No...the crafting system is worthless. It would be making it useful. What's your point? There's probably quite a few people like you. The same thing happens with Call of Duty...new people buy the game that hadn't bought a game before. That's how the numbers keep increasing.
They've been "exploring" and hiring developers for a console version for the past year or so. I wouldn't hold my breath though -- if it does come out it won't be for at least another year I'd imagine. They'd probably package it with whatever inevitable expansion for D3 comes out as an excuse for the delay in time.
I am not new, I am old. I have all three Diablo. Just have not bought a game for a long time until now. Just saying that the sale volume is not new kids.
Considering you haven't bought a "game" in a long time, you would be considered a new sale to them. Or whatever the sales terminology might be. If you don't think that a large amount of those Diablo 3 sales includes people who haven't played prior iterations, or even played any games at all then I don't know what to say to you. This isn't some sort of crazy new concept I'm kicking here, this happens with every new game that comes out. You realize there are people about to buy Black Ops 2 because all of their friends play Call of Duty, and they've never even touched a controller, right?
Maybe I am in the minority on this, but I really have no desire to be a min/maxer, and the thought of spending endless hours tweaking my character to get every last drop of efficient drop of dps or whatever, that is just not something that I have ever found appealing. This is probably the reason why I don't care much for PvP. I like WoW, I played it for a couple of years about 5 years ago, and then recently started playing again because my son was wanting to play, and it is a fun thing for us to do together. But in all that time, the few times I ever tried PvP, it was just frustrating because 'casual' players are just so far behind the curve of these people who have been tweaking and devoted to max gear and whatnot for years, there just isn't even any point in trying, it's always going to be an embarrassing loss no matter what. That's the downside to me of these kinds of games, you're either one of these no-life propeller-heads who take delight in stomping on anyone who is not at their level, or you are just a 'noob' to be laughed at. Neither situation is very appealing. So I don't do PvP. So, I play games like WoW in order to follow the story, such as their is, or the story arcs I should say, and to see what new thing comes along next. It's pretty cheap entertainment. I loved D2, loved LoD, I even loved D1 way back in the day. But I never ever bothered to play D2 online, and so far after beating Diablo for the first time with my first character on normal, rather than immediately jump into the next difficulty, I am happy to try out the next type, going from a Wiz to a Monk now, and going to play that one through, and probably a Barb or a Hunter next. I probably won't even bother with the auction house for a long time, if ever, and playing online, well, there hasn't been anything yet that made me think 'You know, this would be more fun if I was playing with a bunch of strangers right now'. And certainly PvP in D3 won't be any different than PvP in any other game - to me it has always just been a haven for twerps who get their kicks from trying to humiliate others and make them feel bad. But the nice thing is, I have enjoyed D3 a lot so far, just playing it in the admittedly limited way in which I have played it. It is very satisfying, to me kind of satisfying in the same way NeverWinter Nights was satisfying, come to think of it. But I can tell that the tweak potential is there for the propeller-heads as well, and I am sure that those types of players will find something to be satisfied with too. And so, the only thing I can say is, try to understand how rare that is, that one game can meet the demands of such varied tastes and playstyles. It's an amazing feat frankly, and maybe one day I will decide to stick my neck out there in multiplayer in order to check that out, we'll see. But it's nice to know that it's there when I want to try it, but it's a perfectly satisfying play experience just as it is.
The good thing with Diablo series is that, you have the option to not deal with any of that. It's an instanced game, not an MMO. Other people's gears and actions don't directly affect your character like WoW does. You could stay in your game solo or with friends, avoid the hardcore gamers, avoid auction house, and still have a great time. For me, I hope I'll be on the other end of the spectrum. I'll be farming the hell out of Inferno A1 when I get back from vacation. As difficult as inferno is to me right now, I know I'll be spending way too much time and gold (no real money!) gearing my witch doctor up so that I could beat the hardest difficulty content the game provides. The sense of accomplishment when you beat an elite pack with insane modifiers is satisfying, and chance for phat lewtz isn't bad either
The fact that this thread has been one of the most active in the Hangout proves that regardless of the polar opposite opinions that people have, the game itself was a success. Just play the game and enjoy it for what it is - an addictive experience that is far from perfect. At least this isn't another CoD game...
