Blizzard gain a flash of insight?

[Jester]

Ultimately, with D1 and D2, I always felt like I was progressing and in D3, I don't feel like I'm progressing at all unless I get enough gold to buy something off the AH or get lucky and get a good drop with useful affixes for my toons.

So, the game is missing levels 60-100?

I'm kind of amazed this matters so much. But maybe that slow sense of progression is really key.

-Jester

[Jester]

Speaking of legendaries, got my first one. The Burning Axe of Sankis on a character who can use it at least a couple of levels. Wielding Boatmurdered is lulzy, I admit.

How did I not know about Boatmurdered until today? Epic.

-Jester

[Roland]

So, the game is missing levels 60-100?

I'm kind of amazed this matters so much. But maybe that slow sense of progression is really key.

-Jester

No, the game isn't missing levels. That wouldn't change anything, just shift the goalposts further away. The biggest negative difference between D1/D2 and D3 is the replacement of player skill with gear checks. Everything we found "skillful" that we used to advance in earlier games with sub-par gear has been intentionally removed by Blizzard as being "unskillful," or at best "not fun," according to them. Diablo III is the first game in the series that has forced gear as a way of progression - indeed, the ONLY way.

The level cap is fine. Lack of skill point and stat point distribution is fine. For those people who find it NOT fine, go play Diablo or Diablo II. Neither of those things will fix the inherent problems in Diablo III.

[Jester]

The biggest negative difference between D1/D2 and D3 is the replacement of player skill with gear checks. Everything we found "skillful" that we used to advance in earlier games with sub-par gear has been intentionally removed by Blizzard as being "unskillful," or at best "not fun," according to them. Diablo III is the first game in the series that has forced gear as a way of progression - indeed, the ONLY way.

So, the problem is that there are enrage timers, and other mechanics that literally cannot be beaten by any level of player skill?

-Jester

[Athenau]

No, the game isn't missing levels. That wouldn't change anything, just shift the goalposts further away. The biggest negative difference between D1/D2 and D3 is the replacement of player skill with gear checks. Everything we found "skillful" that we used to advance in earlier games with sub-par gear has been intentionally removed by Blizzard as being "unskillful," or at best "not fun," according to them. Diablo III is the first game in the series that has forced gear as a way of progression - indeed, the ONLY way

This is not true. I just had a tense elite fight in Inferno that I only won through kiting and some smart use of terrain and skills (leap between two levels, whale on isolated minions when I get the opportunity, time my furious charges to relocate between leap cooldowns, repeat). That fight took skill. This game definitely has room for player skill.

In fact, I will go so far to say that the skill system is far better than D2 in terms of encouraging skillfull play. Juggling your defensive cooldowns together with managing your offense is a lot more skillful than the mindless spam in a lot of the optimal D2 builds.

It's true that D3 has a much more gear dependent endgame than D2, but that's a consequence of trying to give the item hunt more meaning than just bigger numbers.

They need to fix the bland item game. Make items interesting and desirable, make it possible (and effective) to gear up in more ways than just primary/vit/crit/armor/resists (buffing the CC affixes would be a good place to start), make the affix pool more diverse and interesting, make legendaries not suck, these things will fix almost all of what people are complaining about.

[Roland]

The biggest negative difference between D1/D2 and D3 is the replacement of player skill with gear checks. Everything we found "skillful" that we used to advance in earlier games with sub-par gear has been intentionally removed by Blizzard as being "unskillful," or at best "not fun," according to them. Diablo III is the first game in the series that has forced gear as a way of progression - indeed, the ONLY way.

So, the problem is that there are enrage timers, and other mechanics that literally cannot be beaten by any level of player skill?

-Jester

I've never seen an Enrage timer in all my playing. However, the basic answer is yes. A player with, say 10k DPS and 150k Effective Health will never be able to progress as far as someone with 20k DPS and 300k Effective Health, regardless of whether the first player is 10x as skilled as the second.

[Jester]

I've never seen an Enrage timer in all my playing. However, the basic answer is yes. A player with, say 10k DPS and 150k Effective Health will never be able to progress as far as someone with 20k DPS and 300k Effective Health, regardless of whether the first player is 10x as skilled as the second.

Because there are challenges that are impossible with the first setup, and possible with the second?

-Jester

[ViralSpiral]

Speaking of legendaries, got my first one. The Burning Axe of Sankis on a character who can use it at least a couple of levels. Wielding Boatmurdered is lulzy, I admit.

How did I not know about Boatmurdered until today? Epic.

-Jester

There's quite a few good DF reads out there. Just before my lappy died, I'd been reading about a playthrough colonising Hell. I believe tvtropes.org links a good number of the better Dwarf Fortress reads.

