I'll expand. I finished the campaign as a monk (which I loved playing as), and I started a couple different characters going through the first 45 minutes or so with each just testing out different classes when I was done. I thought it was good, though it seemed a little auto-pilot for my taste (I was playing Normal difficulty because I'm a weenie).

I keep taking a look at the Reaper of Souls expansion and thinking about getting it, but I've never bought a Blizzard expansion.

So, does it offer a lot of content for the value that as someone who wasn't in love with the game I would probably like? I like lots of loot and abilities to unlock over time, which I felt like the base game did decently well enough to keep me engaged with leveling my character. Did anyone else get it and enjoy it?

I'm curious, too. I spent 24 hours with vanilla Diablo III upon release, but I'm really curious how much has actually changed.

@mbradley1992: @csl316: It adds a ton more to the end game and makes playing with a single character for hundreds of hours worthwhile. The Crusader class is pretty dope as well.

It's got ten more levels, a new act, and a really fun new class, along with a new endgame mode. It's really worth it!

RoS is a lot better than D3 was except for bizarre memories of being one shot by everything, hating wasps, and spending most of your time browsing the auction house. It isn't better than Titan Quest and it doesn't really "evolve" the very very old and easy to innovate formula of D2 clones but its still a perfectly competent game. The new (2.1 patch) stuff is really good and greater rifts are like an ever shifting impossible challenge if that's your thing (though it will eventually stagnate but hopefully they patch it by then, if you play hardcore it doesn't matter cause you'll be dead long before stagnation; that's what greater rifts do).

@corruptedevil: I played a monk and thought of trying a demon hunter in Reaper... but I keep hearing what you said, Crusader is dope.

If you played a monk I can't recommend playing crusader next. They're too similar.

@csl316: @mbradley1992:

Reaper of Souls adds new end-game content such as Rifts, Greater Rifts (PC only) and Bounties. These new features are unlocked after you beat the new fifth act, which unlocks "Adventure Mode". Adventure mode contains a series of random bounties spread across 5 areas in an act. You can travel freely between acts to complete as many bounties as you want and get rewards. It's a fun way to level up that is more varied than just going through the campaign again.

A specific reward item for completing bounties is an item called a "Rift Fragment Key". You can use these to open a portal in town to something of a challenge area. A Rift consists of navigating your way through random maps with random enemies and killing them until the Rift Guardian appears. Rift Guardians have a higher chance to drop better loot (not to mention the Rifts themselves are usually packed with mobs of enemies). Again, Rifts are a nice change of pace for leveling characters and getting loot.

You only need to beat the campaign with 1 character to unlock Adventure mode. So, once you beat Act 5 for the first time, you can use Adventure mode with any new character. You can go from 1-70 without touching the Campaign again, if you choose to.

With the recent 2.1 patch on PC, Greater Rifts are a new addition to Diablo 3. When you kill a regular Rift Guardian, they have a chance to drop a Keystone of Trials. You can take this item to the Rift portal and participate in a trial to see which level of Greater Rift you should start from. They range from 1-35+, each one increasing the difficulty. The same rules as a regular Rift apply here, random maps, random enemies. Few different things though, you only have 15 minutes to kill enough enemies to get the Greater Rift Guardian to appear. Also, the enemies in the map drop no loot. All the loot for the Greater Rift comes from the Guardian (often containing 2-3 Legendaries). At the end of a Greater Rift, you have a choice to upgrade your keystone and continue doing more Greater Rifts or upgrade any Legendary Gems that may have dropped from the Greater Rift Guardian.

This is just a small sample of stuff they've improved. They removed the Auction Houses and improved the quality of item drops (and Legendary drop rates). The game is MUCH more fun than it used to be. It's done a complete 180 than what it used to be.

If you enjoy the game and want a reason to go, Reaper of Souls is a must.

Wow, so it sounds like it's much more than just a new act and some missions. That's good to hear. I might pick it up then, since it could be a good "down time" game between big releases this fall.

Just to clarify something here - if you take more than 15 minutes to finish the progress bar on a Greater Rift, the guardian still appears and drops loot but the only option is to then upgrade a legendary gem. You only get the option to upgrade your greater rift key to the next level if you kill the guardian in under 15 minutes.

RoS is really the only reason to play D3 more than once, imo.

I got Torchlight II on Steam for around $5 on a sale. Van Helsing I an II are both on sale (this week) on Steam for $7.5. These are all good Diablo clones that are much better value than the $40 Diablo III expansion.

Or is what I say blasphemy on a Diablo III thread?

@memu: Really? I have Torchlight 1 and 2 but they are in my Steam backlog of shame. So maybe go through those instead??

torchlight 2 is a good game but it just seems overly clunky and kind of slow in comparison. D3 is just a better playing game and without a lot of the pointless minutiae and granularity of systems.

@ripelivejam said:

The gameplay is great, but a big thing about Diablo for me is the atmosphere and the ridiculous Heavy Metal Album Cover artwork. I've played many an Action RPG, and none of them have given me the same kind of feeling that Diablo does.

I guess what I'm saying is that if it's just gameplay you want, sure, why not play something that isn't Diablo? But if it's the gameplay + the music + the art + the atmosphere and everything else that makes Diablo, well, Diablo; I see no reason not to dip into the Reaper of Souls expansion.

Yes. The game got exponentially better imo, and the bounties, rifts, and mystic are the biggest reasons.