[Valnen]

Nah, this is a step back, but I played the beta and I know what Blizzard is up to: The game is still boss run-focused, but now it is focused on the events leading to the boss. In the beta you do not warp all the way to SK, you first rescue the templar, then kill some councillor, then find the royal tombs, and engage SK. They wanted to bring more story into this, I like that. Still, I'm happy SK run takes only ~10 minutes, I hope the rest of the game bosses can be engaged in the same time.

Eh, I kind of like the idea of forcing people to explore and find champion packs before each boss, because that's kind of the way I liked playing in D2, but to each his own I suppose :X.

[aliencowz7]

Nah, this is a step back, but I played the beta and I know what Blizzard is up to: The game is still boss run-focused, but now it is focused on the events leading to the boss. In the beta you do not warp all the way to SK, you first rescue the templar, then kill some councillor, then find the royal tombs, and engage SK. They wanted to bring more story into this, I like that. Still, I'm happy SK run takes only ~10 minutes, I hope the rest of the game bosses can be engaged in the same time.

He is actually correct and they are taking focus off of boss runs, how much so is yet to be seen and will depend on how long the valor buff takes to stack. If you have to kill 10 elite monsters to stack it to full simply teleporting the closest to the boss you want to kill will be to little to stack it fully.

It all depends on how much effort is required to get it to a full stack and at what point does it balance out that the time spent killing elites is worth the increased drop rate.

[Insaniac]

Question to anybody who has played the beta extensively:

As a wizard, i sometimes like to run into the middle of a group of monsters and cast frost nova or some other AOE spell, but I find it difficult to since I end up click on monsters and casting a spell instead. It was much easier in diablo 2 for some reason. Is there a way to disable this? IE: clicking always forces your character to move, and only shiftclicking will make you use your primary attack/skill?

[qazqaNii]

I really wanted the game list. Choosing your own game server was so much fun that way you could also see what classes were in the game and whatnot, maybe trading, chatting, random adventures. Sure the auction house is here but I wonder if that will just kill the community.

[aliencowz7]

Question to anybody who has played the beta extensively: As a wizard, i sometimes like to run into the middle of a group of monsters and cast frost nova or some other AOE spell, but I find it difficult to since I end up click on monsters and casting a spell instead. It was much easier in diablo 2 for some reason. Is there a way to disable this? IE: clicking always forces your character to move, and only shiftclicking will make you use your primary attack/skill?

Try clicking past the monsters to move so you run into the group and then holding shift and clicking when you enter the pack

[Castor Krieg]

Question to anybody who has played the beta extensively: As a wizard, i sometimes like to run into the middle of a group of monsters and cast frost nova or some other AOE spell, but I find it difficult to since I end up click on monsters and casting a spell instead. It was much easier in diablo 2 for some reason. Is there a way to disable this? IE: clicking always forces your character to move, and only shiftclicking will make you use your primary attack/skill?

Try holding a cursor to the edge of the screen, past the enemies, and hold mouse button to move there. Cast frost nova when you reach the enemies. That's how I play.

[Valnen]

Question to anybody who has played the beta extensively: As a wizard, i sometimes like to run into the middle of a group of monsters and cast frost nova or some other AOE spell, but I find it difficult to since I end up click on monsters and casting a spell instead. It was much easier in diablo 2 for some reason. Is there a way to disable this? IE: clicking always forces your character to move, and only shiftclicking will make you use your primary attack/skill?

You can bind a key that only makes your character move to the spot you have your mouse, check your keybindings as this is not bound by default. I don't believe you can bind this to your left mouse button however.

[Winnie the Pimp]

to be fair, people calling for more than 4 player coop need to consider the amount of SCREEN CLUTTER that is already generated with 4 players, it gets insane on higher levels i bet with all the flashy spells etc.

I remember yesterday a buddy and i played, just the 2 of us and I was WD, spamming those slowdown hand circles, and Firebats in the middle of a huge mob pack, while he was a Monk, spamming some teleport kicks+ that flashlight thing, anyway it quickly became very chaotic to the point where sometimes you can't even see who's friend or foe, i imagine this dialed up to the max with 4 players and higher level spells and realise why they capped it at 4 (maybe not THE reason but one surely)

[Fugu]

Nah, this is a step back, but I played the beta and I know what Blizzard is up to: The game is still boss run-focused, but now it is focused on the events leading to the boss. In the beta you do not warp all the way to SK, you first rescue the templar, then kill some councillor, then find the royal tombs, and engage SK.

