Diablo 3's Inferno Mode Is Brilliantly Unfair

Perhaps I've spent too much time reading around the Diablo 3 forums (although "too much" is very little time there), but it seems the game's biggest fans are the people whining and bitching about it most. Diablo seems to have the same thing going against it that WoW does; people don't play it, stop feeling satisfied, and look back on a good gaming experience. They play and play and play until they hate it.

I'm writing out of my ass here, so this may seem a bit unfocused, but my big issue is not the whiny, under-appreciative community, but rather the issues they're whining about. 98% of posts and conversations I've had with burnt out, ranting ex-players complain about Inferno mode being unfairly difficult.

You've already beaten the game three times with just that character. Isn't it about time the game got its revenge?

I think the difficulty wall of hitting Inferno mode (more-so act 2 than 1) is brilliant. It encourages the players to rethink not only how they're playing that specific character, but the whole game. It's an unfairly difficult goal to achieve so you have something huge to strive for. On the other hand, if you don't enjoy this type of tough love, Inferno mode should be pushing you to try expanding what the game is about. Try out a new class! You still have three difficulties of fun with four more unique classes! Try Hardcore mode where the game is still easy, but far more intense with what's on the line! Go achievement hunting. There's some really fun ones (and some frustrating ones). If you have any buddies that haven't played yet, get them into it and play some non-public co-op. If it's Act 2 you're stuck on, play Act 1 again!

My point here is that people complaining about Inferno act like it's the only thing to do in the game. I think their frustration should be encouraging them to try a different aspect of what the game has to offer.

Perhaps I've spent too much time reading around the Diablo 3 forums (although "too much" is very little time there), but it seems the game's biggest fans are the people whining and bitching about it most. Diablo seems to have the same thing going against it that WoW does; people don't play it, stop feeling satisfied, and look back on a good gaming experience. They play and play and play until they hate it.

I'm writing out of my ass here, so this may seem a bit unfocused, but my big issue is not the whiny, under-appreciative community, but rather the issues they're whining about. 98% of posts and conversations I've had with burnt out, ranting ex-players complain about Inferno mode being unfairly difficult.

You've already beaten the game three times with just that character. Isn't it about time the game got its revenge?

I think the difficulty wall of hitting Inferno mode (more-so act 2 than 1) is brilliant. It encourages the players to rethink not only how they're playing that specific character, but the whole game. It's an unfairly difficult goal to achieve so you have something huge to strive for. On the other hand, if you don't enjoy this type of tough love, Inferno mode should be pushing you to try expanding what the game is about. Try out a new class! You still have three difficulties of fun with four more unique classes! Try Hardcore mode where the game is still easy, but far more intense with what's on the line! Go achievement hunting. There's some really fun ones (and some frustrating ones). If you have any buddies that haven't played yet, get them into it and play some non-public co-op. If it's Act 2 you're stuck on, play Act 1 again!

My point here is that people complaining about Inferno act like it's the only thing to do in the game. I think their frustration should be encouraging them to try a different aspect of what the game has to offer.

I wouldn't know, I gave up on that broken ass game a fair while ago.

D3 sucks. i like played it for 400 hours and it got like really boring and i play something else now thats not boring, but what im playing now might be come boring if i play it to long and then i'l play some thing else and say that that game sucks cos its boring.

I love being hit by a difficulty wall and going like "Ok, maybe revise my gear/spec/plan of approach" but Inferno didn't seem to be fully balanced.
My Witch Doctor had a okay time with it, my Barbarian got ten shades of pain and my Wizard lollerskated through it, and she had the worst gear (and spec, because I use the strangest spells).
 
I'm one for grinds, but I played so much of Act 1 that I'm just done with the entire game now.
There's no real progression since the loot is too random (and often sub par) and in a linear (its not as random as they'd like me to believe) game like this you can't ask me to run a bit over and over again to get several million gold for a upgrade from the Auction House.
 
The game entertained me though, I leveled 3 characters to 60, got a hardcore Demon Hunter up to 45 and have a Monk floating around 37.
I got my 40 bucks out of it by a mile.
People seem to expect this to be a mmo that never ends, like Warcraft.

I didn't even reach inferno, the game just got too boring.

I don't think a game should ever get revenge on you because I paid to have fun. I enjoy a good challenge but I didn't see one in inferno. Since my main was a monk I was outright fucked as a melee character. The whole idea is to be hitting things really fast and replenishing spirit/health but Inferno almost forces you to start using a shield which ruins a monk build. I didn't see a "better" way to play the game in order to advance through the harder difficulty wall. I just saw a gigantic wall to grind down in order to buy much better gear on the Auction House - because lord knows it wasn't going to drop anytime soon.

