Diablo 3!
- Thread starter xfool
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So I played the beta weekend, and enjoyed it quite a bit.
For your amusement, go look at the original 20 minute announcement video from June 2008 and a play through from this month.
Remember the talisman, the mystic, minor lethality rune items, mana orbs, the thousand pounder, traits, talent trees, and the absence of town portals?
I would caution against taking a sick day off work to play this as you might not even get a chance. I had fun with the open beta, but there were many times when I couldn't log in, make my own game, or join a random co-op game. I've played Diablo 2, World of Warcraft, and Starcraft 2 and it's not unusual to be randomly disconnected for long stretches of time. Besides, it's been close to 4 years, can't you handle 1/3-1/2 day at work before you start?
So, I had a chance to play through the beta as all 5 classes. Of all the classes, the Barbarian was the most fun by far due in no small part to the fact that he can endlessly spam a skill that kills and blows up 5 enemies in one hit. He has a very Kratos/Hulk Smash feeling to him. The Wizard, the class I always play first, was disappointing. He does have AOE, but it either costs a ton of energy, is on a long cool down, or both. I hope that the later skill unlocks are more fun to use. Archon looks pretty awesome.
And hopefully I won't inadvertently masquerade as Nomad in the future.
Remember the talisman, the mystic, minor lethality rune items, mana orbs, the thousand pounder, traits, talent trees, and the absence of town portals?
I would caution against taking a sick day off work to play this as you might not even get a chance. I had fun with the open beta, but there were many times when I couldn't log in, make my own game, or join a random co-op game. I've played Diablo 2, World of Warcraft, and Starcraft 2 and it's not unusual to be randomly disconnected for long stretches of time. Besides, it's been close to 4 years, can't you handle 1/3-1/2 day at work before you start?
So, I had a chance to play through the beta as all 5 classes. Of all the classes, the Barbarian was the most fun by far due in no small part to the fact that he can endlessly spam a skill that kills and blows up 5 enemies in one hit. He has a very Kratos/Hulk Smash feeling to him. The Wizard, the class I always play first, was disappointing. He does have AOE, but it either costs a ton of energy, is on a long cool down, or both. I hope that the later skill unlocks are more fun to use. Archon looks pretty awesome.
And hopefully I won't inadvertently masquerade as Nomad in the future.
Grail
Feel the funk blast
Here are my two cents on the beta:
As far as nostalgia goes, it definitely delivered, though as an overall gaming experience, it got a little repetitive. Granted, what Walter said suggests that that the pacing isn't necessarily represented by the few hours of gameplay we got this weekend. In any case, I've been planning to hold off on buying D3 in favor of Guild Wars 2, and the beta hasn't really changed my opinion there.
Despite that, I had a lot of fun playing the monk, and I'm looking forward to playing the full game when I've got more cash to spend!
As far as nostalgia goes, it definitely delivered, though as an overall gaming experience, it got a little repetitive. Granted, what Walter said suggests that that the pacing isn't necessarily represented by the few hours of gameplay we got this weekend. In any case, I've been planning to hold off on buying D3 in favor of Guild Wars 2, and the beta hasn't really changed my opinion there.
Despite that, I had a lot of fun playing the monk, and I'm looking forward to playing the full game when I've got more cash to spend!
SaiyajinNoOuji
I'm still better than you
Anyone here that played both Diablo 3 Beta and path of exile beta? Can we get a slight comparison? I am hearing mixed reviews about Diablo 3... ranging from great to super dumb'ed down.
SaiyajinNoOuji said:
Diablo 3 is probably going to be a more fun game overall because of the more interesting abilities, monsters and boss fights. Path of Exile is the perfect game for people who hated Diablo 3's new direction and want a more old school experience. I will be playing both. Path of Exile is not as far along, so they may make dramatic improvements in the meantime.
