Diablo III open beta weekend

[Capt.Toilet]

Originally Posted by SlayerDragon

As far as difficulty goes, I am pretty sure it's on a low setting. I didn't check the difficulty.

Difficulty was on normal. Granted it is the first Act after all. I am sure as the game progresses even normal might get a tad rough.

[SleepyHe4d]

Originally Posted by SlayerDragon

Eh, I like the skill system. Why should it need to be complicated? You pick your skills and your runes from the available set for your level. No big deal.

Really disappointed that it's not only that you need to connect to play but that you're actually playing online. Just seems wrong to me.

I also miss having two weapon sets. And I wish you could have some keys to swap between equipped left/right click skills.

As far as difficulty goes, I am pretty sure it's on a low setting. I didn't check the difficulty.

Anyway, overall it was a pretty cool experience. I got to the Skeleton King and I almost killed him before the servers shut down.

Let me guess, another person who's never played Diablo?

Edit: Nevermind, you mentioned the two weapon sets thing so I guess you have played Diablo 2, but your difficulty comment made it seem like you hadn't. I don't really miss the 2 sets thing since it was basically just used to buff your stats in Diablo 2. Also you can customize your skill slot placement by check marking "elective skills" or something in the options menu.

The always online thing is their new style of DRM, but it doesn't cause any problems and actually has a use. Diablo and Diablo 2 ended up being played primarily online, especially after first playthroughs, so why not just give people the ability to use your 'offline' character online so they don't have to remake one?

With Diablo games, the difficulty has always worked as you have to beat Normal mode before you get to replay the game in Nightmare, then finally Hell. Normal is level 1-30, Nightmare like 30-60 and Hell 60+. Yeah, it definitely gets harder starting from Nightmare, but it's lame that you have to beat the game once to get to a challenge.

Originally Posted by Capt.Toilet

Difficulty was on normal. Granted it is the first Act after all. I am sure as the game progresses even normal might get a tad rough.

Yeah, it probably will, but I hope that's not all of Act 1, that felt really meh. Also the monastery has really changed since Diablo. And the wanderer had smex with Adria the Bitch (overpriced gold-digger), bahahahaha.


Two more complaints:
-Dungeons and outdoor areas are really linear and really short, I can't even tell if they were randomized despite playing through the beta 3 times.

-The skills show NO information at all about damage, range, radius, and stuff, how the hell am I supposed to know what anything does?! This is one major area where you can tell one purpose of the overall game design is to be carebear-ified or casualized for WoW players.

Adding on to previous complaints:
-No leveling up skills, just unlocking new ones. No more upping certain statistics either. Every person has the exact same skills as everyone else, being a cookie cutter character is so lame in an RPG. The only thing that will be different will be the items. Even then, I was playing with another demon hunter that looked exactly the same as me, helm color, weapon, and everything.


Overall, I think they are taking all the things from MOBAs that wouldn't work in Diablo and ignoring all the things in MOBAs that would be good for Diablo.

[Sjosz]

Played a bit so far, will be playing more this evening when the servers are back up. So far gotten to part of the first Cathedral floor. It definitely looks pretty, with some clever stuff going on as far as players/enemies versus environment looks are concerned.
It feels like it should be the tutorial area, and it seems fine so far. Hoping the skill trees and skill selection are a bit more varied/open with the full game, always liked that about Titan Quest. That, and double set weapons you can switch between. We'll see what happens I guess.

[-Jes-]

Originally Posted by SleepyHe4d

-

Essentially, I didn't miss out on anything worthwhile.

GG Blizzard.

[SlayerDragon]

Originally Posted by SleepyHe4d

Let me guess, another person who's never played Diablo?

Edit: Nevermind, you mentioned the two weapon sets thing so I guess you have played Diablo 2, but your difficulty comment made it seem like you hadn't. I don't really miss the 2 sets thing since it was basically just used to buff your stats in Diablo 2. Also you can customize your skill slot placement by check marking "elective skills" or something in the options menu.

I have played Diablo 2, yes. And sometimes I want to swing a big sword, and sometimes I want to use two weapons, or I want a weapon with lifesteal and a weapon that has some other properties. I don't know anything about the last part of your comment, and now the beta is over so I can't check.

Originally Posted by SleepyHe4d

The always online thing is their new style of DRM, but it doesn't cause any problems and actually has a use. Diablo and Diablo 2 ended up being played primarily online, especially after first playthroughs, so why not just give people the ability to use your 'offline' character online so they don't have to remake one?