I think the game is good, but I do have concerns about just how long it will hold my interest. I have doubts that I will still be playing D3 regularly by the time Guild Wars 2 comes out at the end of June, though I'm sure I will play again when the inevitable expansion is released. We also have Torchlight 2 coming out some time in the next few months which I am sure I will try.
Blizzard games for whatever reason are the only games that have kept my interest for years. Don't know why
How is this "dumbing it down"? You can switch your skills situationally, therefore it's "dumber"? Um, no. It means you can change your strategy, rather than being locked into the same strategy forever. That's the opposite of dumbing down, since it makes you consider new approaches as you get to the more difficult portions of the game. So on the one hand, yes, skill-switching makes the game "easier," but the game difficulty has been balanced with this in mind. Normal and even early Nightmare are cake. Later on it's much more difficult, and you were locked into a particular build, it would simply be too hard. I'd say the fact that they ditched the whole skill points concept and made all skills based on weapon damage so they could always be switched is pretty innovative, not to mention all the rune variants. If there's another game that does skills this way, I don't know it. Um, yeah, they thought of that, and rejected it, because it trivializes the item hunt that the game is centered around. They took out the third artisan because she could add specific effects to items, and she just ended up being broken (she was the chick you saved from the giant spider, I believe). In any case, I wouldn't call this an "innovation," since Diablo 2 already had options for crafting some specific affixes via horadric cube recipes. But they tried and rejected it because it was just too easy to make exactly the effects you want, leaving no real point to hunting for loot anymore. Same as above. You really don't want people to have a lot of control over picking affixes. This is why you have a shared stash. I'm playing every character concurrently, and when I find loot my current hero can't use, I just put it in my stash and my other character grabs it. There you go. You could also play with friends and trade loot on the fly in the game. I'm being a Wizard in one game and my friend is a Barbarian -- I'm constantly giving him the strength gear I pick up, and he's giving me the intelligence gear. All the features you mentioned are simply aimed at making the loot less random. Hate to break it to you, But Diablo is about random loot. Trivializing the loot hunt by letting you pick your own affixes just hurts the game in the long term, because you're more likely to craft the perfect item yourself, and then get bored because you don't think you'll find anything better. My point from the beginning has been that these "new features" you and Bebop have been speaking of are an illusion. There probably are possible features that would make the whole experience better, but if so, I haven't heard them. And until someone can name a solitary innovation that isn't just a system for de-randomizing the loot, then I'm going to continue to think the attacks are unjustified, since you're saying it lacks new features but can't say what those features should be. Again, that's fine. I don't care. People like what they like, and dislike what they dislike. To each his own. But I get annoyed when people make statements like "the game is dumbed down" and there's "no innovation" when these assertions seem baseless to me.
I agree this is a drawback to the current system. For better or worse, they've focused very much on the endgame. The system isn't built for starting another of the same class at level 1. I've been playing all classes concurrently, so I'm still in Nightmare with all of them, and I can't speak from personal experience with Inferno. Maybe when I get there I'll think it really is too hard. But certainly too hard is better than too easy for the game's lifespan. I like hard games anyway. Along the same lines, I'd really like to be able to check my other characters' gear while in the game. In Nightmare, I sometimes buy stuff from vendors for my lower-level characters, but sometimes I buy something and discover the character already had something better, and I'm just wasted money. Aren't they adding something like this soon where you can check character gear from a website? Can't speak to the AH stuff, though. I haven't used either one so far, I'm enjoying finding everything myself. I think for the most part the crafting is fine. It can be annoying at lower levels when you can't craft an item in the level range you want. But I think it serves its purpose. AH probably is a better option, but I've just elected to not mess with that for now. I agree this should be clearer. Their whole UI kind of sucks. They also used to have all skills on one screen for selection, instead of you having to arrow through six different groupings. Grr. I agree this seems to be a problem. There's been a lot of talk around the fact that legendary items suck. Even well-rolled blues beat them out, let alone well-rolled rares. They really need to fix that. Personally, I've found one legendary item so far, and it was terrible. I salvaged it to see if I got anything from doing so, but all I got was three rare crafting materials.
