Complaints, gripes, kvetches...

[Hawkbit]

I'm definitly not disappointed in D3, I'm having a riot.  I'll play the heck out of this game over the next few years, I'm sure.  However, there are quite a few little things that could have been fleshed out before it launched.  There were a lot of things learned from WoW and D2 that they modified and implemented in D3, but there were lots of other things they simply ignored.  

Again, the game is really good/great.  I'm hoping they continue development of features even though it launched.

[jakonovski]

It's kind of an emperor has no clothes situation here. With a broken loot system there really isn't much at all to the game. The story is tacked on, the world is tiny and there's little depth in the combat system. Kiting seems like the only thing you can actually do tactics wise, and it's not much fun tbh.

edit: graphics and polish are top notch though, it's well worth going through the set pieces once.

[Paelos]

Honestly, at times I think I'm playing completely different games than you guys.

[kildorn]

Sets and Legendaries aren't as good as Rares. I agree this is kind of lame.

Clicking monsters to make them explode in a shower of loot is still awesome, and by my current enjoyment curve will remain awesome for some time.

[Ingmar]

Honestly, at times I think I'm playing completely different games than you guys.

Welcome to my world.

[Rasix]

Same boat.  I'm not finding a whole lot to complain about and having  fun. Then again, I'm only barely into Act III (with 2 characters).   Liking it a lot better than I liked D2. 

[waffel]

My views on the end game currently:

Part of the problem is your character stops progressing at 60. You reach 60 before Inferno. Therefore, the ONLY way to progress your character in any way whatsoever in Inferno is gear. That is it. In D2 you could reach Hell @ level 70 and continue progressing your character in 2 ways:

• Leveling (skill points which lead directly to more damaging abilties, stat points)
• Gear upgrades (more damage, more mitigation, USEFUL affixs such as crushing blow, pierce, etc)

Since skill damage was based on skill level, and for physical damage dealers it was based on skill level + weapon damage, you could get stronger just by playing and leveling and not even bring gear into the picture. Melee classes getting better skills, better weapons, more attack speed. Casters getting more damage skills, more cast speed.

This is absent from D3, in which leveling doesn't make your skills do any more damage (other than the 2 points you get into your main stat) and simply give you runes which may or may not make skills do more damage (in this regard I find the new skill system lacking). The 90% deciding factor in your skills damage is your weapons DPS... for all classes (don't get me stated on this lazy as fuck design decision). Stats make up the other 10%.

So what you're left with is level 60s that have zero way to make their hero better other than gear. The only gear that'll make their hero better is in Inferno. They can't do Inferno without either a cheeseball spec, kiting, or skipping over content. Additionally, the legendarys are sub par, with no useful affixes that may help in Inferno (no crushing blow, no piercing, no bleed, high life leech, nothing similar to D2) Since skill damage is almost entirely based on WEAPON DPS, you're left with weapons 100% worth being tied directly to all classes' DPS leaving no unique or interesting weapon decision other than "What does the most DPS?"
And in a that is why the end game is currently lacking.

[Maledict]

Don't get me wrong - am loving the game, will be playing it for some time and having a riot blowing things up. I suspect that the reason we don't have rune words and everything else is because they wanted content for the expansions and they also didn't want to overwhelm new players with a ton of different options.

They do need to increase the numbers of uniques and sets, up the drop rate and make them a bit better. They seem to have forgotten that getting low level sets & uniques was great for pushing you to alts and other builds.

(oh and putting legendaries and sets on the crafter is dumb. Massively reduces their rarety if you can mass produce them... ((and removes the fun of the drop!))

[Ingmar]

Lack of low level sets is pretty much my one loot gripe.

[Sjofn]

I did not finish Diablo 2, not even on normal. I am actually intending to play through nightmare on at least two characters in Diablo 3. Diablo 3 wins. 


I still sort of wish they didn't change the rune system to a checkbox on my character sheet, but I am coming around to thinking it's probably better I don't have to depend on the RNG to unlock the version of a skill I really want. Although I still think it's fucking retarded the ferret companion rune for the DH is so goddamn late. It's a farming pet, don't make me wait until the late 40's to open it! 

