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SoCal8910 Posts
On March 23 2023 01:11 Excalibur_Z wrote:
I actually have a love-hate relationship with Runewords on a design level. Players LOVE Runewords to a truly fanatical degree, and sure they're fun to make, but they created several fundamental issues:
- Individual Runes, save for a couple of exceptions, became inherently worthless (you only want to use them for trading, for Runewords, or for Cubing higher Runes... for Runewords)
- Gems, which were supposed to vie for use with Runes, again save for a couple of exceptions in the early game, also lost nearly all their value (they needed to invent Cube recipes for them later)
- In many cases, Runewords (like Lore, Stealth, and Insight) were cheaper and more powerful than much-rarer Unique and Set items, which again distorts value
I'm sure one of the designers on LoD probably thought "hey wouldn't it be cool if you put Runes in a certain order in a certain piece of gear and it transformed into something really powerful?" which is definitely cool but it has unforeseen economic ripple effects. I also think there was intended to be fun in millions of players openly experimenting with different Rune/item permutations and reporting their findings, but that quickly fizzled even at launch with the official Arreat Summit site publishing all active Runewords and players datamining the remaining disabled ones.
I don't know what is the "right" place for Runeword power. Maybe a "poor man's Unique"? This is stuff that I'm sure the designers on D4 will more closely consider and balance, particularly with item economy being something that can be modeled more effectively today and reinforced with telemetry.
People will datamine and gravitate towards the most powerful and efficient options, so if you can guarantee a powerful outcome, why waste your time with anything else?
Runewords are just HIGHLY deterministic crafting so if we wanted to find a place for them in modern Diablo, we'd probably have to have a way for players to generate items similar to fossil crafting in POE. You either have a high chance for the mod associated with the "runeword" equivalent and mixing and matching increases/decreases likelihood of the desired outcome(s).
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On March 23 2023 01:25 andrewlt wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2023 14:14 Manit0u wrote:On March 22 2023 10:27 andrewlt wrote:
Were there really that many torment levels at the end? What a terrible system. They really screwed it up by taking the 3 difficulties from Diablo2 and adding additional ones. I think greater rifts serve a purpose in the endgame, and it's better than running the same Hell Act 5 levels in D2 that were well suited to your build. However, the systems in place encouraged players to rush to the endgame. I could be wrong, but I think D3 was a longer game than D2 as well so asking players to complete 4 runs (before the torment change) before endgame was just so tedious.
I think they should have compressed the number of difficulties. Design the leveling curve so that completing the story in 1, maybe 2, difficulty levels is all it takes to reach max level. And no rifts and such until max level. So players just need to finish the story 1-2 times per character then decide whether to do endgame content or retire the character. I think the beauty of D2 was that by the time you finished all 3 difficulties (hell being very challenging) your character was nowhere near the max level. The endgame WAS reaching max level and if you managed that and wanted to continue you could be building towards the "perfect" character by hunting the same gear but with best stats (so you have +20% attack instead of +19%). I guess nowadays people expect every game to get you to max level quickly and then invent bazillion ways to entertain you from there on out. This is a flawed design IMO. I think it's perfectly fine if not everyone can reach max level or finish the story at highest difficulty. Especially in a shared world doing it the D2 way would be way better, where high level chars would actually garner some respect and people who had chars near max or at max level could team up to clear the hell difficulty. In D2 I think it was something like that: lvl 86 was for your standard players that completed hell, lvl 94 was for more hardcore and dedicated players, reaching lvl 99 was pretty rare as it required some serious dedication to your character. All in all the power level difference between lvl 86 and 99 wasn't that big but the amount of player investment into the char was vastly different and thus garnered way more prestige. When everyone is max level with BIS gear it makes for a boring world and experience. I can't agree with that. D2 was better in getting to the endgame but D3's endgame was better. Baal runs are boring compared to greater rifts. From what I remember, sorcs leveled to 99 on that first area in act 5 because it is easy for them. Each char goes to an area that is easy for them and plays that one area nonstop. I don't know how people can praise that and then call rifts boring. At least rifts can pull enemies and pick environments from the entire game instead of beating the same enemies in the same area again and again. Max level is a good dividing point between the story and the endgame. It allows the devs to give different progression paths while going through the story and going through the endgame.
