The last great news about D3 was when they announced the rune system

[pixartist]

And by that I mean the first iteration. Since then it's ONLY been cuts, cuts, cuts. Now D3 is in a state where the amount of game mechanics is WAY less than in D2.
Rune drops -> cut
skill trees / talents -> cut
crafting -> not for endgame, thus uninteresting
also, no equivalent to runewords
no equivalent to charms
no equivalent to jewels
no use for white / grey items


How can they make a successor to a >10 year old game with WAY less game mechanics? I played the beta, and it's fun for a couple of hours. But while it only features a small portion of the game, it contains basically ALL elements of gameplay of the final game. I've been looking forward to this game for years, and now that it's getting close to release, blizzard has cut a worrying amount of gameplay. The last weeks led me to seriously question Diablo 3 for the first time.

The problem is not only that Blizzard cut so much stuff, it's also that they cut exactly the things that they themselves appraised as extremely fun game mechanics. Remember how proudly they presented the initial rune system ? Remember how they presented slides about how rare high end runes would be, and how powerful their effects were ? Remember how they presented the most complex talent trees, to show us that they really cared about what we wanted ? Well, now they removed all that and suddenly are convinced that it's better this way.

My question is, how can the devs justify those 180° turns in their mentality ? How can they suddenly promote simplicity and a lack of diversity, when these were exactly the characteristics they promised us a few years ago. I mean blizzard KNOWS that we want to be able to modify our skill set with item drops. Still they removed exactly that shortly before release.

My only guess is, that they had to make the basic game lame, so that they can sell us as many addons as possible. I BET, that 1 or 2 years after release they will tease us with promises of exactly what originally was in the base game, and put it in an addon.

[SuggestiveName]

It isn't about addons/DLC (though that is a bonus.) Blizzard cannot release a PC game that will pull subscriptions from WoW, so their goal with D3 is to have a successful console (360/PS3) game appealing to a casual player base. This way all the PC gamers will be bored in a month or 2 and head back to WoW.

[Zeramus]

I'm reserving final judgement for D3 until release, but it does seem like much of the game depth has been removed from D3. Even (or maybe especially) compared to Diablo 2, its decade-old predecessor.

[joeb]

You raise a lotta good points. I have brought up time and time again. The big secret...D3 made for consoles. Easiest way to do that is remove complexity. Stuff like runewords, skill trees, charms, and gems, all take time, thought and effort. Why take them out and do sooo many 180s?

I am curious as to what blizzard has to respond to things like runewords, charms, gems, etc...your post has me thinking that there is no response to those things that were from a decade old game.

And by that I mean the first iteration. Since then it's ONLY been cuts, cuts, cuts. Now D3 is in a state where the amount of game mechanics is WAY less than in D2.
Rune drops -> cut
skill trees / talents -> cut
crafting -> not for endgame, thus uninteresting
also, no equivalent to runewords
no equivalent to charms
no equivalent to jewels
no use for white / grey items


How can they make a successor to a >10 year old game with WAY less game mechanics? I played the beta, and it's fun for a couple of hours. But while it only features a small portion of the game, it contains basically ALL elements of gameplay of the final game. I've been looking forward to this game for years, and now that it's getting close to release, blizzard has cut a worrying amount of gameplay. The last weeks led me to seriously question Diablo 3 for the first time.

The problem is not only that Blizzard cut so much stuff, it's also that they cut exactly the things that they themselves appraised as extremely fun game mechanics. Remember how proudly they presented the initial rune system ? Remember how they presented slides about how rare high end runes would be, and how powerful their effects were ? Remember how they presented the most complex talent trees, to show us that they really cared about what we wanted ? Well, now they removed all that and suddenly are convinced that it's better this way.

My question is, how can the devs justify those 180° turns in their mentality ? How can they suddenly promote simplicity and a lack of diversity, when these were exactly the characteristics they promised us a few years ago. I mean blizzard KNOWS that we want to be able to modify our skill set with item drops. Still they removed exactly that shortly before release.

My only guess is, that they had to make the basic game lame, so that they can sell us as many addons as possible. I BET, that 1 or 2 years after release they will tease us with promises of exactly what originally was in the base game, and put it in an addon.

[spintowin]

how is crafting not endgame when they have stated multiple times that some of the most powerful items will come from crafting?

[Buu]

And by that I mean the first iteration. Since then it's ONLY been cuts, cuts, cuts. Now D3 is in a state where the amount of game mechanics is WAY less than in D2.
Rune drops -> cut
skill trees / talents -> cut
crafting -> not for endgame, thus uninteresting
also, no equivalent to runewords
no equivalent to charms
no equivalent to jewels
no use for white / grey items

Runes- I too am saddened by the lack of itemized runes, but it doesn't take away any customization, but rather economic value.
Skill tree/Talents- Skill trees with power progression as you rank up encourage focusing on a limited number of skills (in D2, it was 1-2 skills). The current systems allows for customization and flexibility.
Crafting- How is it not for endgame? Do explain.
Runewords- Do they need an equivalent? Can items not just be awesome?
Charms/Jewels- They didn't like how they were implemented so they pulled them so they can (hopefully) work on them later.
White/Grey items- The only use for grey/white items in D2 was for runewords, which were absurdly overpowered.

[Crudesash68]

My personal view on this is:

1. A little knowledge is dangerous. If you had never known about the changes, you wouldn't care about them (yes, you might still favor D2's setup, I know)
2. Game design is an iterative process; whether Blizzard made the right choices as a company is yet to be determined, but it is clear some people are unhappy about it.
3. My common sense tells me that if the #1 goal of the dev team was to make Diablo a console game, then it would be released as such. Skyrim is quite a successful game, released on many platforms, and plays just fine on a PC. I don't even care if they are making the UI console friendly. If the game is fun, I won't care. If it isn't, I won't play.

[konfeta]

How can they make a successor to a >10 year old game with WAY less game mechanics?

By reviewing the existing game mechanics on the basis of if they work as game mechanic as opposed to whenever the predecessor had them. Whenever that approach was worthwhile... we will find out after the game is released.

[Hokuto no Ken]

i imagine we will see "runes" in an expansion for item customization, or jewels will just replace old d2 runes if at all.

[Crudesash68]

i imagine we will see "runes" in an expansion for item customization, or jewels will just replace old d2 runes if at all.

Aye, perhaps something to do with the Talisman concept that didn't make the earlier cuts. We'll see that in 2015 maybe.