[Roland]

This is not true.

Yes, it is true.

I just had a tense elite fight in Inferno that I only won through kiting and some smart use of terrain and skills (leap between two levels, whale on isolated minions when I get the opportunity, time my furious charges to relocate between leap cooldowns, repeat). That fight took skill. This game definitely has room for player skill.

I didn't say the game required no skill. I said the game has been designed to require gear over skill. Remove a single piece of your equipment, and redo that fight. I'd bet 100k gold you couldn't have won it. Remove two pieces, and I'll double the bet. Remove three, and I'll double it again. At no point will player skill ever trump gearing - period. That is the point I was making - the point you missed.

In fact, I will go so far to say that the skill system is far better than D2 in terms of encouraging skillfull play. Juggling your defensive cooldowns together with managing your offense is a lot more skillful than the mindless spam in a lot of the optimal D2 builds.

I never argued against that. I love D3's skill system much more than D2's. I find the gameplay just as engaging, if not moreso, as well. None of this has any bearing on anything I've said above.

It's true that D3 has a much more gear dependent endgame than D2, but that's a consequence of trying to give the item hunt more meaning than just bigger numbers.

That's because D2 barely had an endgame, or a gear dependency. D3 forces gear dependency in order to advance through the endgame.

They need to fix the bland item game. Make items interesting and desirable, make it possible (and effective) to gear up in more ways than just primary/vit/crit/armor/resists (buffing the CC affixes would be a good place to start), make the affix pool more diverse and interesting, make legendaries not suck, these things will fix almost all of what people are complaining about.

You completely miss the mark.

Because there are challenges that are impossible with the first setup, and possible with the second?

-Jester

Precisely.

[Athenau]

At no point will player skill ever trump gearing - period. That is the point I was making - the point you missed.

I could have had items with +100 or 200 more resists, or 20 or 30% dps, and I still wouldn't have won that fight if I'd attempted to do it straight up. The fact is, player input makes a significant difference.

I'm not going to get into a retarded debate about whether that constitutes skill "trumping" gear. If you want to waste your time pursuing that argument, feel free to do it with someone else.

That's because D2 barely had an endgame, or a gear dependency. D3 forces gear dependency in order to advance through the endgame.

If D2 "barely had" an endgame, then why are you even making the comparison? Even a bad endgame is better than no endgame at all. And if D2 did have an end game (the item hunt) and that endgame wasn't tied to progression, then it stands to reason that people kept playing because they found the items themselves compelling. And that gets back to my point about the items in D3 sucking.

I've never seen an Enrage timer in all my playing. However, the basic answer is yes. A player with, say 10k DPS and 150k Effective Health will never be able to progress as far as someone with 20k DPS and 300k Effective Health, regardless of whether the first player is 10x as skilled as the second.

The level of gear independence you're talking about never existed for melee in D2. Of course ranged characters with their flat skill-based damage could probably waltz through Hell naked with sufficient patience. Now that everyone's on the same footing with skills using weapon damage % that's no longer true.

You completely miss the mark.

Nope. I understand your point just fine. I just think you're wrong.

I have to ask wtf you were expecting? This isn't God of War or Ninja Gaiden. Of course gear is going to matter a lot. The difference between D2 and D3 is the degree of dependence and the absence of mechanics that allow you to bypass much of the gear hunt (potions and ranged classes with flat damage on skills).

[Roland]

The level of gear independence you're talking about never existed for melee in D2. Of course ranged characters with their flat skill-based damage could probably waltz through Hell naked with sufficient patience. Now that everyone's on the same footing with skills using weapon damage % that's no longer true.

Also not true. The only "gear dependence" melee classes had was a good weapon - a requirement even the Amazon had. The Sorceress and Necromancer, OTOH, could do without one - but that was the same case in Diablo as it was in Diablo II. I found tying skill damage to weapon damage to be one of the best changes in Diablo III. Of course, because of the item dependency it becomes a double-edged sword.

Jester, I get the feeling you don't believe me with regards to player skill versus character gear. If that's the case, I invite you to watch the following video (ignore the fact that the guy in the video is a complete and utter tool).

[Athenau]

Also not true. The only "gear dependence" melee classes had was a good weapon - a requirement even the Amazon had. The Sorceress and Necromancer, OTOH, could do without one - but that was the same case in Diablo as it was in Diablo II. I found tying skill damage to weapon damage to be one of the best changes in Diablo III. Of course, because of the item dependency it becomes a double-edged sword.

This is totally wrong. Melee characters needed a hell of lot more than a "good weapon". Melee needed AR (or a way to bypass AR, like ITD), vit, resists, and a healthy amount of either +FHR or faster block (unless you were a paladin with holy shield).

