12 years and the end game is still not improved

[pwt]

Dear Silmarien, please, could you enlighten me(us) what woud be a decent end game for you then?

On a side note, this made my day:

... Once it became farm, people got bored and realized they were spending 5 hours a day doing the same thing they've been doing for the last 3 months. But at least in an MMO you can count on another content patch one day. With D3 what you get, is what you get until an expansion is released.

In a wow-like game, an expansion (60e) has 2 content patches (as much!) and last 2 years (as less!). So you payed 60 + (24 * 15) = 420e in two years for three "expansions". Assuming d3 and its expansions cost 60e, 420/60 = 7!!!! if over a million people sign a contract to buy d3 plus six more expansions in the next 2 years and 1 month, they'll surely will do it (if they dont die first out of a hapiness heart attack), not to mention if ten million people sing it.

Please consider that this is a business. Dont compare mmo's, specially wow with an ARPG, the incomings are in another league, its like my local basketball team playing against Los Angeles Lakers...

[Eeryck]

I really don't think it is the game that is broken these days. What is really broken is the players and how we approach games.

The whole reason anyone would every sit down and spend some time playing a video game in their life should to relax and escape for a period of time. To become immersed in something else that takes you away from "regular" existence. So that when you go back to regular life you are somewhat refreshed and had an interesting experience.

The fact that we as gamers have placed so much emphasis on world first with 24/7 character play through until all content is cleared is completely broken. To what end is all of this some epeen to say "FIRST" Sorry I have not been a 12 year old boy for quite some time now.

It is not possible to make a game that can meet the expectation of the people that I have described so far. Well there is one way, the infinite dungeon. But then no one will approach it because there is no "end" so no one can "win".

If this new iteration is anything like the previous versions in difficulty, I expect that it will take me some time to just clear Hell difficulty and sure I will be a bit behind the curve. But it will be about the journey and sure at times it will be a grind, but in the end when I go back to my real life, I will be refreshed and entertained.

Honestly, there are not any other games out there right now that have this quality for me anymore.

Personally, I will probably approach D3 "in a vacuum" and experiment with the game for quite some time before I come back to the forums to find out what items, stats, and skill choices are overpowered. There is just something about that process that I find "entertaining". That said, the game that Blizzard has presented to me, I can see myself playing for a year or two before I have seen the full spectrum of what the game has to offer and by that time an expansion will come out and I will get some more content.

To the OP, you have a lot of criticism of Blizzard, but you offer no solution. You cry like a little child "Entertain me" but you offer nothing to what you find entertaining. Perhaps it is not the games you play that are broken...

[Brak]

Shorter OP:
"LOL D2 was so easy, I barely played it. I can't believe they're trying to make D3 hard, no one will want to play it."

was there a point to this post other than bragging about how fast you got a highish level in LOD or telling everyone that you like wasting money on ****e coffee?

[Silmarien]

Again, if you want to be the guy who 4 years from now is saying "oh I remember when I found my first Ist rune!" except its insert some other rare item, then more power to you.

For the rest of us, extra difficulty levels is at BEST a marginal improvement over what was the abomination of LOD - that is a game that was easy AND pointless. Nevertheless, the end game is still nothing more than finding items! In hardcore, as I stated there is a bit more (living as long as you can) but since you will be at level cap most of the time when you die, where is the progression?

You will just be repeating the content until the coinciding of chance and bad luck occur that gets you killed. That is all hardcore is going to be. You get to level 60, you progress in hell, you die. Start over, get farther, die. Start over, get to inferno even, die.

The end game is this endless repetition of content. It makes no sense. They can't come up with something better? They even removed PVP so you have no measurable way to test yourself.

You don't even have the opportunity to show anyone what you've achieved. You beat inferno...who knows about it? You acquired the best items after months and years of farming - who knows about it? When I play Assassin's creed, i do it knowing i just want to see the environment and mess around with new abilities. after story mode is over, its a done game. But those take them less than a year to make. This game is 5 years in the making and 12 years since the last - and its still the same game, with a graphical boost. The classes are basically the same, the items are reused in many, many cases.

In any case, obviously no one wants to hear that the game will be just another expansion, but then again some people really enjoy finding Ist runes after their 4th year playing the game. So I guess this will appeal to some but im afraid D3 will die out as fast as SC2 did and SC2 at least had replayable competition against human opponents.

you can wear the wool over your eyes, but I won't and like I said, we should be clamoring for something better.

[Hyliangod]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned to him yet that you don't hit 60 until the end of hell, this isn't D2 style of leveling its drawn out over the game. You WON"T hit 60 in NM so you will be constantly progressing until inferno at least for levels and getting skill runes.

[Eeryck]

Silmarien you still offer no insight to what would be "improved" in your opinion. So lets hear it. What is this better your propose we clamor for?

[MathewPoland]

Silmarien... Is whining all you can do or can you tell us what should D3's endgame look like to make you satisfied?

[Silmarien]

Silmarien you still offer no insight to what would be "improved" in your opinion. So lets hear it. What is this better your propose we clamor for?

I'm not paid to be a game designer, so I can't profess to be full of ideas off the top of my head. No idea could be come up with in any case on the spot - that is what development timelines and meetings are for (if you have worked in a real job this is common knowledge)

I can say though that I played the previous Diablo incarnations and I found the end game aspect WOEFULLY unfulfilling. I am just amazed that after 12 years, all we are going to get is a reskinned game. Call it and dress it up how you want, anyone that is capable of being objective would see past all the shiny features and recognize that nothing is really changed. I guess there's a crowd of people who are cool with that but come on, 12 years later and we haven't made progress on the game? tweaked items, tweaked classes, and zones thats it? That's Diablo patch 1.14, not Diablo 3.

Getting upset because I point out some objective flaws, really just makes one sound like a subjective fanboi who would accept anything they were given. Thats not the point of forums - to be sycophantic.

[dragon457]

I don't think Diablo was the first dungeon crawler, but it certainly defined the genre. Almost all other ARPG's worth their weight in salt are compared to the yardstick that is Diablo. Why is that? My opinion (yep, opinion, like you stating your opinion) is that people liked: a) story/setting of Diablo, b) smashing faces and c) loot, loot and more loot.

This has been Diablo's formula since DI, and hadn't changed up to DII: LOD. Why, then, would you expect it to change drastically now? If you're a fan of Diablo, then you're a fan of what it's always been. Expecting DIII to be some totally different experience, with a different endgame (God, really?) is saying that you don't want a Diablo game. You want WoW, or Elder Scrolls, or Pokemon (heh).

DIII is what Diablo is, and always has been. Change the formula and you lose the essence. Think New Coke, but with demons.

[Raesene]

Diablo 3 = patch 1.14? Anyone who disagrees with this is a fanboi? You sir, are a troll.