This is a more detailed description:
Music: I take back what I said regarding Diablo 3's music. The music is just kind of there; it's better than nothing but it doesn't make the levels that much more interesting. What I liked about Diablo 1 and Path of Exile was that their dungeon music tried to fill you with a sense of dread every time you opened a door or turned a corner.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stvkg7PkeDU&feature=plcp&context=C460518fVDvjVQa1PpcFNVwrG8F8NrY5zMXm3uqFUMh9KaL--K4j8%3D
has nothing on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v829LHb4ys (particularly after 2:07)
Difficulty: I've played through all of the Diablo 3 beta and about 3/4 of the way through Act II on Cruel (Nightmare) difficulty in Path of Exile. As a caster, neither of these games were that challenging. Torchlight on Normal was more challenging. That being said, difficulty in games is very dynamic.
Customization: Path of Exile wins in terms of customization, hands down. You have a gigantic FFX style sphere grid where you can choose your stats and various kinds of perks. In Diablo 3, stats are picked for you and you can swap out skills on the fly; the sole difference between any two classes of the same level will be their items.
In Diablo 3, stats are picked out for you, your traits have been stripped down to 3 passive skills, and everything can easily be swapped out for free. The biggest consequence of not swapping skills is de-activating an enhanced magic find buff. Jay Wilson said, he wanted players to feel committed to their build; this skill swapping is completely antithetical to that feeling.
Trade: I have mixed feelings on this one. It's really nice to have a centralized Auction House in Diablo III with the standard gold currency. I'm worried, however, that the gold farming is going to make the already ridiculous prices of the beta D3 auction house and WoW auction house pale in comparison. In WoW, the best items probably needed weeks worth of grinding in terms of gold. I suspect many people will switch to dollars because the gold to dollar ratio will be high. It's also probably the reason why the game is online only and mods are banned.
Path of Exile is interesting in that it doesn't bother with gold or item repairs. Instead there are many items that players can use as currency, mostly orbs. Orbs re-roll stats on magic items, upgrade normal items to rare items, re-roll sockets, give you respec points, and so much more. Path of Exile doesn't have any sort of trade window, but they will definitely make one later; for now, people just toss items on the ground. I believe trade will mostly be done through chat channels and on the forums as opposed to a convenient auction house.
Co-op: I didn't even bother with Path of Exile co-op. The devs insist on giving the game a cut-throat feel so it's Free For All for now. I don't play Free For All with strangers ever, because I want to focus on fighting instead of racing to vacuum the loot. The devs are currently testing out a weird compromise where high value items will have an allocation timer on them. In other words, for x number of seconds, an item is yours, but if time runs out it goes to Free For All. http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/392. That not only diverts players' attention away from fighting, it may also clog up the screen with numbers.
In Diablo 3, co-op is fun. It makes the game easy to the point where all you need to do is charge and spam skills. It's fun and will probably be the most common way to play for inferno, but it's not the best for players who like to take their sweet time listening to every bit of dialogue and exploring every corner.
Combat: Diablo 3 has the advantage. In Path of Exile, skills and monsters feel more standard and traditional. Diablo 3 has big fat things that explode into eels, fleeing goblins that drop treasure, and skeleton lords that cast magic missiles and summon other skeletons. In Diablo 3, you can make five monsters explode in one hit, shoot out an ice laser beam, or morph into Ifrit/Super-Saiyan form.
The Boss fights in Diablo 3 are far more interesting right now. Path of Exile's bosses mostly feel like bigger monsters with more hit points. Bosses like King Leoric and the Ghost protecting the crown feel like cinematic events with their own musical cues, unique attacks, and dialogue. The Grinding Gear devs have said they will redesign their bosses, so we'll see how that goes.
Both games have thankfully scrapped the potion system. Diablo 3 has health orbs you walk into to be instantly healed while Path of Exile has flask items that refill healing charges as you kill monsters. Diablo 3's system is better because combat never comes down to spamming a drink key.
Appearance: Path of Exile has much better looking indoor areas, while Diablo 3 has better looking outdoor areas. Path of Exile's dungeons look absolutely beautiful, while Diablo's are mostly navy blue or washed out purple. Path of Exile's outdoor areas look somewhat plain and the cropped trees obstructing my view don't help. Diablo 3 outdoor areas look like paintings with cool mist effects.
