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Nelgirith
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted May 30, 2012 12:57 PM |
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Quote:
Patch 1.0.2 is live. Patch notes
Funny how they still haven't fixed what was working in the beta but isn't working anymore after release (like the Lyceum instance in Act 1).
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sphere
Supreme Hero
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posted May 30, 2012 01:47 PM |
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Been playing the monk for a few days with a mate of mine and we are having SO much fun, monk and wizard.
I have read a few monk builds online but funny thing is that I still stick with my fists of thunder with the thunderclap active. Just gives me a feeling of freedom in fights mainly because of the teleport to target ability.
Lashing tailkick with sweeping armada is my prefered but if I want to feel like a spellcaster...ISH I change to flame kick.
my panic button has been seven-sided strike with sudden assault but mostly with several-sided strike. Am I correct when I say that I am immune when I use this skill ? - Anyway neer been hit when using it so either I'm extremely lucky or because it's still early days, read normal 
Also, blinding flash is nice to have against those stunners - Actually that's my 2nd panic button but I never rely on it to save me 100% cause I have experienced a few mobs and bosses that are immune, even on normal.
Been pumping my dex quite a bit paired with some uber rares/socketed my dodge is at 43.19 at lvl 32 - Is that good or mediocre - don't say bad, plz
Damage is around 510 and mf is at a neatly 23%
Ah, well I guess I have to rethink everything when I ( hopefully ) reaches Nightmare. Is it still - ( minus ) to all sorts of things when you advance to next difficulty ?
I have also started a Witch Doctor, but MAN is he tricky to get up and running....so far, I'm going with grasp of the dead and unbreakable + dogs and firebats/poison darts, depending on the surroundings ( lvl 10 total - and SK was a pain to get through to be honest )......any advice out there ?
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Who is this General Failure, and why is he looking at my disk ?
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OmegaDestroyer
Hero of Order
Fox or Chicken?
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posted May 30, 2012 04:11 PM |
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Quote:
So the Soulstones of Diablo, Mephisto and Baal are destroyed, they are all sent back to the Black Abyss or wherever they were initially spawned and suddenly, in some cutscene shorter than 30 seconds, this Black thing sucks them from their graves and puts them into itself. Ahem... How did this happen? Details? No? Why not?
The plots of Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 don't really seem to mean much to Diablo 3.
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The giant has awakened
You drink my blood and drown
Wrath and raving I will not stop
You'll never take me down
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted May 30, 2012 04:43 PM |
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As for the plot: well, it's Diablo. What do you expect? After such a terrible start (Diablo 1), it's really impossible to create a plot that makes ANY sense.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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OmegaDestroyer
Hero of Order
Fox or Chicken?
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posted June 01, 2012 06:19 PM |
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I don't know. Perhaps I just expected Blizzard to TRY. I don't know why. It's not that I expect much from Blizzard other than stealing intellectual property and throwing in an oligatory betrayal plot twist.
Blizzard has grown lazy and complacent. That's what happens when people mindlessly support a company and apologize for their errors. The state of the game upon release was terrible, yet that got magically overlooked because it was a Blizzard game and has been praised by critics. Most other games get ripped apart if they are released in such a state.
I tried to play the game today in single player, but the lag was so horrouendous I was down to 10% health before I could actually control my character. It's ridiculous.
No matter how you paint it Doom, in the end, it's just another overrated Blizzard game.
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The giant has awakened
You drink my blood and drown
Wrath and raving I will not stop
You'll never take me down
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted June 02, 2012 12:09 AM |
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I've not experienced much lag myself.
I agree the game was released in a bad state, at least the higher difficulties and the lack of online security. Character skills are underpowered for the most part and players are pigeon-holed into one or two half-way workable builds, contrary to what was promised. I simply can't believe the higher difficulties were play tested.
The bots have not been prevented, though making the game online-only was supposedly supposed to make it cheat free. Bots are spamming the general chat, advertising this or that website, there have been reports of bots in games, and reports of dupes. And of course a great many accounts have been compromised. I've played mostly solo so I've not seen any bots but I have seen their spam in the chat window.
Like I said before though, I'm enjoying D3 despite the flaws. My wizard is in Inferno Act2 and my witch doctor just arrived in Hell Act 4. My WD has borrowed my wizard's gear. Heh. I'm saving gold to trade for one of those high dps ceremonial knives for the WD.
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Revelation
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted June 02, 2012 11:44 AM |
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Quote:
No matter how you paint it Doom, in the end, it's just another overrated Blizzard game.
It has flaws, but I found it (at least the beta) fun. Something that pretty much is an excuse for all the flaws, provided they get fixed with patches at some point 
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted June 03, 2012 06:30 PM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 18:31, 03 Jun 2012.
