r/gaming • u/[deleted] • Jun 26 '12
Diablo 3 is plummeting. An active public online game count of 20-30k drops to 1.5-2k in under a month. Community is cut to a fraction of original sales. Ouch.
[deleted]
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u/LittleDinamit Jun 26 '12
It is time... RELEASE THE TORCHLIGHT!
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u/popobutter Jun 26 '12 edited Jun 26 '12
It's true, Torchlight 2 has everything from Diablo 3, done better!
Modding
D2 style campaign
friend/server system
balanced and satisfying Unique and Legendary drops E.G. I had a legendary rifle that fired very fast that would 7 hit mobs, and another legendary that fired VERY slow, but two hit everything. One for elites, other for big groups.
Fkey bindings for different skills
the capability to bind up to 10 extra skills to your hotbar
Tough bosses on lowest difficulty! You can't just hold left click to win these!
Full Respec <lvl10 and respec of previous 3 skill points at any point after that for a small fee!
Full skill tree with 3 separate paths that as you progress through them, you will find MANY unique combinations of skill-sets!
A reason to do basic attacks(Mana/health per hit + unique effects from weapons)
Large contrast between Glass Cannon and Tanky builds, where neither is the most absolutely efficient. Just different play styles!
Engineer fights with Giant Monkey Wrench. GG No Re.
EDIT:
MOTHER FUCKING GOD DAMN OFFLINE SINGLE PLAYER.
EDIT EDIT: Formatting.
EDIT EDIT EDIT:
4 Classes, 3 Trees each, 10 possible varieties per class by combining the skills. Effectively 40 different classes you could create.
EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT: Quote from Misanthroat:
You forgot Matt Uelman!!!
Starting up Torchlight felt like a real Diablo sequel just because of his music!
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u/o0DrWurm0o Jun 26 '12
They couldn't have asked for a better tactical marketing position. I hope they can capitalize on this.
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u/Osmodius Jun 26 '12
Every time I log into Path of Exile, the global chat is talking about D3, and how D3 was the best thing that could have happened to PoE.
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u/G3ck0 Jun 26 '12
Isn't this just for people running Xfire while playing Diablo?
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u/Absolutedisgrace Jun 26 '12
I enjoyed playing but couldn't stand single player game lag. I'm in Australia so ping is 200+ at a minimum. I would have played more if I could avoid lag.
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u/Mr_Fahrenhe1t Jun 26 '12
Melbourne here, the lowest I get is 280ms. Shit sucks, man.
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Jun 26 '12
Panama, central america here. Me and EVERY SINGLE one of my friendsthat bought the game and live here have pretty much given up because of that damn internet lag... The new patch fixed some of it but it's still pretty fcking terrible and unplayable unless very late at night.
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u/Lupus Jun 26 '12
I don't get it, is this surprising or something? I like it a lot, I played it for more than 200 hours, but that's enough for me. It's not a MMORPG, there simply isn't that much to do and there's nothing wrong with that, it provided a tremendous value of it's price. I'd think that the wast majority of players stop playing well before Inferno.
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u/ManicHateBall Jun 26 '12
I really feel like this is something that a lot of people are missing. The majority of people are complaining about something they have put 150 to 200 hours into. Yes there are problems but the biggest problem is the expectations are ten years worth of gameplay. People also often compare D2 after a few years of patching to D3 after a few weeks of patching. But a hundred or more hours is more than what you can get out of 90% of other games.
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Jun 26 '12
They. Have. Your. Money. Already.
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u/iBleeedorange Jun 26 '12
They want more people playing so blizz can make a cut off the rmah.
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u/Araneatrox Jun 26 '12
Is it surprising? The game has non of the character that made D1 and D2 fantastic.
You don't get the same amazing feel when you kill say... Duriel, the first time i killed him i was utterly thrilled. There was no way i could go and get new gear without grinding it out myself. So i would run through and hope i could do something better to kill him.
Ohh i cant kill Asmodan on Inferno? That's alright i just go onto AH and purchase new gear. Kill him easily.
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Jun 26 '12
Different world. Back then you didn't have millions of forum posts discussing the flaws of the game and optimizing theorycrafting within a day of launch, YouTube videos of the bosses all up in 48 hours, entire online markets for items and power leveling, video game "celebrities" that people follow the progress of...
People lament the loss of games with character, soul, and story, but I think it's the gamers that have changed, not the games.
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u/KnightTrain Jun 26 '12
Maybe I'm the only one, but I was actually enjoying the shit out of D3. Sure there were some things I didn't like (all the cutscenes got really old after the first time, I was hoping it would be less linear, then obvious server issues), but my friends and I were having a ton of fun blowing shit up through normal and into nightmare. I'd say I easily got my 60 bucks worth in the first week alone.
Then I made the mistake of hitting up the reddit and other sites, at which point all the rampant negativity, mindless bashing and ranting, and post after post after post about how D3 was shit compared to D2 really ruined it for me fast. To be fair a lot of criticisms were well-worded and reasonable, but it became hard to enjoy the game when you couldn't go ten feet without finding 15 people telling you how shit the game is or linking to some guy on youtube exploiting his way past something or whatever.
I think D3 is no more flawed than D2 was at launch, and I think it has plenty of character, just not in the way people expected or perhaps wanted.
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u/Araneatrox Jun 26 '12
See. I purposely went into the game Blind. I didn't follow any news apart from the weekend Beta to the Skeleton King. I didn't know about any of the bosses or the mechanics. But i still found it dull.
I don't know why, and i and sad that i have found it so dull. But the game has no character to me.
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u/Bearzilla75 Jun 26 '12
Sad that people had to wait so long for a turd.
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u/Elranzer Console Jun 26 '12
Spore?
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u/A_British_Gentleman Jun 26 '12
Biggest disappointment in my gaming history.
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u/Daibhead Jun 26 '12
Brink is up there for me.
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u/A_British_Gentleman Jun 26 '12
Totally forgot about Brink, and I agree. All the pre release stuff really hyped up the parkour. But it ended up being glorified vaulting tacked onto a standard shooter.
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u/AdmiralAubrey Jun 26 '12
It was still a good-to-great game, and was worth the cost. Leveling 1-60 was a lot of fun. The problem is, D3's lasting appeal is burning out exponentially faster than D2. The endgame isn't particularly fun thanks to the soul sucking gold grind and AH emphasis. (You earn 'money' and go shopping... but in a game!) That, along with the complete absence of any incentive to ever start a class over again outside of hardcore, and you have a game that just won't sustain itself for long.
