Diablo 3 "Feels Even Better" With a Controller

[Austichar]

Blizzard is just like Harbinger. They love assuming direct control.

 

[darkknight9]

Meh, it doesn't matter. The consoles aren't portable enough to take with me on business trips and without a steady connection I can't play anyway.

 

[Braedan]

As long as they don't trend towards making the UI and mechanics more controller centric, and push the keyboard off to the side, no big deal. Might even be fun to try with my ps3 controller for a while.

 

[WabbitTwacks]

Didn't they say like a week ago they weren't gonna make games for consoles? I smell delicious sellout

They didn't say they won't be making console games at all. They said that they won't port games which can't really be ported due to game mechanics. After all they have ported their games to consoles before.
And sellouts? Really? You know that you are talking about one of the biggest commercial game developers. They are literally swimming in money. But I don't know, maybe you have them confused with some indie studio.

 

[robandall]

A) You lose speed in any type of menu management and targeting.
B) You lose speed and convenience in selecting/executing skills.
C) You lose the amount of skills you can quickly access.

A is, by far, my biggest issue with any game like this. Menu navigation, especially with item heavy games like Borderlands or Oblivion, is normally so much easier with a mouse and keyboard. B & C are also very valid concerns - the only way round that would be mapping skills to the D pad and having a second bank available with a trigger pull.

 

[Stryc9]

I'm sorry, but it's just not Diablo if you aren't breaking a mouse with clicking.

Many a mice have fallen in my gaming time with Diablo. Their sacrifices were for a greater cause and/or victims of unjustified rage.

OT: Well at least this time they made more a confirmation that it will be for consoles other than a 'Well, I don't know, it would be cool though huh?'

While this does annoy me a little, I will still be playing it on a PC since it would feel weird to me otherwise.

WTF do you people do to your mice playing Diablo games that breaks them so much, I've played quite a bit of Diablo and finished Diablo 2 plus hour and hours of gameplay afterward on an old first generation Microsoft optical mouse and it still works just like the day I bought it.

As for the use of a gamepad for Diablo 3, if it's an option in the PC version I'll give it a shot as long as I can use my Logitech Dual Action, I'm not buying a 360 controller for this. I think that it'll be a little weird at first but something that could be gotten used to. As long as I can put the controller down and use my mouse for inventory management and selling stuff and navigating dialogue trees.

I really see no reason to be all upset by this, maybe I've been doing it wrong all this time but I didn't have every key on my keyboard bound to something in the game and I barely used the number keys for anything other than drinking potions. I always had attack as left click and a skill as right click.

 

[Sjakie]

I kinda agree with that guys assesment that a game like Diablo lends itself for using a controller, better then any FPS game anyway.
If it "Feels better", is still a matter of comfort and taste so that's a stupid comment all together.
I wasn't gonna get it anyway with all the ridiculous DRM and the real-money auction house.
This is just another minor reason for me to be glad for passing on it.

 

[bootz]

As Long it isnt like Hunted emons Forge for PC, I don't mind.
The controls were horrible for pc.

 

[Linkassassin360]

I really dont see a problem with branching out your fan base, and the next logical step would be moving to consoles. I mean, look at it from the company's standpoint, they have a firm hold on computer gamers with WoW and starcraft, so where can you go from there that doesnt involve consoles? As long as they dont sacrifice quality, I say more power to them.

 

[phantasmalWordsmith]

This will be my first Diablo game so I hope it comes to console because my computer can't handle most games and I do not have money to spend on a gaming computer.

 

[AngryMongoose]

As a veteran of Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance I can say this kind of game works fantastically with a controller. They just need not to fall into the pitfall nearly every developer of that kind of games does (Including the first BA DA). Face Buttons = Spells. It doesn't matter if you have to press a modify key to use them, or if environment interaction has to be done via menu, you need easy access to your main spells; a single quick-spell button does not cut it. (Take note Magicka guys. Controller users are getting schooled by keyboard users. Make 4 face buttons = first 4 elements; 4 face buttons + right trigger = next 4 elements)

Diablo 3 "Feels Even Better" With a Controller

"We don't see ourselves as a PC developer - we see ourselves as a game developer"

This, however, is still worrying. If they start developing for multiple platforms not only will their games lose the gameplay-first focus they're known for, they'll also be tied down to console hardware and licensing crap. Never a good sign.

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

Good. If you put it on the xbox, I will buy it.

 

[tzimize]

What's sad is that this will probably upset some PC gamers. Why? I have no idea.

I look forward to trying this game on a console.

EDIT: A controller easily has 16 buttons to use, over 30 if you incorporate holding the triggers to map buttons twice. This game should be fine on a controller.

The reason most PC gamers complain is because of bad console->PC ports. While it is possible to have 16-30 buttons on a controller, very very few games actually do that. Many PC gamers want lots of options and abilities at once.

This is only part of the reason. The other part is that controls are (my god I feel like I've said this a million times...) more precise on PC. A mouse will more or less always have better pinpoint targeting than a gamepad. When creating gameplay where you can expect your players to be x good, you can make your game x hard/challenging/fun. If there is a pile of gamers that have y potential on their controls instead of x...you compromise. The gameplay cannot be hard enough to be impossible for the y crowd...so you make it easier, or different. THIS IS THE PROBLEM. The Game is not what it could have been, because of design compromise.

Honestly I feel like I've explained this a gazillion times and it really shouldnt be that hard to understand for someone who has had at least a bit of contact with both a mouse and a gamepad.

Edit: Since I'm bored I'll even try to paint an example. In your head.

Imagine the sorceress from D2. Imagine you are casting a fireball. Imagine you throw a fireball at a bunch of approaching skeletons. Imagine there are enemies approaching from the other side, or someone teleports there.

