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

[stillman]

It's probably been said, but they can't fix certain problems without scraping the entire game's content and remaking it: the toddler streak, endless story mode, narcissist "heroes", zero-dimensional characters, the voice acting, glowing neon screens, overdeveloped crisp sounds, the stat stick issue, AH, etc, etc. It just depends on what you are willing to accept as a player, and we all have different preferences regarding true "fixes". But all that stuff is there to stay. They can only add (more explosions, probably) and cross their fingers. Maybe when you hit a baddie, the skeleton will pop out and go even further this time. Who knows.

[TheDestructor]

narcissist "heroes"

No way. This is actually one of the reasons I love the female wizard so much.

"If only they could see me now!" and other lines I forgot, are what make her so fun to play.

"I'm so good, I astound myself!" lol Sadly, the male wizard doesn't say it nearly as well.

[Dahmer]

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.

That is by far the biggest problem for me.

Why they built around having to choose a quest to start a game is beyond me too. I want a questless option so I can just choose difficulty, monster power and go, can't be that hard ffs.

[WhiteGiant]

I think an expansion can fix the game even the itemization ( that even without wiping currently existing gear imo )
- just conversion.

though that would require them overhaul and adjust many mechanics and numbers. it would also require them to overhaul affixroll ranges.


eg. i think 1 mainstat = 1% increased weapon-dmg is absolutely ****ing ludicrous.
what if ;

1 mainstat equals =1 flat dps added to dmg
50 mainstat = 1% Weapondmg.


so if you have a 2h with 1500 dps
and 2000 mainstat you would have

2000 + 1500*1,4 =4100 dps | (40% = 2000/50)

this change alone would serve to untie Weapon dmg dependency from the rest of your gear.
on a similar note i'd also encourage more complexity in skills. to encourage more diverse gear choices.
eg. skills like force wave and spectral blades should scale with STR as good as with INT.

it would also be helpful if more skills had more "tag's" and affixes which correspond with these tags ; similar to what path of exile is having atm.

e.g. you have spectral blades , with bleed ? than i would tag the skill with "spell,dot,melee,area effect,signature skill(Wizard)"
a monk with deadly reach i would tag with tags such as "technique,melee,ranged,area effect,comboskill (monk)"

and than they could easily introduce affixes corresponding with these tags.




they would also need to decrease the affix value range for all affixes. this is probably the reason why most items are considered ****ty.

if items lvl63 items could only roll with 55-80 all resistance instead of 10-80 all resistance or
75-100 mainstat instead of 30-100 mainstat it would be no problem to introduce a bunch of new item affixes.

that being said i want that the Priority changes from:

quantity affix Items to quality-affix-combos items.


I will never have to find an item such as:

Chest iLvL 63 :400 armor
*14 AR (could be 80)
*32 poisonresistance (could be 60)
*54 int 32 str could be (100 /100)
*700 Thorns could be (could be 2500)
*5 pickup radius (could be 7)
*spike trap dmg +7% ( could be 15%)

See what i did there ? not only are Affixes themself a ridiculous combination, but their values are also very random and at the bottom of their ranges. this artificially decreasing the odds of getting good items without adding trade off's or depth to the item-hunt / customization.


that being said - i think that the max-range for affix values should never be be farther away from the top than ~2/7.
because a item as described in the top will never be useful to anyone there is no depth to the assessment of this weapon.


what about an chest like that ?

400 armor
62 AR (always between 60-80 instead of 10-80)
170 vit (always between 140-200 instead of 60-200)
35% increased Firedmg (on both Firedmg affixes & skills (double dipping for both yeah!))
20% more area effect
25% Minion & follower dmg.
6% HP replenishment per 100% of the default max-value of ressources spend (eg 100 AP = 6% hp)


kind of specific that item isn't it ?

how about using it on wizard with Meteor, Firerune hydra ?
maybe a Monk with Lashing tail kick (fire) , sweeping wind fire , fire mystic ally ?
how about WD with Fire Locust, Fire Mongrels, Fire gargantuan, Firebomb, you'll get the picture.

what a if an affix had the chance to be twice as good at a ~5% chance for the cost of an additional affixslot ? eg 160 All resistance.

the problem is not "bad quality loot" the problem are the Bull**** mechanics which condemn 40% of the affixes to uselessness and another 40% if the rolls are not good enough. this has nothing to do with roll-playing and character Identity/customization as is usual in an ARPG - it's just thinning the odds of being able to pile on the "good stuff".




there is tons of stuff which can be done with Items, passive skills, skills and skill-runes to mix up the game and make it deeper and more satisfying.

but that will take a major effort of Blizzard - seeing what the have done with diablo 3 itemization they are either unwilling to take that effort (because it would be hard to balance and adjust the AH accordingly) - or they are unable because of incompetence.



anyway. the expansion will be significant for the Diablo franchise. if they wont make significant changes with the opportunity of an expansion they will likely make none at all.