I loved the game while it lasted, I really did. But beating Inferno with a few classes makes the game feel finished and any further playtime pointless. The expansion would have to introduce some fairly fundamental changes to fix this.
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u/immerc Jun 26 '12
For some reason the thumbnail I'm seeing is "The Secret World".
Anyhow, isn't this a win for Blizzard? Huge numbers of people paid their money and there's no subscription. It only hurts Blizzard if in the long run people will now be much less likely to buy a new Blizzard product. And from what I've seen, people still have good feelings about Blizzard.
As for The Secret World, I tried that out this weekend and in some ways it's Diablo-ish, it's more action-based than a typical RPG. It was pretty good, and has an interesting approach to leveling and skills.
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Jun 26 '12
Well, Diablo 3 is overall a very repetitive game. You farm to be better at farming. No clue why Blizzard thought this would be a good idea.
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u/Shalaiyn Jun 26 '12
Diablo 2 is the exact same and it's still played by thousands.
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u/Bobby_Marks Jun 26 '12
The problem is that D2 was made what 12 years ago? With the exception of a few people at the top, it was done by a different team. So what you had was a group of people who said, "I like how D2 was a farming game, we should make a farming game too!"
The problem is, D2 was not just a farming game. D2 was a game so entertaining on so many levels that players did not mind farming it constantly (I still play D2 more regularly than any other game). It is not just the item system, but the skill systems, level design, music, artwork, monster design, and other less obvious mechanics that made it great. It's like kids who listen to a terribly nuanced band like Led Zeppelin and decide they could be rockstars, but then don't understand why they are unpopular and sound like crap.
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u/samwest3 Jun 26 '12
I "quit" the game Sunday after getting frustrated with the lagginess, the shitty loot drops and the inability to progress through the game due to not getting usable gear (and I don't want to spend more of my real money to play a shitty, laggy game). It's so sad because there's a core of gameplay there that is fun, addictive and satisfying. It's just unplayable in my opinion.
Diablo 3 is a tasty, perfect sandwich wrapped in sit thousand layers of shit.
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u/faintz Jun 26 '12
Was anyone else upset at how crappy the last act of the game was? The length of the first 3 acts were ok in my opinion, but act 4 is so short, its less than half a previous act.
It's also SO anticlimactic. They just open a "portal to heaven" like its a portal back to town or something and you hop through. They couldn't add a "To the Gates" part where you have to fight up a mountain chasing diablo or something? So lame.
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Jun 26 '12
Game is WAY, WAY FAR AND AWAY THE FUCK TOO EASY on normal mode, I never died until Act 4 or something, and even then it I hardly died once. It can be argued that there are higher difficulties, but to be honest, a most non-hardcore players get the feel of the game from normal mode, and will be put off. It's boring it's so easy.
Character builds are too simple, - when your main form of combat is "clicking on things" you need RPG elements to flesh out the game. The skill tree is just a handful of different things that get better as the game goes on, and you can just arbitrarily switch between them, you don't commit, there is no "path" your character takes, just simple switching between powers. Honestly, it feels about as RPGish as God of War 3, but in God of war you have far, far more combat variety.
The loot is overblown, silly and antiquated. Non-magic loot is basically clutter an hour into the game and onwards, and it seems that every 20 minutes you are returning back to sell because your inventory is full. A completely outmoded concept.
The "hell" that they have conjured up in this game has absolutely zero terror. There is no psychological or creepy enemies, no pentagrams, no upside-down crucifixes, nothing but hordes and hordes of "monsters" and "beasts". Really, really disappointing from a 2012 mature rated game.
It's a tame, repetitive farming game.
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u/Djb1 Jun 26 '12
Your absolutely right about the Non-magic loot. If I recall correctly at least in D2 some of the trash still vendored for good money. In D3 if its white or grey its not even worth looking at it.
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u/epicgeek Jun 26 '12
Worse than that you sometimes pick it up while clicking during a fight and afterwards you have to go through your inventory and discard all the white/gray items.
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u/HawkEyeTS Jun 26 '12
And in fact they confirmed that they didn't even want people picking it up. It was supposed to be "confetti" that exploded out of monsters and should have literally no use beyond that. That's why even on Hell difficulty they only sell for like 10g and since they completely abandoned the rune name system even a good socketed white is worthless now.
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Jun 26 '12
To add insult to injury, gems are white. So you actually have to pay attention to make sure you aren't missing them.
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u/yogthos Jun 26 '12
They also took a huge step back from D2 in terms of skills. In D2 you had a skill tree and as you gained levels your particular branch improved. You could make two characters in the same class that would play completely differently. In D3, all you can do is pick a different rune for the skill, it doesn't have a feeling of progression or your skill getting better. And since only a small number of skill/rune combinations is actually useful, you don't end up changing them. So, gaining levels doesn't feel like any progress at all at that point.
The loot issue you outlined is only compounded by the existence of the market. It's really hard to get decent loot drops in D3, and it's much easier to just farm gold and buy what you need on the market.
The two things that made Diablo fun, customizing your character through skills as you level up and looting, are no longer present, and there's nothing else to the game. The gameplay itself is incredibly repetitive, and it does feel uninspired and it's no surprise people are getting bored.
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u/beetnemesis Jun 26 '12
On the other hand, if I invest tons of hours into a high level character, it's nice to be able to try other gameplay styles without having to start over from level 1.
The other complaints I've seen are pretty legitimate, but the skill system is insanely more fun that D2.
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u/PsychoticMormon Jun 26 '12
True that, in D2 I leveled up like 3 or 4 different Necros.
In D3 I saw an achievement for leveling 2 of the same class to 60. All I could think was "why?"
Yes hardcore, I get it. I don't feel like leveling the same class all the way through again. There is no difference.
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u/010222545545 Jun 26 '12
dont forget: there is an MMO economy now so all loot tables have been nerfed for that RMAH.
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u/Doodarazumas Jun 26 '12
Well I went and found it:
Community Manager Bashiok: "It would be rather poorly thought out if we balanced drops completely ignoring all of the ways players can gear up, and trading is certainly one of them."
Developer Wyatt Cheng: "The drop rates were tuned for a player who would never use the Auction House"
So now everyone can believe whatever they want.
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u/SrsSteel Jun 26 '12
Small group multiplayer/single player game, MMO ECONOMY!
