Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Revealed

[UncannyGarlic]

its a really good decision.

No it isn't, it's a really poor decision in order to address a lot of ill-informed whining by a lot of people. The problems with the Auction House (largely the extremely high cost of entry) were a symptom of the real problem, loot drop rates were far too low. People (bots) gaming the Auction House was not really the problem, it was yet another symptom of the low drop rates.

The other likely concern was the market getting flooded with high powered items. It's questionable whether or not that is a legitimate concern at this point in time given the cost of such items at current and the fact that people leave the game and/or create new characters. Still, the solution would be to bind items to character/account on wear or to account on pickup. Ideally they wouldn't bind anything weaker than Epics and ideally on Legendaries. Interestingly enough, they are including Soul Binding while they remove the auction house, which really makes no sense.

With the removal of the Auction House we will see the return of the problem which created it, "black market" auction houses and stores. The soul binding is likely intended to combat that but we all know how well that will work (see WoW or pretty much any other MMO).

 

[Ilosar]

Since Loot 2.0 increases drop rates pretty dramatically for legendaries (above the rates of most D2 Unique IIRC), keeping an AH would only have meant overflooding it. You can already have page upon pages of legendaries (to say nothing of rares); imagine six times as many. The ''flippers'' (who created the biggest problem IE the ridiculous price inflation) don't care, it's all they do all day long, but the common player could get lost in that flow.

Ultimately, I'm pretty sure Blizzard tried to come up with ideas to ''fix'' the AH, then realized it's doomed anyway. The idea of a game's internal economy being entirely dictated, not by people who play it, but by those who abuse of what should be a secondary system is just crippling the game far too much in exchange for what it brings to the table. If loot drops increase and it becomes actually possible to progress through Inferno without almost having to buy stuff off the AH, the game's replayability will have increased dramatically. The game still has a sizeable player base, there's enough players and items for a trade economy to prosper, so long as the drop rates are acceptable it should be better than D2's dupe-ridden mess.

 

[clercqer]

No luck for the offliners: Diablo 3 is to stay an online-only PC game.

 

[Surf Solar]

Someone gifted me a copy of DIII for the xbox of all things.. Is it good on there? He said we could play local co-op which sounds pretty nice actually..

 

[Crni Vuk]

It seems to be a decent experience on the console. At least is not the kind of grind like on the PC.

its a really good decision.

No it isn't, it's a really poor decision in order to address a lot of ill-informed whining by a lot of people. The problems with the Auction House (largely the extremely high cost of entry) were a symptom of the real problem, loot drop rates were far too low. People (bots) gaming the Auction House was not really the problem, it was yet another symptom of the low drop rates.

The other likely concern was the market getting flooded with high powered items. It's questionable whether or not that is a legitimate concern at this point in time given the cost of such items at current and the fact that people leave the game and/or create new characters. Still, the solution would be to bind items to character/account on wear or to account on pickup. Ideally they wouldn't bind anything weaker than Epics and ideally on Legendaries. Interestingly enough, they are including Soul Binding while they remove the auction house, which really makes no sense.

With the removal of the Auction House we will see the return of the problem which created it, "black market" auction houses and stores. The soul binding is likely intended to combat that but we all know how well that will work (see WoW or pretty much any other MMO).

maybe, maybe not. But I dont think that a company like Blizzard would simply throw the AH out if they havent thought a lot about it.

I guess if there really is so much restiance and whining or lets say "criticism", then they HAVE to do something. A lot of people have quit either directly or inderectly because of the auction house. What ever if that is really the source of the problem now or not is another question. But its a fact that Diablo was never game which really was made with something like the auction house in mind.

The problem that I see is, that even with improved loot, it has no chance as long as the auction house exists in its current form. The people playing the economy of the game or simply using "money" to get forward will always be on top. It will always have to be optimised for the pay2win mechanic while it now has a chance to be changed to a play2win gameplay. I have no clue why they really decided to close the auction house, but I believe its because they realized that the auction house simply limits them to much as far as the game design goes, pretty much ANY idea has to work with the auction house in the end

With the removal of the Auction House we will see the return of the problem which created it, "black market" auction houses and stores. The soul binding is likely intended to combat that but we all know how well that will work (see WoW or pretty much any other MMO).

