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Blizzard admits Diablo 3's end-game is lacking, would like to fix eventually

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This picture still excites me to this day. I have yet to have that same feel in Diablo 3 :(

It was always a Nagelring or Manald Heal.
 
Nightmare D3 is harder than Hell D2

I'm seriously wondering how many people truly played D2 here. Complaining that 99% of the loot that drops is bad? No shit, that's what makes lootwhore games. It makes you come back for more, for that one item that will break the streak.

Doesn't do much good when that one item, while granting relatively great normal stats, provides nothing special other than getting a small amount of some boring ass stat that normally wouldn't be available in that slot like attack speed or block *yawn* who the fuck green lit this shit? I wanna see abilities unlocked, more procs, more special mods to abilities, increased knockback, you name it, you probably already played it in other games.
 
Nightmare D3 is harder than Hell D2

I'm seriously wondering how many people truly played D2 here. Complaining that 99% of the loot that drops is bad? No shit, that's what makes lootwhore games. It makes you come back for more, for that one item that will break the streak.

No, the bolded is simply not true.

Taking Titans Quest for example. All throughout the leveling stages you had various points where items were lusted after. High attack scimitars, rare helmets, 2 handers. People stopped at lvl 30 to get their hands on cool shit that was dropping. The Sabertooth scimitar from the tigers for example, with its high attack speed. None of it broke the game, it just gave you an advantage, and it was always rewarding.

There's plenty of other loot whore games where the item chase was far more satisfying than in D3. In D3, the loot progression is linear and sterile. You won't do anything unexpected, have any sort of unique build through loot modifiers. That simply is not the case in other loot whore games.
 
It's good that Blizzard is at least partially aware of/responding to the problems at hand, but I'm still kind of worried that they are stubbornly refusing to see the REAL issue. People wouldn't be complaining that there is nothing to do at 60 other than hunt items if the item hunt itself wasn't a total disgrace. They need to get back to basics, take a hard look at exactly what people liked about the Diablo 2 loot hunt so much that folks kept coming back for a decade, and get their fucking shit together. Their whole philosophy around item design and hunting/acquisition so far has been an absolute disaster.
 
D3 isn't a loot whore game, it's a trash collector simulator. Sometimes when taking out the trash you find something valuable if you're lucky. Sometimes you throw out valuable things mistaking it for another piece of trash since you're in a rush to destroy it all for recycle money.

To be loot whoring you have to be crossing good loot that you are collecting and replacing your current gear for not willing to be satisfied with the new shiny loot you just got and going in for more upgrades. Well that's how it was for me in every other loot game I played that's not D3 (trash collector game).
 
D3 isn't a loot whore game, it's a trash collector simulator. Sometimes when taking out the trash you find something valuable if you're lucky. Sometimes you throw out valuable things mistaking it for another piece of trash since you're in a rush to destroy it all for recycle money.

To be loot whoring you have to be crossing good loot that you are collecting and replacing your current gear for not willing to be satisfied with the new shiny loot you just got and going in for more upgrades. Well that's how it was for me in every other loot game I played that's not D3 (trash collector game).

Fucking perfect.
 
D3 isn't a loot whore game, it's a trash collector simulator. Sometimes when taking out the trash you find something valuable if you're lucky. Sometimes you throw out valuable things mistaking it for another piece of trash since you're in a rush to destroy it all for recycle money.

To be loot whoring you have to be crossing good loot that you are collecting and replacing your current gear for not willing to be satisfied with the new shiny loot you just got and going in for more upgrades. Well that's how it was for me in every other loot game I played that's not D3 (trash collector game).

That's a perfect description.
 
D3 isn't a loot whore game, it's a trash collector simulator. Sometimes when taking out the trash you find something valuable if you're lucky. Sometimes you throw out valuable things mistaking it for another piece of trash since you're in a rush to destroy it all for recycle money.

To be loot whoring you have to be crossing good loot that you are collecting and replacing your current gear for not willing to be satisfied with the new shiny loot you just got and going in for more upgrades. Well that's how it was for me in every other loot game I played that's not D3 (trash collector game).

This is actually a very good assessment, lol.

A really good piece of loot in D3 is one that rolled an 80 instead of the 77 you already have (when in reality you only needed a 55 to beat the game anyway). There's very few interesting things about the loot, not because we want it all to be gems, but because very minimal numeric increments are not enough to differentiate one piece from another, so everything becomes replacing the same boring piece, just with slightly different numbers that hardly matter either way.

I want to meet the dumb person at Blizzard who thought "end game" (which was their goal all along) would be more enjoyable by making 1-60 absolute trash drops-wise and a chore to level through by dropping items 10-15 levels under your current level. Of course you are going to go to the readily available AH to get massive upgrades for pennies instead of checking that yellow item that just dropped for you @ lvl 36. Those increments are also going to make the journey trivial because they apparently tweaked the difficulty pretending the AH didn't actually exist (you know, just one of the most prominent features of the game).