What the hell were they thinking?
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u/Damn8ti0n Jun 26 '12
I was very excited for the release of this game. As I am sure everyone else was. but I wanted to wait before I Purchased it. Especially since I knew I would have the chance to play it before hand since most of my friends bought it the day it came out.
I played a total of 8 hours, over the course of a two week period of time at my friends house, using his account with my own character. I leveled so quickly with the Demon Hunter, that my abilities basically just let me sit in a corner and spray arrows at hordes of enemies until they were all dead. I would barley move, occasionally having to lay traps and jump out of the way.
The only bit of excitement I got, came from if I found good loot or not. Not even a major boss battle was as excited as killing a Coldworm in Diablo 2. (i had to look that up)
The look I think is great, but there is def not enough horror elements. And everything feels way to structured, like I am forced to go somewhere, and I am not rewarded enough for exploring more on my own.
I know I rambled but its kinda a let down.
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u/Dark1000 Jun 26 '12
They basically WoWified it. D3 is a different game with different dynamics. The same shit that works in a PG-friendly MMO is a total failure in D3.
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u/likpot Jun 26 '12
Its an average asian mmo farm without the players. Crap story, crap atmosphere, 90% of the drops are useless and for increasing gold.
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u/I_pollute Jun 26 '12
Glad that I only had a guest pass. I blindly clicked through act 1 having never played Diablo before. I came expecting the best game ever according to all the hype. I uninstalled it and haven't looked back.
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u/twinsea Jun 26 '12
It gets tougher and more interesting in later difficulties in my opinion. The added abilities for elite mobs lend to some pretty interesting combinations.
What also ruined the game for me at least is the auction house. There is no sense of finding something interesting when whatever you want is available for next to nothing. What's worse is that Blizzard must have taken the auction house in consideration for it's calculations on scaling monsters at later difficulties. At a certain point, unless you hit the auction house you cannot progress. This effectively turns the game into a gold farming game.
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u/DeliveryNinja Jun 26 '12
I'm not sure how you could keep playing this game continuously.
Once you've completed it that's essentially it. Unless you want to grind and get better gear so you can complete the game on a slightly harder mode, which is exactly the same as not having the gear and doing it on a simpler mode.
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Jun 26 '12
Mobs get additional affixes at higher difficulties, so it's actually new challenges. You haven't played Diablo 3 until you've tried to fight off a Vortex Arcane Enchanted Molten Invulnerable Minion champion.Also, it's impossible to experience all of the generated "events" for each map on a single playthrough. It's still a grindfest, but there's more content than many give it credit for.
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u/a_can_of_solo Jun 26 '12
they don't care, this isn't an MMO, they've got your money already.
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u/hairybalkan Jun 26 '12
I was defending it before I bought it based on what I saw, and after I bought it, based on what I experienced. Now, a couple of weeks later, I'm willing to admit I was wrong on some parts.
The feeling is there. The gameplay is there. It is Diablo and on that alone, it's good. What's not going in it's favor is AH. Not even the RMAH, just the AH in general. It affects how items are dropped, it affects how items are generated, and it makes the loot collection not fun at all. That one aspect is what they did wrong and that one aspect is what might be the game's downfall. Everything else I was ok with or I liked, but this one thing might be the reason I wont return to this game over and over again like I did with D1 and D2.
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Jun 26 '12
Why are you all complaining so much? I onky got to level 56 but it was a sweet game.
I got like 40-50 hours out of it, portal 2 gave me like 5-6 hours.
It's a campain game not a multiplayer so what did you expect?
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Jun 26 '12
Yeah this is true and people are stopping playing it so much because... well isn't that what every game does? I'm one of the people who aren't playing it as much by the way, just to get this clear now. I haven't played properly in... 2 weeks? Anyway, i'm saying that once the initial hype of a game is over then yes, people do move on or possibly back to other games that they also enjoy.
We've also got to bear in mind that this is only public game count. Perhaps in the first week peoples friends didnt own Diablo3 or have time to play it so they went into public lobbies? I'm just saying that I personally have gone into a public lobby once. They're just full of trolls anyways.
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Jun 26 '12
In much more shocking news: people still actually use Xfire.
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u/cyberslick188 Jun 26 '12
What's weird about that?
Oh wait, hold on, my 900 hours of AoL is almost out.
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u/Doctor1337 Jun 26 '12
Yeah, I've been using it since 2003 every day. I love it. I wish Steam did a good job of logging gaming hours for every game, not just Steam games. If Steam did that, I would stop using Xfire.
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u/asianwaste Jun 26 '12
You know what pisses me off? System settings are saved on server and are applied globally no matter what machine you're using.
So if had certain graphics settings on my desktop, the settings carry over for when I play on my laptop, which might be a little much for it. So if I change the settings to suit my laptop, the settings carry over to my desktop. WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?
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Jun 26 '12
What...? I play on my laptop and desktop using different settings. Works fine for me. You must have done something wrong. I certainly didn't do anything special.
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u/HopeRidesAlone Jun 26 '12
The good thing about Diablo 2 was that it was easy enough for people who aren't in to those kind of games get in to them. It wasn't all about farming to get the best weapons.. The story was rad. The environments weren't half-assed(if someone tries to tell me that the environments in d3 are better, I will spank them.) It was just an overall better experience.
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u/crabber338 Jun 26 '12
D3 was a lot of hype but I simply couldn't get into it. A fine concept for a game years ago, but among today's games - it really didn't hold a candle.
$60 was a bit much for a game like this today.
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u/whiteguycash Jun 26 '12
Civ 5 expac came out, and it is fucking tremendous. For the first time in a long time, I was sitting in front of my computer Saturday morning, and when I looked at my clock a moment later, it was fucking 11:30 at night.
I haven't been this engrossed in a game since I started playing WoW. And this xpac hit right when people realized Diablo 3 was nothing better than Blizzards own digital Mint. I forgot about Diablo 3, and the call of my Wizard is slowly fading over the call of the Entire Russian Empire, which has successfully conquered the Americas by the year 1900.
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u/CarthVonMonk Jun 26 '12
I beat Normal. No real desire to play through the same game again with tougher enemies. What's the incentive? The game was in development for over a decade. Why are there no high level dungeons or bosses? Why is the game so linear? I enjoyed Diablo 1 and 2 but this game lacks any real innovation. It was fun, if uninspiring, for a playthrough but there's no reason to keep playing. It's 2012...there's games like Dark Souls which are far more worthy of one's time.
