What do you guys actually think of it?

[Entropy]

I'm working away from London in Leeds until Thursday night, so I won't have a chance to play it before then, but I wondered what you guys thought of it now that everyone has had a chance to get into the game.

I've been looking forward to giving it a go with mates, but I was fortunate enough to be invited into the beta a few months ago, and I'm afraid I didn't really take advantage of it then (only clocking up a couple of hours). I just wasn't engaged in the way that I had been with Diablo 2, and I generally got bored after 10 minutes or so. I figure that the thrill of experiencing new environments / playing with mates with counteract this disappointment, but I guess time will tell.

I'd be interested to know what you think of Battlenet 2 as well. I've got some experience of it due to Starcraft 2, and I still think it's a pretty poor imitation of the original Battlenet. There are no proper channels, and no way to easily message friends. I also remain concerned about the limit of 4 players in a game within D3; be interesting to hear people's views on this too.

Cheers

C

 

[Zed]

From what ive read (and im like you away at the moment) the beta didnt do it justice and the real game starts post skele king.

 

[Cullhaven]

The game is fine, much better than Beta as you actually take damage etc. The huge let-down for me, is the chat system. The simple ability to create your own chat/guild chanel would have put this right. There were 8+people online last night and the only option to chat is one-one-one. Wether this might change in patches/expansions is unknown. You can also get general chat in-game now, like in WoW. This is a double edged sword though,if you enable it - not only do you get genuine helpful folk, youy also get that particular brand of arsehole that used to sit in D II lobby spouting vitriol and racist/homophobic garbage.

All in all, loving it, and I really didnt think I would. Its not Diablo of old though, and just now, not sure what return value It might have. I still have diablo II installed and can't see me taking it off just yet.

 

[Pictelf]

Yeah I was a bit slow and clunky when I first started having resisted the beta. Was a bit concerned that they may have oversimplified it but its flows fairly well and plenty encouragement to rampage through monsters in a Diablo/DII style hackfest with of course enough surprise elements that you have be prepared for slightly more tactical fights. As yet I would say its difficult to tell if it is oversimplified as its still early on (for me at least)
Still I have been a childishly happy camper yesterday and am off their again soon!

 

[Zed]

More reading (since thats what im reduced to currently)

D3 is being rated as not quite as hard as D1 but definately harder than D2. With Act2 and specfically Act 2 boss being the first wake up call.

 

[Chick]

The game is fine...

All in all, loving it, and I really didnt think I would.

This pretty much sums it up.
Epic session yesterday made me take back any of the trash i talked about the game.
And i was never really a D2 playa!

 

[Guy]

I'm having a f*cking epic time. Loving it and back playing with mates that I've not seen online for 12 years

 

[Septian]

I'm really enjoying it, I've not actually played diablo since Diablo 1, However I picked it up really easily and It's alot of fun.

 

[Zeus]

More reading (since thats what im reduced to currently)

D3 is being rated as not quite as hard as D1 but definately harder than D2. With Act2 and specfically Act 2 boss being the first wake up call.

act 2 has a boss? no seriously, i found him pretty easy. in terms of actual time to beat down, leoric has been the toughest on my barby so far (and i'm damned near the end of the game, but have restarted to play with my bro atm as his game only arrived today), but maybe its a playstyle thing, or just how well geared i was at the time.
i wouldnt say any of it is especially hard so far, though there are some surprisingly bursty enemies. (eg: the champion raging beasts with vortex so you cant even run away properly, and 2 shot my poor DH...)

 

[Entropy]

So I've had a chance to play it now. A mate came down this weekend as we'd been looking forward to it for ages and had played D2 together, so we've had a couple of sessions. This is what I think:

To start, setting up the game, considering we are both playing in the same room, has been an unnecessary chore. D3 has an issue with d-link routers which makes it very difficult to get it working as it crashes every 2 to 5 minutes. In fact, the only way I have managed to fix the problem is to put my computer in the DMZ. Labz was struggling similarly, and we went through a number of options, including tethering his phone to turn it into a wireless access point and using that connection (!), until we finally get Internet Sharing working.

You might think that this is a d-link problem, because their firmware / hardware is not good enough, but sadly I think you'd be wrong. When a company is going to install such pernicious DRM that you have to have a connection all of the time to play a single-player game (or a multiplayer game running on a LAN), you HAVE to make sure that you don't have an issue with the hardware that people use to connect to that game.

