@TudsGamol said:

"But I had da funzez! And for 60 hours guyz!"

It's a game. If he had fun with it, then of course he's going to rate it highly. That's what games are for.

@celestria said:

@Korolev: arent u ppl even reading?

Technically, they havent added any new meaningful content. Just reasons to keep playing the old content.

I believe what Korolev refers to is new areas/enemies/bosses/quests etc.

I haven't touched D3 since early June, and honestly don't even know if it's still installed on my computer. While these changes sounds pretty neat, I honestly don't know if I'll jump back in. Inferno pissed me off too much, and the constant grind didn't interest me as much as it should (probably because it felt I was making zero progress). And with other games being released that will keep me occupied (Darksiders II, Borderlands 2, XCOM: Enemy Unknown), and between college studies, I just don't know what spare time I'll have for D3.

That said, I'll probably give it some hours here and there whenever I have spare time from studies, and the girlfriend is hogging the TV.

@SpunkyHePanda said:

@Example1013 said:

Or they could just not be total dickheads and increase the drop rate for gear useful to your class. Wait, this is the Diablo III team we're talking about. Nevermind.

Elites are being made less powerful (and having their enrage timers and ability to fully heal removed), magic drop rates on regular enemies are being multiplied by four, legendary gear is being considerably improved, unpopular skills are being made more useful, and this new system allows you to make some kind of progress even when you're not getting the drops you want, actually helps you get better drops the more you play, and lets you ditch that magic find gear for more practical combat gear. Your specific wish isn't there, but it all seems to be in service of making the game more fun. Pretty non-dickhead move, if you ask me.

And to think, all of that just so they can avoid implementing class-friendly drops and keep everyone going to the Auction House for gear upgrades. Oh wow, more levels? Yeah that's exactly what I want when PvP isn't even fucking released yet. Oh and I'm sure the whole Paragon thing will be nice and balanced when PvP comes around. Nevermind the giant "fuck you" to people who invested in Magic Find gear, the same way they did to people who invested in Attack Speed gear. People who paid real money, a substantial portion of which went to Blizzard through the RMAH, I might add. Congrats, now we can all go grind Act II or whatever it is people farm now for another 3 days to stack the next FoTM stat, with the expectation that we get to repeat the process next patch, when it gets nerfed.

Diablo III at release, and even now, is the beta. Everyone paid $60 for a beta, and everyone still playing is a beta tester finding the exploits Blizzard didn't get through focus testing. The "beta" was a public preview with no efforts made to actually fucking test and balance high-level content, and PvP doesn't even have a release date. None of this shit is friendly to the consumers who purchased the product, and the game designers still have their heads up their asses as to what the ACTUAL problems are, trying their hardest to avoid them and stick with the shitty design decisions they made.

I have like 10k gold from Inferno (besides shit spent on repairs) just from spending money trying to get level 60 gear, and I still have some low 50s shit on Inferno (not to mention some of the decent gear I was given has been nerfed to hell now and needs to be replaced), and even then I can't handle a decent amount of the elite packs. You know what I need to do to get gear that allows me to progress? I have to farm for fucking hours over the same fucking content that I've already done 20 times in previous playthroughs, because I'm still in early Act I and can't even get past the Skeleton King in current gear. Do you know what single in-game task I find to be most irrepressibly boring? Farming. I avoid farming whenever possible, and when I do have to farm I expect it to be the easiest, most brainless task possible. Instead it's a fucking epic conflict to get repair money and maybe enough to look for an upgrade on the Auction House, because of course I'm not going to find an upgrade for my class in the game itself. Being able to progress on your own merit/accomplishments? That would just make too much sense.

And then of course, there's no reward for taking on harder elite packs, so I could spend half an hour and break most of my gear on an asshole pack and get nothing (did this once because I had 5 nephalem stacks), then get an easy pack the next one up and of course get some decent drop (although AGAIN, NOT FOR MY CLASS). Real sense of accomplishment there, for sure.

