Support NeoGAF

[CTLance]

Best of luck to him. Hope he can achieve his dreams now.

That said, I'm not too sad about him leaving. I'm unsure of his exact influence on D3, but he certainly was one of the few that determined where that game was taken... and as far as I am concerned, he took it behind the shed and handed me a loaded shotgun. So yeah. Boo fucking hoo.

Still, again, wishing him the best as a writer. It's an incredibly liberating feeling to be doing what you love most.

 

[Firemind]

It's comical that you mention that you can solo shit in D3, as if you are ever 'encouraged' to group in D2. Group rifting in D3 is a very popular and fun activity, synergies between classes are much much much stronger than in D2. Heck, in D2 I would be weaker playing with most players than I would be with Waheed my trusty Act 2 hireling.

It seems you dismiss my points just to fit your own narrative. D2 is by definition a more social game because of trading and PvP. You CAN trade in D3, but because of smart drops it never actually matters unless you play the same class. You can't trade materials, gems, gold, what have you. D2 has that social interactivity. And that's not mentioning 8 player games. Iron Man PvP is a thing in D2.

Endgame isn't cut and dry. For some people T10 is the endgame (or it used to be before it became a joke). For others GR60-70. For a select few, the top of the ladder. Like in D2, for some it's Normal, some Hell, some decked out with Torches and Charms. You say you're being objective, but you're just going through the lens of your own experiences. Yeah, the game is piss easy when you have Enigmas and shit. The same can be applied to D3. That's not really a valid argument. What is a valid argument is whether the game is satisfying to play throughout all stages of the game. And I say D2 has the better structure and pacing than D3 no matter what your endgame is. In D3, you go from 1-69 gimped, to T1, to T8-10 where the grind begins. The progression is all really messy and not rewarding. D2 has quests, bosses, story beats packaged into one narrative. It feels like an actual RPG. All randomized. That is the true downfall of D3. It's not a dungeon crawler. It's not Diablo.

 

[CharminUltra]

 

[eot]

Those stats aren't the reason why, those only affect your dexterity requirements, stats simply didn't scale to the level they do in D3, and there don't exist as many dps stats to scale multiplicatively with each other. Skills basically didn't scale off of stats, and instead only off of minus resists on the enemies and +skill level, it was all very flat because of this. this is also partly why build diversity was 'good' - because everything sucked and the game was easy to accomodate it.

Look at one of the 'best' D2 items:

+2 To All Skills
+ (1.5 Per Character Level) 1-148 To Life (Based On Character Level)
+ (1.5 Per Character Level) 1-148 To Mana (Based On Character Level)
Damage Reduced By 10%
50% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+2 To All Attributes

Like...that barely increases your player power aside from the MF and the +2 to all skills.

Is that supposed to be a bad thing? I think D2 has way better itemisation because good items aren't only about "increasing your power" or whatever the fuck.

I think this talk about difficulty is pointless too. You can make the game as hard or as easy as you want, by balancing killing power with survivability. These games have never been about challenge, when they're challenging they're not fun becuse they're ultimately not much about player skill. The rewarding part is being able to do something more efficiently than before. Also, just FYI, the "endgame" in D2 isn't DC hunting, it's doing Uber Tristram which they added like 11 years ago.

 

[Arkeband]

Do you truly believe that Jay Wilson is to blame for the story of Diablo 3, rather than Chris Metzen? Or do you have no idea waht you're talking about?

To be fair, once Chris Metzen starts in with his Orc Voice and growls out "are you even a real Geek?(tm)", you probably just shut up and let him write before he demotes you to Intern #3.

 

[FrontalMonk]

It's funny, and sad, how many critical design decisions that were made on D3 got totally shit on when they were exact, point by point revisions of all the problems brought up by D2 players for years.

People didn't like starting over when they statted their character wrong, so they added more flexibility and let you swap your skills out on the fly.

People didn't like how the entire game revolved around you hitting 2 skills...maaaybe 3, so they gave you a skill bar with six skills, and designed the game around using all six of them consistently.

People didn't like running the same couple bosses over and over again, so they made the most powerful monsters that dropped the best loot be around in the world to encourage exploration.

Literally the only problems I had with the game on launch was the overtuning, both of Inferno difficulty (yo, FUCK Act 2 Inferno) and of the shitty math on drops, like getting that awesome echoing fury...that dropped with Int on it.

I *loved* D2, and went back to it repeatedly for years. But I recognize that even though it was a masterpiece, it was a flawed masterpiece. D3 had its own flaws, but several of them were created specifically with the intention of fixing the flaws in D2.

 

[vainglorious]

Do you truly believe that Jay Wilson is to blame for the story of Diablo 3, rather than Chris Metzen? Or do you have no idea waht you're talking about?

Blizzard would greatly benefit by forcing some of the old guard into less active roles for future game development. Chris Metzen owes his role within that company, in part, to being at the right place at the right time. I doubt his writing ability would take him as far within that company if he were hired today.

Or maybe Blizzard just has their blinders turned on in regards to their writing staff.

Admittedly, I did really enjoy Leah as Diablo's physical host. And I know that that plot point came directly from Metzen. Putting Diablo into a female body at the time was pretty divisive within the community and Metzen should be given credit for having the balls to push for that idea.