You can warp past the part with the Templar.

I read somewhere the beta is supposed to show how storytelling will work, so it needs a decent amount of set pieces.

I figured this might be the case. Still, if even half of that is non-randomized in the launch product that's more than there's been in any previous Diablo.

I love their design philosophy, I hate how with ME3 I need to spend precious time flying back and forth and talking to everyone to push the action forward. It was not a problem 5 years ago, but now I have job, language classes, and little time for anything else. I like that I can log in, join the game, and start killing monsters.

I don't think that's a fair comparison. There's not exactly a lot of pointless filler in Diablo 2; in fact, you can play the game pretty much straight through with the exception of one part in each of the first three acts which require you to go back to town. I'm referring to the fact that Diablo 2 forces you to stick to a build by not allowing such free re-allocation of skills and by regulating your development somewhat. The same potential to diversify on the fly does not exist so each character is more of a commitment.

Insaniac: Turn on elective skills, bind your left click to normal attack.

qazqaNii: I agree, this bothers me as well. Lobbies are all business now as there's really only one possible purpose to them.

to be fair, people calling for more than 4 player coop need to consider the amount of SCREEN CLUTTER that is already generated with 4 players, it gets insane on higher levels i bet with all the flashy spells etc. I remember yesterday a buddy and i played, just the 2 of us and I was WD, spamming those slowdown hand circles, and Firebats in the middle of a huge mob pack, while he was a Monk, spamming some teleport kicks+ that flashlight thing, anyway it quickly became very chaotic to the point where sometimes you can't even see who's friend or foe, i imagine this dialed up to the max with 4 players and higher level spells and realise why they capped it at 4 (maybe not THE reason but one surely)

Keep in mind that Diablo 2's animations were pretty flashy too. Regardless, I would rather they toned down some of the animations and increased the cap.

[smr00]

Another awful fucking decision. So far, in the 2 hours I've played to level 8 this game screams nothing but linear simplicity. What's the point of giving me physical weapon loot that I can equip, if all i get from it are the magical effects? Why even bother having damage stats on it, why have me holding it if I'm just going to be blowing darts anyway? At least give me different fucking dart guns that do more damage or something. Even the runes come at me in a linear fashion. Why do I have to replace my dogs with some horror face, why not let me put both on my quickbar. I don't run out of magic. What's the fucking point of a meter for it. I'm under the belief that this Beta is just trying to fucking troll me. I hover over the health meter "Run out of this and you're dead!" then I roll over the gold and it says "Don't spend it all in one place!" What the flying fuck is this shit?! Unless I accidentally clicked the facebook difficulty, can someone explain WTF I'm playing?

Someone buy this man a sense of humor. Linear simplicity? It's a fucking hack'n'slash on normal on ACT 1, did you not play diablo? diablo 2? the game was, is and always will be about linear hack n slash, it's about loot, doing runs and pvp.

Calm down bro.

Facebook difficulty? you are on ACT 1 on NORMAL

[Fugu]

Diablo has always been incredibly linear. That's one of its main selling points.

[nubbe]

Diablo has always been incredibly linear. That's one of its main selling points.

wut

random areas and random loot is the selling point

[TheYanger]

wut random areas and random loot is the selling point

Exactly.
Which 3 has.
I Mean...it's not any more or less linear than any of the other games, it possibly has more talking between areas?

[FieryBalrog]

wut random areas and random loot is the selling point

I don't know if you know this, but the entire first 3 Acts of Diablo 2, you literally walk down a road from place to place. The grid around it is rejiggered in shape. It's also a bunch of square-ish grids with not that much personality at times.

When you get to the dungeons, it's less linear, which is true here as well. Going through the Den of the Fallen in D3 was pretty much identical to going through the various caves in Act 1 of D2.

[kyubajin]

I really loved the beta and felt that most of the changes from D2 were for the best. Dontinquire's superb essay about how meaningful and well-thought these new changes are just turned me into a believer.

[Castor Krieg]

wut random areas and random loot is the selling point

Loot is random. Areas will be random apart from scripted sequences relating to the plot e.g. Cathedral Level 3.