90% of the most lethal threats in D2 were in melee. MSLEB? Bugged FE LE explosions? Stygian dolls? ES EF Fanat moon lords? Almost every single threat in D2 was significantly worse in melee, because unlike ranged you have to be able to take damage, and that means getting appropriate gear.

[FireIceTalon]

The game literally really doesn't begin until you hit level 60. At first, I didn't like this system at all, though I have sort of become used to it. However, the gear check that is Inferno is too extreme. If they want to make a fourth difficulty where you basically start over and search for gear to proceed through each act, just as you did for the first 3 difficulties, fine. But they need to take out the mechanics that discourage progression (enrage timers, repair costs), and lose the mentality that players should be underpowered at all times in Inferno. With 750+ AR, 44k Health, and 41K DPS, I should not be being 2-shotted in Act 3 by certain white trash mobs (Demon Hell Flyers), and the majority of elite packs simply are not even worth my time or effort. I finally completed the catapults quest, but at exorbitant repair costs, to the point I had to go back to Act 1 to farm gold for repairs. That is just sloppy and poor design by Blizzard, not to mention its not fun at all. I realize they may have nerfed inferno, but the mechanics still make it tedious and not fun to play at all, at least in the later acts (and even Act 2 still to some extent). It is kind of bad enough that Inferno is based purely on items, and has almost 0 to do with player skill.

[Athenau]

Let's try a thought experiment. Say that inferno was merely an incrementally harder difficulty, roughly comparable to the jump between nightmare and hell. Everything else stays the same.

I'd wager that everyone here would have completed inferno already, possibly several times over. Would you all still be playing for the item hunt?

If the answer is "no" then clearly the main issue is not the hard gear check that inferno imposes.

[Roland]

Would you all still be playing for the item hunt?

Yes.

[FireIceTalon]

I would be, yes. But to be fair, I am probably the exception and not the rule, as I've always been sort of an "elitist" in the Diablo series - I want my chars to have as close to the best absolute gear possible, especially since I am a PvP fanatic. On D1, I was still doing Laz runs for years after I hit 50 on my mains, because I wanted those perfect/near perfect Dragon Zodiac jewels, Awesome Stars plates (I actually found a perfect, yes 100% perfect, Awesome Stars full plate mail right before D3 came out), and so on. PvP is what really kept my interest in D1 for so many years. The item runs would become boring to be sure, but because these items could be found on even normal mode, it wasn't nearly as tedious as the item hunt on D3 is. The perfect items on D1 were only necessary for picky players like me that wanted outrageously geared toons to stomp hell/hell or duel.

I guess in short, even if I would have facerolled Inferno weeks ago, I'd still be farming to make my chars all perfect, or extremely close to it. I want to play PvP, and like Inferno itself, this will demand the absolute best possible gear if you want to be competitive.

[Athenau]

I wouldn't. For me the fun part of item hunting is (potentially) finding an item that allows you to do awesome things that you couldn't before. Like in D2 getting an item with c2c amp so you can crack phys immunes or finding a reaper's toll for your merc for amazing crowd control, or making a beast so you can make some off-the-wall werebear build.

The items in D3 are so bland and homogenous that there's no way they would hold my interest alone--replacing one rare with another rare that has slightly higher numbers is not fun, especially once any semblance of difficulty disappears.

It'd be interesting to see the breakdown between players like me and completionists like you.

I want to play PvP, and like Inferno itself, this will demand the absolute best possible gear if you want to be competitive.

What if PvP didn't exist though? It sounds like your endgame is pvp, and as such grinding to be competitive in PvP is a necessary evil, not a virtue.

If that's the case, why not play a game like Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2 which have/will have better PvP and no grind required?

[Jester]

Jester, I get the feeling you don't believe me with regards to player skill versus character gear.

I'm mostly just trying to ascertain what exactly the various complaints are. Because I'm hearing a great deal of "this is all so horribly wrong," but I'm not at all sure people agree on the reasons why.

Nevertheless, there is no such thing as gear strictly trumping skill or vice versa. The two trade off against one another at some rate. If you're saying gear matters too much, and skill too little, that makes sense. From the video, it appears that there is enough gear in the game to faceroll all the bosses at the highest level. I'm glad this is seen as atrocious, but this kind of sick stuff is just the logical development of extremely high gearing in a progress-driven RPG. I can't count the number of games I've played, including Diablo games, where, given an absurd amount of time/effort farming the infinity +1 sword and grinding levels, I couldn't wafflestomp not only the last boss, but the uberbosses.

(Oh, Athene. Always such a pleasure.)

