Give your HONEST opinion on where POE fails in so many areas where Diablo 3 succeeds

Well, in both cases I get the feeling the developers didn't really know what they were doing when it came to designing mechanics. (You said to discuss the games as they are now, but history is important so fuck that.) The Blizzard folks actually believed only a tiny fraction would use the Auction Houses, and the itemization early on (especially uniques) was like some kind of masterclass in fail. But I'm beating a dead horse here; we all hate on D3 vanilla.

GGG seemed considerably more self-aware of their inability to predict consequences of their design decisions; although I cannot find an exact quote, early on GGG admitted they were designing such that players would uncover combinations before GGG would find them themselves, and that this was intended. It seems the D3 team was doing things accidentally by accident, while PoE was doing a bunch of cool things with accidental results on purpose. Plus, GGG had a lot more excuse. They never made D3, and they were a small indie team.

I feel the result in both cases was a jumbled mess, but PoE turned out the more fun jumbled mess. Truly, not enough can be said about how important D3's colossal failure was in terms of enabling PoE's success.

Since then, I feel the D3 team has done much to salvage their game. They kicked yellowbugs to the curb and focused on a D2-style, unique-exclusive itemization. They made item acquisition easy while amputating their diseased trading system clean off. It's like they finally got the people who know what they're doing working on the project, and their main limiting factor is that they're fixing an existing game instead of making a new one. Yeah, D3 is casual as fuck (due to its full embrace of unique items), but it's a well-made casual as fuck.

With GGG, I feel perhaps the Bane line applies: their success has defeated them. Problems tend to remain problems (with desync as a notable, but long-awaited, exception); most patches just involve piling on even more ridiculousness, with seemingly random and unintended effects upon the game. I mean, for the moment PoE is arguably less casual than D3, but I feel this is subject to change at any time - it would just take a couple more Cadiro-esque mechanics to do it, and who knows what GGG will do next?

In terms of future, I feel Blizzard has the brighter one: a future without D3. They've decided not to develop it forever, and if there is ever a Diablo 4 there is a chance to iterate on past mistakes and make an ARPG with a stronger foundation. Selling it would be epic difficult, but good ideas help sell things. Or just make different games; that works, too.

GGG, on the other hand, intends to keep PoE going into perpetuity. They think heaping more new content on top of the convoluted mess is the way to go. They've no plans to begin development on a sequel. Big mistake, if you ask me. PoE desperately needs a reset, a cleaning out, a streamlining, and if GGG knows what is good for them they'll provide that before the audience leaves.

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Reinhart wrote:

im crying

Graphics, just the graphics, nothing else.

D3 had potential especially after ROS come out and they got rid of the AH.. But ofcourse Blizz took that oppritunity and shit all over it with the paragon system and set items.. Now you can basically fully gear out a build within a day or 2 of grinding and the only thing left from there is mix maxing ancient versions of every item and paragon farming which requires you to basically group farm GRs for months on end. And since every lvl is +5 main stat it becomes pretty huge when your talking about 2-3K paragon x 5... Other than that everyone runs the same sets and builds and theres nothing else really ro do as far as theroy crafting or making builds your own.

Thats the major thing for ME POE will always have over D3. No matter what ill always have something to do in POE because theres always something new too test and different builds to try out. And even when you test or do most all the builds then a new patch comes out that mixes everything up again with nerfs, buffs, and new skills and items to give you more things to test and try. Thats why POE is always going to be better than D3 for me anyway. But make no mistake.. BOTH games have their inherent flaws.. Neither game is anywhere even close to being perfect. But D3 seems to have a much quicker burnout than POE.. But both games one can get pretty burned out with for sure. \m/

Let's see... where PoE fails that Diablo 3 succeeds? That's, um... exactly 0 areas. Diablo 3 took the whole genre in directions I completely and utterly disagree with, and has yet to show any signs of relenting. I play PoE precisely because it's a more accurate, better maintained successor to Diablo 2, though there ARE areas where Diablo 2 succeeded in which PoE is not entirely up to my wishes (I would particularly like some way... any way... to play PoE offline without the lag issues that come up in any online game, preferably with the option to play any version of PoE I wanted. If buying the $50 or $110 supporter pack unlocked such an option, I'd have already bought it. As-is, I'm still somewhat on the fence.) Whether PoE remains a game I want to play past the end of Perandus remains to be seen, and is somewhat in doubt. However, whether Diablo 3 will ever be a game I consider worth playing is pretty much an absolutely certain "no" - Blizzard as a whole has gone nowhere but downhill ever since Warcraft 3. I prefer PoE's graphical style (I was already tired of plastic cartoony art when it started in W3,) storyline (I am so tired of Metzen's copypasting,) elaborate, creative gameplay, etc. I am tired of Blizzard's style of cash-cowing each new product and then dumpstering them in favor of the next. I am tired of Blizzard's effectively complete failure to do anything meaningful whatsoever about cheaters of multiple types in most of their games. I am tired of Blizzard's tendency to milk free content creators for their games and other supporters while giving little or nothing in return, not even basic acknowledgement or refraining from attempting to threaten/sue them whenever they think they can get an extra buck. Just look at how they treated KeSPA, a group that is partially responsible for a significant segment of the company's success.