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The balance is horrible indeed - some skills are downright useless or are so massively overshadowed by other skills that picking them on higher difficulties equals suicide, the item drops are completely illogical (weak elite might drop some excellent item while a boss might drop a pile of junk), the Rare items are usually of worse quality than the standard Magic items and so on. Yeah, it was the same before - so it's time to finally get fixed I say.
As for the Monk specifically, I'm yet to figure out what's the point of the two-handed staves that are counted as one of his unique weapons - they have slower attack speed than any one-handed weapon, usually deal similar or lower damage and don't have any other redeeming quality.
All in all the quality of the dropped items seems to be completely random and not at least partially based on some pattern like in the previous games (for example - a normal Long Sword deals some fixed damage and everything else is built on top of it). Right now I have a knuckle duster which has higher damage than any two-handed weapon that the monsters drop, including those huge swords for the Barbarian. 
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Nocturnal
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted June 04, 2012 02:51 PM |
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I've at last finished playing with all the characters and can now make a through and objective (if possible) review of the game.
So, I will now start with putting its positive and negative aspects one by one. From the more important one to the least.
POSITIVE ASPECTS
- SKILLS
Skills are generally much better. In D2, for every character, there were a handful of skills that really mattered, while most of the others were sheer prerequirements. The skills get unlocked in the specific character levels, like it was in D2, but they are not locked. In other words you have an unlimited respec amount.
The skills not getting locked, and your ability to change them whenever you want hardly matters. Because with time, you get hold of a build with your character and you don't change. I've never seen anyone going throughout the game changing skills many times "now try this, not this".
Multiply every skill with 5 ,as there are 5 runes for each skill that changes the skill much, and calculate the combinations worldwide. Especially, people who argue that there is no character customization and that every, say, level 20 Monk is the same, must do this calculation.
More, the power of the skills are determined with your weapon's damage now. And as the items are generated randomly, having the same level 20 Monk is impossible.
This gives D3 a more customization opportunity than D2. In D2 there were specific builds. You could do whatever you like, sure, but you would not survive in Hell, even maybe in nightmare. I have never to this day seen a Barbarian that maxed his "Find Potion" or a Necromancer that maxed "Terror" or a Paladin that maxed "Prayer" and this list goes on. But now every build has its chance to survive and every person has his/her skills to one's liking. So overall, there are much more builds than there were in D2.
- ATTRIBUTION POINTS
It has absolutely no reasonable explanation why people complain that the game puts the points automatically. Cause in D2, this time the player would put them but again automatically. Again, it is impossible to see any Sorceress to put most of her points to Dexterity or an Assassin to Energy, etc. The game does what you will already do yourself. This is simply a helpful change.
- SOCKETS, GEMS
Noone will deny that in D2 the gems were utterly unimportant after some point, other than crafting materials as we had runes. They were weak, and noone would put a perfect ruby in their sockets to make a pitiful 20 fire damage while there are runewords that are, in my opinion, overpowered a bit.
In D3, the gems have 13 forms and levels. So their power never wilt on later game. Moreover, you can take gems out of their sockets when you want which is a considerable addition.
- RANDOM SIDE QUESTS
There are random side-quests in D3. And there are many. It's my fifth character now, and there still comes quests I've never seen before. This really gives a refreshing feel to every play.
-PLACES
The places in D2 were, let us accept, are boring mostly. The incredibly big forest, desert, wilderness. And every part of that desert was the same. You would run and run along a default yellow background. Alongside this, they were too big with no change. The same goes for the dungeons.
But in D3, that's not the case. The places change and change and none of them are that big. And every corner of the big ones feel different thanks to the random missions.
- STORY
D2 hardly had any story. We didn't even know why the prime evils came to the world. We just tried to kill them, that's all. It was a "kill the bad, save the good" thing. Although not that greater, D3 has a story. The characters have more depth. We have nice dialogs. The characters are more "alive". Although, admitedly they are really unclever including our hero.
- GRAPHICS
The quality of graphics is quite nice. Especially Act 4 is mesmerizing.
- COOLDOWNS
Most of the skills and using the health potions have a cooldown time and quitting the game, identifying an item, town portalling requires an uninterrupted time frame. This helps to make the game more difficult.
- OTHER GOOD CHANGES
Stamina, scrolls of identity and town portal, item runes are gone. Town portal and identity are now spells you cast that takes 4 seconds. Stamina was useless, I've never seen anyone use a stamina potion. Item runes were overpowered because of the runewords.
Armor also works completely different now. Instead of giving you a chance to get hit, it absorbs some amount of damage. I find this version more logical.