-Jester

[Roland]

I'm mostly just trying to ascertain what exactly the various complaints are. Because I'm hearing a great deal of "this is all so horribly wrong," but I'm not at all sure people agree on the reasons why.

Nevertheless, there is no such thing as gear strictly trumping skill or vice versa. The two trade off against one another at some rate. If you're saying gear matters too much, and skill too little, that makes sense. From the video, it appears that there is enough gear in the game to faceroll all the bosses at the highest level. I'm glad this is seen as atrocious, but this kind of sick stuff is just the logical development of extremely high gearing in a progress-driven RPG. I can't count the number of games I've played, including Diablo games, where, given an absurd amount of time/effort farming the infinity +1 sword and grinding levels, I couldn't wafflestomp not only the last boss, but the uberbosses.

(Oh, Athene. Always such a pleasure.)

-Jester

I agree there are plenty of people who don't agree what the problems truly are (and frankly, much of the commentary on here as to what "should" be done makes me shake my head at best, and cringe with disdain at worst). One of my big gripes is how far, and how badly, the gear vs. skill ratio is skewed. Of course, one of my biggest gripes is with the Demon Hunter class as a whole, but I know I'll have to wait until 1.1 before any hope of that being rectified. Beyond that, though, I feel as though I should be able to progress through skillful play and "adequate" gear - without resorting to cheesing via skills or exploits, and without needing top-tier gear just to advance past Act I Inferno. As it stands, that is not the case. I literally need top-tier gear in order to advance through Act II, let alone further, and no amount of skillful play will change that. I enjoy the different Elites and their abilities (despite some of them being very frustrating, and Immune Minions needing to just flat out be removed). I enjoy earning Nephalem Valor stacks and hunting through areas for items - and not just doing boss runs. I enjoy challenge, and reward for succeeding at those challenges. What I don't enjoy is artificial difficulty, and that is the entirety of D3 at the moment. The gear check is the final arbiter - it's the only thing that matters. Pass, and the game is easy. Fail, and the game is impossible. There's no middle ground, and the only thing that shifts is where that line is drawn. It's a very bold, very narrow line, with minimal room for blurring.

I enjoy much of Diablo III, but there is no denying it's a vastly different game from its predecessors - and in at least one area, it's a big step back. Much of the game, IMHO, is leaps and bounds above Diablo and Diablo II. Absolutely requiring top-tier gear, regardless of how you acquire it (and I actually think they finally nailed down the right numbers for drops with the latest hotfix - it's very much more rewarding now to play than it was before 1.0.3), just to advance beyond the very start of Inferno is not a positive.

(As for Athene, I can't stand him. Honestly. Thumbs up for charity and all, but otherwise I think he's a waste of human DNA.)

[FireIceTalon]

I wouldn't. For me the fun part of item hunting is (potentially) finding an item that allows you to do awesome things that you couldn't before. Like in D2 getting an item with c2c amp so you can crack phys immunes or finding a reaper's toll for your merc for amazing crowd control, or making a beast so you can make some off-the-wall werebear build.

The items in D3 are so bland and homogenous that there's no way they would hold my interest alone--replacing one rare with another rare that has slightly higher numbers is not fun, especially once any semblance of difficulty disappears.

It'd be interesting to see the breakdown between players like me and completionists like you.

I want to play PvP, and like Inferno itself, this will demand the absolute best possible gear if you want to be competitive.

What if PvP didn't exist though? It sounds like your endgame is pvp, and as such grinding to be competitive in PvP is a necessary evil, not a virtue.

If that's the case, why not play a game like Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2 which have/will have better PvP and no grind required?

Contrary to what many think here, D1 PvP was very fun and there was skill involved, though it is admittedly, a rather esoteric topic. If PvP didn't exist, I guess the game wouldn't have lasted as long for me, but at least in D1 building a char took time and you got better gear as you progressed. I think PvP in a game like D3, as it is currently, WILL be necessary to hold at least some players interest long enough, whereas in D2 it wasn't needed (though it certainly did make the game last longer for lots of people). But since you hit the max level cap before entering Inferno, it is just a pure item grind that you do to help you get through the difficulty and eventually PvP, if thats what you want to do. If PvP doesn't interest you, most likely you will beat Inferno and maybe do it again with another char at best, or more likely be on your way to another game. I loved D1 from the moment I played it in 1997, and though initially I wasn't into PvP, it certainly extended the games life for me. I just hope when Blizz puts PvP in D3, that they have a custom games system to where you can duel with your friends instead of just a match-making system where you only duel random people you don't know. I don't necessarily mind the item grind, as long as it doesn't punish you. In D1, it didn't. But in D3, it most certainly does.