[Paelos]

I love the fluidity of the skill rune system as a barb. It lets me transition between AE fights and boss fights, 2H fights and survival fights, with relative ease.

[Sjofn]

I mostly like it for solo/group play. The build I like for soloing (I KITE U) is not really necessary when I'm in a group with Ingmar's witch doctor (he controls the mobs FOR me, essentially).

[Malakili]

...stuff...

You give D2 endgame way too much credit.  Leveling up at the high end was grinding Hell Cows or Hell Bloody Foothills for literally days of /played.  Loot farming was endless 5 minute boss rights most of which gave crap.  Now, don't get me wrong, I loved the hell out of Diablo 2, but saying that they really nailed the end game compared to D3 is just not true.  Blizzard will fix the itemization, and Inferno is a FAR more compelling mode from an actual gameplay standpoint than anything that existed in D2 endgame.  Yes, D3 has some flaws, but its far from unsalvageable.

[Tannhauser]

I was another who didn't finish D2, but I'm in Act III of D3 and loving it.  Just a sheer pleasure to play.  The loot trivialization is my only big gripe.

Going to finish Normal and dip my toe higher up but will also unleash my altitis and play new classes.

[FieryBalrog]

There are certainly a lot of rose colored goggles with regards to D2 and its endgame (there wasn't one) and its itemization (sucked for all of vanilla, was decent between 1.09 and 1.10, and sucked worse afterwards but was partially salvaged thanks to duping).

The loot issues are real and need to be fixed, but they've made a much, much better combat and action game than D2. Their primary issue with itemization right now is just variety, they need to make legendaries, sets and white items all matter more. Also weapon DPS is treated under budget by a lot.

POE does rather well.

See POE, and its variable rule set ability, its brilliant.

It's too bad the actual game sucks. GGG does not get what makes ARPGs fun, at all. Also the loot system is way, way more broken than in D3. They're small and they mean well and worked hard, but that's most of the credit I can give them, plus my $10.

[proudft]

I was another who didn't finish D2, but I'm in Act III of D3 and loving it.  Just a sheer pleasure to play.

Yeah, my first foray into Act III, with stuff coming up the walls from every direction is up there as one of the most awesome computer game moments I've ever had.  I just got to it again on Nightmare to verify, and yep, still awesome.  

My only complaints are the same itemization ones everyone else has - weapon damage is too important relative to other stats, lower-level sets would be nice, sets & legendaries appear weaker than random rares, and some more (and useful, not junk) magical types of stuff would be nice.  But overall, not much to complain about except for my mouse-hand claw.

[FieryBalrog]

With a broken loot system there really isn't much at all to the game.

It just depends on if the core is there, and I think it is. D2 vanilla itemization had basically the same mistakes as here, except more severe, in that virtually all uniques and set items were completely useless, and the best items in the game were rares and occasional blues.

D2 had some superior things going for it, like the imbue quest which I'm absolutely befuddled as to why D3 doesn't incorporate, as well as just being... more of a new thing at the time. Of course, most people who played D2 did not play it as a multi-year hobby, hell most people didn't even play it online. For those types of players D3 loot system works just fine. This isn't an MMO despite their shitty online DRM, most people aren't going to keep playing this for years and years. Some people are going to hear about that aspect of D2 and go in with those expectations and find that one play through of an ARPG is enough for them. Others are going to have enjoyed that aspect of D2 personally yet find D3 isn't giving them the same satisfaction. Those crowds exist, it's not so much a reflection on the game as it is simply inevitable.

The question is not if everyone is going to enjoy playing this as a multi-year hobby, but rather whether enough of a community will spring up around it that it can compare to D2 or SC:BW or SC2 or WoW. And I suspect that it will. Even if SC2 isn't everyone's cup of tea, it has managed to sustain a fairly large community in a genre that is almost entirely dead in the West, over 2 years, with no new content.

I think Blizzard's biggest failing in recent years isn't so much the quality of the games they've put out, which I think are fine or even great, it's the fact that they completely missed the MOBA thing that was right under their nose for years and years. That's just the cockiness and lethargy which comes with blowing up to be a large dominant corporation, and it's cost them hugely in dominance of the PC online space.

