Never played Diablo 3 , Please explain why it sucks WITHOUT PoE in mind

I like PoE's itemization and depth more than D3s, but I prefer D3's loot system to PoE's. D3's gameplay is smoother, and more visceral. I think it's less boring to kill the same stuff over and over again for loot in D3 than it is in PoE, for a number of reasons.

I'm kinda hoping someone makes an ARPG that's more of a hybrid between these 2 games. Etc, D3's loot system + more complexity with builds, and better itemization. That would be a winning game for me.

Just going to iterate tangentially: if you're after a purer and more engaging successor to Gauntlet, go for Crawl. Unlike Diablo 3 it's got local multiplayer (which gauntlet did), pixel-style graphics (again, Gauntlet style) and you play the whole 'game' in a single run. You can't really grind it, it's super fast paced and is very skill based. But you do level up through the run and the game overall 'changes' each time you do.

It grinds my gears a little bit to see anything other than Diablo 1 used in comparison to Gauntlet. After Diablo 1 took the Gauntlet idea and fused it with more robust RPG elements, every game like that afterward in that vein was a Diablo clone and moved further and further away from the Gauntlet model. Not a bad thing, but worth noting that by the time we reach Diablo 3, we're *way* away from anything even vaguely Gauntlet-like. If anything, Diablo 3 is closer to that other four player fantasy-based action game, Dungeons and Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara, and its own spiritual successo Dragon's Crown...which I maintain is a flat-out better game than Diablo 3 as far as fantasy brawlers are concerned.

And that's the big problem with D3. However you approach it, there's a better game out there. If it's an ARPG, then it's losing out to PoE, Grim Dawn and likely soon Wolcen. If it's a fantasy brawler, then you have Dragon's Crown walking all over it. And if you're looking for a Gauntlet-style game, you've now got Crawl which evolves that system in ridiculously brilliant ways.

Which leaves Diablo 3...where? It's an also-ran, which is NOT something Blizzard like doing. They like being the best in whatever field they choose. It must have stung to produce a secondary ARPG when Blizzard was associated with 'THE BEST ARPGS EVER' for the past two decades. On the other hand, Heroes of the Storm is an also-ran MOBA, albeit a pretty underrated one.

Fucking dogshit pile of garbage doo doo failure of pile of dogshit of a game like it's so bad that china uses it for gutter oil

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1453R wrote:

Spoiler

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gibbousmoon wrote:

Yes, it says that Blizzard cares more (perhaps MUCH more) about polishing its products than GGG appears to.

Allow me to be specific: PoE 3.0 released with a great deal of mismatched and missing audio, some of which remains unfixed now, a full six months later. This is the kind of thing that you will not see in a modern Blizzard product, and it is just one example. GGG has, in my opinion, done an extraordinarily poor job of polishing its product prior to release.
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Diablo 3 has been polished to a high sheen, and as such gives a very positive first impression. Reviews by professional critics confirm this fact. But a highly polished product is not necessarily a high-quality one. Diablo 3 is a game of mediocre quality at best.

There's a saying I'm going to horrible mangle here, I believe from Mark Twain. The essence of it is as follows: "If you desire a novel experience, do not expect a polished one. If you desire a polished experience, do not expect a novel one."

Essentially, 'new' and 'polished' are, to an extent, mutually exclusive. In development terms this is clearly true - you can spend your man hours making new stuff or fixing old stuff, but unless you get more man hours you can't do both. One man hour can only accomplish so much work. Path Of Exile clearly leans towards the 'new stuff' route, with constant challenge leagues, an update/expansion schedule almost no one else in the game industry matches, and a constant barrage of new side content. Blizzard (which also has effectively unlimited money and manpower, by the way - comparing Grinding Gear to ActiBlizzard straight up is decidedly unfair) clearly goes the other way. They don't do new - they release a new game once every geological epoch, and that new game isn't really new so much as frankensteined together from their older assets half the time. They polish to a blinding shine things they've been doing for literally decades. Blizzard doesn't want, doesn't like, and only ever grudgingly does new.