Heck, they even made it so that bosses didn't drop rares anymore during NM/Hell, just so that when you finally got to inferno, they felt like worth it again. Yes, of course I feel better about bosses finally dropping some fucking -probably- usable loot (and even then they had the brilliant idea to nerf them drop-wise for a while there), but that doesn't mean that the feeling would be diminished if I had got there by actually getting awesome stuff in the way. No wonder most people would rather sit through 1hr of doing the same quest over and over again to level up instead of playing the game. There is just nothing there rewarding your 1-60 journey at all.
 
D3 isn't a loot whore game, it's a trash collector simulator. Sometimes when taking out the trash you find something valuable if you're lucky. Sometimes you throw out valuable things mistaking it for another piece of trash since you're in a rush to destroy it all for recycle money.

To be loot whoring you have to be crossing good loot that you are collecting and replacing your current gear for not willing to be satisfied with the new shiny loot you just got and going in for more upgrades. Well that's how it was for me in every other loot game I played that's not D3 (trash collector game).

citizen-kane-clapping-gif.gif


THIS. Summed up by thoughts perfectly: Borderlands, Torchlight 1 & 2 and heck even Diablo 1 & 2 are loot whore games. Diablo 3 is not.
 
hF0QJ.jpg


This picture still excites me to this day. I have yet to have that same feel in Diablo 3 :(

Wow. This picture brought back a lot of good D2 memories. Just makes it hurt a lot more that D3 can not replicate the same feelings I got in D2.

I've probably played for 100 or so hours of D3 and quit two weeks ago. But I can't recall any piece of equipment on my characters. It's all just a bunch of numbers.

I havent played D2 in 2 years and I can still name at least 90% of the items I had on my glass cannon Amazon.
 
Did Diablo 2 suck this much at end game when it came out? I can't remember. Oh well thats still no excuse, they had 11 years to get it right and it still came out "rushed", wilson and metzen are a match made for each other, and the damage is done.
 
D3 isn't a loot whore game, it's a trash collector simulator. Sometimes when taking out the trash you find something valuable if you're lucky. Sometimes you throw out valuable things mistaking it for another piece of trash since you're in a rush to destroy it all for recycle money.

To be loot whoring you have to be crossing good loot that you are collecting and replacing your current gear for not willing to be satisfied with the new shiny loot you just got and going in for more upgrades. Well that's how it was for me in every other loot game I played that's not D3 (trash collector game).

This is the best thing i ever read.
 
The problem isn't so much that good loot drops fast enough, the problem is that poor itemization really hurts the game. Which makes it all the worse.

It is insanely depressing when a weapon that's perfectly rolled in properties drops, only have a meager 100-300 DPS. Real mood killer.

I don't understand why people are confusing RNG mechanics with itemization in D3.

The itemization is bad because the affixes are not interesting and not because you got a shitty roll on your yellow item.

People really need to stop whining about the RNG in item rolls.
 
D3 isn't a loot whore game, it's a trash collector simulator. Sometimes when taking out the trash you find something valuable if you're lucky. Sometimes you throw out valuable things mistaking it for another piece of trash since you're in a rush to destroy it all for recycle money.

To be loot whoring you have to be crossing good loot that you are collecting and replacing your current gear for not willing to be satisfied with the new shiny loot you just got and going in for more upgrades. Well that's how it was for me in every other loot game I played that's not D3 (trash collector game).

This should be sent to Blizzard. That's exactly the point.
 
Wow. This picture brought back a lot of good D2 memories. Just makes it hurt a lot more that D3 can not replicate the same feelings I got in D2.

I've probably played for 100 or so hours of D3 and quit two weeks ago. But I can't recall any piece of equipment on my characters. It's all just a bunch of numbers.

I havent played D2 in 2 years and I can still name at least 90% of the items I had on my glass cannon Amazon.

That's the problem, isn't it? I can pretty much recall my lightning sorc gear...my witch doctor? Not a chance.
 
D3 isn't a loot whore game, it's a trash collector simulator. Sometimes when taking out the trash you find something valuable if you're lucky. Sometimes you throw out valuable things mistaking it for another piece of trash since you're in a rush to destroy it all for recycle money.

To be loot whoring you have to be crossing good loot that you are collecting and replacing your current gear for not willing to be satisfied with the new shiny loot you just got and going in for more upgrades. Well that's how it was for me in every other loot game I played that's not D3 (trash collector game).

This post, man.

This post.
 