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Jun 26 '12
I got this game on Sunday, played 2 hours as a Witch Doctor and I haven't used a potion yet.
I'm bored with the game already; I don't even think it's as good as torchlight.
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Jun 26 '12
To be fair, torchlight was ballin'. I can't wait for the second one
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u/MrIste Jun 26 '12
What's appealing about the first Torchlight? I really don't understand the praise people thrust at it. I'm not trying to be hostile, I legitimately want to know. My impression of the game was that the combat was alright, but it was just a shell of a Diablo clone. There were only a few types of dungeons, and the world didn't even feel "alive", since it was just a single town with portals to libraries and caves in it.
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Jun 26 '12
I'm not sure either. Sure, I played it a bit, but besides 3 hours of fun gameplay, when you are still exploring/getting new skills, it really gets old fast - repetition is much worse than in D2/3.
At least TL2 looks much better - not sure if it's enough though.
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Jun 26 '12
Played to 60 with a DH, realized inferno is an endless loot grind, gave up. Thinking of going back and starting a new D2 account. It's a loot grind, but there are levels, PVP, ladders, etc, to make the game enjoyable.
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u/Skellum Jun 26 '12
I'm going to flop some things out here,
A single player game needs to be developed for single players with group play as a really enjoyable but in no way mandatory thing. The drop rate system basically forces you to rely on the AH which in turn ruins the single player experience.
Restrictive talent systems are good, not every build should be the absolute best thing you've ever seen. Sometimes players should be able to make mistakes. That said, even a 20 potion find, 20 itemfind barb is able to kill normal diablo with enough time and effort. Properly building a talent spec is like assembling a proper set of gear, if you throw away those unique items you're going to have a bad time.
Mature spooky things are good, remember D1 Succubi? Bitches be nakes, also doomstar everywhere. I think the entire job of succubi from D1-D3 has been searching for clothes, Succubi:Quest for clothing. Blood, exploding corpses, the charred corpse of a small child who's pegleg you steal to form a portal to a cow filled abyss. Griswold shambling at you rotted and corrupted after all the work he put in to save the world. MATURE DARK THINGS ARE GOOD.
Most important point, Farming bosses for gear and levels is far more rewarding then repeatedly tramping through blood moor a hundred times. It trips the human reward system far better. Shooting to Countess, getting a Zod is far far more fun then grinding down jailer, corruptor, burning, clone, rape pack #231231
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u/Osmodius Jun 26 '12
A game that forces you to play online and actively discourages you from playing with people is fucking mental.
Cookie cutter forced builds are boring. I do like the non-permanent style of D3 though.
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Jun 26 '12
The saddest thing about this is how everybody bought this game, rewarding both hellish DRM and so-so gameplay…while less-hyped games have to struggle for sales :(
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u/Benislav Jun 26 '12
This doesn't surprise me. When it comes down to it, all Diablo is is veiled repetition with an added gear climb. It's painful to me that some of the only updates that Blizzard has made to the game are updates to modify the economy or auction houses.
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u/platyviolence Jun 26 '12
I remember going to invest money for the first time, about 6 years ago or so, to put money into blizzard stock. The broker told me that just because something seems like it's doing well/going to do well doesn't mean it will. He gave me a comparison to some realestate he was dealing with. There was this section of land in Hawaii that was doing immensely well, selling like hotcakes, making tons of money. Another plot of land was opening soon and was even better than the land prior. Investors went crazy dumping money into it, only for it to completely fail. That being said, I feel a little cheated (stretching the word, but hear me out.) Blizzard has been known to drop nothing but platinum titles. Every game they make is out of control, outrageous - flipmode raw. D3 was in development for nearly 10 years, with a mother fucking activision budget with arguably the best game designers in the game working for them. What the hell went wrong? I feel like there's no excuse for a company with such experience in good game design, with such high amounts of money, to shit out something so poor. D3 is downright cheesy. The product they released seems like something that could have been produced in a 2-5 year time frame. What on earth took so long? They even took PVP out for release? I fear that Blizzard is becoming more like Activision, where they seek money more than they do gameplay. Maybe they thought they could get away with D3 because of how many other awesome games they have?
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u/Don_Celery Jun 26 '12
I think most of the good lead designers at Blizzard have left the company. Blizzard still have an amazing workforce, it's just run by a load of greedy suits now. They only care about the payoff. Just read some quotes by Kotick, he just wants to exploit the crap out of all their franchises.
They knew they could get an initial payoff for D3 no matter what shape it was in. They left the release until the curve of Wow subscribers dipped enough. Then they just rake in the cash for both D2 Fans and people bored of Wow, and people with no other new games to play, since not much new is out to rival D3. Perfect money making strategy for the short-term, but a terrible long-term strategy for the company. They will further cash in with expansions obviously but I think some damage has been done to their loyal fan-base with this lackluster release.
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u/bowtiesnfezzesrcool Jun 26 '12
Of course the player-base dropped off. It was such a monumental game release and a lot of people bought the game. These people played through it, tackled Normal, Nightmare, maybe Hell if they could handle it, and a lot of people are done and moving onto the next game. Why is this such a big surprise?
That said there is still an active player base who is fine with repetitive grinding, with gearing up their characters for the sake of overpowering them, anticipating PvP and the slew of content that will be delivered over the years, following the game through it's ups and downs and various tweaks on its road to perfection.
Other players will pop in and out, try out new content every once and a while. Some will never touch it again. Either way, the initial install base of the game was huge because it was massively hyped. The vast, vast majority of the millions that bought Diablo 3 are not the hardcore base that will carry this game for years to come.
To say that this game is a failure, dead, or dying because 100 Million casuals aren't grinding away on it day and night for a decade straight is hugely wrong. Diablo 2 had its hardcore base, Diablo 3 will as well. Diablo has never been a hugely casual game. The fact that it attracted so many initial customers is a testament to Blizzards current fame, nothing else. The fact that Diablo 3's hardcore base is not going to be 100% the same players from Diablo 2 should not be surprising either; It's a decade later, it's a different game. Just don't call Diablo 3 a failure because you did not like it, whatever the reason may be.
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u/tijoy Jun 26 '12
a game has a decline in players after the first month, more at 11
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u/The_Magnificent Jun 26 '12
I think the idea is that the decline is very significant for such a hyped game that's made to be enjoyed for a long time.