Doesn't cause any problems? If you can't connect, you can't play, period. There is no possibility of playing by yourself on your own PC. That is a problem.

Originally Posted by SleepyHe4d

With Diablo games, the difficulty has always worked as you have to beat Normal mode before you get to replay the game in Nightmare, then finally Hell. Normal is level 1-30, Nightmare like 30-60 and Hell 60+. Yeah, it definitely gets harder starting from Nightmare, but it's lame that you have to beat the game once to get to a challenge.

Yes, I forgot about this.

Originally Posted by SleepyHe4d

Two more complaints:
-Dungeons and outdoor areas are really linear and really short, I can't even tell if they were randomized despite playing through the beta 3 times.

Some of it is randomized, some of it isn't. I came across different caves and cellars my second time through.

Originally Posted by SleepyHe4d

-The skills show NO information at all about damage, range, radius, and stuff, how the hell am I supposed to know what anything does?! This is one major area where you can tell one purpose of the overall game design is to be carebear-ified or casualized for WoW players.

That last comment is wrong, but I agree that the Diablo skills lack vital information.

WoW skill:
Fireball Level 85
9% of base mana 40 yd range
2.5 sec cast
Hurls a fiery ball that causes 981 to 1251 Fire damage.

Originally Posted by SleepyHe4d

Adding on to previous complaints:
-No leveling up skills, just unlocking new ones. No more upping certain statistics either. Every person has the exact same skills as everyone else, being a cookie cutter character is so lame in an RPG. The only thing that will be different will be the items. Even then, I was playing with another demon hunter that looked exactly the same as me, helm color, weapon, and everything.

Seems like your options open up more as you level up. You have no choices early game, but the beta is ALL early game. Every RPG ends up with "cookie cutter" builds because people min/max the hell out of the system and doing anything else would just be silly. Here, it looks like you're given a set of basic choices of skills to use in different situations. As a Barbarian I mostly used Hammer of the Ancients but Rend was pretty good for bosses. Same with Cleave/Bash. Leap is cool but Ground Stomp was more useful in my opinion. I'd get more use out of different skills if I had a better way to switch between them.

Originally Posted by SleepyHe4d

Overall, I think they are taking all the things from MOBAs that wouldn't work in Diablo and ignoring all the things in MOBAs that would be good for Diablo.

I don't see what you are talking about here at all.

[SleepyHe4d]

Originally Posted by SlayerDragon

Doesn't cause any problems? If you can't connect, you can't play, period. There is no possibility of playing by yourself on your own PC. That is a problem.

Well if you live in 1995, not being able to play Diablo 3 shouldn't be one of your worries.

Srsly though, despite the possibility of frustration with this type of situation, I've never ran into any sort of problems with stuff like this. Also Starcraft 2 had an "Offline mode", so I'm sure D3 will have one too, but imo it would be a waste of effort to play it when you'd want to level up or find stuff online for Co-op possibilities.

Originally Posted by SlayerDragon

That last comment is wrong, but I agree that the Diablo skills lack vital information.

Ah, you're right then, but still, you can look at it like WoW is more casualized than other or older mmos and the same could be claimed about D3 compared to older or other Action RPGs.

Originally Posted by SlayerDragon

I don't see what you are talking about here at all.

MOBA's = games like League of Legends or DotA. Action RPG's are starting to borrow some elements from these games because they are getting so popular and also because it just simply makes for better gameplay. Things like the 4 skill hotbar with the 4 hotkeys for using skills is from MOBA's. That's a good thing that fits in Diablo. On the other hand, only unlocking new skills, instead of leveling up the ones you want, is a bad thing. Hell, even in MOBAs you can level up the skills you want, but you're stuck with the 4 you have. Also they make up for it by having like 80 different champions, or "classes" as it would be in Diablo 3.

[ambershee]

I spend an awful lot of time travelling (as much as two whole months a year). During nearly all that time, I'm relying on some sort of public internet. Usually I find DRM schemes prevent me from playing my games.

Just because you live in a well connected area and never leave it, doesn't mean everyone else does. Large parts of the UK are still connected by very limited internet services.

[Capt.Toilet]

Originally Posted by SleepyHe4d

Well if you live in 1995, not being able to play Diablo 3 shouldn't be one of your worries.

Srsly though, despite the possibility of frustration with this type of situation, I've never ran into any sort of problems with stuff like this. Also Starcraft 2 had an "Offline mode", so I'm sure D3 will have one too, but imo it would be a waste of effort to play it when you'd want to level up or find stuff online for Co-op possibilities.

