate, calculating way.

You got any source on this?
Or are you just referring to some basic cards being bad?

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...s-Ben-Brode-Talks-Hearthstone-And-Power-Creep

"We keep those cards incredibly simple to be that very slow learning curve for new players," Brode says. "We want some of the Basic Cards to be bad, really bad, to make that feeling of progression even stronger."