I don't really like baal runs at all but they are only half of the endgame or you could skip them because they reward with xp not items! (well baal himself can still drop nice but the items/time still not as good i think). I usually fully skip baal runs and instead XP anywhere else and at end game, all the lvl85 areas. There's definitely a problem with baal runs I think they should pretty much nerf the XP by a lot, it's too rewarding (and often easy with a boosting character etc) and bad balance vs the rest of areas. [but at least the run drops particularly little item per xp. So I joke that Baal is lord of destruction cause he destroys your items^^ then you go into next difficulty with levels but no gear and maybe die : P]
On March 22 2023 17:27 Slydie wrote:
With all the praise of D2, don't forget the downsides as well!
-The game was absolutely infested with bots, most of them being Hammerdins, scripted to TP down to Hell Baal and kill him in about 3 minutes.
-The Runewords were outright impossible to get at times, who really wants to spend a 1000 hours of Andyruns just to get a single High Rune? The solution was duping.
-Getting to Pndemonium Diablo and the ultimate boss fight required you to be both lucky and patient. Selling "Stones of Jordan" to pop "Diablo walks the Earth" is pretty stupid, tbh.
-Limited item storage and Mules... Aaaaaargh!
But yes, playing the game from scratch was very fun. The endgame though...🙄
This has changed several times now the runes drop quite good without being quite too common so your endgame can last a long time, and the anticheating solutions are much more figured out it's no longer a economy of half the items are generated through cheating, now I think there's very little going on. And there's shared stash which helps. Not saying D2 is perfect, for example, storage is still an issue in a way partly because there is nothing you can do with extra unique items that you drop and might use later, but maybe not : many have too little value to be traded to players in a practical way, and you can't turn them into anything but a meager amount of gold which doesn't have much worth.
On March 23 2023 01:11 Excalibur_Z wrote:
I actually have a love-hate relationship with Runewords on a design level. Players LOVE Runewords to a truly fanatical degree, and sure they're fun to make, but they created several fundamental issues:
- Individual Runes, save for a couple of exceptions, became inherently worthless (you only want to use them for trading, for Runewords, or for Cubing higher Runes... for Runewords)
- Gems, which were supposed to vie for use with Runes, again save for a couple of exceptions in the early game, also lost nearly all their value (they needed to invent Cube recipes for them later)
- In many cases, Runewords (like Lore, Stealth, and Insight) were cheaper and more powerful than much-rarer Unique and Set items, which again distorts value
I'm sure one of the designers on LoD probably thought "hey wouldn't it be cool if you put Runes in a certain order in a certain piece of gear and it transformed into something really powerful?" which is definitely cool but it has unforeseen economic ripple effects. I also think there was intended to be fun in millions of players openly experimenting with different Rune/item permutations and reporting their findings, but that quickly fizzled even at launch with the official Arreat Summit site publishing all active Runewords and players datamining the remaining disabled ones.
I don't know what is the "right" place for Runeword power. Maybe a "poor man's Unique"? This is stuff that I'm sure the designers on D4 will more closely consider and balance, particularly with item economy being something that can be modeled more effectively today and reinforced with telemetry.
Biggest issue with runewords for sure is how they make most uniques half-worthless due to a lot of runewords being much more common and as powerful or more powerful, effectively reducing the itemization choice/use by a lot. At first they were meant to be used to give a bit of an upgrade by socketing into a unique.. which was a small but useful perk, better balanced probably.
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I think the biggest problem with runewords in D2 is that they allow you to freely use skills from other classes. After all the best runewords either give you high level Paladin auras or super coveted skill like teleport in case of Enigma. This in my opinion completely breaks the class uniqueness, makes teaming and team-oriented builds even less of a thing etc.
One thing that's interesting in class-based systems is that once you pick a class you have a certain framework to work with, need to acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses and build with that in mind. If you can essentially remove your weaknesses or improve your strengths exponentially by having access to "foreign" skills you break the framework. Something that previously required multiplayer cooperation to achieve.