Do you actually think my problem with the game was having to wear magic find gear? Do you think my problem was the drop rate? Do you think my problem was the difficulty? Do you think my problem was the Legendaries I never could afford anyways? I don't want a fucking bone of "oh here's this small incremental level advantage to make up for your shitty gear, have fun farming". I want to actually be able to find upgrades in the game, and be able to progress both by myself and in a reasonable amount of time. I don't care about elites being hard, and I don't want them nerfed. I want the drops to be buffed for the hard elites so it's worth spending the time to kill them. I want to actually get something. I spent half an hour in Demon's Souls killing the giant red dragon at the beginning of World 2, and you know what I got? I got a shitton of souls and a unique soul for some special shit that was actually like, totally awesome and worth my time. I spent a half hour trying to kill an asshole elite pack, and you know what I got? A fucking bill, because I couldn't kill them in my shitty gear, and I had to reload to just get some money for repairs on my gear, half of which was broken.

I like exploring new areas, finding awesome new loot, and killing interesting and challenging enemies for great rewards. You know what I just described? Every ARPG I've played ever, other than Diablo III. In Diablo III I get to see the same exact fucking map, give or take a couple doorways, I get to find a bunch of ultimately useless gear specific to every class but mine (all the gear I get for my class is shitty), and the enemies range from kill in 30 seconds to spend an hour never being able to kill, with literally nothing to distinguish the two but difficulty, even though I'm ostensibly challenging the enemies for the shitty loot that I'll either throw out or sell. It's just a giant fucking grind with no sense of accomplishment, and these new changes will do fuck-all to alter that.

This new system sound great. I am now excited to reach level 60.

@Example1013:

Its a huge mistake to think that a Diablo game will ever drop loot just to cater to your class needs.

I like Diablo III. Playing wiht a fried is great, but the mobs on Inferno had waaaaay too much health with 2+ players. Thankfully this patch will get rid of that, plus make the game actually meaningful past level 60.

And even if I sound topical, if you don't like it, don't play it. I don't understand the need of some people to force others into not playing Diablo III.

@celestria: Stop it. The quality of the game and my enjoyment of it, does not correlate with how much of dick is the Game Director. There's a shitload more people involved with making the game than just him. So shut up, we get it: he made a dick comment on the Internet. Sue him.

@Example1013: Dude, whoa, chill out. Holy shit.

@Phatmac said:

Too late Blizzard.

Too late for what exactly? No one is paying fees for this, everyone already bought the game, so essentially Blizzard already won.

Uh... Will we be getting more of the world? Because... It's getting tiresome seeing the same places over and over again.

I can sense that this was an expansion feature, but due to the backlash of the end game they have been forced to focus development on it for an early patch/

hmm, maybe i should try this game someday..

@TudsGamol said:

Funny how a game that was 5/5 on release needs so much changed and added to it in order to keep a rapidly falling playerbase/revenue stream. I'd really like to see Brads' low-standards "But I had da funzez! And for 60 hours guyz!" review be revisited, or maybe re-reviewed post 1.1 PVP (somehow that huge feature wasnt necessary for a PERFECT score either). Yes, I am a "butthurt" ex-fan of the diablo series, I admit that. Its just so disappointing to see what little critical intelligent analysis goes in to a revew around here post-CBS failure-sale.

How is this at all (aside for the lack of PVP) unlike Blizzard? They have a long history of balancing and adding features post launch, hell they still patch Brood War. It's also a bit unfair to expect a reviewer to play through every difficulty of a game or beyond 60 hours because obviously they have schedules and other games to play and review. Also 5 stars != perfect, they've said in the past they don't like people interpreting stars like number scores, they endlessly poke fun at the gamespot rating system in the bombcast, whenever someone mentions a score like "4 stars" someone else chimes in, "that makes it a great game right?"

@TudsGamol said:

Funny how a game that was 5/5 on release needs so much changed and added to it in order to keep a rapidly falling playerbase/revenue stream. I'd really like to see Brads' low-standards "But I had da funzez! And for 60 hours guyz!" review be revisited, or maybe re-reviewed post 1.1 PVP (somehow that huge feature wasnt necessary for a PERFECT score either). Yes, I am a "butthurt" ex-fan of the diablo series, I admit that. Its just so disappointing to see what little critical intelligent analysis goes in to a revew around here post-CBS failure-sale.

I wouldn't call "having fun for 60 hours" a fail at all. And Brad's review wasn't "low-standards" either; considering most games on the market now won't get you fun for 8 hours, let alone a number more than seven times that amount, I'd say it's an appropriate score, IF that's what the scores meant. What that score actually means is that Brad really enjoys the game (So did Jeff, Ryan and Vinny at least) and thinks it's a good purchase.