[Ingmar]

The imbue quest sucked IMO - it was a one-time-per-difficulty thing so it trapped you into wasting it on your first character, etc. Much like the lack of respecs.

Crafting rares seems to fulfill the same kind of thing anyway.

[Xanthippe]

I finally have a complaint. I really don't like the AH gem interface. During primetime, it's tough to win an auction at any price.

Edit: The AH might be having problems generally. I had no trouble earlier, but getting all sorts of errors now.

[Llyse]

With a broken loot system there really isn't much at all to the game.

It just depends on if the core is there, and I think it is. D2 vanilla itemization had basically the same mistakes as here, except more severe, in that virtually all uniques and set items were completely useless, and the best items in the game were rares and occasional blues.

I was always under the impression that the best weapons were Hell uniques in D2 hence the trading currency was SOJs.

The imbue quest is cool and even though blacksmith crafting fulfills the same thing, the problem is blacksmithy requires gold investment while the imbue quest was a freebie and it would add a nice dimension of keeping your eye out of Superior/Masterwork whites for you to make into a rare once per difficulty.

I don't think it would imbalance the game/marketplace if each character got to imbue a white item of their choice while retaining the original white modifier. Not necessary but a nice freebie.

[FieryBalrog]

With a broken loot system there really isn't much at all to the game.

It just depends on if the core is there, and I think it is. D2 vanilla itemization had basically the same mistakes as here, except more severe, in that virtually all uniques and set items were completely useless, and the best items in the game were rares and occasional blues.

I was always under the impression that the best weapons were Hell uniques in D2 hence the trading currency was SOJs.

Hell uniques didn't exist in vanilla D2. They were added in LoD, itemization was great in 1.09, and then the vast majority of hell uniques were obsoleted in 1.10, which made itemization shitty again and all about finding ludicrously rare high runes and abusing oskills. In fact D2 post 1.10 would have been a broken game without duping, there would have been like 3-4 enigmas TOTAL across a ladder season. It was mostly a broken game anyway, unless you really enjoyed an environment filled with duped-enigma-wearing paladin bots doing blessed hammer farm runs.

The imbue quest is cool and even though blacksmith crafting fulfills the same thing, the problem is blacksmithy requires gold investment while the imbue quest was a freebie and it would add a nice dimension of keeping your eye out of Superior/Masterwork whites for you to make into a rare once per difficulty.

I don't think it would imbalance the game/marketplace if each character got to imbue a white item of their choice while retaining the original white modifier. Not necessary but a nice freebie.

Yeah, the reason I want an imbue quest equivalent is because it makes you care about white items. Ditto runewords and multiple sockets, though I don't expect that till an expansion. Right now there is a whole gradation for white items that is entirely useless because all white items are entirely useless.

The biggest problem with itemization right now isn't even the power of legendaries/sets vs rares/blues, it's the dearth of the better mods from items. They did bring a lot of the cooler mods from D2 over, but they nerfed them too much for God knows what reason, and so they aren't present on enough items and aren't "big" enough (50% chance to freeze vs 3% in D3, for example). This problem is fixable, but it requires them to acknowledge that it is a problem. Also, weapon damage isn't properly budgeted.

[Job601]

I remember major frustration in Diablo II from the low-level sets that you could never finish until you out-leveled them.  Blizzard got rid of that problem but didn't come up with a solution that didn't throw out the baby with the bathwater (how about crafted low-level sets?) 

[FieryBalrog]

On the plus side, I can't think of a single Blizzard game that hasn't kind of sucked (not really, but in a relative sense) until the expansion came along. I just hope they don't take as long as they do with WoW/SC2, there is no esports to worry about here so how about a year and a half at most.

LoD for example drastically improved vanilla D2, it's too bad they shat on it with 1.10 a few years later.

[Arinon]

Love the game.  I've sunk way too many hours (days?) into it but short of expansions I doubt I'll come back to it again and again like I did Diablo 2.  It's mostly just the sum of little things:

• I'm comparing this game to a patched LoD which is hardly fair.
• The AH totally destroys the allure of acquiring loot 'legit'.
• The execution required in Inferno just doesn't work that well with any sort of lag.
• The loot affixes seem locked down pretty tight by slot so no stacking anything aside from main stat + vitality.