I remember in the past how much fun we had with friends theory-crafting and building some team compositions, everyone making a build that would emphasize team effects over individual power. With high level runewords you no longer need Paladin to provide auras for you as you can do it yourself along with your merc. Remove class-specific skills from runewords and you still get powerful items without breaking the game.
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Yeah tbh I would still use a lot of uniques that are overshadowed by runewords it's just you don't need them much if you have a few runes cause they make these very strong runewords like insight or spirit and etc. It takes more effort to get the uniques than the runewords but they do open up build possibilities (plus you can upgrade the uniques to next tier with runes!). Stuff like teleport given to any class breaks a lot of logic I agree, and notably turns pvp into a very weird teleport spam for all huhu (but only if you have the very rare item.. if you don't have it you're out I guess => extra pvp barrier for entry problem + balance problem in HC vs PK etc).
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On March 23 2023 02:08 evilfatsh1t wrote:
i lean towards d2 having a better endgame than d3.
as already mentioned before, when "endgame" starts in d2, youve just finished hell and youre somewhere in the level 80s with mediocre/average gear that youve found along the way. the entire d2 endgame revolves around not only trying to hit max level, but actually trying to "complete" your character. max level isnt actually even a target for most players, because thats another level of dedication. most players would be satisfied with getting completing their bis items, although many players struggle to even get this far.
compare that to d3, where you can have all of your bis items within a couple days of farming and your focus turns to min/maxing individual stat lines WAY quicker in d3 and thats what makes d3's endgame boring. for me its less about the dungeon runs and more about the purpose/reward of running them. a javazon could spend months doing runs hoping to see that elusive griffons or ber runes which would allow the character to finally go wherever she pleases. when the griffons finally drops with the worst possible roll, youre still happy because its still a griffons. in d3, you have your primal or ancient or whatever is the highest tier right now within a couple of days and youre not excited unless it gives you the exact mods you want.
My experience is the same as Slydie's. I think the issue is that D2 is a 23-year old game and there's a very vocal minority who played for a huge chunk of those 23 years and really, really love it.
I played D2 for an estimated 5-7 years, long past the time most people stop playing it, and your experience doesn't ring true for me. My very first character at release finished Act 4 Hell at around level 45, I think, and my LoD chars were finishing Act 5 Hell probably in the 60s. Everything you are saying sounds like a change made after the 5 year mark of the game.
I also despise runewords. I think it's a bad addition to the game. They were made more accessible long after 99% of the players already stopped playing the game but the 1% who remained mostly love them and are very fanatical in support. I played a few hundred hours and I don't think I ever got even one of the top ten rarest ones.
I enjoyed D3's endgame because I was actually able to play the build I wanted to play for most of it. I could complete my build quickly, then the attention turns to making incremental improvement to the build while actually playing the build. In D2, people spend months completing their build and never actually playing their complete build. They might play the completed build for 5-10 mins, then they shelve the character or put back the MF gear to farm for another char. Once I realized I was never going to spend much time enjoying the builds I was aiming for, I stopped playing.
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On March 23 2023 08:27 andrewlt wrote:I enjoyed D3's endgame because I was actually able to play the build I wanted to play for most of it. I could complete my build quickly, then the attention turns to making incremental improvement to the build while actually playing the build. In D2, people spend months completing their build and never actually playing their complete build. They might play the completed build for 5-10 mins, then they shelve the character or put back the MF gear to farm for another char. Once I realized I was never going to spend much time enjoying the builds I was aiming for, I stopped playing.
I think this captures the fundamental dichotomy between the fanbases really well. Does D3 have deep, compelling-for-its-own-sake combat, though? I only played a bit of the start of it, pre-expansion. To me I feel like the combat in Diablo has never been the selling point (maybe slightly unfair to D1 where monsters really could feel dangerous) so a game that maximises the item skinner box brain juice stuff will be superior to one that blunts that for "progression and executing my build" game juice. That's probably just my bias though.
