Quote:You've got one element, and your using strategies from 1.09. Those don't fly anymore, they don't work. The AI has been improved, the monsters have been randomized, the skills have been changed.
Quote:I'm a chess player and though it takes a lot of calculation, a good memory, it also takes a good imagination. You need to look and discover that beautiful combination, the crazy sacrifice, the suicidal idea. You take the the board, the raw ideas, the tactics, the strategy, and turn them into something that can be and is quite beautiful. Diablo 2 is no longer "hack and slash" its "strategy and tactics".
I'm not disagreeing with you, but I think many people tend to overexagerate the amount of "strategy" that exists in D2. Speaking strictly for myself, the game is not exactly one that requires thinking. It's hack and slash, always has been, and it was designed as such. I don't believe that 1.10 will create that 'beautiful strategy' you bring up. "Strategy" will be finding the 1 or 2 skills that are the new showstoppers, that work much better than the rest.
I can already give you a fairly accurate picture of the typical "strategy" that will come out of the patch:
Party
Barb - BO, Shout, BC, smack a few monsters
Necro - amp or lr, a meat shield or 2, ce when corpses come up, maybe some poison nova if monsters are regenerating too much
Sorc - static, followed by whatever uber skill emerges (early candidates may be meteor and chainlightning... though I think nova is still pretty strong)
Paladin - some combonation of zeal, fanat, conviction, vengeance, blah blah blah
Amazon - valk, frozen arrow (which I used anyhow), immolation, strafe
Druid - oak, meat shields, smack a few monsters
Assassin - bos, shadowmaster, fade perhaps, smack a few monsters or lay a few traps
Yes, there will be some variation, yes there will probably be a few discoveries of useful quirks, or better combos, but you know what? Blizzard hasn't changed or improved the gameplay much. Given the massive increases in monster hp and regen (I don't see much development of AI) all those synergies are just damage boosters, and many of them stupid ones at that. Parties will work pretty much the same as they have before, the only real change is that Blizzard has forced party play down our collective throats.
When I play 1.10 with friends, dabbling in 'new' possibilities and such, new combonations, do you know what I find? It's the same thing. I just have to drink more pots, retreat, and stand in front of the same monsters for much longer. Boring. Tedius. Frustrating. I think in 3 years Blizzard could have come up with a more elegant solution to game difficulty besides just giving everything more life and damage.
Which brings me to this:
Quote:Blizzard has done something that seemed impossible, they throw out a patch THREE YEARS after a game was released. They aren't getting paid any extra, they aren't getting anything but a little extra bandwith for FT and a lot of goodwill from us.
I'd say the patch was incredibly late, not impossible. I think you unintentionally summed it up with the words "throw out". Thats exactly what 1.10 is, a half-assed, untested, unispired lump thrown out to the masses. 1.10 was supposed to be a quick followup to 1.09 to fix the GLARINGLY obvious imbalances (many of which are still in 1.10) and toss in a few new items. Thats not exactly hard work and toil for 2 years. Or maybe it is? I might be completely wrong here, but I think a few dozen half baked synergies, random monsters, bumping up hp and regen, and a few formulas and items doesn't constitute much considering this patch has been 'in progress' since a few months after the xpac release.
Let me clear up that last bit. Yes, those are some significant changes, but many of those were supposed to be included in the first place. Remember the idea of releasing a few new runewords from time to time? Remember ladder resets? How about cleaning up the boatload of hacks and dupes? What about pindlebots? What about meeting players players halfway on certain issues (and I know many will disagree on this one). Personally, I think maphack loused up the game in many ways. At the same time, I thought it had some useful features like the ability to see how many sockets were on an item, drop hack protection, and to some extent, the reveal map. It definately became a crutch, but I for one, don't want to spend 2 hours crawling around the jungle on EVERY single character to get a khalim's will. Maybe the simple idea of being able to find map chunks, a la legend of zelda? Walk into a dungeon, be able to find parts of maps that reveal a chunk of a map, or maybe even just the direction of the boss? Or again, how about looking at the necro for 5 minutes? I know there are too many things to consider, but some of them are pretty obvious, and it would have been nice to see a bit of innovation on Blizzard's part.
Quote:Are you ready to work?
Sure, as long as I'm having fun as I go. The problem is that I'm not. There are ways to make a game challanging without making it perpetually frustrating and stale.
That being said, yes, I am being pretty harsh on a beta test. But you know what? Funny thing, in the gaming industry, beta products consistently foreshadow how the final product will turn out. I'll still eagerly read up on changes in 1.10, try to find out where my assumptions are false, and I'll surely try the official release, but just because it comes out of mighty Blizzard does not mean it's good. And by any (well, most) of my standards, this beta patch is not.