Scenario 1: Mouse: You quickly and precisely move your cursor on the other side of your toon in the middle of the crowd and fire a fireball, decimating the enemies.

Scenario 2: Gamepad: You want to target those other enemies, but how?

Possibility 1: You control a cursor with the analog sticks, and move it over to the other enemy crowd and fire a fireball. This works in the same way as the mouse: But anyone suggesting that this is equally precise will get nothing but extreme contempt and ridicule from me. You simply have no clue what you are talking about.

Possibility 2: You move your character around with the analog stick and face the other crowd, then trying to judge how you are facing, fire the fireball at the other crowd. The longer the distance the less of a failed angle is needed for the fireball to go off course and maybe not hit them at all. This is not nearly as precise. How do we solve this? Autoaim I guess.

The same example could be used for teleportation. If any of you consolers have played Diablo 2 with a high level sorceress, teleported around like crazy and thrown frozen orbs...PLEASE tell me how this gameplay could be achieved as precisely with a gamepad?

The compromise will be a slower and stupider game because gamepads cant compete with the mouses' precision.

Compromise will kill the gameplay that PC gamers love! This is what consolization is! Understand it! Dattebayo!

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

If it is good on the controller it will suck with a keyboard and mouse. See Fallout 3, Borderlands, Prototype, Just Cause 2, Oblivion, Bioshock as examples of consolification screwing up PC interfaces.

Basically this is Blizz admitting they developed D3 for the console because that is where the money is.

But it doesn't matter if it came with rainbow farting unicorns. Without offline single player I'm not getting it.

D3 no, torchlight 2 yes.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Snip

WTF do you people do to your mice playing Diablo games that breaks them so much, I've played quite a bit of Diablo and finished Diablo 2 plus hour and hours of gameplay afterward on an old first generation Microsoft optical mouse and it still works just like the day I bought it.

As for the use of a gamepad for Diablo 3, if it's an option in the PC version I'll give it a shot as long as I can use my Logitech Dual Action, I'm not buying a 360 controller for this. I think that it'll be a little weird at first but something that could be gotten used to. As long as I can put the controller down and use my mouse for inventory management and selling stuff and navigating dialogue trees.

I really see no reason to be all upset by this, maybe I've been doing it wrong all this time but I didn't have every key on my keyboard bound to something in the game and I barely used the number keys for anything other than drinking potions. I always had attack as left click and a skill as right click.

I've only broken a grand total of two from both Diablo games, one I've slammed down too hard and the other it stopped working because I'd grip it too hard when I got angry.

I'm not upset over this, a little annoyed because they've been teasing about it for so long because just about everyone knew this was going to happen and it's weird since I'm so used to mouse and keyboard. I'm sure it will be fine with a controller, but I'm sticking to my mouse.

 

[Zorpheus]

Personally, the only reason I'd be upset with this is that if they sacrifice the versatility of the PC interface just to make it more console-friendly. That's the only reason why any PC gamer would complain about this sort of thing. Sadly, it seems like that is happening.

 

[Subtitled]

Snip.

So, just because a console version would be arguably worse (I say arguably because while your points are valid, whether that loss of speed and precision actually bothers someone is entirely up to that individual), means that it shouldn't be done at all?

 

[Jan-Einar Kristiansen]

I still remember Diablo 1 for the PS1. It was waaay better. The graphics where better, the contolls where better and you could even change the languages, both spoken and written!

 

[Denamic]

Diablo 1 was on Playstation and it worked just fine.

What the fuck?
It did not.
It was atrocious.
Me, not even being a PC gamer yet at that time, were tearing my hair out because of the controls.

 

[Subtitled]

It would not be arguably, it would be objectively functionally worse. Period. I'm not talking about preference, because "I prefer it this way /fullstop" is the worst argument anyone can ever make. And also because people can like the shittiest of shit, despite it having little to no redeeming qualities.

Which is exactly why I gave the disclaimer for why I said "arguably." If it being objectively worse, whether in control or even technical aspects, is grounds for it never being allowed to exist, then a great many console games would never have been made. You may not be discussing preference, but when it comes to someone dropping their cash, I think it's far more important to go with what you prefer, even if there's something better.

If an inferior version of a game is made with the only purpose of it being profit, it has no intellectual (or even moral, to sound dramatic) reason to exist. It may well be done, but it should not be supported. You'll notice that at least most of my ire, if it was apparent in that post, was directed at the gullible and severely ignorant audience. You'll see my point proven once you read countless less-than-half-line comments, blurbs, I should say, about people saying how good it is that the game's coming to consoles (or ones from every other D3 thread whining about how it should). With no reasons whatsoever, other than, of course, the heavy implication that the console in question is the only fucking gaming device the person has.

Blizzard isn't allowed to make money? That aside, bringing a game to more people is hardly a bad thing, if the transfer can be done to a determined degree of success. It's fine wanting your product to be the best it can possibly be, and I in no way condone the equalization that seems to tend to happen in multiplatform development when PC's and consoles are concerned, but if it doesn't affect your product negatively, than why should someone who does only have a console for gaming be left out?

The preference you're talking about, too, vast majority of the time simply comes from not having used the mouse&keyboard setup for anything more than checking one's Facebook. So many people on this forum (usually touted the one intellectual gaming forum) are completely and utterly ignorant about the way PCs work when it comes to games that it's scary to think how bad it is outside it.

I was a PC gamer first back in the day, and still am to some degree, though now I typically prefer a controller in my hands and lounging in all manner of positions on a couch. It's comfortable for me. And although, to your example, I am most likely not part of that vast majority, it still shows that it's entirely possible for someone to prefer a controller, knowing full well that it is inferior in some aspects.

Also, the PS3 at least can support mouse and keyboard, so if Blizzard allowed for that support in a console version, wouldn't your points become invalid?