Diablo 3 - Reaper of Souls

Angry Amadeus_sl said:

There is no point to reroll in D3 since you can change your skill selection at random. In D2, your skills were locked in once chosen, permanently. After a while Blizzard wanted to cater to the masses and introduced a skill reset mechanic through an NPC that allowed you to reset your skills once per act.

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Ahem, nerd points for capping each class twice. What more motivation do you need

Mr Creed_sl said:

For one, the levels at which you obtain the skills (depending on build more importantly the runes) is set in stone and extends across the entire level range in D3, while in D2 you could have your prefered spells while wrapping up normal mode.

I'll buy it, and I'm not making it a pointless argument why D2 was more fun for me then D3vanilla, but it was for me. Fun is subjective. I did reroll different builds in D2 and made several wizards in D3 (or tried - lost interest in doing so because normal/nightmare was too easy and my skill progress was dictated by the game to a large degree). So my hope for the expansion is that sticking with the lvl70 but getting build-changing items to try new stuff, which wasnt really there in D3 before. We'll see if it lasts longer then the base game - entirely random levels alone sound more fun then the setup D3 has right now. I'm one of the sickos that didnt map hack and enjoyed the larger levels in Hell D2.

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This.

Krassus_sl said:

Crone you buying RoS?

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Should be. Wife can't stop me from buying games all the time!!

I tend to enjoy having the option to switch specs, on a character, without having to completely re-roll. That sounds super tedious, and annoying? But I understand everyone gets joy out of different things, but I tend to prefer the options. If I want to play it like D2, and never change any skill I take, I can do that if I want too.

I also enjoy WoW post-TBC as well. I'm a dirty Blizzard whore apparently.

Flight_sl said:

Agree. D2:LoDs itemization was outstanding. D3 is poor in this and pretty much every other regard. The fact Blizzard has had to remove trading from the game in RoS and turn it into a pinata speaks volumes about how clueless they are these days about how to plug into fun gameplay.

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I disagree with the latter. I think increasingly the gaming market is becoming more and more anti-social online. People don't want to scream in trade chat for hours trying to get the item they want or sell the item they want. It isn't fun. It keeps you away from actually playing the game. I feel, as an anti-social gamer myself, having the game shower you with loot is better than having to deal with trading. And I don't believe you can have both.

Ao-_sl said:

Hold the phone. You have no involvement in your character because you can change skill whenever you decide? That's fucking retarded.

Instead you're whole viewpoint comes down to "You need to reroll to have involvment". That is, again, fucking retarded. Having to relevel to try out a specific skill set is whack-me-in-the-dick tedious and doesn't bring any extra "involvement". Fuck, it actually makes people LESS attached to their characters because if they ever want to try a new build they have to have an entirely new character.

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Careful, you might start another whole 2 pages of people defending why re-rolling is fun to them, and why you just don't understand!!

Ao-_sl said:

I guess I don't get it either (and I'm not an engineer)... why would you want to start a brand-new character to try out a new piece of equipment? That's sounds tedious as hell. I fucking hated it in D2 (and I made Javazons, Burizazons, Charged Bolt Sorcs, and Frozen Orb Sorcs), and my buddies always complained when I made them power level me.

The only time releveling was fun was when a new ladder came out, because then it's a legitimate race.

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It's just a difference of opinion. I was actually looking forward to being able to change specs on the fly in D3 when I first heard about it. But in practice I realized that personally (as in, for me) I really enjoyed the process of creating and leveling new characters. I could do that in D3 yes, but there is no purpose in doing so because of how the game is set up (i.e. built around never having to reroll the same character class).

I'm not saying you guys are wrong for appreciating the D3 setup and preferring it to the D2 setup. I just have a different opinion on the matter.

"Oh man, I remember when Duriel was a real fucking pain in the ass to kill, first time around I needed to beg a Necro and bring 500 tp scrolls. Now that I have my silks of the victor, tarnhelm, frostburns and my new build I'm soloing this fucker NP." I find a great sense of satisfaction in twinking and rerolling when it serves a purpose. It's much harder to do that in D3 (twink and level a particular set of skills right from the get go). D3 doesn't have the idea of a frost tree vs a fire tree vs a lightning tree. Every character is locked into the same skill progression while leveling because you only unlock skills at certain levels. And if you want to be a lightning sorc you might have to wait until level 47 when the first real worthwhile lightning skill gets unlocked. Meanwhile in D2 you could decide right from level 1 to go lightning. (I haven't played D3 in a long, long time so I that was just an example and I have no idea what the sorceress skill unlock levels are in D3)

The biggest difference for me is that D2 offered that alt heavy style of gameplay if you preferred it in a fun, meaningful way. You could still stick to one character if you wanted to in D2 just like you can in D3. I don't know if I can explain it well but I just don't find swapping specs at max level and paragon level to be interesting, engaging or fun. I'm not learning the character as I go and being acclimated by the progression system. I'm just already magically at end game with a spec I don't understand and am not used to.

