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I never blogged about this, but I am one of them many few who didn't like Diablo 3 upon release (after playing a character to level 53), and didn't like it after the numerous 1.0 patches that came out. I for one was completely disappointed and walked away from the game convinced there was no way they could fix it.
That was until they released patch 2.0.
I started gaming with some dudes I met online in the game Rift back in the fall. Pretty cool dudes (our website is twa-gaming.com). We were in-between games (which means mass League of Legends), and trying to decide as group in-directly what games we were going to play. I had resigned myself to playing older games, and had begun streaming me playing them (which will continue again tonight aroun 5pm MST on my channel where I will be playing Super Mario Bros. 3 with my little sister).
Two in our group had been playing the new patch and had been trying to convince the rest of us that we should come back. A few of us voiced our concern with how the game was moderated before, and did not want to play it simply because we believed there was no way they fixed it. This went for about a week until I decided to try playing it after hearing others were hopping on board. You can't blame me - Something had obviously happened, and I would be damned to not at least try it out despite my beliefs beforehand that it was going to be terrible.
I'm not going to rant on about my experience with the game, but to put it in perspective - I went from not wanting to play the game at all into playing every chance I could without interrupting my work life, and pre-ordering the expansion. I'm only typing this blog because if you were one of those non-believers like me, you should give it a try again. The loot system is better, skills are better (my witch doctor is so bad ass...), the paragon system is better (you can actually customize! OMG!), everything is generally better.
I have had no faith in blizzard since HotS and Diablo 3, but I must say that patch 2.0 might have saved Diablo 3, and Reaper of Souls may actually only improve on that.
If you want to come play with me or want to know more, add me on battle.net: KraidleyAran#1314
And because I know there will be questions about this, yes my battle tag is inspired by metroid (Kraid + Ridley + Samus Aran = Kraidley Aran)
Here's my character if anyone is curious:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/KraidleyAran-1314/hero/41711174
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I would like to hear more.
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Yeah, same thing here. Didn't end up playing right when the 2.0 patch came out but some friends said that the game had totally changed. Ended up going from Paragon 84 to 200, which I got today.
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2.0 made D3 a worthy successor to D2 and gave it the right to bear the diablo name. It really improved the game tenfold. I doubled my playtime in a matter of days.
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Agreed, it's undeniably better than the trash D3 was. I must admit, it was REALLY hard for me to give D3 another chance. I'm probably not alone in having pretty bad memories of that game. SO disappointed when it launched. To be honest I was pretty sure i was never going to play it again, but my friend convinced me after lots of persuading. Hopefully more people will give it another shot.There's actually a reason to play the game now besides auction house tycoon, which isn't even the game. I'm kind of bummed that they totally got rid of trading legendaries, which almost seems like an over reaction to fixing the massive AH problems, but I'm willing to see how it goes.
If only they could finally make some sort of fun, fair PvP, but I dont blame Blizzard for not wanting to put it out if they know it just wouldnt be good.
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Im pretty sure account bound legendaries are being removed once the AH goes / on RoS release allowing full trading. Not sure though, its hearsay.
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i wasn't going to come back to d3
but with reaper of souls coming i decided i just had to give it another chance and started up vanilla again to get myself back into it
with the changes they've made i fully agree d3 is now a worthy successor to d2. if the game today had been the game at release... damn that woulda been nice
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On March 17 2014 04:47 Omnishroud wrote:
Im pretty sure account bound legendaries are being removed once the AH goes / on RoS release allowing full trading. Not sure though, its hearsay.
I think it's just fact that Legendaries will be Bound on Account in RoS. I can see the benefits of it certainly and it probably is an important part to the experience they want with loot 2.0. I bet lot's of nerds will be pissed though. What's new...
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Can someone explain what has changed so much from the launch to 2.0 patch?
I just bought the game (now on sale for 20EU) and i like it a lot. I didn't want to play it from the launch because of all the bad feedback from the players.
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On March 17 2014 06:41 pogy wrote:
Can someone explain what has changed so much from the launch to 2.0 patch?
