Diablo 3: The Blizzard Sweatshop

[ofrm1]

It's like an old man in the park walking all the way home to put his chess pieces away in a safe and walking all the way back before taking his next turn, every time his opponent takes one and saying he likes it because it makes him 'play more conservatively'. No one would do that by choice, and no one would play with that guy because it would take days to have one game.

Now who's engaging in hyperbole? Chess is nothing like D2.

This really isn't up for debate. If you go and ask D2 vets that have been playing for a majority of the game's life, they'll comment very similar to how Marou said and attribute the game's sustained fun-factor to being required to remake characters in order to try out different specs.

Just play more conservatively if that's what you want. Don't change your skills, or don't use skills until you get the ones you planned on if you like it that way... you won't... just like no old man is going to fucking walk home between turns... because it was always nonsense. It was ALWAYS stupid. It was always rolling along on a square wheel making people unable to change anything.

No, people won't for the same reason that people who first started playing morrowind ultimately go on a murderous rampage rather than follow the system that was imposed on them. While it's true that people didn't like that system at first, surprise, surprise, killing everyone you see gets boring after 10 minutes and you start to crave an actual gaming experience. You burn through content (not the actual content) far too fast and get tired of it. Eventually you either reject the restrictions of the game and stop playing or accept the restrictions as a necessary part to keep the game interesting and suddenly, 100 hours later, you're still experiencing content.

It's very important for games to have restrictions. While this sounds like it's baseless, it's not. The people who were asking for respecs for 1.13 didn't know what they wanted. They had experienced the game without it as long as it did and merely wanted some form of content as they had finally gotten tired of making new characters to try out different strategies so respecs became acceptable. The thing they don't realize is that respecs keep them from playing through the game more than 21 times in D2. From the perspective of the player, it just looks like a complete restriction that seeks to make you waste your time. It's not. That time that you're wasting is what will keep you playing the game for years to come.

The word missing from your argument is 'unique'. The point of building and speccing and itemizing without respecs is to build something entirely your own. D2 never had enough viable options to do that. No ARPG I have ever played has ever had enough viable variations to actually accomplish that, and even if you feel D2 did it had no preview mechanic to know what you were going after so it's nonsense to use the word 'pride' because you either guessed what you'd like, you copied someone else, or you wasted a ton of time experimenting and picked one of the few viable builds. That wasn't you. That was just picking the best skills for you just like in D3, except you wasted a ton of time figuring out what they were.

This point is refuted simply by pointing to the longevity and popularity of the game. It becomes clear here that you considered time making characters with different skills as wasted time whereas others did not. The only time in which people were really clamoring for respecs was past 1.10 when the content was starting to get stale as all games eventually do which is why they decided to add diablo clone in 1.10 and uber trist in 1.11 to keep players interested. If you didn't consider making a glacial ice sorc to see if it was viable spec a worthwhile usage of your time, that's fine. However other people thoroughly enjoyed it and have been for a long time. The pull of having dead skills is that after awhile, everyone knew which skills were staples and which ones weren't so then it was a personal challenge to see if a combination of skills and gear could make the skill build work effectively. Once you experience the easy fighting through frozen orb, split arrow/guided arrow, whirlwind/concentrate, and others because, let's be honest; hell isn't really a challenge; you begin to try to add difficulty by handicapping yourself. I've made over 40 characters over the course of 10 years playing D2 and there are still character builds that I could see myself trying out at some point. Hell, I just logged into my account a couple days ago to mess around on some of my characters. I refunded D3 about a month ago and haven't regretted the decision for a second.

[ofrm1]

It's like an old man in the park walking all the way home to put his chess pieces away in a safe and walking all the way back before taking his next turn, every time his opponent takes one and saying he likes it because it makes him 'play more conservatively'. No one would do that by choice, and no one would play with that guy because it would take days to have one game.

Now who's engaging in hyperbole? Chess is nothing like D2.

This really isn't up for debate. If you go and ask D2 vets that have been playing for a majority of the game's life, they'll comment very similar to how Marou said and attribute the game's sustained fun-factor to being required to remake characters in order to try out different specs.

Just play more conservatively if that's what you want. Don't change your skills, or don't use skills until you get the ones you planned on if you like it that way... you won't... just like no old man is going to fucking walk home between turns... because it was always nonsense. It was ALWAYS stupid. It was always rolling along on a square wheel making people unable to change anything.

No, people won't for the same reason that people who first started playing morrowind ultimately go on a murderous rampage rather than follow the system that was imposed on them. While it's true that people didn't like that system at first, surprise, surprise, killing everyone you see gets boring after 10 minutes and you start to crave an actual gaming experience. You burn through content (not the actual content) far too fast and get tired of it. Eventually you either reject the restrictions of the game and stop playing or accept the restrictions as a necessary part to keep the game interesting and suddenly, 100 hours later, you're still experiencing content.

