Diablo 3 is fundamentally broken

[smegged]

Diablo II arguably redefined the standard, but can you really say it was a better game?

IMO, yes. Not that I didn't miss some things from D1, nor deny that D2 was way more imbalanced. But I certainly played it longer and had more fun with it.

Of course, you might disagree, but that's neither here nor there. The only thing we can point to is that D2 did redefine the genre and everyone tried to clone it, much as you can point to the effects quake and half-life had. (Unfortunately, Halo and maybe Call of Duty share those honors now..)

There have been a number of cool variants on the Diablo setup, but most of them are lacking in longevity. These days I don't think there is much incentive for most companies to create long-term games unless they can monetize it via subs/microtransactions. Maybe once the industry is convinced to stop investing in WoW clones, we will see some other kinds of online games emerge, including some higher-budget (D3 clone) ARPGs.

No, it was D1, not D2, that redefined the genre. D2 was amazingly successful, but that was due to the huge success and revolutionary aspect that D1 brought....in terms of the actual game itself, D2 COULD have been the better game than D1, but as it turned it, it wasn't. Balance is a very important factor, and D1 was head and shoulders superior in this department. We can all agree that in environment and overall charm, it is no contest, D1 is hands down superior. D2 had some of the right ideas to do what the original did and be even better, but it came up short as I saw it. Waaaaay too many changes that were not for the better. I played D1 for many years, never got into D2 for more than a month cause I anticipated it so much only to be utterly disappointed.

D3, IMO, is the game D2 SHOULD have been. Of course, D3 has its own problems, but I think what the game is trying to achieve and the overall concept of it is very well done. The skill system is light years beyond D2's, the classes are better overall (except maybe in the case of the DH vs Amazon), better graphics, and it is more challenging overall (even in normal-hell).

The skill system in Diablo 2 was by far the greatest aspect of it. It encouraged you to create unique characters. The skill system in diablo 3 is bland, dull and uninteresting. Not only that, but I much prefered the left/right mouse button firing of skills. The skills in diablo 3 might be more balanced (seriously though, who really cares about balance?) but the skill system in diablo 2 was a lot more fun and that's the barometer I use for determining how good something is in a game.

The attribute system in Diablo 3 is superior - or rather would be superior if it were customisable - to Diablo 2's attribute system because all four stats have secondary abilities which are useful to all character classes. Dexterity is still the worst "vanilla" stat, but the extra dodge is nice enough. In Diablo 2, strength and dexterity were both largely useless stats for the majority of characters, outside what was required to wear the gear you wanted.

Diablo 3 gets a lot right, but it also gets a lot wrong. Ending the game (or turning it into a farming exercise) at level 60 is a huge design flaw. In Diablo 2 I had so much fun building characters that used different skillsets (though running through normal difficulty to get to level 30 and into nightmare was a real PITA at times). I loved my charged bolt sorcerous. Not because charged bolt was overpowered (it was actually the most balanced skill IMO in the expansion), but because the mechanics of the skill and the way to play the character offered a very different flavour when compared to playing a trapassin or a frenzy barb or an orb/hydra sorc.