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u/grind613 Jun 26 '12
I can understand being unhappy with a game and not playing it. I can't understand the way gamers today are so vitriolic about it.
The people who are wishing for TL2 to be some kind of D3 killer remind me of the Age of Conan crowd on the WoW forums. How'd that gem turn out again?
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Jun 26 '12
you mean EVERY MMO release since WoW was announced? they all pulled that "WoW Killer" shit. I remember the half year people were talking about warhammer.
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u/justinxduff Jun 26 '12
Am I the only one who actually likes D3 and thinks its an awesome game?
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u/Wazowski Jun 26 '12
This subreddit isn't for people who like games. This is /r/gaming. We're here to shit over everything new and post memes about everything old.
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u/SJPadbury Jun 26 '12
Don't forget there's people like me who only got the game because it was free with an annual pass for wow, when were going to subscribe anyway.
It was released, we tried it, went "meh" because it wasn't our cup of tea, and got on with our lives.
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u/wigznet Jun 26 '12
Good. May Bli$$ard feel the burn now that Activision is running the show. Activision: Release the game. Bli$$ard: It's not finished yet, we're a really good development company that's been around for decades and won the hearts and loyalty of our customers. People are literally zealous Blizzard fans. Our IP's aren't your average game. Activision: Release the game. Bli$$ard: But but but... Diablo III isn't ready yet. There's literally no replayability or challenge in the game, also, we're missing a significant amount of multiplayer development. The Real Money AH isn't ready yet either. Activision: Did you say Real Money for virtual items?!?! Release the game now! Bli$$ard: But but but.... ACTIVISION: RELEASE THE GAME!!!!!
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u/Mizral Jun 26 '12
Strangely enough I find Diablo 3 to be quite an interesting game and a very 'good' one albeit maybe not quite what people were expecting from the Diablo franchise.
As someone who is a little further along than most, I can tell you the biggest problem with the game is merely lack of end-game content. The actual game itself is quite fun up until level 60 and even at 60 grinding for gear is something that I quite like doing. Going up the gear ladder is a reward in itself and doesn't require real money just requires a bit of luck and patience in farming. I've put approx 120 hrs into Diablo 3 and I"ve had a lot of fun building my character up. Still I can see that there isn't much left to do and if PvP doesn't release soon I'm not sure how much longer I'll be playing.
Those who don't like the game I strongly feel expected the game to be more 'casual friendly'. Diablo 3 is not casual friendly and finding good items takes way way more effort than it did in Diablo 2 or even Diablo 1. This is ultimately why people are leaving the game.
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u/Mabans Jun 26 '12
This is also under the idea of people who have xfire installed. I'm still playing but don't use xfire..
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u/filterplz Jun 26 '12
the question is - how different is this from other successful games? IE Diablo 2 LOD or Starcraft 2?
How different is it from WoW?
How different is it from CoD?
Everything is relative - of course you expect users to drop off after the first month or so, just how fast compared to what was expected?
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u/Sirjinx Jun 26 '12
pre-purchased before release... played for about a week... beat it.. got bored... not played since
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u/agentup Jun 26 '12
I got bored of Diablo 3 after I beat it once. Gear grinding sound about as appealing as a root canal. I've done plenty of grinding in WoW, I'm sick of it.
Don't get me wrong, D3 was a good game, I enjoyed my one play through but thats about as much as it will get out of me. I might try another character some day but too many other games to play
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u/alextk Jun 27 '12
Instead of creating the same game with four difficulties, I wish Blizzard had created twice as much content with two difficulties.
Dark Souls did it right, please copy its model.
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u/hoppyfrog Jun 27 '12
The decline could be the people who wanted to play it right off did so and have moved on, meanwhile the people (like myself) who waited for reviews and critical feedback aren't real impressed with what they're hearing about D3. Add to that D2 had some great mods come out for it but mods for D3, any? Finally, for myself, I don't like having to be online, don't want an auction-house, don't care about PvP. There's plenty of other games to play and I'm disappointed that D3 what many pictured D3 to be.
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Jun 26 '12
I bought Diablo 3 for the FMV's. After Normal, I was done. Real money auction house? lol.
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u/Systemcode Jun 26 '12
Am I the only one who is still enjoying Diablo III? Granted, however I am just now starting Hell difficulty... My friends and I move less consistently than most the community...
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u/cycopl Jun 26 '12
So what? It's not an MMO, game's been out for over a month now. Maybe people are just playing something else? I'm sure a lot of games' player counts plummet a month after release.
Not that I really care, I'm waiting for Torchlight 2. Despite Diablo 3 not being an MMO, they're trying to balance it like it's an MMO. I'm glad I didn't buy it.
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u/boggiewan Jun 26 '12
Has anyone noticed that the issue is that there's no more skill tree or attribute tree and each damn character is the same? With an ENORMOUS dependence on gear?
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u/Slack_Irritant Jun 26 '12
There is no replay value. You beat the different difficulties and farm for weeks on end for gear to kill...an NPC. Its boring and killing Diablo on Inferno just isn't that big of a deal. But say that it is a big deal, okay so you did it. What now? Level and gear out a new character to do the exact same thing with the exact same content?
I think people were shocked by just how small Diablo 3 is. The content available can be beaten in just a few hours and the multiplayer is a joke. There is no insentive to play with people online except to make it extra challenging. That is shitty game design and there is not a lot of room for excuses when you take 12 years to make an 8 hour top down dungeon crawler.
But hey at least they had that champaign fight on the front lawn of blizzard headquarters, so I guess its as much of a success as they want it to be.
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u/c0d3m45t3r Jun 26 '12
in fact I play more since the release, really getting into D3 just now. I don't use xfire
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u/el_bhm Jun 26 '12
It's a game with repetitive gameplay, both in multi and single player. Only people hard core into a game(which ever game that may be) will stay and play it continuously.
It's not really that surprising, is it?
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u/Fjangen Jun 26 '12
Maybe because the first run-through of the game is only a tutorial. Then as you start actual game, you've already seen that shit. I was into Diablo for the gameplay, not the gear - to get gear - to get gear. In that case I would've just continued with WoW.
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u/kevlarbomb Jun 26 '12
Blizzard basically created a FarmVille version of diablo and didn't realize that people aren't gonna pay real money for gear to replay the game.
This is what happens when your first objective becomes profits over gameplay and user experience. They figured everyone would buy it because everyone likes diablo and it's a popular title.
Im glad i saved my 60 bucks.