[nubbe]

D1 was random
D2 was linear
D3 is a hallway

[rakhir]

Funny how many people judge the 'randomness' of the world based on a tutorial area with so many story elements.

If the later parts of the game will be like that then we can be enraged.

[Corky]

Funny how many people judge the 'randomness' of the world based on a tutorial area with so many story elements.

What else should they base their judgement on?

[Trickster]

D1 was random D2 was linear D3 is a hallway

D3 isn't really a hallway. A hallway would be something like the first 40 hours of FFXIII, where you're pretty much being pushed down a linear path with no way of going back and revisiting past areas.

In D3 you're following a linear storyline, but you're able to revisit all the areas you've been to ,up to point you've reaches following the story in the game. Just like in D2

[rakhir]

What else should they base their judgement on?

It's not like we don't see in the beta how they will generate random dungeons: few of the cathedral levels are made this way and i wouldn't decribe them as a 'hallway'.

[BlueTsunami]

I also liked the wide open fields of Diablo II but I remember the jungle area (Act II?) being fairly constricted. So I'm erring on the side of undecided on whether I'm disappointed or not.

Hopefully the other segments of Act I in D3 branch out more and bring you to different areas that terminate or bring you to an optional dungeon versus funneling you into different set pieces.

[TheYanger]

I also liked the wide open fields of Diablo II but I remember the jungle area (Act II?) being fairly constricted. So I'm erring on the side of undecided on whether I'm disappointed or not. Hopefully the other segments of Act I in D3 branch out more and bring you to different areas that terminate or bring you to an optional dungeon versus funneling you into different set pieces.

This is pretty much true but people like to pretend it wasn't. There were a few field maps in act 1, the desert of act 2, and the first 2 subzones of act 4 in D2 that were 'wide open' ...we're talking like 10-15% of the game. The rest of it was narrow corridors arranged randomly, just like 3 has been so far.

[msv]

This is pretty much true but people like to pretend it wasn't. There were a few field maps in act 1, the desert of act 2, and the first 2 subzones of act 4 in D2 that were 'wide open' ...we're talking like 10-15% of the game. The rest of it was narrow corridors arranged randomly, just like 3 has been so far.

There's a difference though between lots of interlinked corridors that you can take a shortcut through, and long hallways that are only sequentially linked.

[TheYanger]

There's a difference though between lots of interlinked corridors that you can take a shortcut through, and long hallways that are only sequentially linked.

Except that what we've seen in D3 isn't 'long hallways sequentially linked'. Have you played it? I've been in beta for ages. Go to Cath 2 and 3 again, explore the entire map, reload, go again, explore again. This is stuff equivilent to like, the The Stony Field in terms of progression, with low complexity, yet there are still sprawling sections of the zone. i mean are you seriously going to tell me THE UNDERGROUND PASSAGE is more complicated than those floors of the catacombs? or The Mausoleum or The Crypt are complex at all? they're the same as the little rinky dink random dungeons in the graveyard in D3.

Some of the rose tinted goggles in this thread are absurd. In some of your minds I envision The Den of Evil being some sort of epic 14 floor dungeon with traps and maze-like layouts with mobs that shat on you on normal mode or something.

[V_Arnold]

D1 was random D2 was linear D3 is a hallway

This is nice, but not true.

What else should they base their judgement on?

There is a difference between understanding something as a starting point or using that as an example to try and conjure up the full game as it has all the same properties. Second half of the beta already shows that the game has spacey areas and non-"hallway" zones, randomized - so why would the rest of the game suddenly close in again, instead of opening up even more? (Especially considering what we have seen/been told about/know about the next zones...)

[LabouredSubterfuge]

When does this beta end?

[red731]

The short stories for each character are awesome.
Makes me want to re-read The Sin War trilogy once again.

[Trickster]

Except that what we've seen in D3 isn't 'long hallways sequentially linked'. Have you played it? I've been in beta for ages. Go to Cath 2 and 3 again, explore the entire map, reload, go again, explore again. This is stuff equivilent to like, the The Stony Field in terms of progression, with low complexity, yet there are still sprawling sections of the zone. i mean are you seriously going to tell me THE UNDERGROUND PASSAGE is more complicated than those floors of the catacombs? or The Mausoleum or The Crypt are complex at all? they're the same as the little rinky dink random dungeons in the graveyard in D3. Some of the rose tinted goggles in this thread are absurd. In some of your minds I envision The Den of Evil being some sort of epic 14 floor dungeon with traps and maze-like layouts with mobs that shat on you on normal mode or something.