Grail
Feel the funk blast
Nice assessment there, Mr. Fist! While I haven't played Path of Exile myself (saw a video about it instead), I really agree about Diablo's music:
Though there were a few points where songs from earlier games were used, which I really enjoyed, the newer music featured on the beta felt incredibly generic. Same with the visuals for the interiors of the dungeons. I honestly didn't get the sense of dread and foreboding as I was going deeper and deeper into the dungeons. Ultimately, it didn't feel like a horror/fantasy RPG, but more of a traditional adventure with some dark undertones. That feeling of hopelessness was simply never there, which I think takes a big chunk away from the classic "Diablo" experience.
Groovy Metal Fist said:
Though there were a few points where songs from earlier games were used, which I really enjoyed, the newer music featured on the beta felt incredibly generic. Same with the visuals for the interiors of the dungeons. I honestly didn't get the sense of dread and foreboding as I was going deeper and deeper into the dungeons. Ultimately, it didn't feel like a horror/fantasy RPG, but more of a traditional adventure with some dark undertones. That feeling of hopelessness was simply never there, which I think takes a big chunk away from the classic "Diablo" experience.
Griffith
With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
SaiyajinNoOuji said:
Diablo? Dumbed down? What would that even entail; not having to click anymore? All the character building elements were largely nonsense anyway (unless you were trying to make a broken character). Goes to show that people will claim anything has been dumbed down (probably for consoles!). And if it's about being able to respec your build on the fly, those complainers can fuck right off. I prefer having fun to wasting hours making alternate builds of the same class because I messed something up in the first few hours, or... when they nerf my lvl 80 barb and his super rare valuable IRL magic enchanted lance!
So yeah, I'll feel much more attached to my character if he can walk again after Blizzard cripples him.Anyway, I also beat the D3 beta, with a barb, and it was as addictive as ever *click click click*. Though it felt a bit slower per click, the outdoor environments seemed pretty limited (though I didn't explore), and it was already repetitive (didn't mean I stopped though, and I was up against the clock after midnight on the last day, making me impatient). I pretty much agree with everyone that said it has more of that oversized comicbook fantasy vibe that many Diablo clones have adopted since rather than the dark gothic perfection of the original (it feels like a natural continuation of 2 though). Frankly, I still like the original's visual style better than either this or D2, but maybe that's just on my shitty laptop. Even simple things like the original game's scrolling copperplate gothic font soliloquies felt polished and presented just right, whereas this game's pseudo-RPG NPC chat style left me a bit cold. I felt like I was playing a different game there, or that it was pretending I was. Still, the way the environments have depth and crumble is cool, and really it was quite impressive looking for the first dungeon, so the actual "wow" environments have a lot of potential (imagine what Hell looks like... other than not as scary as in the first game's dark, methodical design).
What really struck me is that ultimately it looked, sounded, and played like a new Diablo game. That sounds dumb at first, but I've been playing a lot of Fallout lately, 1 & 2, and playing those games and realizing what happened to that franchise (got super dumbed down =) made the continuity of Diablo III feel a little bittersweet (sweet for D3, bitter for less fortunate franchises), so it's not something I take for granted. I'm delighted that I can play this game, travel down memory lane to 1996 and 2000 with my friends, and have it feel new again.
I was initially rather bored with Diablo 3. But the game has grown on me. I wasn't a fan of it until recently, once I was able to try all the classes and raise them to sufficient levels. With almost all the classes (Wizard and Barb excluded) combat is a bore until you get higher-level abilities. With the first tier of abilities, you aren't given much leeway to creatively combine different attacks. It's pretty much just a spam fest (hey Walter, welcome to Diablo).
But I chose the Demon Hunter (specifically a Huntress) to play a second and third time with. After doing that, you can raise your character's level to the point where the abilities suddenly become far more interesting to experiment with, and the game truly opens up. Stumbling into a horde of enemies that are bottlenecked by a staircase, as a huntress I can drop caltrops, flip away, putting some distance between me and the enemies, then using rapid fire ability to hose down 20+ enemies. That's a combination of three abilities that wasn't possible before level 8. For probably the first time in the beta, I was finally having fun. And that's likely the tip of the iceberg.