NEGATIVE ASPECTS
- DRM
I understand piracy is a serious issue for companies and some cautions must be taken. But these cautions must make the pirates suffer not the buyers. Right now, D3 makes the buyers, the ones who paid for the game, suffer. It is the biggest suffrage from a game's DRM so far, actually.
You have to be online to play the game. When your connection gets a little bad, the game starts to lag. If your connection gets disconnected you are kicked out of the game you have paid for.
More often than not, the servers are too busy, so you can't even play the game. If they get busy while you are playing, you get kicked out of the game again. Blizzard must not have foreseen how many people will get D3, because the servers are insufficient obviously. Because of that, there are server maintenances pretty often.
- LACK OF ELEMENTALS
One of the biggest fun of D2 was elemental attacks and resistances. You had to watch your elemental resistances all the time and there were elemental attacking monsters everywhere. This gave the game much more depth cause it was not simple "the monsters hit" but they hit with some elemental attacks.
Now they are gone. I cannot contemplate in which mind Blizzard decided to take them out and turned every monster into simple hitting. Sure they have added Jailer, Waller, Mortar and other prefixes to monsters. But it just doesn't even go near of elemental attacks.
- ITEMS
The lack of elemental attacks also made the items much similar to each other. The item properties are all the same.
Because, as well as the elemental attacks and resistances, the other fun properties are also gone. "%X chance to cast X spell", "Prevent Monster Heal", "-X defense per hit", Indestructible", "Knockback", "Ignores target's defense", and most of the others are gone.
What we have is a little amount of properties. And that makes the items and looting boring, cause one item doesn't differ from the other other than how many of a specific stat it gives and MF.
The other thing is, legendary items are too bad to be legendary. Most of the time, a simple magical item you will loot in hell will be a lot better than any legendary item you will find.
The other thing is droprate. But I'll talk about it under the Auction House subject.
- AUCTION HOUSE
I'm against this function altogether. As explained, looting and items are already not that good. But this, makes them completely worthless. Because you can buy (with the game gold) any item you like here. So, your only reason to loot becomes to sell it, and gain money to buy something for your character.
This makes the game a trade center, kills all the fun and is the most horrible thing about the game.
BUT wait! The even worse part is coming: the real-money auction house. This is upright murder of the franchise. Blizzard will take $1 from every piece of equipment (weapons and armor) successfully sold. For commodities like crafting materials, gems, gold, and what Blizzard described as "stackable" items, the company will enact a 15 percent transaction fee. On top of that, Blizzard will take another 15 percent if gamers elect to move funds to a third-party service like PayPal.
And because of this, the item drop rates are minimum. There are many player who have reached Inferno but never even seen a legendary item.
- IN GAME DIALOGS
The characters chat too much. There is no option to make them not talk. They even do not cease their casual chat, every one of which you will hear at least 20 times during one gameplay, when they are fighting. There comes an elite, you are dying, but the Templar and my hero are still talking about how the Templar likes the Enchantress.
- THE FOLLOWERS
I get that the followers in D2 made too much damage. But the ones in D3 does not do any. A mosquito's bite would even hurt more.
- NORMAL DIFFICULTY
The normal difficulty can be easily called a tutorial on how to click your mouse. Nothing poses a threat. If we are to be more precise, D2's normal difficulty is 5 times more difficult.
- MUSIC
Diablo 2 has some of the best soundtracks ever written for a game. Especially "Act I - Wilderness" is a classic. But the contrary is valid for D3. The music is so random. They are all like orchestra's preparation sounds before a concert.
- THE ATMOSPHERE
With Blizzard's decision to go with the cartoonish looks and leave the gothic and sometimes horrific looks of Diablo 1 and 2, that great Diablo atmosphere is destroyed. Personally, I would prefer if it remained like before.
This pretty much sums up my ideas on the game. If I am to give a general score, 3 out of 5 is more than fair for the current state of the game.
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted June 04, 2012 03:03 PM |
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Have you played on any difficulty higher than Normal? Because many of your points, especially about the builds, become invalid on Hell and Inferno. Some balance flaws are obvious even on Nightmare which is otherwise slightly more difficult than the Diablo II Normal mode.
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Nocturnal
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted June 04, 2012 03:10 PM |
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Quote:
Have you played on any difficulty higher than Normal? Because many of your points, especially about the builds, become invalid on Hell and Inferno. Some balance flaws are obvious even on Nightmare which is otherwise slightly more difficult than the Diablo II Normal mode.
Many of my points have nothing to do with higher difficulty levels, but yes, I've played. I'm in Hell with Monk. True, there are skills that get weak on higher difficulties, but they are much less than the ones in D2.