If you think GB has gone downhill, an opinion I don't share but you are welcome to have, why are you coming back and commenting?

Finally, a Quote from the Giant Bomb style guide

Jeff Gerstmann, via the GB Style guide said:

While we don't believe any game is perfect, we recommend this game without reservation.

This may actually get me to return to Diablo 3(, eventually). I did want to finish Inferno, and this gives me something to do while constantly failing at that.

The problem here, in my opinion, is that Blizzard have set up the expectation that their games are endless fonts of fun that can be returned to for an infinite amount of time. Maybe after you exhaust the content the game is over. Maybe that's an ok thing.

The fundamental issues that Blizzard are not addressing with all these balance changes and mathematical additions is that what players really enjoy is CONTENT.

If they want to sustain an audience beyond the length of the game they created they should create more game. Take some of the money they're earning from the auction house and start building additional acts. Give players something to play with. I think that would be a far more successful strategy than giving players a meaningles +1 counter to grind against.

This Blizzard-created idea that balance changes can fix any problem and make anything infinitely fun is really hurting the company, in my opinion.

Lol

In order to get to level 60 the game has to be fun first. They blew it and now they're scrambling, almost feels like cutting and pasting shit to the game. Thanks but no thanks, pointless grinds feel like desperation to hoodwink players. Nothing Blizz can do to this game will remove the RMAH stink it has.

I thought these guys were making a Diablo game(for 8 years?), the core mechanics are no-brainers. Did not D2:LoD show them anything?

Instead they bogged everything down and curtailed the item hunt. Nice job

Cockamamie storyline, invasively implemented. Terrible follower implementation, they really need to shut the fuck up. That shit will likely not be patched away.

I love the intentionally decreased item levels before Inferno so the AH is ALWAYS the go-to option. Fun Factor Zero!

I had seriously thought to wait for an expansion or even wait until the first Battlechest, specifically because of the AH/RMAH and I didn't. I ran out like a fricken idiot and bought it after the server issues seemed tolerable.

Really what more is there to say. I do not like getting taken and taken I have been. Fool me twice? HELL NO!

Just like WoW, instead of fixing the main issues they will just keep adding stuff to the game. Things people never wanted in the first place.

@Chris said:

The problem here, in my opinion, is that Blizzard have set up the expectation that their games are endless fonts of fun that can be returned to for an infinite amount of time. Maybe after you exhaust the content the game is over. Maybe that's an ok thing.

The fundamental issues that Blizzard are not addressing with all these balance changes and mathematical additions is that what players really enjoy is CONTENT.

If they want to sustain an audience beyond the length of the game they created they should create more game. Take some of the money they're earning from the auction house and start building additional acts. Give players something to play with. I think that would be a far more successful strategy than giving players a meaningles +1 counter to grind against.

This Blizzard-created idea that balance changes can fix any problem and make anything infinitely fun is really hurting the company, in my opinion.

I have always had issues with their "balance" changes, specifically because its a single player game for a lot of people and also because its a dungeon crawler, where the goal is to kill as many monsters and find as much loot as possible. I hate that they treat this game like Starcraft where they have to continuously balance skills to make the game "better." Diablo is not a competitive RTS, or a competitive game in any form. To say it takes "skill" to beat the hard parts is just a stretch because the game is 95% based on your gear which is what they purposely make ridiculously hard to get. Why can't some of the class skills be a little over powered? Diablo is just supposed to be about having fun grinding for loot and crushing everything in your path. Its just pointing and clicking so the whole way they change how spells and items work all the time just seems silly, especially when they think nerfing cool spells is gonna make players happy because the game will be so perfectly balanced. I iwsh they would just stop thinking "what would make this game balanced (but really unbalanced to try to force people to use RMAH) and instead think "what would make this game fun."

@thehuntsmen5434 said:

Just like WoW, instead of fixing the main issues they will just keep adding stuff to the game. Things people never wanted in the first place.

What?

This is exactly what people wanted. You grind out a million, billion, quadripintilizillion levels for a humptillion hours, and you get 300% Item/Gold find, and then you punch Diablo over and over and over again, and he'll perpetually drop loot -- and not just that, but good uniques.