I deeply question your claim that D3 reaching no-future-expansions does not mean effective end-of-life looming soon. Look at the sad condition Diablo 2, their former product in the same line, is in. The servers are a wreck, constantly crashed by item dupers who are utterly out of control. Bots spam item shops in every public game made to the extent it's hard for real players to get in the same game with each other - it makes PoE trade chat look very well-moderated by comparison! The only patch in years just added a quick hack to make it work on OSes released since the previous patch. The servers run on obsolete, inefficient hardware so bad they excuse not increasing the stash size because "the servers couldn't handle it." The stash size is less than 1/4 of what PoE gives out for free in a free-to-play game, despite Diablo 2 being a paid product. The netlag situation makes PoE look completely lag-free. The claims of future more meaningful patches are almost certainly pure vaporware - they don't even have any significant number of programmers left who know the code to make significant changes to it without breaking it even worse than it already is. Blizzard North is gone and will never come back. LoD release was the high point of D2's lifecycle - after that, it went downhill, and wow did it go downhill - what was once the best ARPG on the market is now an unplayable disaster area, and I only expect Diablo 3 to likewise become worse with time, while PoE remains a maintained and continuously enhanced product due to its F2P model. The only real question is whether it's continuously enhanced in directions I personally like, or the opposite.

I came from many years of playing Diablo 2 in the first place. I've looked at Diablo 3 and been utterly disappointed. It's highly unlikely I'll go back to either. If I give up on PoE, I'll be going to Torchlight or similar products, not anything made by Blizzard. And if PoE becomes more like Diablo 3, it will probably make my giving up on PoE more likely. I'm here for the skill gem/tree and currency systems, pretty much exclusively; everything else, Torchlight 2 generally already does better. I'm a (quite bitter) ex-Blizzard customer (I own most of their titles up through War3 and tried various more recent ones on other peoples' computers) and I don't like the idea of any company I continue to do business with patterning off of them in any way, shape or form.

That is my HONEST, firm, and rather emphatic opinion on the thread subject - drawn from more experience with Blizzard products and "customer care" than I wish I had.

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So your problems are graphics are TP's? I think they both fit this game better then how D3 do it. Besides that the mapping system is lightyears ahead of rifts (Wich is basicly a rippof of maps) The build diversity again light years ahead. Selffound makes it feel like singleplayer even in multiplayer for me aswell, and the free gear in Diablo is like 2 steps to far what any game in this genre should ever fall down too. The game has a longetivity of a goldfish without a bowl.

The only thing Diablo really has to offer is stability, and i hope GGG will improve on that, and then they will easily reclaim the top spot on every single area once again. Diablo is not even in the same league.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

we all hate on D3 vanilla.

Vanilla D3 was excellent.
What a strange opinion you are completely wrong. The D3 development team has patched the game into the ground like unfortunately most games these days. Vanilla D3 had a few cool builds and was quite hard.

I feel it is not said by enough people, that PoE is easily superior to all 3 diablo games.

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GGG seemed considerably more self-aware of their inability to predict consequences of their design decisions; although I cannot find an exact quote, early on GGG admitted they were designing such that players would uncover combinations before GGG would find them themselves, and that this was intended. It seems the D3 team was doing things accidentally by accident, while PoE was doing a bunch of cool things with accidental results on purpose. Plus, GGG had a lot more excuse. They never made D3, and they were a small indie team.

But they should not excuse themselves. I think the superior game design, is to discover combinations and builds together with the players, instead of top down designing what works and what doesnt. The PoE team therefore did it right, maybe unintentionally. I have come to this conclusion because I observe that game developers today more than before try to control how players play their game, therefore they feel they must be aware of every build or combo there is, and approve of it, leaving no builds or combos outside of the narrow range of possibilities they envision.

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Since then, I feel the D3 team has done much to salvage their game. They kicked yellowbugs to the curb and focused on a D2-style, unique-exclusive itemization. They made item acquisition easy while amputating their diseased trading system clean off. It's like they finally got the people who know what they're doing working on the project, and their main limiting factor is that they're fixing an existing game instead of making a new one. Yeah, D3 is casual as fuck (due to its full embrace of unique items), but it's a well-made casual as fuck.

They have just increased drop rates. The worst you can do in Action RPG games is to just give in and give the players x% increased chance of their favorite mods and uniques. Sucks ass. Terrible patching. They try hard to be all endgame and 'hard' with the torment but the better hard mode was vanilla inferno.

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With GGG, I feel perhaps the Bane line applies: their success has defeated them. Problems tend to remain problems (with desync as a notable, but long-awaited, exception); most patches just involve piling on even more ridiculousness, with seemingly random and unintended effects upon the game.

I feel like you confuse D3 with PoE. The game where random changes ruined the game and old problems remained unadressed was Diablo 3.
PoE is a moderately successful niche title appreciated by a more hardcore audience and this is good for the game. If GGG can live with being small and having a (presumably) only moderate profit margin, but remain true to themselves, then PoE will not go the same way as D3. This is the case as far as I see.

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Entropic_Fire wrote:

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Toliman wrote:

PoE is a moderately successful niche title appreciated by a more hardcore audience and this is good for the game. If GGG can live with being small and having a (presumably) only moderate profit margin, but remain true to themselves, then PoE will not go the same way as D3. This is the case as far as I see.

I think GGG outgrew their hardcore revenue stream around the time they moved to a new office. 60+ person team needs those casual bucks from now on.

There are areas between 'hardcore' and 'casual'. As long as they stick to the hardcore half of the spectrum and not go full on D3 type casual, they should be ok.