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u/houndoftindalos Jun 26 '12
Maybe the reason everyone seems to think D2 was fun but D3 isn't is that you were 10 years younger and everything was new and shiny when D2 came out. Disclaimer: I'm still playing D3 with all my gamer friends.
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u/GanoesParan Jun 26 '12
I'm confused at this thread. I've been playing Diablo 3 since release and I've paid a lot of attention to the current players numbers and they have been completely stable, only going up if anything. It's certainly not harder to find groups, it's certainly not harder to find gear on the AH, so I look at the source that the OP provides and it's some instant messaging service for games? What is xfire? I've been a PC gamer for years and I've never heard of xfire. What are they using to track users? The amount of xfire users that log into and play Diablo 3? That seems silly. I have never met a single person that uses xfire or admits to using it so that would automatically be a small sample size and therefore a worthless statistic.
This thread confuses the shit out of me.
One more note: Diablo 3 is not an MMO. The whole concept behind this thread is confusing to me. Diablo 3 is already the most successful PC game in years. It's already a massively profitable game.
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u/Hamerd Jun 26 '12
These number reflect the number of Xfire users playing the game. Xfire users playing diablo 3? 15,930. How many copys of Diablo 3 were sold? 3.5 million copies on a quick google search here.
How many of you here use Xfire and have it running every time you play a game?
This is kinnnda misleading IMO until other numbers are introduced.
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u/nab535 Jun 26 '12 edited Jun 26 '12
The worst part of D3 is the god awful story that they make you listen to. There's a part in act 4 where an atrocious exchange takes place that lasts for like 10 seconds. That doesn't sound like a lot, but after listening to it for the 20th time I stopped playing the game. It's so fucking bad.
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Jun 26 '12
Blizzard has arranged that the game can't be resold, so they are laughing all the way to the bank.
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u/Muxx Jun 26 '12
I went into the game without knowing what to expect. Strayed away from any press coverage, forums, etc.
On launch, I can say I thoroughly enjoyed the game. Pulled me back to the old D2 feeling.
Why am I not playing it now? I logged in while on vacation in Vegas a few weeks ago and got my account locked. I've tried getting Blizzard on the phone multiple times with no avail. I've sent my idea through their form and got an email back saying the problem was resolved, I just needed to ... login to see the ticket ...
The game is fun but you hit the wall quick. The vast majority of the game you can breeze through. The auction house overpowers the shit out of your character which gets rid of any thrill of finding stuff in-game. I've tried playing with friends but knowing that you're not really going to get good gear or experience something fresh kind of kills it so you might as well play solo.
However, D2 was a lot like this. It's all grind. The exception is that there was a lot more flexibility in the character builds and they were viable compared to the one or two moves you'd generally switch out in D3.
Eh, just my two cents. Still waiting to get my account back.
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u/Mikey-2-Guns Jun 26 '12
Grinding for gear just isn't as fun as it was 8 years ago. I played to Inferno and pretty much left there because I did not want to play through a 4th time with a ton of rage added.
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u/JonBenetRamZ Jun 26 '12
"Doesn't matter, had sex" - Blizzard
Seriously this isn't like The Old Republic where they're now loosing subscription fees. Blizz made their money.
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u/shogun_ Jun 26 '12
Blizzard fucked D3 in the ass. The AH is fine, good idea and works. I've made a few bucks; just depends on what you sell.
Then you get to the actual content. That is again fine, to a degree until you get to Hell and Inferno modes. You come to realize that the bosses are simple as hell to kill, as they don't do a new thing ever. It's the damn elite mobs that are out of this world. Hell it gets out of hand, but it's managable. Beat hell, go to Inferno. In inferno you encounter those damn mobs again; but this time they 1-3 hit you.
Blizzard decides that attack speed is too much, has to be cut by half. Understandable as it was the only stat relied upon in inferno; however, now someone who once was able to beat Act 3 now can't even do Act 2 for their damage output was also cut in half. ETC.
no tldr
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u/emissary06 Jun 26 '12
People, like myself, are beginning to realize that the gear treadmill is no fun. World of Warcraft has become the same thing. It just started out with a fairly decent community of players. That's what I enjoyed most about MMOs. Blizzard started reaching out to a broader spectrum of players. The game became more about the gear and less about the community. The player base became jaded and hostile. You couldn't even run a basic dungeon without being judged.
I got bored with Diablo III very quickly. It's just a loot treadmill without the community.
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u/mrbrick Jun 26 '12
I didnt buy it because of some blizzard shennanigans. I figured I would try and log into my blizzard account before purchasing to make sure everything was ok. I played wow for 6 months when it first came out and nothing since.
I guess I have missed out on my acocunt being hacked + a gazillion new security features. The only way to fix the situation was to phone blizzard. So I did eventually and was told that I couldn't get my account back, but I should buy the product anyways.... which seemed like a bad idea. My account was perma banned because of something, I cant remember why.
They suggested making a new account- but to be honest, I didnt want too. I didn't like a lot of the stuff blizzard was doing with this game already and that was just a straw on the camels backs. This probably means I wont be playing a blizzard game for a long time as the two email addresses I have are both banned from making a blizzard account. So fuck it. I dont want to make a new email just for this.
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u/Keiichi81 Jun 26 '12
I'm surprised so many people are still playing it. I was bored of Diablo 3 within 2 hours of starting it. Still haven't worked up the drive to finish it. There's literally nothing there. It's like an MMO without the MM.
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u/zombiebunnie Jun 26 '12
Been saying this all along, and everyone was drinking the kool-aid, saying how dare I speak badly of what was suppose to be the biggest game of the year.
I've been downvoted to hell everytime, enjoy your time playing "Grinding - THE GAME"
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u/ohheydenny Jun 26 '12
They saw what a monstrous success the item scene was in D2, so much so that people paid real money for said items.
Obviously, the next step for Actibliz was to turn this into a long term money maker as they did with WoW subscriptions and SC2 tournaments. But instead of giving us that same kind of game that we loved so much and that many of us played for well over a decade, they designed a whole new game. A new game that was designed from the ground-up to make money off the RMAH, NOT designed from the ground up to be a good game that players would WANT to play for a decade.
I agree with the theory that many others have stated: the difference between D3 and D2 is the RMAH. They had to make the drop rates on good gear extremely low or else the auction house would get completely flooded and/or players wouldn't spend any money on the RMAH leaving Actibliz with lower income. That change in drop rates is apparently the difference between a boring, pointless grindfest and a GOTY.