It's Diablo 2!

(just without mephisto. :( )

(edit: ...and no pvp. when is that being added?)

Done with hearing about Diablo 3. Bring on Torchlight 2.

@eightboy said:

"Paragon"'s not a new endgame system, it's just a superfluos extra that doesn't fix anything sadly. :(

that's how it feels to me too. 100 more levels that will be as long as the 1-99 diablo 2 grind which some of us have already gone through...

They'll need to add a substantial amount of new content, like a new storyline/expansion's worth of content, if I'm to be interested in playing it again. I had a good run, but after having finished and played the same game over and over so many times I'm reluctant to get back into it... that, and I'm still in the same situation that 1.0.3 put me in, so it doesn't really solve anything for me.

Cool, can't wait. 

niceee

@Xymox said:

@eightboy said:

"Paragon"'s not a new endgame system, it's just a superfluos extra that doesn't fix anything sadly. :(

that's how it feels to me too. 100 more levels that will be as long as the 1-99 diablo 2 grind which some of us have already gone through...

They'll need to add a substantial amount of new content, like a new storyline/expansion's worth of content, if I'm to be interested in playing it again. I had a good run, but after having finished and played the same game over and over so many times I'm reluctant to get back into it... that, and I'm still in the same situation that 1.0.3 put me in, so it doesn't really solve anything for me.

There is no fix to players burning insane amount of time in a single game. I still haven't made it to 60, having fun with the game.

Intrigued but not sure it can pull me away from GW2.

i dont know man, playing the campaign another 5 or 6 times? i dont think i have it in me.

Stoked! Love me some D3. I'm really excited for the new Legendaries.

Come on Blizz let the game die

Played this a few weeks at launch but put it down. 1.04 with legendary weapon changes, skill changes, paragon system and a few other changes may actually get me to try this one more time :).

What if I want to go renegade?

This seems like a reasonable solution. It'll be interesting to see how players find it in practise.

@doosmacleod said:

@thehuntsmen5434 said:

Just like WoW, instead of fixing the main issues they will just keep adding stuff to the game. Things people never wanted in the first place.

What?

This is exactly what people wanted. You grind out a million, billion, quadripintilizillion levels for a humptillion hours, and you get 300% Item/Gold find, and then you punch Diablo over and over and over again, and he'll perpetually drop loot -- and not just that, but good uniques.

It's Diablo 2!

(just without mephisto. :( )

(edit: ...and no pvp. when is that being added?)

I think that they people who played Diablo II hardcore (I don't mean the perma-death setting) really don't know what they want. They think they do, but they don't. It's a lot of nostalgia. Is it really "fun" to spend hours building a character towards some build only to discover that you don't actually like that playstyle? It gives a game more replay value, yes, but at what cost? Were they actually having "fun" grinding bosses for hours on end or if they are just recalling those occasional cool moments when something nice dropped. I mean, if it was so much fun to kill Pindleskin a million times, why were so many people botting it? ; )

As seems to be the case with new Blizzard games, they are caught between a rock and a hard place. Either a ton of people will bitch that their design is too conservative and they didn't really change much, or a ton of people will bitch that something isn't enough like the previous thing.

It won't be long before their forums are right back to being filled with first-world-problems melodrama again. A day in the life of Blizzard.

I played a character to level 53 in a game that has 4 levels. It reminds me of the time I watched a video of Jeff G. playing solitaire in windows 8.

blizzard, just admit it. you failed again.

@Tarsier said:

blizzard, just admit it. you failed again.

At least give them credit for trying to improve the game and listening to the user feedback.

But wheres the pvp?

@peritus said:

i dont know man, playing the campaign another 5 or 6 times? i dont think i have it in me.

Especiallly with all the missing attention to details, where you have to meet your artisans and followers again, even though you already have them from the beginning. What the hell Blizzard, you're better than this.

Fuck that loser who came up with that idea.

@Wilshere said:

@Tarsier said:

blizzard, just admit it. you failed again.

At least give them credit for trying to improve the game and listening to the user feedback.