I just bought the game (now on sale for 20EU) and i like it a lot. I didn't want to play it from the launch because of all the bad feedback from the players.
Uhm, it basically boils down to this
-Loot is alot better, before it was 90% white/blue that was automatically useless, 9.9% yellows that were almost always useless and 0.1% legendaries that again, were probably useless. The loot now drops items that are relevant to your class instead of random stats and drop-rates have been adjusted for a much better experience. I think i had 2 uniques in 80 hours playtime pre-2.0 and they were both wank. Post-2.0 you can get one every hour-2 hours if you're lucky, not excessive, not too little, its something to work for.
-Mobs dont 1/2 hit you anymore. Prior to 2.0, mobs would just decimate you in a hit or two unless you were a geared barb/monk. Now the game has been balanced to a point where it is fun and challenging (as much as a diablo game can be) without being stupidly cheap like it was before.
-Builds. Skills, runes and classes have had pretty big overhauls and combined with the above allow for much bigger variation and choice which results in more fun. You arent forced to run with 4 defensive skills and 2 kite-abilities, now you can take whatever you want and have fun.
Basically, before the patch my wizard had shit gear, no gear ever dropped and i couldnt afford gear from the AH because gear never dropped. I was forced to use a shit-ton of defensive abilities and a crappy build i really hated. It was basically tornado/hydra with teleport/frostnova and force armor / magic weapon. I teleported in, frost nova'd and then prayed my shitty gear gave me what little CDR and APOC (cooldown reduction, arcane power on hit) i had in order to keep the enemy constantly frozen while i spammed tornado in place. If the freeze failed, i died in 2 hits.
Whenever i logged on i was so bored and disgusted with my wizards play that i just rolled alts, played for a few levels or died in HC and then logged off in under 30 minutes - 1 hour
With patch 2.0, i logged on, fucked around with my wizards build and came out with some weird fire orb / meteor build with far too many passive +dmg/armor skills because i was scared. Realised i wasnt dying in 2 hits like an idiot anymore. Started playing with my build more, suddenly realised i could do whatever i wanted and it was just about maximising my damage with my skillset while maintaining a decent level of defence. Ended up with a build i enjoyed (frost orb/meteor/hydra/missile) that required kiting but not in a ridiculous "OMG KEEP RUNNING OR YOU'LL GET 1 SHOT" way, more of a "Dont let them swarm you or you're in trouble" way. You can literally do whatever takes your fancy. Nothing is essential or required for survival now.
You couple that with the new loot system that is dropping interesting loot and uniques arent urban myths anymore but still rare enough (especially good ones) and the game just feels so much more fun to play, you have something to work for. Before your aim was enough cash to buy an upgrade from the AH because u werent ever ever ever going to get an item worth anything to you playing the game, now you're just enjoying the game as you want while hoping that next unique is a good upgrade or the inventory full of yellows had some good rolls (and yes, unless you're topping DPS charts the rares are worth scanning to see if it rolled an upgrade for you.)
I rambled like fuck and its pretty incoherent but maybe you'll get the picture. Sorry, its 4am.
The end result is i had 65 hours playtime on my wizard before pre-2.0, thats in what, the 2 years the games been out now, or close to it. I have alot more then that now and ive played more in 2 weeks then i have in the year before i patched to 2.0. A fuckton more. Those 65 hours were originally getting to 60 and the initial "D3 HYPE" with my long-time buddy who i played D2 with before high-school, we soon discovered the game was shite when we couldnt kill anything in inferno and were "chest-farming" (aka suicide run the right keep depths map for a resplendent chest) act 3 for chance at loot. We never got any good loot.
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Downloading d3 again because of this thread, i hope the game is better now.
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On March 17 2014 06:41 pogy wrote:
Can someone explain what has changed so much from the launch to 2.0 patch?
I just bought the game (now on sale for 20EU) and i like it a lot. I didn't want to play it from the launch because of all the bad feedback from the players.