To be fair to people complaining about the dungeon layout in D3. While I don't personally think they are worse than in D2, but the structure of them are much more spread out than they were in d2.

Here's a D2 dungeon:


Compare that to how the layouts of the dungeons are in D3 from what we've seen. They are much more spread out, and force the player to follow straight paths much more.

[Dire]

I really loved the beta and felt that most of the changes from D2 were for the best. Dontinquire's superb essay about how meaningful and well-thought these new changes are just turned me into a believer.

Okay, two people referenced that link in as many pages so I just had to read it and sure am glad I did. I think it finally helped me pin point exactly what it is that D3 seems to be lacking for me. Personally, I enjoy games that take 5 minutes to learn and a lifetime to master. Needless to say I like chess, but games like Diablo 2 also fit this. Getting started in Diablo 2 is about as simple as it gets. Run outside of town, start mashing your left mouse button, watch things fall over, loot, rinse, repeat. What, people play this for years!? Of course it's no long after that that the game starts showing its true colors and you find that even after playing for years you will invariably find yourself learning new things, coming up with new character ideas and generally just learning.

And I don't even mean that in the sense of well unless you've memorized every inane chart at Arreat Summit then you surely have more to learn. Or "Oh you don't know about the strafe bug? Hahaha, why in the world would you get your IAS to 130? The breakpoints for 4 and 3 frames are effectively identical! Wow, noob!" That isn't good design. It's annoying and cumbersome. I'm talking more about normal gameplay things. For instance anybody who's played D2 long enough has probably thought about trying to combine damage taken goes to mana, mana shield, and reduce damage to create a near invincible sorceress. It's fun, it requires thinking and the answer is surprising and leads to more fun and interesting ideas.

Now D3 seems to ostensibly have the same sort of system in place. But that post you referenced mentioned something that very likely does seem to be the case. The designers seem to have tried to take the 'what if' out of the game. That definitely seems like a great idea in general but in this case they seem to have done so to such a degree that instead of 'what if' I'm left with no real sense of curiosity at all. I looked through all the classes passives and the lists of skills we had available. There were lots of interesting skills but nothing really left me with that sense of wonder and awe that Diablo 2, even after years of play, constantly managed to. The skills, for the most part, seem very safe, modest and as a result ultimately not particularly interesting - even if there are a billion of them.

Again it's a good game, and it has done a lot of things right. The attacks really do feel like they have 'weight' and modifying of some of the excessively annoying and esoteric aspects of Diablo 2 like crafting are huge improvements. But I fear they've gone a bit too far here. It's like they were trying to make a nice soft drink. They started with Diablo 2, some murky and excessively rich opaque syrup. It needed to be watered down quite a bit, but they mixed up the ratios and have now left themselves with just mostly transparent sweet flavored water. Unlikely to offend, but also not something you'll probably have too many people coming in day after day, year after year for.

[Synth_floyd]

Every time someone does a D2 to D3 comparison it's always one of the later levels on the harder difficulties. Pick something from the first act on easy difficulty.

[BlueTsunami]

Seeing the D2 map Blizzard need to allow a map overlay to be used like in D2. Especially considering how large some of the dungeons are. Feels better to keep the map open instead of flicking it on and off.

[Number45]

When does this beta end?

Open or closed? Open beta ends today in about 8 hours.

[Kem0sabe]

A question to those that keep more up to date on the game, is this worth it if i´m only interested in the single player? how long is the sp campaign and how story driven is it?

[FtHTiny]

A question to those that keep more up to date on the game, is this worth it if i´m only interested in the single player? how long is the sp campaign and how story driven is it?

I would say 10-15hours for one playthrough on one difficulty.

[Number45]

A question to those that keep more up to date on the game, is this worth it if i´m only interested in the single player? how long is the sp campaign and how story driven is it?

I'm not sure anyone's going to be able to answer that with what we know. But it IS story based, and I expect the campaign to be pretty long (took me around four hours playing through the beta section, which is little more than the opening scene).