Its nice of you to pretend they werent dragged into this patch kicking and screaming. From Morehime's non-apology, to the excuse and ignore filled blog posts that accompany these changes. Blizzard the company has taken a very insular and anti-customer track in the last little while. They took the complaints about the colour palette and mocked their customer's feedback by making the reactionary rainbow level. Do you tihnk that design is anything aside from naked comptempt bubbling up to the surface? They have their haeds up their asses and really did not want to make these changes, because in their collective minds, they are still right about the design.

Its ok to criticize a corporation, they have pople that payoff the right outlets with junkets in order to smooth all criticism over. Non-industry people standing up and being vocal is the only thing that got them to improve their broken and unsatisfying game.

@Wilshere said:

@Tarsier said:

blizzard, just admit it. you failed again.

At least give them credit for trying to improve the game and listening to the user feedback.

Tarsier has a point. Why try to make something better when you can just say "oops!" and call it a day? A real go-getter, this guy.

@SpunkyHePanda said:

@Wilshere said:

@Tarsier said:

blizzard, just admit it. you failed again.

At least give them credit for trying to improve the game and listening to the user feedback.

Tarsier has a point. Why try to make something better when you can just say "oops!" and call it a day? A real go-getter, this guy.

The actual game of Diablo 3 was the fabled 10 years of waiting.

One you find fault with the game, you win! The game is over!

Nice something for my lvl 60 monk to do beside sit there because I have no interest in grinding inferno.

@Paul_Is_Drunk said:

@_Horde

Sounds good!

But also, generic internet comment included: whiiiine

I read your post as: Generic internet comment. But also, generic internet comment included: whiiiine

You lie. I've never heard anyone being postive about anything on the internet!

@TudsGamol said:

Its nice of you to pretend they werent dragged into this patch kicking and screaming. From Morehime's non-apology, to the excuse and ignore filled blog posts that accompany these changes. Blizzard the company has taken a very insular and anti-customer track in the last little while. They took the complaints about the colour palette and mocked their customer's feedback by making the reactionary rainbow level. Do you tihnk that design is anything aside from naked comptempt bubbling up to the surface? They have their haeds up their asses and really did not want to make these changes, because in their collective minds, they are still right about the design.

Its ok to criticize a corporation, they have pople that payoff the right outlets with junkets in order to smooth all criticism over. Non-industry people standing up and being vocal is the only thing that got them to improve their broken and unsatisfying game.

What is it about you super passionate anti-Blizzard posters that fills you all that entitlement? Your post is seemingly full of paranoid delusions that Blizzard secretly hates their fans and is purposely antagonizing vocal minorities within the community. It's not your game, get over it.

Its nice of you to pretend they werent dragged into this patch kicking and screaming. From Morehime's non-apology, to the excuse and ignore filled blog posts that accompany these changes. Blizzard the company has taken a very insular and anti-customer track in the last little while. They took the complaints about the colour palette and mocked their customer's feedback by making the reactionary rainbow level. Do you tihnk that design is anything aside from naked comptempt bubbling up to the surface? They have their haeds up their asses and really did not want to make these changes, because in their collective minds, they are still right about the design.

Its ok to criticize a corporation, they have pople that payoff the right outlets with junkets in order to smooth all criticism over. Non-industry people standing up and being vocal is the only thing that got them to improve their broken and unsatisfying game.

If Blizzard ever releases a non-online DRM version of Diablo III, then I'm in. I'm also content to not play it, not because I think it's a poor game, I actually think it's a really good game... however that comes with a crappy online DRM. I'm not interested in that.

@Tiny_Tank said:

Nice something for my lvl 60 monk to do beside sit there because I have no interest in grinding inferno.

Agreed. I had a lot of fun with Diablo III, but once I hit 60, it became frustrating and boring.

@Wilshere said:

@Example1013:

Its a huge mistake to think that a Diablo game will ever drop loot just to cater to your class needs.

There's a difference between bad drops and designing a system to specifically require out-of-game trading for any kind of useful gear. I just want to be able to acquire useful gear through normal gameplay, which is anathema to the D3 team's design philosophy regarding loot. Sorry if I think it's retarded, backwards, and extremely unfun to have to go to the Auction House just so I can get gear good enough to progress with. I've been playing Diablo-clone ARPGs for 10 years now, so I guess I don't really know what I want as a consumer of this type of game.

If you made all the bad decisions, You'll end up in Renegade mode and your portrait glows red!

Pushing dudes out of windows not guarenteed