You and I sound pretty much the same. I'm not interested in PvP at all. I also never played Diablo 2 online at all, I just enjoyed the single-player experience. This time around I am playing a bit with some friends (we chat over Skype while we're playing), but I really don't have any interest in playing online with randoms. And like you, I haven't bothered with the AH. If I ever do, it'll probably be for max level gear only, and I'm never going to be using the real money version.
The problem isn't that the game is hard in inferno, that could very well improve the game's life if done correctly. The problem is that the reason it is hard is almost completely based on elite/rare mobs with attributes that make them virtually unkillable depending on your class who can one shot your character regardless of what steps you might take to try and prevent it. You aren't dieing because you made a mistake, but rather you just need significantly better gear to survive a hit which in many cases is undodgeable due to fast mobs or other circumstances. Now I have made progress all the way to the butcher despite that, sometimes by luring the mobs away from the path I need to go and dieing, or gradually wearing down the group over the course of a half dozen or more deaths, or getting lucky and running into groups that can be kited by my demon hunter. I am not so stone walled that I can't progress at all at this point, and I am still playing alot. However most people who have gotten to act 2 inferno have said that now that the broken smoke screen invulnerability and force armor invulnerability builds have been fixed it is virtually impossible to make progress there. Of course the game is still only in week 2, and presumably eventually better gear will drop and it will become easier, but it seems the only place you can get that gear is in inferno, and spending 20-30 minutes or more doing corpse runs to wear down a tough elite mob pack has the potential to be tedious rather than challenging if you feel you are dieing just because the mobs kill in one hit and are too fast to outrun, or jail you, or freeze you, ect. Even players who have gear that was dropped in act 3 and 4 by players who were using those broken builds are dieing in seconds in act 2 now that the builds have been nerfed. They are eventually, and if you buy from the auction house you can switch between what character you want to browse with and it will show you what that character currently has equiped when you mouse over the new item. It just doesn't show you how much your damage will change, so you have to manually calculate whether to get the gloves with improved attack speed, or more dex/intel/str, where as if the item was in your bag you could just mouse over it and see on your character sheet how it will effect your damage. That certainly is a valid and probably more challenging way to go about it, but it will give you a significantly different experience. The people buying from the gold auction house are getting much better items to choose from for the money spent resulting in a generally much easier game for them. This ties back into your choice not to use the auction house. With no auction house the crafting becomes more intrigueing to try out at lower and mid levels. But with the auction house you can spend that money on an item and be guaranteed it will have stats you can use. You can also buy gems of much higher level than your character and equip them in low level gear boosting your power to the point of making the content significantly easier. You can also sell the stuff you don't use, often for significantly more money. Some of the inferno level patterns can make gear worth millions of gold if you get lucky, but they still cost around 100,000 gold or so to make between the actual crafting gold cost and the potential sale value of the mats and you may end up with a bad combination of attibutes worth virtually nothing, and it will cost you several hundred thousand gold to level blacksmithing and jewelcrafting to max.
Has anyone noticed that rares aren't that much better than blues? I mean seriously. Also the one legendary drop I got so far wasn't even tailored to my class.
From what I can tell the only real difference from blue to rare to legendary is the number of attributes that it gets assigned to it. But there are no guarantees that the attibutes on the legendary will be more useful or higher numbers than the attributes on the blue.