It's very important for games to have restrictions. While this sounds like it's baseless, it's not. The people who were asking for respecs for 1.13 didn't know what they wanted. They had experienced the game without it as long as it did and merely wanted some form of content as they had finally gotten tired of making new characters to try out different strategies so respecs became acceptable. The thing they don't realize is that respecs keep them from playing through the game more than 21 times in D2. From the perspective of the player, it just looks like a complete restriction that seeks to make you waste your time. It's not. That time that you're wasting is what will keep you playing the game for years to come.

The word missing from your argument is 'unique'. The point of building and speccing and itemizing without respecs is to build something entirely your own. D2 never had enough viable options to do that. No ARPG I have ever played has ever had enough viable variations to actually accomplish that, and even if you feel D2 did it had no preview mechanic to know what you were going after so it's nonsense to use the word 'pride' because you either guessed what you'd like, you copied someone else, or you wasted a ton of time experimenting and picked one of the few viable builds. That wasn't you. That was just picking the best skills for you just like in D3, except you wasted a ton of time figuring out what they were.

This point is refuted simply by pointing to the longevity and popularity of the game. It becomes clear here that you considered time making characters with different skills as wasted time whereas others did not. The only time in which people were really clamoring for respecs was past 1.10 when the content was starting to get stale as all games eventually do which is why they decided to add diablo clone in 1.10 and uber trist in 1.11 to keep players interested. Most people just put a point into everything until they found a combo that they liked. There are also some that are giveaways assuming you played the original diablo like fire wall. If you didn't consider making a glacial ice sorc to see if it was viable spec a worthwhile usage of your time, that's fine. However other people thoroughly enjoyed it and have been for a long time. The pull of having dead skills is that after awhile, everyone knew which skills were staples and which ones weren't so then it was a personal challenge to see if a combination of skills and gear could make the skill build work effectively. Once you experience the easy fighting through frozen orb, split arrow/guided arrow, whirlwind/concentrate, and others because, let's be honest; hell isn't really a challenge; you begin to try to add difficulty by handicapping yourself. Sometimes it worked, a lot of the times it didn't. But when it did, you did get a sense of pride that what you made wasn't the ideal setup, but that YOU managed to make it work. I've made over 40 characters over the course of 10 years playing D2 and there are still character builds that I could see myself trying out at some point. Hell, I just logged into my account a couple days ago to mess around on some of my characters. I refunded D3 about a month ago and haven't regretted the decision for a second.

[Draconian]

I got a refund and a profit. Nyah nyah

[ofrm1]

Whoops. Double post.

[Valec]

It's like an old man in the park walking all the way home to put his chess pieces away in a safe and walking all the way back before taking his next turn, every time his opponent takes one and saying he likes it because it makes him 'play more conservatively'. No one would do that by choice, and no one would play with that guy because it would take days to have one game.

Just play more conservatively if that's what you want. Don't change your skills, or don't use skills until you get the ones you planned on if you like it that way... you won't... just like no old man is going to fucking walk home between turns... because it was always nonsense. It was ALWAYS stupid. It was always rolling along on a square wheel making people unable to change anything.




The word missing from your argument is 'unique'. The point of building and speccing and itemizing without respecs is to build something entirely your own. D2 never had enough viable options to do that. No ARPG I have ever played has ever had enough viable variations to actually accomplish that, and even if you feel D2 did it had no preview mechanic to know what you were going after so it's nonsense to use the word 'pride' because you either guessed what you'd like, you copied someone else, or you wasted a ton of time experimenting and picked one of the few viable builds. That wasn't you. That was just picking the best skills for you just like in D3, except you wasted a ton of time figuring out what they were.

The only action/rpg game I saw do unique building right was Planet-Side. They had a giant map that was a kind of virtual reality sim where you could try everything in the game so you knew what you wanted. I personally hated respecs and cert packs in that game and I feel like they ruined it's balance. Because a person really could be unique, and really did have a viable way to build something unique on purpose. That was never there in D2. Too many skills were just outright failures, and even if blizz fixed them all, the skill system made going for skills you liked horrifically restrictive throughout most of the game and made you hold your points, again, just to get to a new guess or follow a guide.

Respecs and 'cert packs' is what made Planetside actually good. The fact that a player, on day one, could be on an even playing field spec-wise/equipment-wise is why it was good. If you didn't like that, you didn't like the very principles behind the game.