Anyway, ultimately undaunted, we eventually got it working. We're now in Act 2 Nightmare. We got here relatively quickly, because after enjoying the story, and dawdling through Act 1, we realised that the game is pretty overwhelmingly easy. With less control over health potions, and no real life leech mechanism (at least, as far as I can see on my wizard), combat seems limited to kiting, and using your abilities. As a result, I would reckon it to be a lot less sophisticated that D2. This is a shame, because the skill system and rune system actually provide a lot of variation (although the inability to specialise in specific skills (beyond the application of runes), is frustrating).

Frustrating too, is the zero cost approach Blizzard have taken to EVERYTHING. You die, no worries, you just lose a bit of durability. You socket something incorrectly, no worries, just take it out again. You made a skill mistake, no worries, just respec. There are no consequences to anything any more; you don't even lose a tiny fraction of your experience.

So sadly, as a result of the distinct lack of challenge, we started rushing through the game. We thought if Nightmare was harder, and was constituted by a series of more difficult battles, we might enjoy the story more there.

The good news is, Nightmare is a bit more difficult! The bad news is, that this hasn't rejuvenated the combat to any significant degree. And the combat isn't sufficiently difficult that I could say that I am struggling at level 34 to kill Nightmare Act 1 creatures.

My final gripe is with the drop rate. It's pathetic. There's no other way of putting it. A group of us (6 or so) that have probably accumulated something in the region of 200 hours have found 2 legendary items. And they've both been a waste of time. Without lamenting my desire to play the game sans the Auction House, how are hardcore characters going to fare that don't have access to the AH? How are they ever going to find or build anything?

The drop rate is important, because Diablo is ultimately all about taking something shiny and trying to get something more shiny. It's depressing when you miss out on so much of the planned content, and it's made worse by the fact that I am regularly replacing my rare items for magical ones, because I've struggled for so long to get anything new and I'm still wearing something from 10 levels previously. It destroys any sense of progression, and makes the game a lot less enjoyable.

So, that's where I stand. You'll see from the time stamp on this post that it's very late. I've just finished killing the Act 1 boss, hoping that I would, at the very least, find a couple of decent rares. I received 4 blues for my troubles, and it really does feel like a complete waste of time.

A reviewer here has said the above far more eloquently than I can: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/18/how-diablo-iiis-solo-experience-reveals-a-hollow-game/

Be good to know what you think. I've been looking forward to this game for years, but in my opinion it has fallen down in so many crucial areas for me.

 

[Cullhaven]

Nothing they cant tweak in patches/expansions though, Ent. And bliz have frequently done that in both D II and WoW. The seem to listen to player gripes, as well.

 

[Corwin]

Just a quick response Re legendary items, they ONLY drop in Nightmare and above, so the fact you've got 2 already, not too bad

as per life leech, there are 2 stats +life per hit, and +life per kill, so it's not quite as it was, but it does exist

 

[Zed]

having played through Normal, enjoying the story and what not : 22hrs 56mins down.

1 Legendary found on an elite in the final stages of act IV. (a mojo too boot).

Game hasnt been easy solo with a Witch Doctor, Belial was tough, Asmo not so, Diablo challenging (died once). Overall great fun. Now to try normal with other characters.

Oh I ended up selling Rares as i had far too many of them that will probably get bettered by other runs of normal.

Overall a lot of fun for a typical hack n slash diablo game.

 

[Artanix]

Its very enjoyable tbh, act 2 boss was interesting, but act 3 I really enjoyed, just on act 4 now.

Died a few times, but my wizard is truly a glass cannon, so its to be expected, bloody teleporting mobs


Apart from the obvious things that are missing (ladder, chat, etc.) anybody else finding the hitboxes to be *really* big? on the act 2 boss, I couldn't get out of the fire because pretty much everywhere I clicked, was in the bosses hitbox which meant i just carried on firing at it :\ Its quite tough to get right in the middle of a big group and blast some AoE without just firing at them from afar either.

 

[Cullhaven]

I had to do belial normal grouped, as a Wizard. Just one of his explosions was enough to take me near empty so I might have to sacrifice a bit of int for more vit. But it was me who seemed to hurt him most, and the other chaps made a point of reviving me if I died. As soon as one of his green attacks start to glow around yer feet - run for it. Another problem I have with the wizard is having my main attack ( or any attack) spell on left button. Often when I want to run away and click the screen, the game thinks I want to attack the nearest critter and I stay still locked in an attack cycle. Guess I'll just have to learn where to click on screen a bit more.

