Blizzard Admits Diablo III End-Game Failure

[Carnagath]

My question is, what kind of endgame is even really considered an "endgame" for ARPGs? Endless dungeons? PvP? The only games of this type that I have played recently are Torchlight and Diablo 3 so I'm not exactly sure what an endgame would even entail with this genre. What did Diablo 2 do that kept people around for like a decade? and was it even an endgame or did people just play the game over and over with different characters?

D2 had some advantages and also massive disadvantages that people tend to overlook. The advantages:

1) It took longer to get to max level than D3. Way longer. Like, 5 times as long.
2) There was PvP and dueling from day 1. It was a complete joke, sure, but at least it was there.
3) There was more customization for the items due to the runes, and some of those runes were unbelievably rare.
4) Legendary and set items had fixed stats and were really good. You knew what Windforce was and what it did and why you were after it. In D3 the complete RNG of everything strips away all "personality" and fetishistic charm of the loot.
5) You could grind in very short bursts. A couple of Pindleskin runs only took about 5 minutes. In D3 bosses drop rubbish and you need to get 5 stacks of nephalem valor before you can say that you are seriously grinding and not wasting your time, so if you don't have at least an hour you might as well not log in.
6) There were no brick walls between the difficulty levels, you could always progress even if your loot wasn't the best.
7) There were many different viable builds for each character and of course fully customizable talent trees. In D3 there is no need to make a second character of the same class, ever.
8) There was no auction house, so you had to trade with other players by joining their games, talking with them and checking out what they had to sell. There was also a lot of showing off going on during trading. It was all pretty charming, you could show off your e-peen and also communicate with, you know, other human beings, instead of the fucking stock market. There was a lot of flaming and a lot of dueling going on. Time flew.

Disadvantages:
1) Hackers
2) Dupes
3) Cow level powerleveling
4) Class balance was a complete a joke.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

I quite enjoy the game but find that even the stuff you can get by crafting is often more than enough to give you success (at least on the initial difficulty, I haven't played enough to advance past that yet so final results may be different). I haven't used the AH and don't plan to, but I've heard enough from enough people to know how game breaking it must be.

I had no intentions of using the AH either but the problem was that I was looting equipment that was 4-5 levels lower than my actual level. Grouping with other people meant that I was doing the least DPS and taking the most damage. I felt forced to use the AH just to keep up.

I will say that is one of the few things that really annoys me about the game. I'm playing the game at the moment, I'm level 48 and I just found a rare drop. I identified it and it was a level 31 item. I've still not come to the point where I feel forced to use the AH because I've barely used it and when I have it's been for things like pages of jewelcrafting or some gems. But yeah, the loot is a joke sometimes.

 

[kortin]

It always amuses me when people desperately cling on to the hope that single player games won't be always online in the future.

Spoiler

They will.

 

[Azmael Silverlance]

Its good to see them recognize and admit the huge blunder that they made with Diablo 3.
I think they were blinded by the games own pre-release hype and believed fans will just eat it like cake and never question its contents.

I myself couldnt even reach level 60 thats how fast i got bored of the game. Literraly in few days.

I played a hack`n`slash for the PS Vita and it was better than Diablo even though an obvious rip off. So there you have it . . . . blizzard`s first real black mark.

 

[bullet_sandw1ch]

Having never played D2 and haven't played D3 it doesn't matter to me, but I am curious about what 'end game' means in these types of dungeon crawlers? What does D2 have that D3 doesn't? I thought the 'end game' in these things was just repeatably grinding the high level dungeons over and over for RNG-stat loot, so it will take a really long time to get the perfect gear, hence the long play time. Both games have this as far as I'm aware.

So what's different with D2 apart from the auction house?

As far as I know and heard at least, Diablo 2 didn't have end game either.

what im garnering from this is that its cool to hate on D3, just like how it is with apple and COD. if there are no problems except from some inconvienences, why are people bitching?

 

[LeeHarveyO]

I wonder what made D2 last so long....... oh wait user generated content in other words Mods!!!!!

 

[Royas]

Here's a thought, how about finally making a patch that allows players to game WITHOUT BEING ONLINE ALL THE TIME?! I have no interest in making a diablo account, a battle.net account and I have no interest in having the game lag and be tied to the whims of my (relatively poor) internet connection.

Hence, no sale. Do something Blizzard. It's not your end game that's broken. It's your GAME.

The game is broken because your internet connection sucks?

OT: That's fine by me, I stopped playing after I completed the game on Normal and have only just gone back to it and I'm still playing through Nightmare, so I still have plenty of stuff to do.

The game is broken because it requires an internet connection for someone to play single player. I don't buy the argument that Diablo is primarily a multi player experience, as I've only played it single player. Ditto for pretty much all of my friends. Given that some people don't want to play this game with others, requiring a connection even for playing solo is adding a point of failure that is extraneous to the function of the game. Thus, the game is broken if anything keeps a solo gamer from playing.

