Do you Think the D3 Expansion Will "Fix" Diablo 3?

[Quingu]

By saying that "core is rotten", I mean that core SYSTEMS are fundamentally flawed. Also, their PHILOSOPHY of design is deeply flawed, with a mad drive to dumb down everything, listening blindly to internal testers, who are confused by weapon switch, etc.

The only bright side are combat production values. Ironically, if this was flawed, it would be easiest to fix.

[Kiroptus]

The way they set the game up, by the skill system, paragon and the same endgame-maxlevel-grind as WoW now in an ARPG, I dont see too much direction in terms of fixing those core systems, it took them 7 years to conjure this so they arent steping back. What I believe they will do is to powercreep the hell out of the game with items with bigger numbers and the talisman system which will probably also be just bigger numbers.

I find the game so shallow in its systems, I have a hard time picturing it expanding into anything.

[RazeBarb]

Yeah I think the game will only start to shine once the first expansion comes out (just like D2).
The main problem right now: Playing alone gets you better rewards than playing in groups. That needs to change.

[themeros]

It will improve from 2 to 4, but it will not be "fixed". Since my issue with the game is not something that they are willing to work on: Music, Story and Art.

They are going to sell it as the ultimate fix though and the story will repeat itself.

[mr punk]

I personally will be very surprised if the D3 expansion doesn't make the game a lot better.

lulz..you're late for the "wait for expansion" train, azzure. it left the station not long after release.

What are all your thoughts on the upcoming Expansion, have Blizz learned lessons of the past year?

none, but if anyone needs to learn a lesson it's players. there no reason why anyone should be getting burned at full price.

[Kornkills]

What's fundamentally wrong with the game? Did people burn through the content too fast?

[RazeBarb]

What's fundamentally wrong with the game?

Fundamental would be the situation that I mentioned above: Playing in groups is undesirable.

Other "normal" flaws include:
-pretty much every D2 fan expected a better item system
-crafting is (and continues) to be useless
-heavy emphasis on story(telling) when the core gamers wished they could just turn off every dialog/quest after 1000hours of playing
-skillsystem needs some work (but I think it's already much better than D2's)

[Kiroptus]

What's fundamentally wrong with the game? Did people burn through the content too fast?

Was there even enough content to be "burned too fast"? I was surprised that people took more than two weeks to reach level 60, even with casual play its disgustly fast and then, voila! All possible builds unlocked.



They already said they wont raise the level cap, so all the current 5 classes will remain as they are, the only real thing that they can do is "MOAR ITEMS! MOAR NUMBERS!", even the idea of a new class sound tedious just to think of going through that "tutorial" phase of normal-nightmare-hell. The drop rates will always be abysmal because of the AH so new fun items will be hard to find and new items are pretty much all that there is since Blizzard decided that character customization is a big no-no. There is little to expand from this.

[nurman]

Fundamental would be the situation that I mentioned above: Playing in groups is undesirable.

Other "normal" flaws include:
-pretty much every D2 fan expected a better item system
-crafting is (and continues) to be useless
-heavy emphasis on story(telling) when the core gamers wished they could just turn off every dialog/quest after 1000hours of playing
-skillsystem needs some work (but I think it's already much better than D2's)

I personally think the system IS better, crafting is getting improved (and has been via the hellfire rings), dialog quest can be "turned off" by picking the last quest in the act and skill system only needs balancing.

Mostly playing in groups IS undesirable, but at MP5/6, me and my friend do very well with a DH / Monk combo. A glass cannon and a buffertank

The one thing I think the expansion could do is to expand the game into all directions. Maybe some kind of "survival" modes, with weekly / daily highscore ladders and such?

then i would think you are a stupid person.

Through the veil of stupidity, one finds himself.

[TheDestructor]

I personally think the system IS better, crafting is getting improved (and has been via the hellfire rings), dialog quest can be "turned off" by picking the last quest in the act and skill system only needs balancing.

I think what people really mean when they say this is that they want to be able to just start a game, fight any boss at any point in time in any act and just go anywhere. Much like you could do in D2. Why they haven't let us do this is beyond me, since it's not like people will farm bosses anymore than they do already, which is not much at all.

I've seen this sentiment stated before and I simply don't get it. From my perspective the "core" of the game is the actual "push buttons, click mouse, demons explode" bit, which is generally accepted to be quite good. The areas of rottenness seem to be the story and itemization. Other concerns like chat upgrades, named games, moving between acts, etc. could all be patched in without an expansion. If the expansion was 1 or 2 acts of decent story, a totally rebuilt item system, a new system like runes/charms to keep things interesting, and whatever other fixes didn't make it into patches it could be a classic. (Not that this is a given, or even likely - but don't call it impossible.)

I feel much the same. At this point, it's just lots of spread sheet stuff. And making sure it works out in game, of course. But you could probably design a bunch of rad items and wacky affixes with a couple bottles of Old E and a trial version of Microsoft Excel over the span of a 3 day weekend.

Probably.