 

[Entropy]

Just a quick response Re legendary items, they ONLY drop in Nightmare and above, so the fact you've got 2 already, not too bad

as per life leech, there are 2 stats +life per hit, and +life per kill, so it's not quite as it was, but it does exist

Legendary items drop in all game difficulty settings. And I know that there are new variations of life leech, but I just couldn't get it working on my wizard. It's either broken, or a mechanism which I don't understand, and the net result was less skillful combat.

Generally regarding difficulty: I completely built my wizard as a glass cannon in a bid to make the game as tough as possible (even taking the eponymous passive to push her that little bit further). I still didn't struggle through any of the game, and most bosses were a case of left clicking once, and only lifting my hand if the boss teleported somewhere. This was all either solo or in a group of varying size.

But the issue isn't just with the difficulty. It's the fact that as there's no cost to death, (or indeed anything), we're left with no real feeling of tension.

Just my two pence. I've played Diablo iii a lot over the last couple of days, and I really intended to like it. I have no doubt that they will change it to accommodate player gripes as time goes on, but my concern is that they just have an awful lot to amend.

 

[Epiphany]

I'm enjoying it a lot. I didn't like the ending - it seemed a little unnecessary (I won't say more as I don't want to make this a spoiler).

The act 2 boss was too tough for me but I had a little help from The Clan . Some of the super unique boss type dudes in nightmare are kicking my butt now as I don't like running away (I'm a freaking fearless Barbarian so its bad for my image if I run away screaming for my mum too often).

Some of the leveling up improvements are a bit of an anticlimax. I think I've kept the same skill+rune combinations for the last 10 levels. This needs tweaking imho.

I've found one legendary item so far and the only reason I'm not selling it is that it's a different colour.

Overall though, great fun. I particularly like the follower conversations - definitely makes soloing more fun

Missing the animal companions from the beta though!

Cheers

 

[Cullhaven]

OK Pif, change "Running away" to "Tactical withdrawal" and you'r all good

 

[Vega]

Well not playing atm due to Bnet Servers being down (*withdrawl symptoms*)
My observations of the game so far:
Like most people have said - disappointingly easy so far, you can riush trrhough levels almost unhindered much of the time.
Game does seem really dumbed down - I would almost say it is catering to the CONSOLE generation even though that's not actually an option, at least not right now.
No consequences to actions, no variation in combat. No long term strategic planning of skills and stats.
Pretty poor chat options, why is there no clan chat?

All that being said I am having a blast playing the game, but Blizzard better start making patch improvements over time if they want to keep customers playing (I am sure they will though).

 

[Agravaine]

Ent.....

Seriously? You're complaining that Normal mode is easy for a seasoned gamer such as yourself? Normal is supposed to be easy. It's for people to enjoy the plot and get introduced to the game.

Nightmare is supposed to be mildly challenging whilst Hell is hard and Inferno is OMG WTF.

Getting gems back is a nice bonus but not really here nor there.

You actually want to be locked into your skill choices? You want to have to roll a new character every time you want to try a new skill or trawl the internet to find out which builds work and which don't? Really?

How are you missing out by not being able to specialise skills? Presumably you'd have skill points and end up with 2 or 3 good skills and a few one point wonders? Does that system make it any better for you than having the current one where you can only use 6 skills at once and they're all as good as your gear allows for?

Perhaps you might enjoy one more than the other and that's fair enough but in terms of pure numbers and functionality, they look about equal to me.

If you want to be punished for dying, beyond the cost of repairs, play Hardcore. Simple.

I've seen lots of life leech/regen abilities and items and I've only seen NM items thus far. You're complaining of a lack of life leech on a Wizard? Did the Sorceress have any in D2? If you want life leech abilities, then play a Witch Doctor.

Surely the lack of being able to cheese your way through things by spamming pots makes the game harder, something you want? If you get in over your head then yes, you're going to need to leg it and regroup.

The drop rate seems pretty good to me. I don't expect to see many legendaries but I do get a steady stream of rares and blues and upgrade constantly.

It honestly sounds like you expected Diablo 3 to be Diablo 2 with better graphics and/or you had a fixed idea of what it would be like and it's not.