The removal of stat customization burned at first, but the more I play D3, the less I care about it. It actually omits a part of D2 that, while nice to have, added undue stress every time I leveled up (Okay, I'm an Amazon so I should add all my points to DEX, right? But what about VIT? Uhh... 3 in DEX and 2 in VIT and EN? 1 each? Any? What's the right answer?! Oh shit I added all to DEX! AHHHHHHH!) Of course, there's a price that comes with streamlining the stats--less character customization. But I think that will be replaced by unique item and armor sets--those that let you focus on certain abilities or stats.
This is all to say that I think the game will get quite a bit better once we can finally go beyond this truncated version of it.
But I chose the Demon Hunter (specifically a Huntress) to play a second and third time with. After doing that, you can raise your character's level to the point where the abilities suddenly become far more interesting to experiment with, and the game truly opens up. Stumbling into a horde of enemies that are bottlenecked by a staircase, as a huntress I can drop caltrops, flip away, putting some distance between me and the enemies, then using rapid fire ability to hose down 20+ enemies. That's a combination of three abilities that wasn't possible before level 8. For probably the first time in the beta, I was finally having fun. And that's likely the tip of the iceberg.
The removal of stat customization burned at first, but the more I play D3, the less I care about it. It actually omits a part of D2 that, while nice to have, added undue stress every time I leveled up (Okay, I'm an Amazon so I should add all my points to DEX, right? But what about VIT? Uhh... 3 in DEX and 2 in VIT and EN? 1 each? Any? What's the right answer?! Oh shit I added all to DEX! AHHHHHHH!) Of course, there's a price that comes with streamlining the stats--less character customization. But I think that will be replaced by unique item and armor sets--those that let you focus on certain abilities or stats.
This is all to say that I think the game will get quite a bit better once we can finally go beyond this truncated version of it.
I've done it twice just todayGriffith said:So, am I the only one trying to connect even though it doesn't go live until midnight? Just testing, Blizzard.
I got quite addicted to the beta in the final few days. Maxed all characters except the Witch Doctor, which I was just a few hours shy of completing. I would have gotten the "BETAMAX" achievement for it. Oh well... And by that I mean
I'm still undecided on the class I'll choose on my first playthrough. Maybe a Monk, but more probably a Barbarian, since I had a lot of fun with him during the beta. They can really wreck some shit—more than the other classes, in my experience. That might be a low-level thing though, with other classes scaling better in later levels.
I reinstalled D2 over the weekend and played til mid-act 2. Honestly I think Diablo 3 is a big improvement in a lot of ways, but as a result of the skill tree simplification, it certainly doesn't feel like you can create dramatically different iterations of the classes through skill and stat allocation. I think that kind of specialization is being offloaded onto armor items. Which is fine, in its own way I suppose. But I wonder if that will lead to less interesting re-plays.
I'll be playing as a Wizard, as is tradition for me, but I get the feeling the witch doctor will probably be the easiest class to play because of his minions and the fact that poison dart does more damage than magic missile.
I'm not sure if I'll play as a male or female wizard. I normally play male, but the male wizard kind of looks like a douche.
I was surprised how much more prominent your battle tag is than your character name. You talk in chat channels with your battle tag, your friends list consists of battle tags, and when you're in a game, it's the battle tag that displays at the top of the screen (character names appear at the bottom for cut scene dialogue and typing messages). In other words, it's the only identity that seems to matter and it will probably cost real money to change at some point in the future (it can only be changed once for now).
There are live streams for this game going on in Asia right now. As for me, I'm still waiting on my collector's edition to ship.
I'm not sure if I'll play as a male or female wizard. I normally play male, but the male wizard kind of looks like a douche.
I was surprised how much more prominent your battle tag is than your character name. You talk in chat channels with your battle tag, your friends list consists of battle tags, and when you're in a game, it's the battle tag that displays at the top of the screen (character names appear at the bottom for cut scene dialogue and typing messages). In other words, it's the only identity that seems to matter and it will probably cost real money to change at some point in the future (it can only be changed once for now).
There are live streams for this game going on in Asia right now. As for me, I'm still waiting on my collector's edition to ship.
I actually found Witch Doctor the least fun to play. When grouping, I always got the sense I wasn't adding much to the team in terms of damage. Sure, poison dart is decent enough once you get the first rune, but it has a pretty slow rate of fire regardless of your weapon. By the time my shots land, Barbarians have already torn through that enemy. As for the minions (zombie dogs), I found them almost completely worthless, in terms of the amount of damage they dealt.
