The Diablo Formula and how Diablo 3 falls short

[the Langolier]

Let's examine this carefully. When D2 was first released, there was only one thing to do when once you finished hell difficulty.
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But you weren't talking about *that* LOD game. No, it sounds like what you were talking about was the D2/LOD starting with the 1.10 patch -- which was released a full three years after D2 was released. It was only then that you started to have a diversity of areas where you could farm for interesting items. And it was only then that you started getting interesting runewords, sets and uniques with powers that could completely alter the way you played your character.

That may all be true; my examples were more of a summation of popular activities over the course of the game. Honestly, I don't remember a whole lot about the early days of Diablo 2. I did start playing Diablo 2 on the release day and continued to play well through the release of LoD.

I had a lot of issues of the game and am generally highly critical of the it. I do remember resenting the game early on because it felt like it was only balanced through normal difficulty, evidenced by the unique items as you mentioned, as well as the highest skill tier only being level 30. As can be inferred by my post, I think the gameplay is shallow, generally has poor mechanics, and remains inferior to Diablo 1 to this day. Honestly, I hate almost everything about Diablo 2.

Regardless, I can tell you with certainly that something about the game held my interest for a good year and a half before it's many issues became too much for me and I quit. That's not a fluke. There was something fun about the gameplay; the monotonous level grind and impossible drop rates alone wouldn't be enough to keep me playing that long, that's for sure.

Diablo 3, in contrast, only managed to hold my interest for two weeks - as far as Act 2 Hell with my first character. It had already stopped being any fun. I had no desire to twink myself through the Auction House (cheesy way to progress that provides no satisfaction) because I knew I'd just find myself in the same situation somewhere in Inferno once I caught up to my gear.

Now, having submitting that the scope of Diablo 2 was very limited at release and it took a full three years to have the kind of varied gameplay I referenced - is that any excuse for the gameplay of Diablo 3 to be just as limited at release as Diablo 2 was at release? I'd argue not. The three years it took Diablo 2 to mature into what it is now puts us at 2004. Development for this version of Diablo 3 began in 2006. They had the resources of a mature Blizzard, 6 years of development time, and began development with 5 years' worth of experience as to how Diablo 2's gameplay evolved over time. I think that it is reasonable to expect that they could have created a game with gameplay that was at least equally varied, if not more so, than it's 10-year old predecessor.

Nevertheless, having very little breadth in gameplay isn't damning in itself. After all, Diablo 1's gameplay (primarily hell/hell runs) is just as limited as the day it was released, which is fine. The gameplay is deep enough that it remains interesting for a very long time. Therefore, it's not wholly problematic that there is so little to do in Diablo 3 even if it were excusable.

What is damning is that the gameplay is very shallow as well. The little bit of strategy involved in engaging enemies is pretty straight forward: Get CC'd -> use skill that breaks it. Low on health -> use heal or invulnerability skill. Overwhelmed -> use CC or escape ability. These are very basic concepts that are pretty obvious to players. There is no differentiating between skill levels with this kind of reactive strategy. For example, it's not like you would ever describe a player in Diablo 3 as being "really good at breaking CC".

"Oh man, this guy is really good at using revenge to recover his health when it's low"

"Wow, did you see that move?! She just got backed into a corner and used vault to get behind those guys!"

"I was fighting this elite mob when I got vortexed right into the middle of the pack so I popped serenity. Nailed it."

No, these are pretty obvious tactics that just require hitting a button at the right time. If it's not on cooldown, you win, if so, you probably lose.