Surely you must be trolling. Constant internet connection means just that. There will be no "offline" mode aside from telling the game that you don't want people to join you while you play alone. You will still be connected. People with less than stable internet connections are going to suffer unfortunately.

[SlayerDragon]

Originally Posted by SleepyHe4d

Well if you live in 1995, not being able to play Diablo 3 shouldn't be one of your worries.

Srsly though, despite the possibility of frustration with this type of situation, I've never ran into any sort of problems with stuff like this. Also Starcraft 2 had an "Offline mode", so I'm sure D3 will have one too, but imo it would be a waste of effort to play it when you'd want to level up or find stuff online for Co-op possibilities.

Diablo 3 is not going to have an offline mode.

“There’s two basic problems with us doing that,” said Wilson. “One is players default immediately to that. So, they basically unintentionally opt out of all the cooperative experience, all the trading experience, and the core of Diablo is a circle-trading game. So for us we’ve always viewed it as an online game – the game’s not really being played right if it’s not online, so when we have that specific question of why are we allowing it? Because that’s the best experience, why would you want it any other way?”

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/08/22/di...9s-not-online/

Enjoy your circle-trading game!

Originally Posted by SleepyHe4d

Ah, you're right then, but still, you can look at it like WoW is more casualized than other or older mmos and the same could be claimed about D3 compared to older or other Action RPGs.

What? You don't keep a spreadsheet for your character? ****ing casuals!

Originally Posted by SleepyHe4d

MOBA's = games like League of Legends or DotA. Action RPG's are starting to borrow some elements from these games because they are getting so popular and also because it just simply makes for better gameplay. Things like the 4 skill hotbar with the 4 hotkeys for using skills is from MOBA's. That's a good thing that fits in Diablo. On the other hand, only unlocking new skills, instead of leveling up the ones you want, is a bad thing. Hell, even in MOBAs you can level up the skills you want, but you're stuck with the 4 you have. Also they make up for it by having like 80 different champions, or "classes" as it would be in Diablo 3.

Yeah I've played League of Legends but I still don't see what you're getting at here. There are Diablo clone games that use the same kind of skill bars, which are really similar to skill bars from WoW. It's just a common user interface at this point. There's really nothing at all cribbed from that type of game. Your original comment said they took only the bad things from MOBAs, but you only listed two things here from MOBAs that you say are actually good, but Diablo 3 only does one of them.

That's what I am saying, I don't see any MOBA characteristics in Diablo 3. MOBAs tend to have many characters each having a small set of unique skills. Action RPGs tend to have fewer characters with a wider set of skills available to them. They're also completely different because the entire point of MOBAs is to fight other players and control the flow of computer-run monsters. ARPGs tend to be about fighting armies of monsters, and sometimes you can also kill players.

Anyway, that's a lot of words about **** that doesn't matter at all. I'm going to go drink myself to an early grave.

[SleepyHe4d]

Originally Posted by Capt.Toilet

Surely you must be trolling.

I'm trolling cause I didn't know that there was no offline mode even though there was one in SC2? ._.
Sorry I was wrong man.

The internet really needs to get rid of that term though.

Originally Posted by SlayerDragon

Enjoy your circle-trading game!

Haha, well it's not like it changes the game, it's just a bummer for people who will have issues with it. Oh well, it's both Blizzards and the players' loss. ActiBlizzard ftl!

Originally Posted by SlayerDragon

What? You don't keep a spreadsheet for your character? ****ing casuals!

You can have depth without adding complexity. I can give examples but there's no point in going offtopic, it'll just show you that I don't like WoW and think it's shallow.

Originally Posted by SlayerDragon

That's what I am saying, I don't see any MOBA characteristics in Diablo 3.

Anyway, that's a lot of words about **** that doesn't matter at all. I'm going to go drink myself to an early grave.

Err, well you must have took my mere comment on their similarities too serious then. I just noticed and pointed out some similarities, and of course there will be some because MOBAs are basically PvP based, short term, action rpgs.

I didn't really think the comment through too much when I made it, I literally just thought, "I don't like how D3 has a smaller skill selection and choices and how the monsters are really mindless, expendable and easy; Oh hey, that's kind of like LoL," *writes comment about taking things from MOBA's that don't fit in D3*

Also, I realize a lot of my complaints are how D2 was, but dang I expected a lot of evolution 10 years later, even D2 made a ton of improvements/innovations on D1. D3 just seems to be keeping the same game and then simplifying the experience.