Rares use to be better than legendaries. The game was either you got hit too hard or not hard enough. Skills were limited in use and scope because of the overwhelming difficulty. the AH made farming pointless when you could simply buy everything with gold or real money. Loot in general is less but better (rocking almost all legendaries but a few greens and 2 rares I need to replace...), Paragon has similar customization to Diablo 2's stat system but it's actually an improvement on both.
The game all around feels like (as someone has already mentioned in the comments) a true successor to Diablo 2. I am still asking myself some nights how the hell they fixed it, because they did, but I never thought they could. It's honestly a mind fuck.
As a side note, you can push "Reset quests" after beating the game, play all the way through, and get guaranteed legendary from Diablo. I tested it myself. Going on my second right now.
Also, Julia's Cameo is one of the best amulets in the game. I got it a few nights ago and Arcane elites are a joke now. Excuse me while I go back to farming.
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On March 17 2014 08:05 Isualin wrote:
Downloading d3 again because of this thread, i hope the game is better now.
I guarantee it. Maybe you don't like the genre as a whole now, but if you liked Diablo and Diablo 2, Diablo 3 is now good. I promise you as someone who has been a long time fan of the series. I played D1 with friends on lan, same with D2 and after both 1.10 and 1.13b. I know what I wanted from D3, and it wasn't much, but they didn't get it the first time. Patch 2.0 nails it though.
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On March 17 2014 07:12 Omnishroud wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2014 06:41 pogy wrote:
Can someone explain what has changed so much from the launch to 2.0 patch?
I just bought the game (now on sale for 20EU) and i like it a lot. I didn't want to play it from the launch because of all the bad feedback from the players. Uhm, it basically boils down to this -Loot is alot better, before it was 90% white/blue that was automatically useless, 9.9% yellows that were almost always useless and 0.1% legendaries that again, were probably useless. The loot now drops items that are relevant to your class instead of random stats and drop-rates have been adjusted for a much better experience. I think i had 2 uniques in 80 hours playtime pre-2.0 and they were both wank. Post-2.0 you can get one every hour-2 hours if you're lucky, not excessive, not too little, its something to work for. -Mobs dont 1/2 hit you anymore. Prior to 2.0, mobs would just decimate you in a hit or two unless you were a geared barb/monk. Now the game has been balanced to a point where it is fun and challenging (as much as a diablo game can be) without being stupidly cheap like it was before. -Builds. Skills, runes and classes have had pretty big overhauls and combined with the above allow for much bigger variation and choice which results in more fun. You arent forced to run with 4 defensive skills and 2 kite-abilities, now you can take whatever you want and have fun. Basically, before the patch my wizard had shit gear, no gear ever dropped and i couldnt afford gear from the AH because gear never dropped. I was forced to use a shit-ton of defensive abilities and a crappy build i really hated. It was basically tornado/hydra with teleport/frostnova and force armor / magic weapon. I teleported in, frost nova'd and then prayed my shitty gear gave me what little CDR and APOC (cooldown reduction, arcane power on hit) i had in order to keep the enemy constantly frozen while i spammed tornado in place. If the freeze failed, i died in 2 hits. Whenever i logged on i was so bored and disgusted with my wizards play that i just rolled alts, played for a few levels or died in HC and then logged off in under 30 minutes - 1 hour With patch 2.0, i logged on, fucked around with my wizards build and came out with some weird fire orb / meteor build with far too many passive +dmg/armor skills because i was scared. Realised i wasnt dying in 2 hits like an idiot anymore. Started playing with my build more, suddenly realised i could do whatever i wanted and it was just about maximising my damage with my skillset while maintaining a decent level of defence. Ended up with a build i enjoyed (frost orb/meteor/hydra/missile) that required kiting but not in a ridiculous "OMG KEEP RUNNING OR YOU'LL GET 1 SHOT" way, more of a "Dont let them swarm you or you're in trouble" way. You can literally do whatever takes your fancy. Nothing is essential or required for survival now. You couple that with the new loot system that is dropping interesting loot and uniques arent urban myths anymore but still rare enough (especially good ones) and the game just feels so much more fun to play, you have something to work for. Before your aim was enough cash to buy an upgrade from the AH because u werent ever ever ever going to get an item worth anything to you playing the game, now you're just enjoying the game as you want while hoping that next unique is a good upgrade or the inventory full of yellows had some good rolls (and yes, unless you're topping DPS charts the rares are worth scanning to see if it rolled an upgrade for you.) I rambled like fuck and its pretty incoherent but maybe you'll get the picture. Sorry, its 4am. The end result is i had 65 hours playtime on my wizard before pre-2.0, thats in what, the 2 years the games been out now, or close to it. I have alot more then that now and ive played more in 2 weeks then i have in the year before i patched to 2.0. A fuckton more. Those 65 hours were originally getting to 60 and the initial "D3 HYPE" with my long-time buddy who i played D2 with before high-school, we soon discovered the game was shite when we couldnt kill anything in inferno and were "chest-farming" (aka suicide run the right keep depths map for a resplendent chest) act 3 for chance at loot. We never got any good loot.
