Diablo 3 Beta First Impressions and a brief tirade on statistics

[Lokishadow]

@vor: okay, apologies to lochnar. I'm probably a bit jaded from the crew over at teamliquid forums.

@MongoJerry: I'm the loki who worked on the vibrator bug with Elric of Grans back in 2002. My memories of the people on here from back then are hazy because there were just so many of us. Apologies if I've forgotten you.

[NuurAbSaal]

Welcome back!

I too wondered why you suddenly just vanished. Having had... problems with WoW myself for a bit, I can empathise .

take care
Tarabulus

[vor_lord]

One thing to note is that the difficulty of the beta is not at all indicative of the final game. In many of the discussions related to difficulty the devs have likened the beta to the first few open areas in D2 on normal. Those areas weren't difficult in any way either.

On the topic of difficulty, check out this post:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/4443593/..._2012#blog

The title of the post is "You Will Die. We Promise".

It has a video where some of the Blizzard employees talk about how difficult the game is at the higher difficulties.

[Roland]

One thing to note is that the difficulty of the beta is not at all indicative of the final game. In many of the discussions related to difficulty the devs have likened the beta to the first few open areas in D2 on normal. Those areas weren't difficult in any way either.

On the topic of difficulty, check out this post:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/4443593/..._2012#blog

The title of the post is "You Will Die. We Promise".

It has a video where some of the Blizzard employees talk about how difficult the game is at the higher difficulties.

Forcing us to die easily is not the same as challenge. More often than not, it's a cop-out presenting the illusion of challenge. Any monster - in Diablo, Diablo II, and Diablo III - can be made to kill you instantly. That is not challenging. Monsters that use multiple attack types (ranged, melee), additional mechanics (bleeding, knockback, stun), and/or competent AI (terrain pathfinding) can be challenging. Merely increasing HP and/or damage does not, in itself, create challenge. Challenge is found in overcoming obstacles that force you to think, react, and adapt - not in getting one-shotted.

I have little faith anymore that Blizzard knows the difference, but we shall see. I'm reserving at least some of my cynicism for the actual release, rather than marketing ploys.

[Rustweaver]

One thing to note is that the difficulty of the beta is not at all indicative of the final game. In many of the discussions related to difficulty the devs have likened the beta to the first few open areas in D2 on normal. Those areas weren't difficult in any way either.

On the topic of difficulty, check out this post:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/4443593/..._2012#blog

The title of the post is "You Will Die. We Promise".

It has a video where some of the Blizzard employees talk about how difficult the game is at the higher difficulties.

Forcing us to die easily is not the same as challenge. More often than not, it's a cop-out presenting the illusion of challenge. Any monster - in Diablo, Diablo II, and Diablo III - can be made to kill you instantly. That is not challenging. Monsters that use multiple attack types (ranged, melee), additional mechanics (bleeding, knockback, stun), and/or competent AI (terrain pathfinding) can be challenging. Merely increasing HP and/or damage does not, in itself, create challenge. Challenge is found in overcoming obstacles that force you to think, react, and adapt - not in getting one-shotted.

I have little faith anymore that Blizzard knows the difference, but we shall see. I'm reserving at least some of my cynicism for the actual release, rather than marketing ploys.

My thoughts exactly. I'm holding onto hope that this game will include the challenges I need to keep interest.

[Lokishadow]

Sorry for the hiatus. My video card was getting screwy and I was troubleshooting. Turned out to be a driver issue (I was running a beta driver to squeeze more pretty out of Skyrim).

I have beaten the beta. It was, simply put, a cake walk filled with minor annoyances and some frustration.

The cake walk part comes from a generous drop and skills system, combined with fairly unintelligent monster AI. D2 could be challenging at times, though rarely due to the monster AI. Even Starcraft 2 AI has to rely on artificial edges, like faster resource collection rates than the player enjoys and faster unit production times (this last is unproven) in order to remain competitive with a real person ™.

The minor annoyances came from laggy spots and getting kicked as a result of the game existing online, not on my PC, and the lack of real challenge.

The frustrations came during server updates when I just flat couldn't play as a result of those self-same updates.

My health did not ONCE dip below 95% during the last boss battle. As I recall, if you weren't careful with Blood Raven she'd maul you. Maybe not kill you, but it would still be close. My level 10 monk DESTROYED the Skeleton King. Bah. Oh, but I got a rare! Wait, it's a barbarian belt and therefore completely useless too me. Hm, maybe I can destroy it and make some better gear?

Honestly, I wasn't raring to go get back to the game the whole time my PC was down. I was more raring to get back on the Starcraft ladder and watch some pro matches from GomTV. it's just kind of ho-hum, let's go bash something and see if we get a good loot drop.

What would really spice things up would be Attribute and Skill assignment at level up like D2. We've already beaten that horse into glue, so I'll leave it at that.

Will I buy the game? Yes. Will I enjoy it? Yes. Will it be worth it? As long as there are at least 10-20 hours of playtime, it will have more entertainment value that a movie, so I'll hazard a yes. Will it be as entertaining as D2? Not without a LOT of changes.