I think my time with the game will be a mixture of SP and MP, but mostly SP. Only have one friend that's picking the game up. :(

[V_Arnold]

I would say 10-15hours for one playthrough on one difficulty.

10 hours? That sounds a little too low, how did you come up with that number?

[daviyoung]

I would say 10-15hours for one playthrough on one difficulty.

Haha, that's worse than Dungeon Siege III. No way it'll be that short.

[oneils]

So, late to the party on this one: how do you see the damage you do with a particular skill? I see it on the website, but not in game.

Either enable advanced tool tips in gameplay options or mouse over the skill while holding control. Have fun.

[Winnie the Pimp]

Just wanna point out that in the beta we got to play there IS a little area that is "open", i forget what it's called but it's this field of something before you get to the crypts, not a huge desert or whatever but maybe it's a sign of things to come?

[FieryBalrog]

Okay, two people referenced that link in as many pages so I just had to read it and sure am glad I did. I think it finally helped me pin point exactly what it is that D3 seems to be lacking for me. Personally, I enjoy games that take 5 minutes to learn and a lifetime to master. Needless to say I like chess, but games like Diablo 2 also fit this. Getting started in Diablo 2 is about as simple as it gets. Run outside of town, start mashing your left mouse button, watch things fall over, loot, rinse, repeat. What, people play this for years!? Of course it's no long after that that the game starts showing its true colors and you find that even after playing for years you will invariably find yourself learning new things, coming up with new character ideas and generally just learning. And I don't even mean that in the sense of well unless you've memorized every inane chart at Arreat Summit then you surely have more to learn. Or "Oh you don't know about the strafe bug? Hahaha, why in the world would you get your IAS to 130? The breakpoints for 4 and 3 frames are effectively identical! Wow, noob!" That isn't good design. It's annoying and cumbersome. I'm talking more about normal gameplay things. For instance anybody who's played D2 long enough has probably thought about trying to combine damage taken goes to mana, mana shield, and reduce damage to create a near invincible sorceress. It's fun, it requires thinking and the answer is surprising and leads to more fun and interesting ideas. Now D3 seems to ostensibly have the same sort of system in place. But that post you referenced mentioned something that very likely does seem to be the case. The designers seem to have tried to take the 'what if' out of the game. That definitely seems like a great idea in general but in this case they seem to have done so to such a degree that instead of 'what if' I'm left with no real sense of curiosity at all. I looked through all the classes passives and the lists of skills we had available. There were lots of interesting skills but nothing really left me with that sense of wonder and awe that Diablo 2, even after years of play, constantly managed to. The skills, for the most part, seem very safe, modest and as a result ultimately not particularly interesting - even if there are a billion of them. Again it's a good game, and it has done a lot of things right. The attacks really do feel like they have 'weight' and modifying of some of the excessively annoying and esoteric aspects of Diablo 2 like crafting are huge improvements. But I fear they've gone a bit too far here. It's like they were trying to make a nice soft drink. They started with Diablo 2, some murky and excessively rich opaque syrup. It needed to be watered down quite a bit, but they mixed up the ratios and have now left themselves with just mostly transparent sweet flavored water. Unlikely to offend, but also not something you'll probably have too many people coming in day after day, year after year for.

But that we don't know yet. Jumping to conclusions this early is silly. For example, the ability to customize stats with gems and gear, to very large degrees. It seems that there is a lot of room for play there. We don't know yet how end-game will work exactly. D2 didn't even have an end-game that didn't involve botting, past the first year. (and botting was inevitable given the absolutely ridiculous way XP worked after level 86 or so).

We just don't have enough information to reach the conclusion you are reaching yet. As another example, take World of Warcraft. The stat system there has been repeatedly simplified, and the game is repeatedly vilified as "casual", but I still have to use complicated 3rd party parsers and post them to forums full of hardcore players in order to get an analysis on my raid's performance and my personal performance, I have to use a 3rd party website to optimize my reforges and rotations, and that's just the tip of the iceberg regarding the end-game complexity of that game. Just because a system is transparent and accessible, doesn't mean it lacks complexity.

In other words, there isn't a game Blizzard has put out yet that has lacked the "difficult to master" part of the equation. Not one, yet. Post Warcraft 2 era, anyway. So that's why I can't jump to that conclusion, even if from the tiny bit of info we have, it does look very simplified.