Basically all of this. It takes a good game for me to get enveloped, and I have literally spent easy 100+ hours in the past week playing this game. It's amazing how against I was playing it and how much I've changed since then. The game is gold now.
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I dont really agree. Sure the skill redesign is nice, the new loot system is mostly nice (i actually want a possibility to trade and i have to say that i dont like that i cant farm gear with my favorite char for other chars unless they share the main stat), the new difficult system is okay.
Half of the new monster enchantments on the other hand are pretty op, the monster density is back to the way it was when d3 came out (which either forces me to either rise the mp up to the point where i need a few seconds for normal mobs and many minutes for elites or play act 3 over and over again), the loss of ls, critdmg on weapons and the loss of damage on sources mean that my weapon and off-hand slot wont change at all until i buy RoS (you still cant fight reflect damage without ls or some other crazy source of health regen like the new smoke screen). Many skills are still rubbish and with the loss of the op-skills many have lost their synergy and raison d'être.
Overall it is two steps forwads, one step back imo. D3 is a better game now, but there are still many things that need to be finetuned. I still dont get why they reseted monster density.
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Been playing quite a bit also. Just started leveling up my DH since I never got that class to 60 but holy shit this thing is awful.
Thank god I found Cains set plans a few days ago !
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On March 17 2014 08:25 Blackfeather wrote:
I dont really agree. Sure the skill redesign is nice, the new loot system is mostly nice (i actually want a possibility to trade and i have to say that i dont like that i cant farm gear with my favorite char for other chars unless they share the main stat), the new difficult system is okay.
Half of the new monster enchantments on the other hand are pretty op, the monster density is back to the way it was when d3 came out (which either forces me to either rise the mp up to the point where i need a few seconds for normal mobs and many minutes for elites or play act 3 over and over again), the loss of ls, critdmg on weapons and the loss of damage on sources mean that my weapon and off-hand slot wont change at all until i buy RoS (you still cant fight reflect damage without ls or some other crazy source of health regen like the new smoke screen). Many skills are still rubbish and with the loss of the op-skills many have lost their synergy and raison d'être.
Overall it is two steps forwads, one step back imo. D3 is a better game now, but there are still many things that need to be finetuned. I still dont get why they reseted monster density.
I think there are Elite combinations that are extremely difficult, but i don't think they're OP. I have beaten every monster pack I've come across, and I've seen some OP stuff. I've also picked up some equipment and armed myself with a lot of resistances so most fights I'm prepared.
A lot of what you're talking about can be nullified through difficulty selection. It sounds like you're in a difficulty you're expecting to be easier because you should be dying at least a few times on monster packs if you're playing torment difficulty games. I play Torment III, but find Torment IV to be a lot harder, or at least it was a bit ago. I may give it another go soon now I've found some new items and have re-done my build.
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before the change, the game was made around the stupid autcion house.
Each chars had a ery specific need of stats, but the items were completely random.