If Diablo 3 was a twitch game where you can actively dodge and roll I'd be all for it. As it stands it's just invisible numbers flying left and right. I didn't even get a choice to put points into specific stats for my monk. Here I am, max level, and it all comes down to the gear I'm wearing. The difficulty spike in inferno isn't a cheeky wink and a nod to try and be a little smarter about rushing into mobs, it's a backhanded slap to the face saying HAHA not today!

Went through it on Inferno by my lonesomes after collecting a bunch of lucky drops.  
My Demon Hunter was fun to play with. It was hard though when you get to Act II. 
Those fucking Wasps. 
 
I'm just glad I got what I expected out of a Diablo game. 

I think if the game had a little bit more skill demands then the difficulty would be much easier to defend. I find that the animations are glitched at times, for instance i'm like two blocks away from a mob from when he started his hitting animation but I still get hit.

@gamefreak9 said:

I think if the game had a little bit more skill demands then the difficulty would be much easier to defend. I find that the animations are glitched at times, for instance i'm like two blocks away from a mob from when he started his hitting animation but I still get hit.

I feel the same way.

I'm trucking through Inferno with my barb, but right now I decided to level up a wizard as a change of pace. Diablo 3 feels like a straight numbers game though.

@TaliciaDragonsong: This i my feeling towards the game. I really enjoyed the 50-60 hours I got out of it. While it by no means matches my experience with D2, I am satisfied to leave the game with a good(ish) taste in my mouth. For the money I paid, I got enough good gaming out of it. If everyone stopped expecting it to be the best thing ever, I feel that more people could leave satisfied.

I think some of the issues are legitimate ones with aspects of the game design, especially when people compare against Diablo 2 which people have been happily playing for over a decade.

I love a challenge; one of my favourite recent games is dark souls. But the challenge ramp up of pure gear check, rather than skill in Diablo 3 coupled with random stats on everything including unique items all appears to be in aid of stimulating AH/Real Money AH trade. Rather than encouraging people to do runs to try and get some set item, unique or rune for a rune word for whatever wild spec they have planned. Be it a teleporting paladin or some sorceress who buffs her melee with fire damage, warps into a werebear and charges at people. Diablo 3 moved the loot more towards the WoW model of simplified stat stacking, where loot is essentially +x primary, +x vitality, +x resistance, stack dps bonuses on weapon. There isn't much fun/surprising flavour to gear.

It just never really instilled that same sense of progression or feel that I might get something good/interesting to drop. Also chances are if you do have something drop, or buy it off the AH in 3 then you may well find another version of that exact item that has slightly better random stats, rendering your copy of it obsolete by comparison.

I'm not sure if they changed it by now but magic find was an issue in Diablo 3 with the stat being averaged when in a party. So if you have hundreds and everyone else has zero you are esentially encouraged to just farm loot all alone. Which is somewhat counter to the main thing people enjoyed with Diablo 2; group loot runs.

Also in Diablo 3 95% of public games I joined were just one other person, who proceeded to quit about halfway through the quest, so it was a rare occurence to even get much multiplayer in it at all, compared to Diablo 2 where I was consistently getting groups of up to 8 people all blitzing through things together.

The game is a near verticle wall of pure gear check with loot so randomised and with such flavourless itemization that it just didn't feel as satisfying as it's predecessor. The chance of getting something just right for you stat wise is incredibly slim. Whereas Diablo 2 at least you could hope for some set item, unique or runes to pop out and know that they are potentially noteworthy. At the very least those tiers of gear were satisfying to see drop, more so than just yet another rare which buffs up health globe healing, etc.

It has high production values and an interesting visual style but it fell short of it's predecessor to me in almost every other mechanical aspect. Oh, and the narrative... I try not to think about that and the cartoonish villains that never shut up >.<

I didn't really expect an MMO, but as someone who played Diablo 2 a fair bit I just found a lot of Diablo 3 disappointing, I pretty much just played one character through to hell, tried a few alts that I never even took the time to go through nightmare and felt pretty tired of it, along with the issues above that I have with it personally and proceeded to uninstall it.

1.0.4 is going to massively rebalance Inferno: mob health, damage, modifiers, loot, magic find, etc. Yeah, it'll make it a shitload easier... but at least it will be fun to play.

I don't think Inferno forces you to rethink your strategy as much as it forces you to spend time improving your gear, at which point you either start farming for gear or gold to put towards the AH. Do that for long enough and eventually you are questioning why you are even playing the game in the first place.

I played it through once, on normal and decided that was that. It was fun while it lasted though, but I don't see the appeal of playing the same story over and over again.