My initial take away is that Blizzard just doesn't want any of us colouring outside of the lines.  It's a very guided-tour style experience in service of class/game balance above all else.  Having said that it's time to go back and resume my second character's rise to 60!

[Quinton]

That's the thing though -- even with some annoyances it's pretty damn fun.  I can only assume they intend to improve it over time.

[FieryBalrog]

I have a feeling the AH will start to cut both ways as more people use it to sell as well as buy. Eventually after all will have to fund AH purchases through finding rare items of your own.

[Jeff Kelly]

AH interface is seriously buggy.

Sometimes purchases don't go through (you get an Error 300 something). Sometimes the search function doesn't show anything and you can only reset it by leaving/rejoining the AH.

You can search for Armor value but not damage or dps, You can't sort search results (by iLvl preferred stat, buyout price or anything really)

No Add-In support so no price tracking and AH scan

Why didn't they use the current WoW AH implementation which is quite good feature wise

[Jeff Kelly]

Loot is ridiculous. Enemies drop a shitload of blues/yellows most of which will never sell in the AH due to low iLvl or shitty luck of the draw regarding stats

[Maledict]

Loot is ridiculous. Enemies drop a shitload of blues/yellows most of which will never sell in the AH due to low iLvl or shitty luck of the draw regarding stats

that's not ridiculous, that's how these games work. It's how these games have always worked, and it's the reason people still play Diablo 2 after all this time. On a fundamental level these games work like slot machines, and that relies on the big win feeling like a big win. The majority of items dropping not being very useful is completely fine and to be expected.

My gripe is that the best drops are rares not uniques and sets, and that there's a signifiant shortage of sets and uniques. I'd also like some of the more esoteric item mods brought back, and I think the class specific mods need improving because from what I have seen most are junk.

[Numtini]

It's ridiculous because of the Auction House, which completely changes how these games work.

And yes, the AH is very buggy. This morning I woke up and had three items that timed out during purchase last night. That's ok now, but good luck to them with the RMT AH.

[Merusk]

Meh, I'm indifferent and approach the AH the same way I do in WoW.  Great for offloading stuff you don't want to vendor but don't buy unless you can find deals.  It doesn't fundamentally change the game for me because, hey, I'm still leveling.  The focus is on gear at 60 - as expected in a multiplayer game with levels.  The trip doesn't matter, only the end.  Surprise.

My gripe is bad players right now.  It wasn't bad when I was playing 4-5 hours a night and staying ahead of the public.  I'm not a star player, but the last few days of public games have showed me that I'm definitely above average.   Had a barb and Wiz in a group last night that couldn't kill shit and liked standing right on top of the sprouts of those trees at the end of Act1.   

And when I say couldn't kill shit, I mean the Wiz popped archon form once and then spent the entirety of their time in form trying to kill one tree.. and couldn't.  Meanwhile I was mopping up a pack of 2 trees and 4-5 goatmen.

[FieryBalrog]

It's ridiculous because of the Auction House, which completely changes how these games work.

And yes, the AH is very buggy. This morning I woke up and had three items that timed out during purchase last night. That's ok now, but good luck to them with the RMT AH.

It changes loot acquisition during the lower and mid leveling process, which wasn't much of a thing for the previous Diablo games.

At the high end, you're going to have to MF farm to fund purchasing other top end gear, so it doesn't change that much from farming X high runes to trade for Y high runes. Or break out your credit card, which isn't a new thing either, though the volume of it will be new.

I do miss bartering.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I like that game at face value, I really do but ...

The more I levelled my barbarian the less fun I started having.  Right about at hell I realized that long gone were the days of wading into packs of monsters with my halbred, leavnig showers of blood and gore in my wake.  Now it's all about sword and shield, being cautious, whittling away at enemy life and outlasting shit.  If I wanted to play a prot warrior I'd play wow.

Games should not get LESS fun the more you play them.

[Paelos]

I like playing my sword and board barb with my DH friend who can blow shit up after I stun, slow, and otherwise mess up their day. It's like a pvp approach to pve.

[FieryBalrog]

Well now that they've started tweaking Inferno balance I'm hoping they give some attention to the barbarian.