Personally, I hope more games follow it's example. It's not about being pidgeon-holed into a spec. It's about playing a game how you want to play it, within a framework that allows that type of customization. Planetside's progression system, while I can't swear that it was revolutionary(I'm sure someone will say how x game did it previously), I believe it was. If you want to have a MMOFPS, nobody should have the option of having 'better' weapons. More weapons and more options, perhaps. It was literally the best example of horizontal progression i've ever seen.

Now Diablo 3..

Honestly, you guys are playing a sack of shit and some of you really think it smells good. This game is just awful. It's pretty and has phat lewtz. It has zero customization, even on a skill level, because there is literally one way to spec any class to be the best.

It's a dumb game. There's absolutely nothing redeemable about it, except the vague possibility of using the RMT auction house to make the game pay for itself. Well, even a free game can kiss my ass if it's a piece of shit, which Diablo 3 is. I'm glad I was able to get a good sample of the game by watching the internet's frustration with how stupid it is(as well as watching in person people progress through inferno). $60 saved(which, by the way, is an absurd price for a game that is almost entirely digitally distributed).

Stop buying this obnoxious trash. Developers aren't the problem. Publishers aren't the problem. People screaming 'shut up and take my money' are the problem. You keep buying this nonsense, they'll keep making it.

[VKhaun]

This thread makes my head hurt.
The things you say you like have nothing to do with rerolling your character.

[Marou]

This thread makes my head hurt.
The things you say you like have nothing to do with rerolling your character.

They have some to do with rerolling, but mostly they have to do with the depth of character customization, itemization, and viable builds in hell difficulty Diablo 2, which was hundreds or thousands of times greater than it is in Inferno Diablo 3. The lack of infinite respeccing did add replayability by increasing the satisfaction of playing a build that was effective but less than optimal. With unlimited respeccing that feels unsatisfying and like a waste of time.

[Andile™]

Stop buying this obnoxious trash. Developers aren't the problem. Publishers aren't the problem. People screaming 'shut up and take my money' are the problem. You keep buying this nonsense, they'll keep making it.

I'm so happy I never got into WOW and helped trash the MMO genre.

[Zavon]

http://i.imgur.com/6qfkp.jpg

[Marou]

Heh, duping.

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Dia...ing-44714.html

[Zavon]

Christ. When will this insanity end?

God bless Torchlight 2

[Valec]

Christ. When will this insanity end?

God bless Torchlight 2

I <3 Runic Games so much. Torchlight 2 will be great fun.

[Ero Elohim]

Heh, duping.

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Dia...ing-44714.html

That article is so biased, I'm surprised it isn't 4000 lines of BLIZZARD SUCKS BLIZZARD SUCKS BLIZZARD SUCKS BLIZZARD SUCKS BLIZZARD SUCKS BLIZZARD SUCKS BLIZZARD SUCKS BLIZZARD SUCKS BLIZZARD SUCKS.

[VKhaun]

I think if duping were rampant we'd notice it on the AH. You can't really hide it when people sort their search by DPS or Armor since identical items would automatically line up together. Not only would it be painfully obvious, it would be painfully easy to catch and punish.

[Ero Elohim]

I think if duping were rampant we'd notice it on the AH. You can't really hide it when people sort their search by DPS or Armor since identical items would automatically line up together. Not only would it be painfully obvious, it would be painfully easy to catch and punish.

For all we know, it's just a scam. Offer doctored photos that claim you have perfected a dupe and state you'll sell the secret for in-game gold. It's a cunning scheme, since you'll be laughed out of most courts for suing someone over a virtual currency.

[Dumah]

I know I'm jumping in a little late, and maybe it's been brought up already, but I haven't been posting much so fuck you.

I think another thing I miss about D2 was the level pursuit. While the cap was 99, you probably weren't going to reach it, but it sure was fun watching that bar move a tick at 89 - just another thing to shoot for. Now we're capped at 60 and have to exercise economics as to not get ripped off at the AH so we can advance until we reach another gear roadblock. Maybe I'm getting older, but I'm just really not feelin' it anymore.

[Zoobi]

. Now we're capped at 60 and have to exercise economics as to not get ripped off at the AH so we can advance until we reach another gear roadblock.

This is the biggest problem with the game. The only goal in the game is to achieve +1 dex/vita/all resist on your gear now, they've turned it into a gear treadmill instead of having sidegrades that work differently for certain builds. There's no looking for that perfect fool's claw for you to make a ww assassin, or that ethereal titan's for your throwazon. It's just a meaningless treadmill of +1's.