Griffith
With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Groovy Metal Fist said:
Yeah, I wish I'd known that when I took Griffith#1356 for the open beta, which I'll stick with for now (even if I change it to my traditional Diablo handle, what if I get shitty random numbers? =). I thought character names would be more prominent for in-game display, but I guess they won't matter much at all, and protecting my unique name (have kept it off D2 multiplayer for a while) was in vain since I'm assuming now there can be any number of "Conan"s, etc?
I don't know, I see the logic in it for character names, but if the battletag is what really matters it comes to the same thing except everybody has to use ugly numerical distinctions by default.
Griffith said:
You will automatically get appended numbers no matter what but the numbers won't display in-game. If you're the first person to come up with the name, it's going to be #251. I want a battle tag that sounds cool, has not been used heavily, is not painfully obvious, and sounds like it could be an actual name, so I'll be using my 1 free change pretty soon.
Walter said:
The minions are mainly there to keep the monsters from ever getting close to you. If it's damage and fun you want, then go with the Barbarian.
Griffith
With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Groovy Metal Fist said:
I think just by following the link where it explained changing the name, I may have lost the ability to do it even though I actively elected not to change it by selecting, "Not now, thanks" (implication: can STILL be done LATER, NOT YOUR LAST CHANCE!). Hopefully just temporary while they get things in order today? In any case, be careful. I feel a bit screwed here. Griffith the Barbarian? Fuck this, I feel very screwed.
Blizzard has done a poor job since Starcraft 2 of explaining the concept of "real name" and "battletag" is and how they function in the games. I'm SKNETWalter#1627 but I'm willing to bet there weren't actually 1626 other SKnetWalters. Just a hunch.Griffith said:
http://www.twitch.tv/justw8
Live stream of some EU players. One person posted it as an example of the game being to easy. These guys are dying once every couple of minutes
They're in Act II on Hell difficulty as of this moment. I'm not going to even be able to begin installing until at least 6:00 tonight.
Live stream of some EU players. One person posted it as an example of the game being to easy. These guys are dying once every couple of minutes
They're in Act II on Hell difficulty as of this moment. I'm not going to even be able to begin installing until at least 6:00 tonight.
Griffith
With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
I solved my battletag problem, for anyone else that may need it:
https://us.battle.net/account/management/battletag-modify.html
So, say goodbye to Griffith the Barbarian, and cower in fear at the second coming of TARCHON!
Anyway, after numerous error 37s I managed to get on around 1:30am last night and played for a couple of hours (I was simultaneously working on a take home midterm =), and had a good old time. After I got off for a bit to finish the paper, I couldn't get back on (3006 error this time). Hopefully it'll be working a bit better tonight. I'm actually shocked how many people I know that are into Diablo III. I figured I'd just be playing with you guys, but I already have an invitation to join a group of three people I know IRL (I had no idea). I actually wouldn't mind playing through it solo at first though, basically get the single player experience.
https://us.battle.net/account/management/battletag-modify.html
So, say goodbye to Griffith the Barbarian, and cower in fear at the second coming of TARCHON!
Anyway, after numerous error 37s I managed to get on around 1:30am last night and played for a couple of hours (I was simultaneously working on a take home midterm =), and had a good old time. After I got off for a bit to finish the paper, I couldn't get back on (3006 error this time). Hopefully it'll be working a bit better tonight. I'm actually shocked how many people I know that are into Diablo III. I figured I'd just be playing with you guys, but I already have an invitation to join a group of three people I know IRL (I had no idea). I actually wouldn't mind playing through it solo at first though, basically get the single player experience.
Looks like servers are down for a bit of maintenance. I've only had about 15 minutes to play so far. Me and Griff attempted to play as soon as it launched last night (3 a.m. for me), to no avail. Servers were jammed.
Btw, Griff. Now that you've changed your BattleTag, do you still have those random numbers at the end? I was wondering if those were standard, or if I just got fucked on my name.
Btw, Griff. Now that you've changed your BattleTag, do you still have those random numbers at the end? I was wondering if those were standard, or if I just got fucked on my name.