D3 is a hack and slack game for me. Loot progression allows me to hack and slash harder enemies without dieing.
All of the other hack and slash games didn't feel like they were doing it properly - the hack and slash feels best to me in diablo 3, and that keeps me going back.
I look at path of exile for example and all the combat feels super slow and squishy. Diablo3 has a certain 'crunch' to combat which is so satisfying.
That said, I'm still only just in act 1 inferno with one character, so I didn't rape the game when it came out like some. I'll reach my limit eventually when I'm sick of selling items to vendors (as nothing is selling on the AH).
The silver lining is always 'how many hours did I get out of this game compared to most other games I play' and the answer almost always makes me feel better about the overall experience.
 
D3 isn't a loot whore game, it's a trash collector simulator. Sometimes when taking out the trash you find something valuable if you're lucky. Sometimes you throw out valuable things mistaking it for another piece of trash since you're in a rush to destroy it all for recycle money.

To be loot whoring you have to be crossing good loot that you are collecting and replacing your current gear for not willing to be satisfied with the new shiny loot you just got and going in for more upgrades. Well that's how it was for me in every other loot game I played that's not D3 (trash collector game).

Omg. I'm laughing. But crying inside. This is so true. It's perfect. Has this been sent to Blizzard yet?
 
D3 isn't a loot whore game, it's a trash collector simulator. Sometimes when taking out the trash you find something valuable if you're lucky. Sometimes you throw out valuable things mistaking it for another piece of trash since you're in a rush to destroy it all for recycle money.

To be loot whoring you have to be crossing good loot that you are collecting and replacing your current gear for not willing to be satisfied with the new shiny loot you just got and going in for more upgrades. Well that's how it was for me in every other loot game I played that's not D3 (trash collector game).

perfect... I am currently playing Borderlands, and its a better loot game than D3 was. I wished I had the system to run that when it was released...
 
Just... just make Legendaries not terrible, Blizzard. Please. Just throw "We un-boring'd the Legendary drops" in some patch notes somewhere.

Other than that, I can't even imagine what a new "progression system" on top of D3 would be. Items are the progression, I thought, so fixing that would go a long way.

Agreed. Grinding away for upgrades, never getting any, and then getting all excited about finally getting a legendary drop that ends up being really terrible, has kind of killed the game for me.

Discovering a great new item is a lot more fun than vendoring a bunch of shitty items so that you can afford to buy something decent on the AH.
 
To speak to the itemization issue, I just got 3 ilevel 63 crossbows (highest item level), and they had shit DPS and over +300 Int on all 3 of them, a stat which is nearly literally useless for the only class that can use this item. Yet I have never seen a crossbow drop with anywhere remotely close to that high of a stat of something that is actual even marginally useful for the class that can equip the item. At basically the same time someone else in our group got a wizard staff that only had ~+200 Str. It's retarded.
 
I was able to cancel my annual sub yesterday so I'll lose my D3 and WoW but I'm cool with that. The poor start of the game and rampant exploiting ruined any sense of competitive spirit I had for D3. I'm not digging WoW anymore. Works for me. Was surprised they allowed it. Only paid 4 months of it.
 
Ignoring the loot issue my main problem with D3 is that once I have leveled a class to 60, that's it. There's absolutely no reason to ever level another of that class again outside of maybe making a hardcore version.

A big draw of D2 for me was trying new builds. It was worth replaying the game because not only was there the draw of getting good loot but there was also the reward you got each level for leveling up. Combined they had enough of that addictive quality to make the game enjoyable.

Once I leveled each character to 60 the only draw was playing to find more loot, and as we know that has huge issues unto itself.
 
That analogy is perfect. I barely even give a shit when a yellow drops in D3, whereas my heart would skip a beat when a rare dropped in D2.\

Ignoring the loot issue my main problem with D3 is that once I have leveled a class to 60, that's it. There's absolutely no reason to ever level another of that class again outside of maybe making a hardcore version.

A big draw of D2 for me was trying new builds. It was worth replaying the game because not only was there the draw of getting good loot but there was also the reward you got each level for leveling up. Combined they had enough of that addictive quality to make the game enjoyable.

Once I leveled each character to 60 the only draw was playing to find more loot, and as we know that has huge issues unto itself.
This too. There literally is no reason to ever make a second character of the same class (except the 2 to lvl 60 achievements).
 
D3 isn't a loot whore game, it's a trash collector simulator. Sometimes when taking out the trash you find something valuable if you're lucky. Sometimes you throw out valuable things mistaking it for another piece of trash since you're in a rush to destroy it all for recycle money.

To be loot whoring you have to be crossing good loot that you are collecting and replacing your current gear for not willing to be satisfied with the new shiny loot you just got and going in for more upgrades. Well that's how it was for me in every other loot game I played that's not D3 (trash collector game).

This post needs to be dipped in bronze and displayed for future generations to marvel at...

...after somebody uses it to bludgeon to death whoever was responsible for Diablo 3's loot system, of course.
 