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted June 04, 2012 04:10 PM |
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Edited by Elodin at 16:14, 04 Jun 2012.
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Quote:
But now every build has its chance to survive and every person has his/her skills to one's liking. So overall, there are much more builds than there were in D2.
I think when you take your characters to higher difficulty levels you will find that is not the case. The number of viable skills/spells will shrink to only a few. Admittedly I only have 2 max level characters (wizard and witch doctors) but based on experimentation with those and what I've read about the other classes the same will hold true with them. My barbarian is level 30 and my demon hunter and monk are very young still.
There were all kinds of off the wall builds there were quite viable in D2. You can check out some in the Mat/Pat thread in the single player forum at the below site:
Clicky
There will have to be quite a bit of balancing of skills before there will be anywhere close to the number of viable builds for D3.
I like the follower chatter. I do think Blizzard should have made them a bit more useful and the templar should draw more aggro. That would go a long way in helping the caster classes be able to do more than run than run for their lives.
I like the addition of the treasure goblin.
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Revelation
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Nocturnal
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted June 04, 2012 05:35 PM |
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Quote:
Quote:
But now every build has its chance to survive and every person has his/her skills to one's liking. So overall, there are much more builds than there were in D2.
I think when you take your characters to higher difficulty levels you will find that is not the case.
I did (the post above).
At least for Monk, there are only a few underpowered ones. Most of them are useful. My friend is in Inferno with Demon Hunter and he says the same think.
That D2 off the wall builds, most of them, will not survive in Hell. A Meleemancer will perish direly. A Martial Assassin won't survive, she has to be a trapsin. An elemental other than fire Sorceress will never survive. She has to pick teleport from the lightning and after that put everything to fire skills beginning with warmth and mostly hydra. There, 3 characters, all have only little choice in terms of build.
I also like the Trasure Goblin if I'm not Monk or Barbarian. Cause you have to follow him to hit him and the ***** has good vitality and walk speed. So he takes me to some elites with himself. I have to choose between life and treasure there.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted June 04, 2012 06:35 PM |
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Diablo 2 has some of the best soundtracks ever written for a game.
De gustibus non est disputandum, but have you tried this?
Personally, I rate D1's music WAYYYYYYYYYY above D2's. The famous Tristram theme also originates from Diablo 1. I consider Diablo 1 to be unbeatable in atmosphere, sound, music and enjoyment from simple carnage up to this day. Its ancient interface and crappy music are understandable for a 1997 title.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted June 04, 2012 06:40 PM |
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Diablo I music > Diablo II music > Diablo III music. As it usually happens with the sequels. The catacombs is my favourite piece, especially the second part.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted June 04, 2012 06:53 PM |
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I really liked one of the menu themes in Diablo III beta. It sounded great (the one with violins).
Diablo 1 had fantastic soundtrack. Every piece was fitting perfectly to the place it was played at. Church track was evil and insane, hell track was twisted, catacombs theme was eerie and sinister, caves theme was maddening. Then, Sierra added two very nice songs in their not-so-great expansion pack: the Nest theme was spooky, and the Crypt theme was epic and evil.
And of course, one of the best tracks ever for a 90' video game - the Tristram theme. Even the main theme in the menu was f***ing fantastic.
Also, sounds. Who doesn't remember Butcher or Leoric's highly intimidating voices? Leo's voice in Diablo 3 sounded a bit lame. Not scary at all. Not deep/twisted enough.
The warmth of life has entered my tomb...
Even the lector reading the books was amazing. I can see what you see not, vision milky then eyes rot...
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Nocturnal
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted June 04, 2012 07:18 PM |
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Quote:
I really liked one of the menu themes in Diablo III beta. It sounded great (the one with violins).
Yeah, it is the only good one. Actually, it is the only one with a melody. It is like, they recorded that and then said to the orchestra "now, do whatever you like"
The tristram theme is good but it is a little too seperated. It is like many tracks written being played one after another. Doesn't feel "whole"
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B0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted June 05, 2012 07:54 PM |
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted June 05, 2012 07:59 PM |
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By the way, anyone knows the title of the violin theme?
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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OmegaDestroyer
Hero of Order
Fox or Chicken?
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posted June 05, 2012 09:38 PM |
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Quote:
Also, sounds. Who doesn't remember Butcher or Leoric's highly intimidating voices? Leo's voice in Diablo 3 sounded a bit lame. Not scary at all. Not deep/twisted enough.
I do. That's one reason I was ticked to see them recycled.
____________
The giant has awakened
You drink my blood and drown
Wrath and raving I will not stop
You'll never take me down
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This thread is pages long: 