Personally? Once a minimum bar of polish has been achieved such that the game is moderately smooth and playable? I'd rather have New than Polish.

IMO you are not wrong, but you are also talking about a different dichotomy than I did: innovation vs. polish. I was discussing quality vs. polish, and I do think that quality and polish are not mutually exclusive, and that there are great games out there exhibiting both. To be clear, PoE is not one of them. It is, however, a game of exceedingly high quality, which is exactly why we (to an extent) forgive it its warts. (I also posited that D3's low overall quality was given a pass by many reviewers due only to its exceedingly high polish.)

Now, you are saying that another reason it has warts is that it tries so hard to innovate that there isn't enough time to do much polish. I happen to feel the same as you regarding "minimum bar of polish," though there are times I feel that GGG is not meeting that bar, and it should be obvious as well that the bar lies at different places for different people.

We could also talk about a quality vs. innovation dichotomy, which would be interesting, but neither PoE nor D3 are useful to talk about in that context, since D3 is neither high quality nor innovative, and PoE is neither low quality nor stale.

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It grinds my gears a little bit to see anything other than Diablo 1 used in comparison to Gauntlet. After Diablo 1 took the Gauntlet idea and fused it with more robust RPG elements, every game like that afterward in that vein was a Diablo clone and moved further and further away from the Gauntlet model.

It's weird to read this, because I have never heard Diablo compared to Gauntlet before. I have, however, heard it compared to Rogue, hundreds if not thousands of times, and I have the exact same objection you described toward that: Diablo-likes and roguelikes are cut from a very different cloth, in my opinion.

That said, you are certainly in the right forum to talk about your gears being ground.

Diablo 1 definitely fused traditional RPG elements with Gauntlet. It has less in common with Rogue than with Gauntlet. And people have been comparing D1 with Gauntlet ever since the shareware demo of D1 landed in late 1996. Both D1 and Gauntlet are games with a maximum of four players at once (rogue is single player from memory) set in a descending dungeon facing hordes of monsters in real-time (rogue is turn based) with fairly limited puzzles and quests (rogue has more creative solutions available). Frankly I don't understand the comparison to Rogue.

Just talking about Crawl made me crave a quick game and I have to qualify: Crawl is not pve. It's pure pvp, where the players (or bots) take turns between being the human trying to level up and get good gear and monsters doing their best to kill said human and take their place, all with the goal of being the first human strong enough to take on the big boss. I guess the fact that it's four players maximum and pixel-art gave me reason to make that comparison, but Crawl is its own thing.

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Just going to iterate tangentially: if you're after a purer and more engaging successor to Gauntlet, go for Crawl. Unlike Diablo 3 it's got local multiplayer (which gauntlet did), pixel-style graphics (again, Gauntlet style) and you play the whole 'game' in a single run. You can't really grind it, it's super fast paced and is very skill based. But you do level up through the run and the game overall 'changes' each time you do.

It grinds my gears a little bit to see anything other than Diablo 1 used in comparison to Gauntlet. After Diablo 1 took the Gauntlet idea and fused it with more robust RPG elements, every game like that afterward in that vein was a Diablo clone and moved further and further away from the Gauntlet model. Not a bad thing, but worth noting that by the time we reach Diablo 3, we're *way* away from anything even vaguely Gauntlet-like. If anything, Diablo 3 is closer to that other four player fantasy-based action game, Dungeons and Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara, and its own spiritual successo Dragon's Crown...which I maintain is a flat-out better game than Diablo 3 as far as fantasy brawlers are concerned.

And that's the big problem with D3. However you approach it, there's a better game out there. If it's an ARPG, then it's losing out to PoE, Grim Dawn and likely soon Wolcen. If it's a fantasy brawler, then you have Dragon's Crown walking all over it. And if you're looking for a Gauntlet-style game, you've now got Crawl which evolves that system in ridiculously brilliant ways.

Which leaves Diablo 3...where? It's an also-ran, which is NOT something Blizzard like doing. They like being the best in whatever field they choose. It must have stung to produce a secondary ARPG when Blizzard was associated with 'THE BEST ARPGS EVER' for the past two decades. On the other hand, Heroes of the Storm is an also-ran MOBA, albeit a pretty underrated one.