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Maybe I am in the minority, probably because I considered the "end game" of D2 to be magic finding, trading, and PvP, but I think runewords were an amazing addition to the game. There are probably a few that are too powerful and for most classes they're near mandatory (Grief, HOTO, Enigma), but it's not like there was some great amount of choice for items prior to the runewords being released. There was always defined BIS items, and I think the game in its current state (Or at least D2 prior to D2R coming out, haven't played that but I assume it's the same) has a pretty good mix of BIS being from different "categories".
Like in general I'd say its....
Weapon - Runeword
Helmet - Rare
Amulet - Crafted
Armor - Runeword
Gloves - Good balance between unique and crafted
Rings - Rare
Belt - Good balance between Unique/Crafted
Boots - Rare/Unique
They probably even opened up some item builds for various characters - Great, now my necro can get some FCR from a shield so I can possibly choose to use a SOJ, Maras, Bloodfist, COA, or whatever unique item that people may want to use because I'm not forced into a rare ring/ammy/circlet to hit my 125 breakpoint
The addition of rune words also allowed for so many more unique character skill builds that were never really viable before simply through the addition the enigma.
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On March 23 2023 08:27 andrewlt wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2023 02:08 evilfatsh1t wrote:
i lean towards d2 having a better endgame than d3.
as already mentioned before, when "endgame" starts in d2, youve just finished hell and youre somewhere in the level 80s with mediocre/average gear that youve found along the way. the entire d2 endgame revolves around not only trying to hit max level, but actually trying to "complete" your character. max level isnt actually even a target for most players, because thats another level of dedication. most players would be satisfied with getting completing their bis items, although many players struggle to even get this far.
compare that to d3, where you can have all of your bis items within a couple days of farming and your focus turns to min/maxing individual stat lines WAY quicker in d3 and thats what makes d3's endgame boring. for me its less about the dungeon runs and more about the purpose/reward of running them. a javazon could spend months doing runs hoping to see that elusive griffons or ber runes which would allow the character to finally go wherever she pleases. when the griffons finally drops with the worst possible roll, youre still happy because its still a griffons. in d3, you have your primal or ancient or whatever is the highest tier right now within a couple of days and youre not excited unless it gives you the exact mods you want. My experience is the same as Slydie's. I think the issue is that D2 is a 23-year old game and there's a very vocal minority who played for a huge chunk of those 23 years and really, really love it. I played D2 for an estimated 5-7 years, long past the time most people stop playing it, and your experience doesn't ring true for me. My very first character at release finished Act 4 Hell at around level 45, I think, and my LoD chars were finishing Act 5 Hell probably in the 60s. Everything you are saying sounds like a change made after the 5 year mark of the game. I also despise runewords. I think it's a bad addition to the game. They were made more accessible long after 99% of the players already stopped playing the game but the 1% who remained mostly love them and are very fanatical in support. I played a few hundred hours and I don't think I ever got even one of the top ten rarest ones. I enjoyed D3's endgame because I was actually able to play the build I wanted to play for most of it. I could complete my build quickly, then the attention turns to making incremental improvement to the build while actually playing the build. In D2, people spend months completing their build and never actually playing their complete build. They might play the completed build for 5-10 mins, then they shelve the character or put back the MF gear to farm for another char. Once I realized I was never going to spend much time enjoying the builds I was aiming for, I stopped playing.
Were you like speedrunning it or skipping content? Typically you end up Act V Nightmare in D2 around lvl 76 or so and Act V hell in your 80's. Finishing Act V Hell in your 60's might be kinda problematic since it's quite a punishing difficulty and at lvl 60 you can't even use good enough gear. World record speedrunners clear Hell in the 60's.
I think the core difference between D2 and D3 (and similar "end game" focused games) is that in D3 your journey really starts when you've completed the game, have your first set and are starting the "end game". In D2 your journey begins at level 1 and is an ongoing process for a very, very long time.