[Trickster]

A question to those that keep more up to date on the game, is this worth it if i´m only interested in the single player? how long is the sp campaign and how story driven is it?

Well, the Beta is apparently around 1/3 of the first of four acts in the game. And the beta takes around 1½ hours to complete the first time through. So I imagine the game will take around 15-20 hours the first time through unless you're rushing it.

It seems to be a very story driven game, though don't expect a ton of cutscenes.

Personally, even if diablo 3 was a single player only game, I'd definitely buy it because I really enjoy everything about the game so far. But I'd say your best bet to know if it's worth playing is to try the beta out for yourself and see if you like it or not. You can probably still download it and try it, if you hurry.

Just wanna point out that in the beta we got to play there IS a little area that is "open", i forget what it's called but it's this field of something before you get to the crypts, not a huge desert or whatever but maybe it's a sign of things to come?

There are similar areas just after the skeleton kings where you are outside in open areas. Harazo has about an hours worth of footage on his twitch channel I think, looked really good.

[Corky]

10 hours? That sounds a little too low, how did you come up with that number?

My own random guess would be around 15h on normal difficulty if you take your time. Then again who cares about normal? The real meat of the game will be the other difficulties so I definitely you'll clock in 80h going through all 4 difficulties.

[FtHTiny]

Haha, that's worse than Dungeon Siege III. No way it'll be that short.

10 hours? That sounds a little too low, how did you come up with that number?

It´s just my guess, depending how you going to play, 10 hours could be possible.

Only running to mainquests, no side dungeons, normal difficulty.

[FieryBalrog]

In fact, the discussion reminds me of how hardcore BW-ites reacted to the changes in SC2, claiming that things like MBS, autorally, etc. would ruin the game's depth and leave it shallow. I don't know if SC2 is as deep as BW; it probably isn't; but by no means is it at all a shallow game, and it's been strong enough to survive on its own merits despite not much in the way of expansion-related support from Blizzard, and certain lackluster features of Bnet 2.0.

[Trickster]

My own random guess would be around 15h on normal difficulty if you take your time. Then again who cares about normal? The real meat of the game will be the other difficulties so I definitely you'll clock in 80h going through all 4 difficulties.

Considering what blizzard are saying about needing to gear up and whatnot before even attempting to tackle inferno, I'd imagine it will take much longer than that :)

In fact, the discussion reminds me of how hardcore BW-ites reacted to the changes in SC2, claiming that things like MBS, autorally, etc. would ruin the game's depth and leave it shallow. I don't know if SC2 is as deep as BW; it probably isn't; but by no means is it at all a shallow game, and it's been strong enough to survive on its own merits despite not much in the way of expansion-related support from Blizzard, and certain lackluster features of Bnet 2.0.

SC2 is a mechanically easier game to play. However that has increased the importance of other things like unit micro.

[V_Arnold]

It´s just my guess, depending how you going to play, 10 hours could be possible. Only running to mainquests, no side dungeons, normal difficulty.

I cant imagine anyone doing that for the first try. If they even include something remotely similar to how Act 3 played out (Where, if you were unlucky, you needed to go through the whole area to find the key dungeons), you would not have the option to just "rush forward".

And if one does not know what forward contains, then... :D
Well, we shall see. Not like I care about the length, but it is definitely lower than I imagine to be the "proper" amount, which is 15+ hours. 15 being if you are lucky with drops, never need to stop for crafting, do not go "off track" and never wipe on any bosses at all. We shall see.

[PantyPhantom]

I would say 10-15hours for one playthrough on one difficulty.

What?

[Winnie the Pimp]

anyone here getting the Brady guide for D3?

It's probably nonsense to even think about it since everything will be dynamic with upcoming patches, changes etc. and you can look it all up on the net anyways but there's something about reading Diablo facts on the crapper that is just appealing to me hmmm...

;)

[Trickster]

anyone here getting the Brady guide for D3? It's probably nonsense to even think about it since everything will be dynamic with upcoming patches, changes etc. and you can look it all up on the net anyways but there's something about reading Diablo facts on the crapper that is just appealing to me hmmm... ;)

Nope, never saw the need to pay money for a guide. If I'm stuck in a game for long enough that I feel I need help to get past it, there's always plenty of free info on the internet to help me get past it.