Overall in the game, enough items dropped for everyone, but it was very unlikely that items in YOUR game were items you needed.
So then it was all about trading in the auction house, you almost never actually found your own items.
And unique items were kind of weak and useless, which was boring, because your upgrades basically were "oh look, i found the same rare item i had, but with 10 more dexterity!"
So that was the item problem, then they also had the difficulty problem that was that player hitpoints were very low and liofesteal was very high. You either got 1/2 shot, or you survive 2 shots and then you can stand in everything with your lifesteal
The patch fixed all of this, i just wish the patch would also fix the demon hunter, the forgotten class.
+ Show Spoiler +An example of the sorry state that class is in, you can look at the elemental arrows.
When the game launched, people discovered that electric ele arrow hits multiple times for its intended damage.
Then this got nerfed and the arrow got changed to hit for only half of its listed damage, as it hits 2 times at least.
Now they changed the arrows and they are faster and only hit most enemies once, but noone ever bothered to change the damage back, so now you have the arrow that tstaes it hits for 300% weapon damage, but it only hits for 150% , except for very big and slow enemies which are hit 2 times for 150%.
Thats how much the devs care for demon hunter.
Not to mention the wizard got a new spell with this patch that hits like 8 times for its listed damage, at its strongest point the Dh skill hit 2 times its listed damage.
excuse my sad/angry rant.
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TLADT24920 Posts
hmm I haven't played Diablo III since it was released. I even made a blog on how I felt that it didn't seem like Diablo anymore lol. Maybe I'll give it another try if the patch is as good as you say 
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On March 17 2014 06:41 pogy wrote:
Can someone explain what has changed so much from the launch to 2.0 patch?
I just bought the game (now on sale for 20EU) and i like it a lot. I didn't want to play it from the launch because of all the bad feedback from the players.
I really want to buy the game right now because it's on sale but the expansion is coming out too. I haven't played yet and don't intend to until the summer but 20$ savings is nice.
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A cool example of loot 2.0 I just found was an item called "Harrington Waistguard" that gives a ridiculous 116% bonus damage for 10 seconds after opening a chest. Adds a really weird dynamic ("this elite pack was hard but then I found a chest and suddenly it disappeared) and is freaking hilarious.
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All my friends are telling me how much the game has changed, and I'm so conflicted as to starting up again or not.
I quit around a few months after release, right when Blizzard had started nerfing shit into the ground and making an unfun game even worse. Grinding for loot made no sense because loot drops were pretty much nonexistant back then. Many skills were godawful and had no actual use compared to other better ones you could use.
But it seems from what I've heard, much of this has been changed and is better than it used to be. I can only think though, "how much better?" Is it good enough to start playing again and actually having fun this time? I kind of want to see a current gameplay video that would show me what Diablo 3 2.0 is like now. Does anybody have a video showing just what's so different of the game now compared to when it was released/soon after?
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I personally am more or less a casual since I only finished monk campaign, but I started playing again once the patch is up and it is incredibly fun and addicitng, got a few more lvl 60 characters
I just love all the funny 2nd effects from the legendary items
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On March 17 2014 14:07 Epishade wrote:
All my friends are telling me how much the game has changed, and I'm so conflicted as to starting up again or not.
I quit around a few months after release, right when Blizzard had started nerfing shit into the ground and making an unfun game even worse. Grinding for loot made no sense because loot drops were pretty much nonexistant back then. Many skills were godawful and had no actual use compared to other better ones you could use.
But it seems from what I've heard, much of this has been changed and is better than it used to be. I can only think though, "how much better?" Is it good enough to start playing again and actually having fun this time? I kind of want to see a current gameplay video that would show me what Diablo 3 2.0 is like now. Does anybody have a video showing just what's so different of the game now compared to when it was released/soon after?
best way of doing it is probably just play for an hour or two
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While loot was one of the main problems with the game I don't think these new enhancements will help the game that much for me.