Honestly, I could not care less about this so called "black market". What has it done for D3 to try to get it all in the game with the RMAH and the GAH? It has hurt the game a lot, its integrity. If people want to throw out money on some third party website, taking the risk of getting scamed and banned eventually.

I say, let them. As long as I can FARM BiS items, which you cant as long as the AH is in the game. If you still cant do that even without the auction house ... well then RoS will bite the dust just like D3 did.

The demographic should be the guy who is playing the game, but the usual guy, not the one who spends 24 ours each day in the game or using money or playing the economy or what ever.

I am neither a friend of the auction house nor do I hate it, but I cant see how any changes, meaningfull changes can be done as long it exists.

 

[TheWesDude]

if they are going to close down the AH, then D2JSP i think it is will make a huge comeback.

maybe it will even be worth going back to that site again.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

Someone gifted me a copy of DIII for the xbox of all things.. Is it good on there? He said we could play local co-op which sounds pretty nice actually..

I've heard good things about the XBox version. Rumor is that it has some beta Loot 2.0 features such as improved loot drop rates. Diablo is more fun with friends in the room anyway, the added social factor does it good.

But its a fact that Diablo was never game which really was made with something like the auction house in mind.

Diablo 3 was, the designers just had no idea how manage an economy and have been extremely slow and overly cautious when it comes to fixes.

The problem that I see is, that even with improved loot, it has no chance as long as the auction house exists in its current form. The people playing the economy of the game or simply using "money" to get forward will always be on top. It will always have to be optimised for the pay2win mechanic while it now has a chance to be changed to a play2win gameplay.

How so? It sounds like soul binding is extremely likely and would not be hard to add to all items currently in existence. By chopping off top tier items you cut out incentive to play the market once you reach a certain point. Furthermore, more common better items should drive down the prices of the AH and minimize it's necessity. The rich players will still have the absolutely best gear but who cares? It really has no effect on any other player.

There are some systemic problems with the AH. One of the problems is the lack of effective money sinks or currency in general, they tried to make crafting a money sink but crafting sucks so no one cared. Diablo 2 demonstrated the value of Gold (none) in the trading market pretty well and the designers failed to address that problem. I'd wager that the RMAH has a more balanced economy than the regular AH due to the price cap and reliance on real money. These two factors ensure that there is a currency with, generally speaking, limited availability and a fixed value range.

 

[Surf Solar]

Someone gifted me a copy of DIII for the xbox of all things.. Is it good on there? He said we could play local co-op which sounds pretty nice actually..

I've heard good things about the XBox version. Rumor is that it has some beta Loot 2.0 features such as improved loot drop rates. Diablo is more fun with friends in the room anyway, the added social factor does it good.

We played for a bit yesterday and you are indeed right. It's very fun to have a bro sitting next to you helping with slaughtering hundreds of enemies. Still, it feels kinda wrong to play such a game on the console, I don't know. Also I have to get used to that roll/dodge feauture and the console UI..

 

[Crni Vuk]

Diablo 3 was, the designers just had no idea how manage an economy and have been extremely slow and overly cautious when it comes to fixes.

which was in some cases for many players the source of the problem. That this so called design moved further and further away of what Diablo in its core was. A loot hunting game, as it made it a gold hunting game ... farming gold and using any other method like playing the auction house was a lot more desirable then actually playing the game in the hope of finding the loot. But you can not just "increase" the loot you get, thats what they did later with the patch 1.04 because you have to get trough a lot of crap loot now more then usual. But with the auction house you also can not simply improve the "quality" of what drops because the auction house makes everything all the time accessible. It doesnt take you any effort to speak so.

How so? It sounds like soul binding is extremely likely and would not be hard to add to all items currently in existence.

I tend to agree with you, somewhat. As said. I dont hate the auction house. But you also have to ask your self does that sound like "Diablo"? If you really have to get more and more Account Bound or Soul Bound items ... then you could also simply get rid of the auction house alltogether as well and allow people to freely trade everything. But without the auction house.