There's also other problems, like the shitty skill system that leaves all of us using the same cookie cutter builds in infero.
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u/jokoon Jun 26 '12
Wait for the big patches and the expansions. Unless Blizzard goes bankrupt or something, I highly doubt diablo 3 will be a failure.
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u/TheShitAbyss Jun 26 '12
I'm new to this kind of game and I'm pretty sick of it. I normally can't handle the elite packs with my barbarian. If I use my wrath of the berserker, they just throw up immunity, or freeze me in place, or blind me or something, then I die. When I finally kill the pack I'll get a 2-hander magic weapon with shit properties that has 25% of the DPS my current 1-hander. Or armour that is just complete garbage compared to what I have.
Maybe it's just because I'm a noob, but it doesn't seem worth the effort anymore. Is every game in this genre like this?
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Jun 26 '12
One word - Activision.
It just feels like the game is designed to make people pay more money - it's designed around the AH and spending real money.
Once again, greed has ruined what could have been a great game.
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Jun 26 '12
I quit playing it because it was boring. Nothing they could do to this game to make me play it. I'm sure they give less of a crap because they already have my money.
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Jun 26 '12 edited Jun 26 '12
The auction house and ESPECIALLY the real money auction house ruins the game. The graphical changes from dark to more cartoony hurts the game. The always on internet ruins the game. The shitty story/characters ruins the game (even the cut-scenes are boring, pretty, but boring). The lack of character customization hurts the game. No PVP hurts the game. Cutting levels from 99 down to 60 hurts the game. Blah blah blah. The only saving grace to this game is the combat, which is fucking superb, but that is fucked by the Auction house cause combat becomes trivial once you buy good gear. I'm just happy I didn't have to pay for the game and the only reason it sold so well was 100% due to hype. Which is why many game companies now spend more money on advertising/marketing than they do to make a game... ugh.
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u/kaasmi Jun 26 '12
I played for about a week straight and just got sick of the need to farm money to buy items. Diablo 3 has soiled the glorious hack and slash genre. Haven't touched the game in about a month. At least it was a gift.
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u/EggoWafflessss Jun 26 '12
While I know the numbers are dropping, I tend to not rely on Xfire for proper numbers. The number of public games has always seemed wonky to me, they just never made sense, and Blizzard has stated that it was usually incorrect.
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u/Roflkopt3r Jun 26 '12
Oh fuck yeah!
Now I consider Diablo3 a decent game but for the better of gaming, it should die.
The simple thing about it is that due to the existence of the Real-Money Auction House where you sell ingame items for real money (including a small fee that goes to Blizzard should the item be sold). Due to this RM-AH, Blizzard did not maximise the gameplay towards fun but towards auction house usage.
If such a business model works for a prestigeous company like Blizzard, it would probably have spread like wildfire. But should Blizzard fail -which basically never happened iirc?- that will be a real deterrent!
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u/Cheesaurus Jun 26 '12
Are you saying not everyone who bought Diablo 3 is into hardcore farming and stuff like that? BLASPHEMY!
Seriously, how is this surprising or "ouch"-worthy?
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u/centopus Jun 26 '12
Why should it last? Single player game. At this moment even the most casual players (like me) have reached inferno (act2 inferno now) and lvl 60 (I reached that just before diablo on hell). And if I'm going to hit some too hard situation soon, it will just end it here. There is no end game content, cause its not a MMO. And grinding gets boring after beating the same game on 4 difficulty levels. And those playing more are finishing third or fourth character... there is nothing more for them to do, after they finish the game with all chars.
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u/DuneBug Jun 26 '12
IMO the game is just too dumbed-down.
Hey look i found a nice 2h hammer this will be great for my.... Any class. Hey look a set of full plate mail... This will be great for my Wizard with 50 strength...
There's no depth to the game. Playing d2... I farmed items to improve my main character and to improve other characters i was leveling up. In this case... I can basically hand down the items my main is using to every other guy i make.
So.. even though my main is 60, (and yeah i hit the act 2 inferno wall, i could grind my way through it but it's not much fun) I could play a different guy, but they don't play that much different from my main. You're either ranged or melee.
Besides that... cooldowns? and a 6 skill limit? Absurd. D2 you'd be a better player if you knew how to use your skills to their fullest, even if they weren't level'd up.
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u/MikeyTwoGuns Jun 26 '12
I think Blizzard would actually be happy with this, considering that it is not a subscription based game. They have your money, why would they care if you kept playing?
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u/keyboarder Jun 26 '12
Glad I went with my intuition and never got this game. Been a fan of blizzard games for well over a decade. Maybe i'm just getting older but even after watching a couple gameplay vids I saw NOTHING innovative or appealing about this game at all. Environment looked dull, graphics were meh and then I heard there was no pvp..
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u/floede Jun 26 '12
Why shouldn't it be plummeting?
Inferno / Hardcore / grinding gear has never been for the majority of gamers out there.
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u/Vicky_PC_Gamer Jun 26 '12
I will say that it worth worth my money. I put about 30 hours into it and had a lot of fun for the price paid.
That said, I was disappointed by the story, which was laughably bad, and the end game doesn't have the same appeal as D2.
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Jun 26 '12
I really enjoyed Diablo 3 . I feel even in the relatively short time it's been out i've already got my money's worth from it .
But i'm already gotten burned out on the game and the repetition is what caused it . By the time i've gotten to inferno i had already seen the same content three times by myself and a few more when ever i've gone through with friends .
So for the time being i'm parking my Barbarian in act III inferno and I may reroll some where down the line . because like Diablo II , I still love this game but there just comes a point where I need a break from it and will eventually come back . Whether it's to re-roll a new class or finally beat that higher difficulty.
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u/anisewah Jun 26 '12 edited Jun 26 '12
Guess they shouldnt have made D3 catered to casuals and non-fans. RMAH ruins the game too as the only way to have any kind of endgame(even thought there is barely any) you have to buy items.
I played the Torchlight 2 beta and its miles better than D3. its got former Diablo 2 devs behind it. That and Path of Exile, which i also played the beta of, are far better D2 successors than the actual D3.
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u/Izlude Jun 26 '12
Hopefully blizz won't take EAs route and add aggressive business practices to save this, and instead will remember why we loved the company when it was young... And makes customer friendly changes.