Overall, I think the game has potential, but I wouldn't call this a beta. I'd call it an alpha. The graphics are very pretty, but I've seen better. Earlier I said they were beautiful. They are. But I've still seen better (Skyrim). And the AntiAlaising (AA, which is supposed to reduce the jagged edges and pixelation caused by viewing things at an angle) does not work well. The sound effects are good, too. Someone else on this thread mentioned that the game is a bit too colorful. Well, I guess Buzzard has been doing WoW for too long (please...Chuck Norris? REALLY?? Chuck Norris is my girlfriend -- true story, and rather long). AF (Anisotropic Filtering, which is supposed to improve the image quality of textures viewed at an angle) isn't in the game. And closer inspection of the textures shows that they actually appear to be pretty simple. Put together, it's still pretty, but not stunningly so.

Put in front of me as an alpha, I'd say go with it and mention all the dead-horse-beatings. As a beta, I'm disappointed. I sincerely hope that the final product is VASTLY different from this.

If you'll kindly excuse me, I'm going to go hit someone with a 10 gate timing push with 2/1 upgrades and a pack of Pheonixes.

-Loki

[lemekim]

This, in my opinion (and assuming my first impression is correct) will absolutely DESTROY the long-term replayability of D3. There won't be anyone walking about with Defiance equipped in the off-hand and a selection of skills hotkeyed to the primary hand (Vegeance, Sacrifice, etc.) to gain a massive defense boost and tackle hefty bosses with elemental immunity. There won't be any spellcasters specializing in a maxed-out lower-level spell (does anyone remember Sirian's Firebolt ONLY sorceress? Oh, wait, that's right, LoD and patch 1.07 made those characters unplayable with the addition of flat-out IMMUNE bosses. I'm still sore over this because my Level 55 Sorceress who was the first char I got to Hell difficulty was abruptly useless).

Hey, now, Loki. Grizabella (Enchantress), Maldar (Pacifist Necromancer), and Gunther (Barbarian Mage) did just fine after the patch in hell difficulty.

Hi, everybody!

Um. Hi!

I don't really have much to add. I think everyone covered most of the points nicely. I am apprehensive about the new skill system, but after all, Diablo 2 completely redid Diablo 1 system, and I am willing to give Blizzard some benefit of the doubt. I think that the system will not be as cookie-cutter filled as some might imagine. For one, while it might be easy to change skills, it will not be easy to change gear. If I got all the best items to transform my Wizard into a fire incarnate, I probably won't be able to just switch the spells to make her/him into an awesome ice wizard - more like an ice maker. Which does sort of boil down to the items being the driving force here, but I am willing to try it out.

[Sirian]

Forcing us to die easily is not the same as challenge. More often than not, it's a cop-out presenting the illusion of challenge. Any monster - in Diablo, Diablo II, and Diablo III - can be made to kill you instantly. That is not challenging. Monsters that use multiple attack types (ranged, melee), additional mechanics (bleeding, knockback, stun), and/or competent AI (terrain pathfinding) can be challenging. Merely increasing HP and/or damage does not, in itself, create challenge. Challenge is found in overcoming obstacles that force you to think, react, and adapt - not in getting one-shotted.

I have little faith anymore that Blizzard knows the difference, but we shall see. I'm reserving at least some of my cynicism for the actual release, rather than marketing ploys.

Blizz has said that their design goal was to keep the same simplicity level of point and click, but add in tactical details that bring depth. We shall see how well they deliver, but at least in theory, I am 100% behind that attempted direction. That's the essence of what was good about D1.

Now we just need this Korea Bottleneck to end and the gaming to begin.


- Sirian

[Roland]

Blizz has said that their design goal was to keep the same simplicity level of point and click, but add in tactical details that bring depth. We shall see how well they deliver, but at least in theory, I am 100% behind that attempted direction. That's the essence of what was good about D1.

At this moment, Diablo III plays almost exactly like Diablo II - for better and worse. Make of that what you will. We won't know much of anything until the game actually comes out, as the Beta is such a small segment of the game as to shut out more than a glimpse of what is in store. However, they have also pointed towards a much bigger influence from items than in past games, so expect that curve ball to affect everything else.

Now we just need this Korea Bottleneck to end and the gaming to begin.


- Sirian

As far as I know the Korean bottleneck is in the past. Aside from possible re-certification, they got over that hump by removing listing fees. What's left now is fixing and tweaking all the changes they've made since then. As someone (Bolty?) said, it's looking like a Q2 release - maybe June. I wouldn't bet on it any time before that.

[Frag]

One thing to note is that the difficulty of the beta is not at all indicative of the final game. In many of the discussions related to difficulty the devs have likened the beta to the first few open areas in D2 on normal. Those areas weren't difficult in any way either.

On the topic of difficulty, check out this post:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/4443593/..._2012#blog

The title of the post is "You Will Die. We Promise".

It has a video where some of the Blizzard employees talk about how difficult the game is at the higher difficulties.

I wasn't planning on playing until they posted that, so apparently it worked. Hopefully a streamed virgin playthrough on hardcore through Inferno should show how wrong they are.