 

[clercqer]

Oh boy. I was quite favourable towards the changes in RoS, but after reading this, it's clear that Blizzard has absolutely no idea what it's writing.

Blizzard[/url]][...]To put it a different way, think of the Crusaders as the “veterans of the veterans.” They take zealotry to an entirely new level, finding comfort and strength in their unshakable confidence in their cause. Their only goal is to find a way to save their faith; any other objectives will fall to the wayside should it ever threaten to impede their quest. Whereas the Paladin might meddle in a town’s affairs -- settling disputes, converting new followers, burning some witches -- and then move on, the Crusader, despite brandishing a similar level of intimidation, would quietly enter the town, ask a few questions, restock their supplies, and then depart, leaving little more than confusion in their wake. (To give you perhaps a more relatable image, if you were put a Crusader in space, he’d probably be a lot of like Hicks in Aliens. Very experienced, a little easy going on the surface, but doesn’t fool around when stuff hits the fan.)[...]

Did they fire every decent designer they had? They even have to compare it to Aliens for it to make any sense.

 

[Kyuu]

Oh boy. I was quite favourable towards the changes in RoS, but after reading this, it's clear that Blizzard has absolutely no idea what it's writing.

That became clear to me when they first revealed the Demon Hunter. This Crusader bit is pretty similar -- sounds a lot like bad fan-fic writing, not something I'd expect from a renowned development company.

 

[shihonage]

Diablo 3 is a fundamentally broken and un-fun experience.

Removing the auction house won't fix their awful level randomization, and nothing really will, because it requires them to redo giant "set-pieces" of art that these levels consist of.

Dumbification is irreversible. Diablo is dead. Glory to Torchlight 2.

 

[Snackpack]

Diablo is dead. Glory to Torchlight 2.

After playing up to level 90 in torchlight 2 over the past couple weeks, I dont see how it can be held up as an example of the genre done right. Torchlights loot and skill system are pretty bad. I won't defend diablo 3s itemization but torchlight's managed to be even more boring. Woo I got my level 80 gloves that add 4% to damage and 112 ice armor! An amazing upgrade from the level 30 ones I was wearing that gave 2% attack speed and 10 dexterity. And the skills? Pick one damage dealer and six passives, pretty fun. Make sure you know what you're doing when you pick em, need mods to respec. It's a fun game, but doesn't really have anything on D3.

D3 has improved quite a bit since release. Played a crap ton then, quit for awhile and came back sometime in patch 1.05. Haven't gotten hooked on an ARPG since diablo 1, and despite 3s flaws it's got the most fluid, entertaining, visceral gameplay of any ARPG to date. What else really matters for a mindless clickfest game? Complaints about the story seem silly, are we holding the early diablo games up as shining examples of interactive storytelling now?

The itemization isn't great, but it's not as terrible as people make it out to be. There's quite a few choices when building up a character, different skill builds want different stats and all the classes are built and play differently. Most of your choice when gearing comes down to what stats to try to get in what slots but still there's some skill and knowledge behind it.

RoS could be really good, they could swing to far to the account bound side I think, and I hope getting rid of the AH doesn't mean I have to spend time dealing with slimy D2jsp stock broker kids when i want to get rid of something I don't need. But the changes announced all seem pretty cool, particularly the paragon 2.0 and loot run stuff.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Diablo 1 and 2 had a great storyline. D3? Not so much. And thats not only because of the quality. Its about what the story actually adds to the game.

When you look at Diablo 1 and 2, the story was very short and there was not much substance. Go and kill the bad guy. Diablo 3 isnt that much different here, but the presentation is very different. Diablo 3 is trying to force a story down your throat about the great nephalem that is supposed to save the world killing everything with his little finger, while the reality is that without his gear he could not even kill a fly - quite literaly when you play act 2. In Diablo 1/2 you have been some nameless warior, some human, no one even expected you to win, but you managed to do it anyway despite the odds. The way how the NPCs talked with some humor have been a part of that. Who could ever forget the crazy NPCs of Tristram in D1? Of which most have been either lunatics or depressed.