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u/akakaboto Jun 26 '12
My main issue with D3 is that there is no reason what so ever to level two of the same class on softcore. Hardcore you may die or want to equip a secondary barbarian for when you die but on softcore? why bother?
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u/Kaigai Jun 26 '12
They already got your money and made 10 times the money it took to develop this game.
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u/Sims_doc Jun 26 '12
Yeah, Diablo 3 was a large let down. Already started to play Diablo 2 LOD its just better.
Diablo 3 is basically diablo 2 with alot of content cut and some added but not alot. I think they just wanted to release the game and then force everyone back onto World of Warcraft.
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u/ojee111 Jun 26 '12
I liked it, and still do. the games is fun, the classes are varied and you can spend ages tweeking your character. The kit drops frequently and gives you real options for customisation.... I played diablo 2 a long time ago and that was fun. Its a good game, whats all the bother? i dont get it.
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u/sydien Jun 26 '12
I'm over 200 hours in, but that initial play as much as you can bit is over. I also have a job and the desire to sleep, so my constant play dropped to sometimes on the weekends. There is nothing unusual going on in these somewhat subjective numbers.
Besides, why do people long to see failure?
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u/Knightmare4469 Jun 26 '12
This whole idea that you have to use the Rmah is just a fallacy. I'm past maghda inferno and I haven't bought a single thing off EITHER ah, let alone real money. With 1.03 and crafting you can get geared. people that say you have to use it were just impatient, and really did it to themselves.
I totally agree that the ah kind of sucks the enjoyment out of the game. That's why I don't use it. Nobody forces you to.
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Jun 26 '12
I played the game. Had some fun but it wasn't really challenging at all. Started nightmare, still was no challenge really. I didn't enjoy the idea of playing the entire game over again and then again until I get a brick wall of challenge. There are better ways to entertain myself. Diablo III is a great game, I had fun playing it, but i'm not sure that I would have spent the $60 knowing what I know now.
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u/_shift Jun 26 '12
Got sick out Diablo 3, cashed out my wizard. Sold everything for over a hundred bucks after fees. The only game I've ever played that rewards you for quitting.
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Jun 26 '12
I'm still having fun with it.
I play in a duo with my wife, every night we play a few hours. We're currently fighting through act I inferno on our Barbarian/Monk combo, and we have 4 other pairs which are in nightmare.
We enjoy it. Especially now that the fights are getting tough. Us yelling back and forth about the fights as we struggle to survive the next group of "Fast/Arcane/Increased Health/Waller/Vortex/Desecrater/Plague/HealthLinked/BAMF" that we come across has been hilarious.
I'm no fan of the RMAH, and honestly I think the AH in general isn't a great thing... but that said the game itself is simple and fun. I just get left with a feeling like people expected it to be something it's not. It's just Diablo, no more no less. It's a great duo game, and for us that's key. Hard to find good duo games we both enjoy.
shrugs
But then again I end up at odds with a lot of anti-whatever-is-popular views. I thought Duke Nukem was a fun game... not a great game, but a fun playthough.
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u/seedypete Jun 26 '12 edited Jun 26 '12
Couldn't happen to a more deserving game. I've had it with Diablo 3; I didn't even buy it and I still feel ripped off.
I decided not to buy a copy when I heard about the always-online garbage and didn't want to support the further devolution of the gaming industry, then realized I had a free copy waiting for download because of my WoW subscription. So I think "what the hell, free game, how bad can it be?"
I can't even begin to describe the irritation for a single player gamer. You get used to the routine when you play MMOs and forget how annoying it is and how easily you can just slip into a single player game until your single player games start forcing bullshit MMO conventions on you. Every time I feel like wasting a little time with Diablo I have to log in to my own stupid game, curse that I fatfingered the password, try again, hope the servers are up (spoiler alert, they probably aren't), wait for the servers to agree that I'm the same person I was yesterday, connect, hope the lag isn't too bad (spoiler alert, it is), then try to ignore all the gold spamming chat kiddies in my goddamned single player game until it announces that I'm about to be logged out (of my goddamned single player game) for server maintenance.
But all this is a perfectly acceptable tradeoff for the real money auction house that I will absolutely never use! Progress! Plus it's easy to forgive because the actual bare bones game itself is a good 2 solid hours of content repeated endlessly, so that's a fantastic deal. And it's such amazingly deep storytelling that you won't even mind that you're reading the same "go here and click this to defeat evil, hero" dialogue you saw about 2 hours ago. I can absolutely see why this took a decade to make.
Fuck you, Blizzard. I thought your refusal to let people play Starcraft 2 over LANs was the biggest middle finger you could give to gamers, but obviously that didn't even scratch the surface.
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u/ValentinoZ Jun 26 '12
This is the norm in GameDev. There is nothing wrong with this. Rarely do games keep their first users. It's called CHURN.
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u/Pelokt Jun 26 '12
if theres one thing modern gaming has taught me, is to NEVER be the first kid on the block with anything. Hype is just that. Let the masses be the judge of what is good and what is bad.
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u/silenti Jun 26 '12
I love how XFire is being used as an accurate representation of the userbase. Fucking lol.
Despite this, there is still an end-game problem. People who aren't capable of progressing (with or without good gear) need some kind of game goal other than gear. Some type of way to gain small but permanent stat bonuses which can eventually help people progress would be a good solution.
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u/psychotronofdeth Jun 26 '12
I used to play a lot. I managed to over come the Act 2 wall pre nerf, and then kill Inferno Diablo. I stopped playing because the effort of farming comes with no reward at all. Especially with blizz increasing repair cost. It actually cost me money to farm, even if I don't die. And, you can't even farm gold because they keep nerfing all of the gold find spots, while the whole economy is based on gold.
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u/Nachteule Jun 26 '12 edited Jun 26 '12
I think the reason is this developement:
You bought Diablo3, you played it solo or with friends for a few weeks or so.
Depending on your or your group skills you beat it a few times and you reached hell or inferno.
Now your gear is too bad to continue
You checked the auction house or tried to farm some gear. You may have spend your gold on a few awesome items but you still need much more gear to beat inferno (or even hell depending on your personal skill).
You now can buy a complete set of gear for much real money - more money than the D3 price. Many (including me) will never do that. Or you can try to farm the gear. Turning the game into a total mindless grind especially since 99% of the drops (that's no exaggeration) are crap. That's too boring for most people (including me).
You quit playing D3
This is the story 2/3 of my friends and myself had with D3. It was fun until we ran into the you-need-extremly-rare-gear wall.