D3 isn't a loot whore game, it's a trash collector simulator. Sometimes when taking out the trash you find something valuable if you're lucky. Sometimes you throw out valuable things mistaking it for another piece of trash since you're in a rush to destroy it all for recycle money.

To be loot whoring you have to be crossing good loot that you are collecting and replacing your current gear for not willing to be satisfied with the new shiny loot you just got and going in for more upgrades. Well that's how it was for me in every other loot game I played that's not D3 (trash collector game).

I never really sensed that the average quality of gear in D3 was lower than D2 if that's what you're suggesting. In D2 people didn't just constantly find upgrades everywhere, they boss rushed for countless hours and had to do all sorts of bullshit to trade for what they needed, thus SoJs, etc. I think there are some serious rose-tinted glasses here. What specifically do you think is worse about D3?

In any case, I see your point - personally I wish they would ditch sub-60 items dropping in Inferno, that doesn't feel good at all and they're a pain to clean from your inventory since you can't salvage them. Hell, I would be happy if they just kept the droprates on 61+ items where they are, and dropped more gold instead of 51-59 gear.
 
/signed

This is how confident they are in the fact that their customer base will just eat whatever is thrown their way.

Really? They're being completely open and honest about their mistakes and you throw it back in their faces as a sign of arrogance?
 
I really don't understand why it so time consuming to make new content for Diablo 3. Its not like the engine is particularly ground breaking. I guess it takes time to get the balancing right but that still doesn't seem like a fair excuse.
 
Really? They're being completely open and honest about their mistakes and you throw it back in their faces as a sign of arrogance?
Yeah, this part I don't get. They are having a conversation with their playerbase right now, and have been pretty upfront about what thinking goes into their systems and how they'd like to move those systems forward. On that point they've done as good a job as I could ask of them.

Nothing short of a major expansion can truly fix this though, and then again I'm not sure its possible to fix this game and keep that auction house going. Maybe PvP will help them out here in the near term?
 
5 years is still not "rushing your game out".

Time spend is kind of irrelevant. You can scrap entire systems and constantly change mechanics during 5 years. You might not be rushing the game, but the final product is far from polished.

Time /= quality
 
First step should be to remove the white items. They're completely useless! They're not even worth selling, and just add meaningless clutter. Even Deathspank handled this better.
 
Time spend is kind of irrelevant. You can scrap entire systems and constantly change mechanics during 5 years. You might not be rushing the game, but the final product is far from polished.

Time /= quality

What exactly do you think "rush" means, if not a reference to time?
 
Really? They're being completely open and honest about their mistakes and you throw it back in their faces as a sign of arrogance?

Ya really.

It's been a month and a half since release. People paid fifty to sixty dollars for something that let's say "sixty days after release" they're saying they got wrong.

C'mon. This was a surprise to them? Really?

They shipped it when they shouldn't have.

I don't care if they're being open and honest. In the really real world of realness; honesty doesn't make everything better. A company that worked on a game for a very long time...a company like Blizzard...I expected more.

The upside is that I no longer expect more. They made a very safe...very boring game and now they're being "open and honest" about things and of course...it curries favour with Blizzard fans.
 
Pvp is just going to cause more issues. People will whine and complain that the only way to do any good in PvP is to money hat in the AH. People like me will complain more that Pvp forces you even more to the AH then to play the core game itself.
 
D3 isn't a loot whore game, it's a trash collector simulator. Sometimes when taking out the trash you find something valuable if you're lucky. Sometimes you throw out valuable things mistaking it for another piece of trash since you're in a rush to destroy it all for recycle money.

To be loot whoring you have to be crossing good loot that you are collecting and replacing your current gear for not willing to be satisfied with the new shiny loot you just got and going in for more upgrades. Well that's how it was for me in every other loot game I played that's not D3 (trash collector game).

This is the most accurate description of the game I have ever seen.
 
Did none of them step into Act 2 Inferno before they shipped the game? I understand they didn't have access to the AH, so didn't anyone think "God damn, this shit is impossible. How is someone going to gear up for this in Act 1?" Because if they did, that would have been the first indication that the loot drops did not match the difficulty of the content AT ALL

Even before that, since there aren't any interesting affixes on gear, you're just grinding for main stats. Other games let me get my main stats when I level up, some even let me put them where I want. Levelling typically pushes you further into a character trajectory of your choosing with abilities. It's not something I'm actively working for when I'm looking for gear. Give me something like 20% chance to freeze on hit, or 20% chance to become invisible for 3s after a successful doge. Where is the creativity? I could come up with like 500 if given an hour.

Anyway, the actual pummelling things to death is fun. The story is junk (offensively so), the aesthetics aren't particularly interesting outside of Act 1. No randomization in dungeons has led to bots ravaging the game and billions of gold throwing off the economy. Too many problems. The combat guys nailed it, everyone else fucked up

I've got some blizz bucks, does D2 work on W7 fine?
 
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