[jonw]

I actually don't think the expansion will "fix" the game, but then again, I don't think the game is "broken."

I think there are two major issues with D3 right now from my perspective. I realize that this is not the majority perspective, nor is it even a popular one, as I have no desire to either play with others (in PvP or co-op) or use any AH. Still, for a single-player hack-and-slash loot-em-up game, these are the main/only problems I have:

1) The loot isn't really particularly fun, in and of itself. I've been able to clear Inferno, self-found, on every character, on at least MP1. Probably at some point doing single clears into Inferno A2, all my characters received loot drops that were essentially all they were going to have from a functionality perspective. In other words, by the time I got some decent combination of all res, vit, main stat, crit, crit damage, IAS, etc. on each slot, it was both sufficient and par for the course. At this point, I probably face no hard gearing choices, because none of the items in the game are really anything other than stat sticks....

2) Combined with the drop rates, the procedurally-generated content isn't particularly rewarding because the challenge is pretty linear. Don't get me wrong, I love the MP system, but I also loved progressing through 1.0.4 Inferno and how rewarding that was. The problem with MP right now is that I'm at a point where I can easily survive in MP2/3/4, but there's not much of a point to playing them because things take longer to kill...

I also disagree with all "the game is broken" commentary. Now that I've been playing it for most of a year, yes, it would be good to have some surprises on the item drops. But it's pretty much the same as D2 -- didn't really have to ID an item to know exactly what it was.

On your second point, I'd like to see xp and rewards upped at higher MP levels, but my understanding is that patch 1.07 addresses this.

What if I told you there was nothing that needed fixing?

You're not allowed to post here if you like the game.

It's probably been said, but they can't fix certain problems without scraping the entire game's content and remaking it: the toddler streak, endless story mode, narcissist "heroes", zero-dimensional characters, the voice acting, glowing neon screens, overdeveloped crisp sounds, the stat stick issue, AH, etc, etc. It just depends on what you are willing to accept as a player, and we all have different preferences regarding true "fixes". But all that stuff is there to stay. They can only add (more explosions, probably) and cross their fingers. Maybe when you hit a baddie, the skeleton will pop out and go even further this time. Who knows.

Certain 'problems' you list are pretty subjective. I didn't expect Shakespearean character development in an ARPG. I like the AH -- much better than the ad hoc trade games 'system' in D2, and a great tool for determing item values. I would like to be able to disable story mode, but most of the time I'm just in hack and slay mode and the game's a rush (particularly when you run into a massive pack).

[beingmused]

The core essence of the game is very good - all it needs is more stuff to do, skill changes, more classes to try, and crafting fixes. It has been gradually getting better, and will continue to do so via both patches and expansions, I'm sure.

[windstriker]

I think an expansion would fix a lot of the problem, such as itemization and more areas to farm. However, atm my biggest problems with the game is all the useless skills that exist and the fact that the only reason to play multiplayer is for hellfire farming. These things should've been fixed months ago, but they do not seem to have enough resources for this. May just be they're working hard on an expansion...

[stillman]

That is by far the biggest problem for me.

Why they built around having to choose a quest to start a game is beyond me too. I want a questless option so I can just choose difficulty, monster power and go, can't be that hard ffs.

It appears they put a zillion man hours into the story, so having an option to ignore it all would be like losing a loved one to them, like euthanising a pet (or admitting defeat?) Of course, you already know this...oh, why do I post these things?

[Xuhao]

My only worry is they don't want to fix it, either out of

A. Business reasons

I strongly agree with this part.
I personally think the game is far to centered around the gold AH and the RMAH.
If the game is about good gear then you simply need to be a good trader.
For gear and RM purposes its not worth it to actually play the game; you can make more gold and RM by "sniping" and reselling items on the AH... I feel suspicious about the randomness of loot (i dont think the investors will allow any risk taking) and i think that acti-blizz main concern is to make players use the auction house.

Then again... I also think that acti-blizz are more concerned about the Asian market than they are about the European and american markets combined... IMO this wouldmake sense...

[Quingu]

Expansions do not "fix" games. Expansions EXPAND games. Do you know what happens when you expand a turd?

More bad odor.