OT - I can't believe they really didn't expect people to be reaching the end game by this point. Hasn't their experience with WoW taught them that there are plenty of hardcore gamers out there who blow through levels like kleenex. I would have expected to need endgame content by the end of the third day after release.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Here's a thought, how about finally making a patch that allows players to game WITHOUT BEING ONLINE ALL THE TIME?! I have no interest in making a diablo account, a battle.net account and I have no interest in having the game lag and be tied to the whims of my (relatively poor) internet connection.

Hence, no sale. Do something Blizzard. It's not your end game that's broken. It's your GAME.

The game is broken because your internet connection sucks?

OT: That's fine by me, I stopped playing after I completed the game on Normal and have only just gone back to it and I'm still playing through Nightmare, so I still have plenty of stuff to do.

The game is broken because it requires an internet connection for someone to play single player. I don't buy the argument that Diablo is primarily a multi player experience, as I've only played it single player. Ditto for pretty much all of my friends. Given that some people don't want to play this game with others, requiring a connection even for playing solo is adding a point of failure that is extraneous to the function of the game. Thus, the game is broken if anything keeps a solo gamer from playing.

Whether you buy the argument that it's a multiplayer experience because you have only played it on your own is irrelevant, because it did in fact originally start out as an MMO and there will plenty of people that play it multi-player. Requiring an always on internet connection does not break the game, if it did, the majority of players would be experiencing problems, and if someone doesn't want to play it because they don't want to be online all the time that does not make the game broken.

People need to stop overreacting to the always online requirement and people also need to stop using the word 'broken' to describe Diablo III because the game is by no means broken. Have a go at Blizzards stupid decisions until your hearts content, don't have a go at what is a perfectly functional game.

 

[Darth_Dude]

I find in unbelievable that Blizzard would release a game, after YEARS of development, and not put in the final levels, because they thought, "they wouldn't be needed"??

It's amazing how ridiculous things have become..

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

Here's a thought, how about finally making a patch that allows players to game WITHOUT BEING ONLINE ALL THE TIME?! I have no interest in making a diablo account, a battle.net account and I have no interest in having the game lag and be tied to the whims of my (relatively poor) internet connection.

Hence, no sale. Do something Blizzard. It's not your end game that's broken. It's your GAME.

Can people PLEASE stop crying about this? The game runs off of Blizzard's servers. Everything from damage numbers to creature spawns and map generation is run off their server. They CAN'T make an offline mode at this point. That ship has sailed. Get over it.

Wrong. It's already been cracked and runs perfectly fine off-line. Please, do continue buying into the lies that Blizzard keeps telling you.

No it hasn't. Any "cracks" I've seen are halfhearted, shitty versions of the game at best with the SOLE benefit that you don't need to be online. Everything else is worse.

The game isn't bad because of the AH though. Yeah, sure, it's the reason Blizzard are implementing all these dumb security measures, but it's not making the game bad. The AH has nothing to do with how fun the game is. And as for people struggling to log in because of bad internet connections, that's not exactly Blizzards fault. I think people are just getting far too worked up about the always online connection and the AH. Raging over nothing really.

The game is bad EXACTLY because of the AH. Hunting for items is fun, buying them not so much. And the item hunt is ALL there is. This alone might not be that bad, had Blizzard not balanced the game solely around the AH. The drops are ridiculus. I played the game for 100h, with 4 characters on 4 difficulty levels, and I had exactly 1 single unique drop. Once I reached Nightmare, it was nigh impossible to progress, without getting stuff from the AH. The items I found were simply too bad. I know that they wanted to make the AH work and so they needed the players to need tge AH, but by doing that, they sucked the fun right out if the game. They didn't really sell a game with an AH supplement, they sold an AH with a game supplement.

Wrong. The problem is that they DIDN'T balance the game around having an AH. If you read anything, they didn't expect the AH to take off and dominate the game nearly like it has.

Anyway, I'm still playing Diablo 3. Game is great. Fuck the haters.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

Grim Dawn should be out in a year. Never see any mention of it though. People always bring up Torchlight 2, but never Grim Dawn!
Looks like the proper D3 at least, and it's made by Crate(the guys that did the awesome Titan Quest game). Got all my hype redirected to that game for now.

I normally don't pre-order games, just on principle (who knows if something's going to suck before it comes out?), but TQ was so much fun and they've been so good keeping up with both the TQ and GD community and letting people know what's been going on with the development process and learning from people what did and didn't work in their previous game that should be kept/changed/improved that I've owned my copy since the beginning of 2010.

They seem to be fixing just about all the little things about TQ that bugged me, adding a bunch of cool new stuff, and doing everything right that D3 did wrong, so I'm still excited. Their multiclass system that's coming back from TQ is my favorite skill system from any ARPG ever, because there's always some new and ridiculous combination to try out whenever you think you've run out of things to do, and the lack of DRM and full support for mods (xMax in TQ was glorious, and that's just barely scratching the surface) is always nice.