[VKhaun]

This is the biggest problem with the game. The only goal in the game is to achieve +1 dex/vita/all resist on your gear now, they've turned it into a gear treadmill instead of having sidegrades that work differently for certain builds. There's no looking for that perfect fool's claw for you to make a ww assassin, or that ethereal titan's for your throwazon. It's just a meaningless treadmill of +1's.

Truth. I was also disappointed at how few and specific the special stats were.

[Boxy Brown]

At first I was blinded by the awesome novelty of the game, combined with an ownage storyline and the fact that every single person I know in real life played it, but to be perfectly honest, Diablo 3 fucking blows.

It's just a horrible game. It's poorly designed, it's difficult in all the wrong ways, and the RMAH was a terrible idea. Let's address these points 1 by 1, shall we?

1) Poorly designed: There are packs of enemies that you literally can't kill. You have to kite them to a corner of the map and never go there again. That's really all I need to say about that point. There are TONS of game design flaws, but this is the best example in my mind.
2) Difficult in all the wrong ways: There are hitbox issues that Blizzard knows about and won't fix because, "players being able to more readily dodge attacks would make the game too easy." That's Mordred level policy retardation, but it's not my main gripe. The thing that made Hell D2 hard for me was monster immunities. I'd come to a pack that was immune to fire, lightning, physical and poison, and I'd have to adjust my strategy on the fly to kill them. In D3 you can't even swap your abilities around in combat, and if you die to a group of monsters that you could beat with a different rune or ability combination, too bad so sad because if you change your shit around you lose your Neph stacks (another stupid design point). The only thing that makes D3 Inferno hard is the fact that the monsters hit like Mack trucks.
3) The RMAH is fucking stupid: I thought I was going to sweat the RMAH so hard. "Oh sweet, I can make money playing the game! It'll pay for itself in no time!" But really, all it did was make it so that you couldn't buy any good gear for gold, because let's be honest, who's going to sell a top tier item for in game currency when someone somewhere in the world is willing to pay you $250 for it?

It sucks too, because I was REALLY loving D3 at first.

[Valec]

At first I was blinded by the awesome novelty of the game, combined with an ownage storyline and the fact that every single person I know in real life played it, but to be perfectly honest, Diablo 3 fucking blows.

It's just a horrible game. It's poorly designed, it's difficult in all the wrong ways, and the RMAH was a terrible idea. Let's address these points 1 by 1, shall we?

1) Poorly designed: There are packs of enemies that you literally can't kill. You have to kite them to a corner of the map and never go there again. That's really all I need to say about that point. There are TONS of game design flaws, but this is the best example in my mind.
2) Difficult in all the wrong ways: There are hitbox issues that Blizzard knows about and won't fix because, "players being able to more readily dodge attacks would make the game too easy." That's Mordred level policy retardation, but it's not my main gripe. The thing that made Hell D2 hard for me was monster immunities. I'd come to a pack that was immune to fire, lightning, physical and poison, and I'd have to adjust my strategy on the fly to kill them. In D3 you can't even swap your abilities around in combat, and if you die to a group of monsters that you could beat with a different rune or ability combination, too bad so sad because if you change your shit around you lose your Neph stacks (another stupid design point). The only thing that makes D3 Inferno hard is the fact that the monsters hit like Mack trucks.
3) The RMAH is fucking stupid: I thought I was going to sweat the RMAH so hard. "Oh sweet, I can make money playing the game! It'll pay for itself in no time!" But really, all it did was make it so that you couldn't buy any good gear for gold, because let's be honest, who's going to sell a top tier item for in game currency when someone somewhere in the world is willing to pay you $250 for it?

It sucks too, because I was REALLY loving D3 at first.

It doesn't actually have an awesome storyline, it has a generic storyline, with generic dialogue and generic voice acting.

Honestly, there was nothing very good about Diablo 3 at all. DLC/Expansions won't change any of that, either.

[Zoobi]

I personally like the storyline, I just don't like how it was delivered. You essentially know whats going to happen in each act, not to mention the way deckard cain died. It's even more apparent in act 3 when Azmodan is essentially telling you where to go next to thwart him. Storyline itself was pretty good, the way it was delivered is amateur at best.

[ofrm1]

If you encounter the "Input limit reached" message and feel you should not have, please let us know how many games you were creating and why.

Fuck your "game creation limit" system. It was shit back in Diablo 2 and it'll be shit here.

Seriously. How is anyone playing this garbage still?

[Boxy Brown]

It doesn't actually have an awesome storyline, it has a generic storyline, with generic dialogue and generic voice acting.

Honestly, there was nothing very good about Diablo 3 at all. DLC/Expansions won't change any of that, either.

I loved the storyline, but I agree with Zoobi about the derivery.