And just so nobody makes the mistake of comparison to MMOs. I would never want that type of system in an MMO. The ARPG leveling curve was insanely fast, so the time spent vs reward was worthwhile. That shit would suck in a game with a long leveling curve.

In D2 how did you know which abilities were worth taking? You just rolled a char over and over until you tried everything?

Drtyrm_sl said:

In D2 how did you know which abilities were worth taking? You just rolled a char over and over until you tried everything?

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You followed the FOTM obv

D3 "sucked" because the loot sucked (because of both bland itemization and the auction house), 90% of the map is fixed and even the random maps are taken from a small map pool, and there are less minions of hell to kill, BUT they have 40 BILLION hp! If it didn't have those problems we wouldn't be discussing if you should be able to respec or not.

The oddest part is all the D2 circlejerkers I never see post in the Marvel Heroes thread which is the most D2 game to come out since D2

You don't see me posting in the Marvel Heroes thread? (Though I guess I'm not really a D2 circle jerker). Also, marvel heroes is a D3/D2 hybrid. It's got a max level of 60, skills that unlock based on level but you can also skill up. Marvel is a good marriage of the systems of the both D2 and D3. It's a good game.

I'm not going to speak for everybody who prefers D2 and classic EQ, but what I enjoyed was the feeling of having earned what you had. That's what makes what might otherwise be called tedious, enjoyable to me. You 'work' hard and you get your reward at the end. The more effort required to get the reward, the more rewarding it feels. Blizzard makes everything feel unrewarding to me in all their current generation games in order to cater to the casuals.

There is a second factor involved though: it has to be challenging. In both games, the best experience was (often) found in zones where death was a real possibility, and both had significant death penalties to make you pay attention. I mean just look at flappy bird: why the fuck did that game make a ridiculous amount of money? It's the most simple game imaginable, but ridiculously hard; not that flappy bird is some brilliant example of game design or anything, but it did make $50kper dayfor the guy.

Now D3 inferno was 'hard' at launch, and few liked it that way. So why why didn't it work? I would argue that it was because it was simply tuned to one-shot everybody which made death completely unavoidable in many situations regardless of how well you played-- the game simply wasn't designed with players avoiding all damage output in mind. Also, going offensive stats generally was suicide unless you had some immunity ability (smokescreen) or one-shot prevention ability (force armor), which made class balance absurdly lopsided. With the game now, going offensive stats grants some defensive ability in the form of lifesteal, so the game favors offensive stats without making defensive stats useless, which is good.

D2 vs D3 and EQ vs WoW is just hardcores vs casuals. I would argue that attempting to appeal to both audiences at once is a mistake and that studios should just target one or the other. Blizzard keeps trending toward the casual end of the spectrum which is fine, but it would be nice if games for people like me were still being made so I don't have to play 15 year old games to get what I want. (and yes, I still play classic EQ)

I can answer many of those questions quite easily:

The more effort required to get the reward, the more rewarding it feels.

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This feeling is only achievable at the start of a ladder season. After that you simply get rushed to level 80'ish andthenyou started playing the real game in Diablo2. There was also never a sense of challenge. You ran around with a party for every Baal run and death had no purpose or penalty. The only rush was trying to beat people to unique drops.

Now D3 inferno was 'hard' at launch, and few liked it that way. So why why didn't it work? I would argue that it was because it was simply tuned to one-shot everybody which made death completely unavoidable in many situations regardless of how well you played--

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Inferno was hated at the launch of D3 because it forced players to grind gear and use defensive specs. Prior to Inferno you specced only for DPS then the game got flipped on it's head at 60. Many people disliked it. The purpose of an ARPG is to kill shit fast and have loot rain all around you. Pre-nerf inferno never captured that.

Secondly is item inflation and the advent of the AH. Now for very little investment you could get all your slots filled with very well rolled rares to let you face-tank Inferno in pure DPS mode. So no one got the feeling of progression because your "progress" was hitting 60, buying gold, purchasing rares then you hope to get those 1 in a million drops (which never happens)

Path of Exile ? I have tried Marvel Heroes and while it's nice, it felt like my progress was completely meaningless

You can shower people with loot and have trading as long as the items aren't essential to progress - cosmetic only usually. Dota 2/TF2 show this very well, you can trade your heart out or just stay the fuck away from the whole thing. But then again that system mixes RL products with game items and so on, a bit too wild for most other companies.

I, personally, found PoE very tedious and simply not fun. I'm sure others would disagree. I still feel MH captures Diablo2 more than PoE felt to me.