 

[Hezz]

My question is, what kind of endgame is even really considered an "endgame" for ARPGs? Endless dungeons? PvP? The only games of this type that I have played recently are Torchlight and Diablo 3 so I'm not exactly sure what an endgame would even entail with this genre. What did Diablo 2 do that kept people around for like a decade? and was it even an endgame or did people just play the game over and over with different characters?

Well, Torchlight had that bonus 100 floors dungeon after you finished the main game. iirc they got progressively harder as you went, but I'm not sure how hard they actually got as I didn't really bother too much with it.

 

[Rad Party God]

Blizzard's fans kinda reminds me of Sonic's fans. Whatever they do, they just can't please anyone anymore.

And Blizzard itself kinda reminds me of Sonic Team. Except with less shitty games that actually sells in the millions.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

Well I still congratulate Blizzard for making a pretty decent spin-off, but now I want the proper sequel.

Ah well. Torchlight 2 is around the corner.

 

[Nazulu]

Blizzard's fans kinda reminds me of Sonic's fans. Whatever they do, they just can't please anyone anymore.

And Blizzard itself kinda reminds me of Sonic Team. Except with less shitty games that actually sells in the millions.

Your kidding, right? If any thing, the fans are too easy to please, buying the game just because it has the logo on the box. It's the bloody Blizzard fans defending all these bullshit policy's. Hell, if you actually read through these threads, you'll notice heaps of people saying how much they enjoyed the game. Of course, this thread is more focused on the mistakes.

The new Blizzard team is like the new Sonic team in that they make really obvious flaws, and for some reason they both have really shit writing too.

 

[Kekkonen1]

Most haters have barely touched the game, and have just read about always online DRM and RMAH. For some reason, theses things infuriate em more than higher taxes. Im baffled myself.

Maybe, and this is a crazy notion, but maybe we who haven't played Diablo 3 and cannot shut up about how angry we are about always online DRM (and to a lesser extent RMAH) are actually fans that LOVED the first 2 Diablo-games and have, just like you, been looking forward to Diablo 3 for a very long time. Maybe we aren't just all "haters" who hate on Blizzard just because it's cool. Maybe we are/were actually very big fans of Blizzard and maybe, just maybe, the reason we are all so upset is because we ALSO want to play Diablo 3, but not the Diablo 3 that Blizzard has made (also, I dont really like higher taxes but I wouldn't start complaining about it on a video game-forum).

I was a HUGE Blizzard-fan. I played Warcraft 1-3, Starcraft 1-2 and Diablo 1-2 like crazy, but I will NOT condone the kind of anti-consumerism that Blizzard has started doing, but even more than that: I dont want to play online!!

I dont care that always online-drm is supposed to give me some sort of improved experience. I dont care that it is supposed to hinder duping/hacking (which obviously it doesn't). I dont care that people think that playing online is the "correct way" of playing Diablo. I never ever ever played Diablo 1 and 2 online and I am convinced that I was far from alone in this. For me the whole point of Diablo was to feel utterly alone and exposed in the dark catacombs fighting off the forces of hell by myself. I was supposed to be a brave warrior and the last hope. Not one of an army of adventurers that has some sort of race to see who can kill Diablo the fastest/most times. That is how I, and many others, liked to play the game and nothing would have hindered Blizzard from creating an offline-mode for Diablo 3 as well. Also, I absolutely LOATHE lagging and will never buy a game that lags in singelplayer. If hacking/duping will happen anyway at least let me play the game in singelplayer offline.

But Blizzard doesn't care about me. A player like me, who cares more about the story than stats or leveling or loot (yes I used to like the stories in Blizzard-games, they were interesting and often well made although nothing revolutionary), a player like me who only plays singelplayer, I dont generate enough money for Blizzard. I just buy the game and play it, and that is just not the kind of player that Blizzard cares for anymore.

And if you are one of the Blizzard-apologists who is angry that "we" wont shut up about the lack of offline-play and that we should just go and play some other game, just remember that the reason that we wont shut up about it is that we dont WANT to play some other game. We WANTED to play Diablo 3, we had waited for many years to play Diablo 3, but we wanted to play it on our terms.

 

[Teshi]

My question is, what kind of endgame is even really considered an "endgame" for ARPGs? Endless dungeons? PvP? The only games of this type that I have played recently are Torchlight and Diablo 3 so I'm not exactly sure what an endgame would even entail with this genre. What did Diablo 2 do that kept people around for like a decade? and was it even an endgame or did people just play the game over and over with different characters?

User-generated content.

 

[Twilight_guy]

I hate to say it but Blizzard's idea of "end game" is forcing people to grind daily quests. That extends gameplay life but is very boring and tedious. It's a stop-gap. I hope that what they come up with for this is better then that.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

It always amuses me when people desperately cling on to the hope that single player games won't be always online in the future.

Spoiler

They will.

Lol sure, sure. What does that remind me of? Oh yea:

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Only Blizzard can get away releasing a game that had been in development for over a decade, unfinished, missing key systems, in many ways completely broken and STILL have fans lining up to sing their praises.
I hope their fans start to wake up soon.