Part of it, I think, is that there's no easy, widely accepted genre name for games like Gauntlet, D3, and other entries in what you term 'fantasy brawler'. That's a good name for the subgenre, but if I just busted out the term 'fantasy brawler' in casual conversation around here it'd devolve into a three-page argument over what 'fantasy brawler' means.

So Diablo 3 and similar-ish games get compared to Gauntlet because everybody has played some variation of Gauntlet and we all know what Gauntlet is - a game with relatively fixed, predetermined characters wading through endless hordes of procedurally generated critters and levels designed to try and be increasingly difficult. I.e. the seminal example of 'Fantasy Brawler'. Nobody's got a solid name for the genre so people compare it to the seminal work of the genre, much like "Dark Souls-ish" is used for the specific type of game that Dark Souls is, and many other me-too games are trying to be today. What do you call a Dark Souls-esque game? 'Dark Souls-esque' is a mouthful, but it's still the shortest, handiest description for "a brutally difficult game built around a specific set of combat mechanics and aiming for a specific feel, both pioneered by Dark Souls."

Regardless. Diablo 3 is indeed more of a fantasy brawler (I like that term I'ma steal it kay thnx!) than an archetypical ARPG. That's not a bad thing to be by any means - some people like fantasy brawlers more than they like ARPGs. The issue is that the Diablo series is THE name to be(at) when it comes to ARPGs. D3 was supposed to a once-in-a-decade Event for ARPG players...and it turned into a weird fantasy brawler with Blizzard tie-ins, instead.

Nobody wanted that when they bought Diablo 3. Not when it released. Thus the backlash against Blizzard and D3, and why people are looking with such interest at things like Wolcen (how's that looking, by the way? I've poked a few videos but I'm almost fanatically wary of prerelease hype at this point @_@) and the constant mess-o-updates to Path of Exile. This is swiftly becoming the Game to Be(at) in the ARPG subgenre, and you're not going to do it by being a weird fantasy brawler.

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gibbousmoon wrote:

IMO you are not wrong, but you are also talking about a different dichotomy than I did: innovation vs. polish. I was discussing quality vs. polish, and I do think that quality and polish are not mutually exclusive, and that there are great games out there exhibiting both. To be clear, PoE is not one of them. It is, however, a game of exceedingly high quality, which is exactly why we (to an extent) forgive it its warts. (I also posited that D3's low overall quality was given a pass by many reviewers due only to its exceedingly high polish.)

Now, you are saying that another reason it has warts is that it tries so hard to innovate that there isn't enough time to do much polish. I happen to feel the same as you regarding "minimum bar of polish," though there are times I feel that GGG is not meeting that bar, and it should be obvious as well that the bar lies at different places for different people.

We could also talk about a quality vs. innovation dichotomy, which would be interesting, but neither PoE nor D3 are useful to talk about in that context, since D3 is neither high quality nor innovative, and PoE is neither low quality nor stale.

I can see what you're saying but it's an odd sort of distinction to make. Quality isn't normally used as a demarcation of a game's inherent Gudness, the way you're positing it here. Normally, quality and polish are seen as roughly synonymous with each other, both being used as a means of describing how much of the rough edges have been filed off, how much the kinks have been worked out, and how generally smooth-and-creamy the product is. Diablo 3 is a quality product by most people's standards. It's also, however, a deeply flawed one in the design stage. I'm not sure there's an easy word for a bad design which is executed very well, that's a phenomenon almost unique to entertainment media.

It brings to mind a video I watched about why Batman vs. Superman was such a shit movie despite just about everyone in/around it doing their jobs well and executing the tasks they were given with the competence expected of this sort of movie. Technically competent, assembled well, nothing wrong with the fundamental craft-of-filmmaking that went into the movie...but it was an absolute disaster because of decisions made above the heads of the people responsible for building it, and much like Diablo 3, those things couldn't be fixed without ripping the entire thing apart and basically doing it over.