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On March 23 2023 08:55 Turbovolver wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2023 08:27 andrewlt wrote:I enjoyed D3's endgame because I was actually able to play the build I wanted to play for most of it. I could complete my build quickly, then the attention turns to making incremental improvement to the build while actually playing the build. In D2, people spend months completing their build and never actually playing their complete build. They might play the completed build for 5-10 mins, then they shelve the character or put back the MF gear to farm for another char. Once I realized I was never going to spend much time enjoying the builds I was aiming for, I stopped playing. I think this captures the fundamental dichotomy between the fanbases really well. Does D3 have deep, compelling-for-its-own-sake combat, though? I only played a bit of the start of it, pre-expansion. To me I feel like the combat in Diablo has never been the selling point (maybe slightly unfair to D1 where monsters really could feel dangerous) so a game that maximises the item skinner box brain juice stuff will be superior to one that blunts that for "progression and executing my build" game juice. That's probably just my bias though. I wouldn't call D3's combat deep. But I certainly have fun playing it from time to time for the fun of running through maps blasting everything apart until I get tired of hoping for the tiny chance to find the specific ancient/primal items I need for my build.
Does Diablo really need to be more then that?
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On March 23 2023 08:27 andrewlt wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2023 02:08 evilfatsh1t wrote:
i lean towards d2 having a better endgame than d3.
as already mentioned before, when "endgame" starts in d2, youve just finished hell and youre somewhere in the level 80s with mediocre/average gear that youve found along the way. the entire d2 endgame revolves around not only trying to hit max level, but actually trying to "complete" your character. max level isnt actually even a target for most players, because thats another level of dedication. most players would be satisfied with getting completing their bis items, although many players struggle to even get this far.
compare that to d3, where you can have all of your bis items within a couple days of farming and your focus turns to min/maxing individual stat lines WAY quicker in d3 and thats what makes d3's endgame boring. for me its less about the dungeon runs and more about the purpose/reward of running them. a javazon could spend months doing runs hoping to see that elusive griffons or ber runes which would allow the character to finally go wherever she pleases. when the griffons finally drops with the worst possible roll, youre still happy because its still a griffons. in d3, you have your primal or ancient or whatever is the highest tier right now within a couple of days and youre not excited unless it gives you the exact mods you want. I enjoyed D3's endgame because I was actually able to play the build I wanted to play for most of it. I could complete my build quickly, then the attention turns to making incremental improvement to the build while actually playing the build. In D2, people spend months completing their build and never actually playing their complete build. They might play the completed build for 5-10 mins, then they shelve the character or put back the MF gear to farm for another char. Once I realized I was never going to spend much time enjoying the builds I was aiming for, I stopped playing.
That's interesting because my experience was different. I had different characters for different stuff in D2. I had a sorc to host baal runs, rush people through the game and Meph/Andi. Sometimes even another low level sorc to host low lvl xp runs. I had a trap sin for cow runs, a smiter for Ubers, a javazon to carry baal/dia runs if a friend was hosting. Every season I started with a frenzy barb because it was fun and I always did stuff with it later on (e.g. key farming for ubers, base items).
That being said, in D2 I also played a lot of characters to finish them and never play them again and that was fine. I played the story countless times with a friend, everytime on a new, somtimes quite wacky builds. Seeing the build grow was fun and after finishing baal we only did some baal runs or so until we reached the mid 80's and then started the next run.
That's something D3 could have never provided because of the complete lack of a skill system. Skill choices didn't matter at all, it was just about the gear you find at max level and unfortunately the affix pool was super uninspiring as well. I know this was mentioned here before as an upside but to me it's a downside in a game that is, in the endgame, driven by gear grind. The whole leveling experience was obsolete. Why spend 60 hours getting to lvl 60 when nothing of what you do from 1-60 matters even one bit? Once you leveled a char to 60 you really didn't need another one unless you wanted to experience the story again. And I think most people would agree the story in D3 was appalling. I was already annoyed during my first playthrough. Not only by the bad writing but also by stuff like level requirements for story steps which forced me to grind 2 levels before I was allowed to move forward.
In the end this ruined both forms of gameplay longevity in D3 for me. Replayability of the story was removed and the idea of grinding for incremental increases of +1 dmg on my main weapon forever put me off of playing the end game entirely. I finished the story once, got a second character to almost complete it and then put the game away.
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necrooooomancerrrrrrrr, going to be so fun!