But the most important difference. The story was never ever in your way, it always took a backseat to the gameplay. Each time you open a game in D3, you are forced to go trough the story again, any kind of quality that might be there is outright killed by the fact that you cant throw a stone in D3 without hitting some talking NPC or Monsters ... how many talking monsters have there been in D1 and D2? Once you did the quests in D2 for example, it was done, it was all about farming at that point. Not to mention you could visit every monster and area in the game. In D3 you have to open always a new game if you want from act 3 to 4 or 1 or 2 or what ever. All the boss monstes are instances and they always throw their useless dialogues at you. After playing it for 1000 times this becomes very tedious

 

[clercqer]

I agree completely with your analysis Crni, but I also think that the quality of the writing (story, dialogue, cutscenes, ...) is a lot lower than that of the writing in D1 and D2. I enjoyed D1's writing the most, but D2 showed to me that you can have an overarching significant plot while still letting the story take the backseat as you say.

So with D3 we are doubly screwed: not only does the story force itself on you with no way to escape it, it is also completely retarded and unnecessarily convoluted.

 

[Akratus]

Diablo 1 and 2 had a great storyline. D3? Not so much. And thats not only because of the quality. Its about what the story actually adds to the game.

When you look at Diablo 1 and 2, the story was very short and there was not much substance. Go and kill the bad guy. Diablo 3 isnt that much different here, but the presentation is very different. Diablo 3 is trying to force a story down your throat about the great nephalem that is supposed to save the world killing everything with his little finger, while the reality is that without his gear he could not even kill a fly - quite literaly when you play act 2. In Diablo 1/2 you have been some nameless warior, some human, no one even expected you to win, but you managed to do it anyway despite the odds. The way how the NPCs talked with some humor have been a part of that. Who could ever forget the crazy NPCs of Tristram in D1? Of which most have been either lunatics or depressed.

But the most important difference. The story was never ever in your way, it always took a backseat to the gameplay. Each time you open a game in D3, you are forced to go trough the story again, any kind of quality that might be there is outright killed by the fact that you cant throw a stone in D3 without hitting some talking NPC or Monsters ... how many talking monsters have there been in D1 and D2? Once you did the quests in D2 for example, it was done, it was all about farming at that point. Not to mention you could visit every monster and area in the game. In D3 you have to open always a new game if you want from act 3 to 4 or 1 or 2 or what ever. All the boss monstes are instances and they always throw their useless dialogues at you. After playing it for 1000 times this becomes very tedious

First point is good, second point is . . eh. More dialogue/story is not inherently bad. But when it becomes "Haha I just beat you, and you will never be able to stop me by going to my evil place x and dextroying my evil thing y going to perform evil plan z! Goodbye now! Roar or something!" Which in Diablo 3 it always is, if not something equally stupid.

I wouldn't mind more dialogue/story in Diablo 2, if it was up to par with the rest of it.

 

[Crni Vuk]

yes, I don't mind more story either. But I think it has not always to come in the form of Dialogues, NPCs or quests. Lore can be a huge part as well. And here, Diablo 3 is doing something even right. The notes/messages you find on your way for example. Like the ones from Abd al-Hazir where he explains stuff about the creatures and world. Thats awesome stuff in my opinion! Something they really did well.

I agree completely with your analysis Crni, but I also think that the quality of the writing (story, dialogue, cutscenes, ...) is a lot lower than that of the writing in D1 and D2. I enjoyed D1's writing the most, but D2 showed to me that you can have an overarching significant plot while still letting the story take the backseat as you say.

So with D3 we are doubly screwed: not only does the story force itself on you with no way to escape it, it is also completely retarded and unnecessarily convoluted.

definitely. I just have the feeling this "epicnes" they shove in the game just doesn't fit to Diablo thematically. Its more a thing that you would expect in a game like Baldurs Gate in my opinion. I always liked this dark almost depressing ambience in D1 and D2, D1 was probably even more of that compared to D2.

 

[Surf Solar]

Diablo III with a friend on the couch on the console is actually fun! Who would have thought.. The drop rate for legendary items is almost a bit too high though. I already have 4 identical legendary items, heh. It runs very smooth and the controls are very well done. If only the atmosphere and visuals would be more gloomy and the music was better..