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....Also let's face it, reviewers gave D3 exceptional marks not because they confused polish with quality with Gudness, but because D3 is a Blizzard game and when a big-name reviewer writes a review for a game from a company like Blizzard, that review says damn well exactly what Blizzard told the reviewer to say. Glowing praise, with just enough "they could've done this a little better and it may wrinkle your brow a little, so watch for that while you're enjoying your purchase" to give the illusion of that reviewer having independently arrived at whatever conclusion he's espousing and no more.

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gibbousmoon wrote:

That said, you are certainly in the right forum to talk about your gears being ground.

It sucks because there's nothing meaningful after 2-7 days of playing, from there just numbers increase/perfection. Same items just better rolls etc.

Lacks characterization, all are too similar etc. No engaging character building beyond just those few more overall optimal builds that you can either figure out yourself or have others find first.

Everything is just same just same same same same, not too many things to do and they hardly change at all beyond number scaling.

Game is just far too generic.

Seasons are still fun for that first week o +/- depending on how much you play.

Yeah, they should definitely shorten the seasons. You can get everything done in just a few days!

Regarding Fantasy Brawler: anything that can be called an ARPG (because it doesn't fit any other genre) but significantly prioritises the A(ction) over the RPG (Role-Playing Game: gearing, story, freedom of exploration) is to me a fantasy brawler, but it must have SOME RPG elements, even if it's just the setting and maybe the ability to equip sub items or gain stats as you level. This then includes King of Dragons and Knights of the Round by Capcom, the aforementioned D and D games also by Capcom, probably games like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and Magicka. Dragon's Crown by Vanillaware obviously is, but Odin Sphere, also by Vanillaware, is not -- it's a platformer with strong RPG elements. As is Konami's Symphony of the Night.

Zelda and YS are not because they're laced with puzzles and exploration.

Diablo 3 definitely fits that criterion, given it drastically simplifies the legacy of the Diablo series' innovative itemisation to a matter of up and down arrows, even though it gives you an unprecedented number of gear slots. It has no real free world exploration, and the story is fucking dire.

And PoE does not because the vast majority of it is spent gearing up with mathematical precision; the 'game' itself is little more than clicking the same button a lot and occasionally tapping a key. Diablo 1 does not because the action in D1 is actually little more than real-time hex combat: you can almost see the turns between actions. Exploration is also low and the story is more like 'shit that you get caught up in while trying to get stronger', but the depth of itemisation alone saves PoE from being a fantasy brawler. That and the game isn't even vaguely optimised for action.

When in doubt, if it looks like a Diablo clone, it's probably a Diablo clone. Freely call it such. It's only when you start playing it that it'll reveal whether it's worthy of being called a Diablo (1/2) clone, or is (just) a fantasy brawler.

As an aside, the hardest game for me to classify, ever, was Guild Wars 1. There's a reason ArenaNet came up with their own acronyms and nicknames for whatever that was.

edit: regarding dark souls -- well, for a start, I only ever really played and enjoyed Demon's Souls, which I found a superior game to the Dark Souls entries. I call Demon's Souls a dungeon crawler, to be honest. You typically move at a fairly slow pace, combat is usually of a scale befitting an RPG rather than an ARPG (small crowds, high challenge factor), and the game rewards stealth (if not outright demanding it at times). You have a town to which you can return (typical of a dungeon crawler) and use materials you've found to improve your gear. It's not really about looting useful things on the spot. The 'behind the back' perspective pulls a player much closer than an ARPG, but not as close as say, Ultima Underworld or the Elder Scrolls games, which were much more diverse and thus are 'just' RPGs. Finally, the Souls games do not really rotate around an open world (there's a lot of clever pathing in each though), and even when you're 'in the open', it feels claustrophobic. Dungeon crawler for sure.

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HeavyFerrum wrote:

Go ahead...
Maybe ill try it soon.

If You interested in story play it.

Mechanically:

1. You cannot break charater. Just impossible.
2. All gear is auto-compare with retarded colour info what goes up, what goes down, what not changing.
3. Kinda dissapointing skills.
4. Boring after finishing the story. I had problem with finishing expansion. Just... boring.