I was bored to tears playing D3 even before finishing it on normal with all the characters. I literally found myself falling asleep while playing it, and finally gave up after 2 weeks.
I went back a few months later.....tried to play it again, and had the same result.
Never had that problem with Torchlight 2 or Path of Exile and played both hundreds of hours.
I am not sure what it was about D3 that made me sleepy/bored....but for some reason it really did put me to sleep..and I usually love those types of games.
I enjoyed D2 a ton before the expansion btw. The expansion was AWESOME and BRILLIANT mind you, but...even the core game was a blast.
I don't see the large # of additional character progressions/adaptations that we got with LOD in this expansion though. There are no charms for instance....only 1 extra class, no real additional ways to play the classes that are already there (although extra levels will add a bit more to each class at the top end I guess).
LOD added a ton. The 2 new classes Druid and Assassin were freaking AWESOME and a blast to play. The charms added a whole new way to build your characters and allowed you to drastically change how 1 already built character played based on the charms you used. The loot system improved drastically because of that, and trading became....well probably the best trading experience I have ever seen in a game including tons of MMO's.
We need more specific info on what is being added in the expansion, but so far it doesn't sound like it'll be enough. I think one of my biggest problems with D3 was that each character followed a set path of progression, with very little a player could do to differentiate their character from others. The eq you used could to some degree make a difference...but even that wasn't really much different (just how good the rolls were...but most of the boosts were the same). The expansion needs....NEEDS...to add some way for characters to customize characters, how they play, how they progress etc.
No stats was a big mistake....even if everyone used the same stat progression (and trust me...everyone didn't)...because even the illusion of control is important.
No skill points was also a mistake. I made many characters of the same class over and over again and had a blast doing it. I never had even the slightest incentive or reason to replay any once class in D3...and I didn't feel like I had any real control over the characters progression even on my first character.
You want to make the game fun again for me? Let me actually feel like I am progressing as my character levels up. Give me some form of control on how my character turns out. Give me choices that make a difference...and equipment, charms, items, bonuses etc to want to work towards (and not just buy on the AH for gold (never spent real money but you could find way better EQ on the AH then you could randomly get...for very little gold comparatively...which basically made looting pretty pointless.
D3 was...to me....a snoozefest. I had no joy/incentive to level up, I had no incentive at all to loot or loot run since I could buy better stuff on the AH. I just could not find my happy nervana place like I did in D2..which I could still go back and play again (if I didn't have like 20 other games I'm already playing right now).
D2 was > D3....D2 LOD was >>>>>>>>>>> D3 and will almost certainly be better then D3 with the expansion. Heck, unless they add more changes Vanilla D2 (which btw still had plenty of fans even years later that played the game sans expansion) will still be better then D3 with the expansion.
I am not the first to say these things by a long shot. Why/How can Blizzard not have heard so many people complain about this stuff...yet not change it in the expansion? It's crazy.
They should have added stat increases per level back.
They should have added an additional skill boost setup that is outside of the rune setup...allowing you to boost various player stats/abilities etc with skill points you get.
They should have added something like charms that let you alter a character based on items in your inventory...giving you even more customization for each character.
Doing those 3 things...even if it was in an expansion, could have SAVED d3.
I don't understand why they couldn't see that.
