Diablo III General Discussion - Page 648

Half the time I'm not sure why people are complaining (posts like "D3 is bad" with no info why). I'm not sure if most of complainers even played D2. I'm one of those who prefers BW (and thinks it is a better game than SC2 WoL, though I think HotS will help a lot) (so, I'm a hispter nerd at least for Starcraft) but I know D3 is better than D2 in almost every way (and I played D2 a lot). The only major problems right now is balance (which can be easily fixed) and battle.net 2.0's interfaces (like lack of being able to name games, etc).

D2 had no real end game (stuff like uber tristram were added after a patch and weren't really "end game" like in any other MMOs). It was doing <insert run here> over and over. (Cow runs were fun though before they nerfed it. In fact, Blizzard even had official cow level channels while they were still popular, which was neat.)

While PvP was popular 1-.1.10 ish, it sort of died around 1.11. In fact, public games sort of died after 1.11 (when bots took over and everyone played mostly single player or joined a botted baal run). (So, the argument that D3 is too "solo" focus is kind of moot since D2 was that way too most of the time. Though I did like 8 player cow runs.)

Now, I know D3 doesn't have much build diversity or so compared to D2 but D3 is still in it's infancy and a big balance patch is coming.

In terms of skills. Skill points didn't really do much in D2. I mean, you always picked roughly 6 or so(maybe even less) skills in D2 that you'd use (for sorc before 1.10, it was like nova + teleport + energy shield + one of 3 chill armors, and maybe one or two skills. You'd just use nova to damage everything). There were one point wonders (like Teleport) where you could put one point to but a lot of times you had 20 points (or less if it had really diminishing results like Claw Blocking skill) in a certain skill.

I admit though, D2 does have more leeway for non-cookie cutter builds. Since you can finish D2 in hell on hardcore naked (there's a video of this), you can play with any build (whether it's optimal or not). In D3, some builds (and gear) are needed to get past the game. However, in d2, very *few people played like that (they picked the cookie cutter nova sorceress or frozen orb sorc, maybe hydra sorc sometimes) at its prime (just like how D3 is for the most part).

*I know there were plenty of people who experimented iwth every build but those types of people were few. In D3 general, seems like everyone is complaining about that (and I'm not sure if many even played D2 or are just jumping in the D3 is bad band wagon).

D3 (though without skill points) is more or less the same as D2. Skill points in D2 didn't do much (like the stat argument in D2 where you put enough to STR to wear armor, then rest to VIT) because there was almost an optimal build for every type of build when investing points.

1. Solo oriented game. D2 at its prime was very social (public games, etc) but it really died down to most just soloing (after 1.10 that is). There is group play.

2. No one takes PvP or does it seriously. PvP was fun (FFA PvP FTW) but it got old after a while. Plus (like the above), people stopped doing PvP after a while (mainly once everyone had an enigma and it became a teleport fest). Despite PvP dying, D2 still lived (also the botting invasive happened somewhere after 1.10, by then a public game would just be filled with bots which made public PvP games impossible at times).

3. No end game - Uber Tristram and stuff were added after 1.10 (I think 1.11 or 1.12) and by then, "most" people who played D2 quit. That means most people probably never experienced it and are probably jumping on the bandwagon of D2 is much better than D3.

In D2, you just did a run over and over. Also, doing said runs is much more boring than in D3. Before 1.10, you used to MF mostly on sorceress because of teleport (which means no being able to play your favorite class). After 1.10, you could use an enigma or so to teleport on any class. Regardless though, it was a lot more boring than D3 (teleport to boss > defeat boss > exit game and create a new one - rinse and repeat; see how much more tedious that is compraed to D2?).

Doing other bosses (like Countess for runes, etc) doesn't really count as variety (it's the same thing, get to the boss as fast as possible, defeat it, then regame).

D3, this is done much better thanks to elites and the NV mechanic.

4.*Gets old after a while (D2 that is; I got tired of just farming or rerolling a character which were the majority of the game). Being able to respec just means being able to realize what the game is faster. I like the skill swapping in D3. Here's what happened with me regarding D2 - I had friend (or myself) rushed each other to hell and went from 1-80 in the cow level whenever I wanted to try a new build.

*I'll explain this later. Basically I think D3 was way overhyped past its own genre.

"Almost" everyone did that (rush to 1-80). In fact, there was never a lack of games where one person invited others to join them as they get rushed to hell (so they can power level to 1-80 in the cow level).

Sure for the more hardcore D2 players, they liked playing 1-80 with new classes to try new builds. But for a lot of people, it got old really fast.

Anyway, the only real problem with D3 is the fact that the difficulty curve is not very linear in inferno (you need really good gear). Though, if you use the auction house, you can easily farm act 1 inferno with under 500k in gear (maybe even less now, after the drop rate buff in the hotfix, a lot of items are going for cheaper than normal).

And again, in D2, you just did 1 run over and over (and it's much more boring than in D3, I did that a lot in D2).

There is one thing I miss in D2 - cow runs. Seriously, I don't know why but they were really addicting to do. It was much more fun than Baal runs IMO.

Okay besides cows - runewords, jewels, charms, etc. TBH, I think they left those out of D3 just so they add them in the expansion pack (runes, jewels, charms, etc were added in D2's expansion; guess they wanted to do the same with D3).

Still, despite the lack of those things (which can easily be added later), I think D3 is a much better game than D2.