To me until they remove pot cooldowns and allow me to have more skills slots and move it more towards action RPG again I'm not going to enjoy the game very much.
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On March 17 2014 14:55 sob3k wrote:
Is AH gone yet or no?
gone on tuesday
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If they introduced a ladder I would be all over it.
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On March 17 2014 17:55 Shottaz wrote:
If they introduced a ladder I would be all over it.
I dont think its too far fetched for them to use the new paragon system to create a ladder. I would imagine you could "opt in" or not to appease the casuals but imagine:
4 ladders over the course of a year, one started every 3 months. Players can choose to "opt in" to a ladder at any point (as long as they are level 60) and that characters paragon is then reset and they are added to the ladder. Any additional characters added to the same ladder are considered the same "account".
Every account is automatically added to the first ladder and any additional ones are opt-in only.
The only "differences" would be paragon level. Everything else would be for ladder epeen and cosmetics like custom paragon portraits and banners.
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Yeah i am hearing good things like this from more and more people regarding D3. I haven't played since launch and have never been in a hurry to get back but it's sounds promising.
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I played PTR when 2.0 came out about 2 months ago and found it a welcome and refreshing change to just about everything. As for a true successor to D2 as a few people have said in this thread. I disagree, it's D3 but just being a much better D3 overall. Think of it as a turd polished so well that it's no longer a turd but something else entirely.
That being said, I figure I'll update my D3 client and give it a go to see what's changed from when I last played 2.X on PTR in January to what it is now. I've been playing Path of Exile quite a lot as of late but that's after coming back from a very long time off in between. Last time I played PoE before recently was just after open beta came out and I leveled a Templar to 52.
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Can you still play the original once the expansion comes out?
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Gotta /sign the first post.
Diablo 3 became a whole new game with 2.0 , to those of you who are still insecure/struggeling just try it! It costs you nothing.
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Reinstalled today and actually really enjoying it again, surprised. Although, is Magic Find just non-existant now? :o Kinda weird
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On March 17 2014 14:07 Epishade wrote:
All my friends are telling me how much the game has changed, and I'm so conflicted as to starting up again or not.
I quit around a few months after release, right when Blizzard had started nerfing shit into the ground and making an unfun game even worse. Grinding for loot made no sense because loot drops were pretty much nonexistant back then. Many skills were godawful and had no actual use compared to other better ones you could use.
But it seems from what I've heard, much of this has been changed and is better than it used to be. I can only think though, "how much better?" Is it good enough to start playing again and actually having fun this time? I kind of want to see a current gameplay video that would show me what Diablo 3 2.0 is like now. Does anybody have a video showing just what's so different of the game now compared to when it was released/soon after?
I like your reply because you ask an important question "How much better?"
Again, I fucking hated Diablo 3. It was garbage. I asked the people who convinced me to play the SAME question. "How much better could it be...?" Well let me tell you, it's a hell of a lot better. It's so much better that I would say there are two different Diablo 3's, Diablo 3 vanilla, and 2.0 - which deserves it's "2.0" title.
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I hated D3, but I still played it a lot because I hoped to make money. I ended up making about $1000 (which is a ridiculously small amount, considering how much time I sank into it). But I could never say anything good about it.
It's much, much better now, and D3 would have been great if it had released in this state. That said, I have no drive to play it myself. I played for 2 days with 2 friends, we all thought it was cool and then we went back to doing what we usually do. Admittedly, part of it is because we feel like whatever loot we get now will be obsolete in a week. But at this point, I can comfortably say that the game is fixed and worth what you pay for it. And I would recommend it to friends.
I've also purchased the expansion even though I said I wouldn't, as I feel like this game has some potential.
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Wow, I fired up the game and it did feel a ton better, was playing along happily until i found out that they made all top tier items account-bound, essentially removing all trading from the game along with the AH
are you fucking kidding me.
welp, i'm out.
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D3 was essentially a stock market simulation on release, they are trying to run away from that. They made drops much better, you get more legendaries and useful stats for your class on almost every item. I think playing the game feels much better now.
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EPT