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on another note why does d4 have to rely on d3's inventory display system?
they have years to make a new game, a presumably considerable budget, and the best they can do is decide they want to recycle d3's inventory and item images?
all the screenshots and videos showing open inventories or people looking at item stats is awful. seeing a popup with that same yellow or brown background with a cheap looking item picture ruins the immersion so badly for me.
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Maybe that is just the early game inventory.
Also Blizz getting ahead of the storm for tomorrow.
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On March 24 2023 00:41 evilfatsh1t wrote:
on another note why does d4 have to rely on d3's inventory display system?
they have years to make a new game, a presumably considerable budget, and the best they can do is decide they want to recycle d3's inventory and item images?
all the screenshots and videos showing open inventories or people looking at item stats is awful. seeing a popup with that same yellow or brown background with a cheap looking item picture ruins the immersion so badly for me.
This is very true. It looks very much like D3 in that regard. At least they changed the UI (pop ups of texts etc.) making the background gritty and adding some ornaments on the edges, which looks quite nice imho and much better than the bland look in earlier footage.
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On March 23 2023 12:12 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2023 08:27 andrewlt wrote:On March 23 2023 02:08 evilfatsh1t wrote:
i lean towards d2 having a better endgame than d3.
as already mentioned before, when "endgame" starts in d2, youve just finished hell and youre somewhere in the level 80s with mediocre/average gear that youve found along the way. the entire d2 endgame revolves around not only trying to hit max level, but actually trying to "complete" your character. max level isnt actually even a target for most players, because thats another level of dedication. most players would be satisfied with getting completing their bis items, although many players struggle to even get this far.
compare that to d3, where you can have all of your bis items within a couple days of farming and your focus turns to min/maxing individual stat lines WAY quicker in d3 and thats what makes d3's endgame boring. for me its less about the dungeon runs and more about the purpose/reward of running them. a javazon could spend months doing runs hoping to see that elusive griffons or ber runes which would allow the character to finally go wherever she pleases. when the griffons finally drops with the worst possible roll, youre still happy because its still a griffons. in d3, you have your primal or ancient or whatever is the highest tier right now within a couple of days and youre not excited unless it gives you the exact mods you want. My experience is the same as Slydie's. I think the issue is that D2 is a 23-year old game and there's a very vocal minority who played for a huge chunk of those 23 years and really, really love it. I played D2 for an estimated 5-7 years, long past the time most people stop playing it, and your experience doesn't ring true for me. My very first character at release finished Act 4 Hell at around level 45, I think, and my LoD chars were finishing Act 5 Hell probably in the 60s. Everything you are saying sounds like a change made after the 5 year mark of the game. I also despise runewords. I think it's a bad addition to the game. They were made more accessible long after 99% of the players already stopped playing the game but the 1% who remained mostly love them and are very fanatical in support. I played a few hundred hours and I don't think I ever got even one of the top ten rarest ones. I enjoyed D3's endgame because I was actually able to play the build I wanted to play for most of it. I could complete my build quickly, then the attention turns to making incremental improvement to the build while actually playing the build. In D2, people spend months completing their build and never actually playing their complete build. They might play the completed build for 5-10 mins, then they shelve the character or put back the MF gear to farm for another char. Once I realized I was never going to spend much time enjoying the builds I was aiming for, I stopped playing. Were you like speedrunning it or skipping content? Typically you end up Act V Nightmare in D2 around lvl 76 or so and Act V hell in your 80's. Finishing Act V Hell in your 60's might be kinda problematic since it's quite a punishing difficulty and at lvl 60 you can't even use good enough gear. World record speedrunners clear Hell in the 60's. I think the core difference between D2 and D3 (and similar "end game" focused games) is that in D3 your journey really starts when you've completed the game, have your first set and are starting the "end game". In D2 your journey begins at level 1 and is an ongoing process for a very, very long time.
I last played Diablo2 around 2005-2007, but that was with family. I think I stopped playing closed bnet around 2003. I'm guessing they changed the leveling curve afterwards. I always do my first run solo and complete everything. I'm not skipping content in subsequent runs but if I get the correct path on arcane sanctuary, I'm not clearing the wrong paths.
I don't remember even having a single character hit 90. I usually retire in the 70s and 80s depending on how much I farmed afterwards. Act V Nightmare at 76 is definitely too high for when I was playing. My solo runs usually finish Act 4 normal around level 25 in vanilla and Act 5 normal around level 35-40 in LoD. Then around 10-20 levels on nightmare and 10 in hell.
I don't remember D2 Hell being particularly hard either unless I try to kill an MSLED or try to avoid one that also has fast. D3 Belial on release was harder on multiple difficulties. That fight doesn't belong in a Diablo game.
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SoCal8910 Posts
On March 23 2023 18:23 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2023 08:55 Turbovolver wrote:On March 23 2023 08:27 andrewlt wrote:I enjoyed D3's endgame because I was actually able to play the build I wanted to play for most of it. I could complete my build quickly, then the attention turns to making incremental improvement to the build while actually playing the build. In D2, people spend months completing their build and never actually playing their complete build. They might play the completed build for 5-10 mins, then they shelve the character or put back the MF gear to farm for another char. Once I realized I was never going to spend much time enjoying the builds I was aiming for, I stopped playing. I think this captures the fundamental dichotomy between the fanbases really well. Does D3 have deep, compelling-for-its-own-sake combat, though? I only played a bit of the start of it, pre-expansion. To me I feel like the combat in Diablo has never been the selling point (maybe slightly unfair to D1 where monsters really could feel dangerous) so a game that maximises the item skinner box brain juice stuff will be superior to one that blunts that for "progression and executing my build" game juice. That's probably just my bias though. I wouldn't call D3's combat deep. But I certainly have fun playing it from time to time for the fun of running through maps blasting everything apart until I get tired of hoping for the tiny chance to find the specific ancient/primal items I need for my build. Does Diablo really need to be more then that?
the combat definitely wasn't "deep"
but understanding how to play GRs when you're pushing can be. some of it is fishing for the right mob-type, but when you find the right one, you need to make some deeper decisions about elite packs, large groups of non-elites, is the % worth it or should you hunt for a pylon - all based on your build's strengths and weaknesses.
unless you're playing s28 tal rasha meteor, then you just "press button and monsters go boom" haha
primal ancient hunting has been way better with this season thanks to the altar. it's a shame it took them so long to address the major pain points of the game as well as creating compelling seasonal content.
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United States12240 Posts
They didn't change the leveling curve, but I think it became standard practice to farm certain bosses extensively before moving on: NM Countess/Andy if you had just finished NM Act 1, NM Meph/Andy if you had just finished NM Act 3, NM Baal until ~65-75 (taking advantage of the fact that monsters in Hell Act 1 start at 67), then Hell Countess/Andy, Hell Meph/Andy, and finally Hell Baal. Clearing Hell at 55-60 sounds miserable considering you wouldn't even be high enough level to use half the Elite items that drop at the end of the game, and where's the fun in that?
I had a solo Nova Sorc that I tried level grinding and it became so monotonous that I stopped at level 92. The stacking XP penalties from 70-98 start to become really noticeable and past 90 most areas you visit you'll start hitting penalized or even min XP for kills. Just think, GERBarb and RUSBarb in Classic D2 had to do ungodly numbers of Diablo runs earning 0.0059 * XP.
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I like my Diablo games to be low-skill button-mashers. Blizzard nailed the feel of combat in all Diablo games from 1, 2 and 3. There was always something satisfying in whacking monsters in their games, even during the times they fucked up everything else (like early in Diablo 3). I tried other games during the D1-2 days when copycats were commonplace and none of them came close. I played Torchlight 2 a few years ago and while it was decent, it didn't capture quite the feel of a Diablo either.
Their monsters just have the right amount of meaty in sound and animation that makes it so fun to blast them. I'm hearing Diablo 4 is the same way.
In Diablo 2, I think I only farmed a low level area once before moving. That was my very first char when I think I farmed normal for an extra 5 levels or so before moving to nightmare. Usually, I play through the game once from normal to hell before farming hell. I took a look at elite weapons and their level requirements ranged from 39-66. That sounds about right for the leveling curve I remember.
I do remember GERBarb and RUSBarb. How big were those teams? It was crazy and I'm sure insanely boring what they did.
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EPT
