Update: Diablo III's Loot 2.0 Breakdown - Less, Better, More Epic

[schmulki]

I'm confused what you mean by cookie-cutter builds. Is there one or two absolute "best" builds per class? Probably, but Blizzard usually fixes it so its not absolutely required (CM wizards have been nerfed almost every single patch for instance). However that doesn't mean other stuff isn't usable. I've been slowly gearin up a Spectral Blade Wizard since I hit 60 and while it does require a specific amount of gear, it works quite well (seen it in action at high MP levels as well, looks absolutely amazin).

Heck, I've even see a Witch Doctor effectively use Hex: Angry Chicken in mid range MP levels and that's considered to be the worst rune in the entire game (damage wise, awesome wise nothin beats turnin into a giant Chicken).

From the amount of research I've done on this, there's more viable builds in D3 than there ever were in D2 and they all play radically different.

What I mean is, since there is literally no barrier in the game to changing builds, as soon as something is supposed to be "the best" build, there's literally no time before EVERYONE is either using that EXACT build, or as you mentioned, a few people going completely off the wall and trying to make something work which shouldn't. I don't have a good answer as to how to curtail that and it's a problem in a lot of games, but complete freedom to change builds at any time just made that problem worse.

But, if that was the last thing on my list resolved, that would be fine. The others are MUCH worse.

 

[Skeleon]

That whole Hydra-talk reminds me of Median where you could build an entire character around specific items that proc'd certain effects.

 

[tzimize]

It's a start, but characters are still going to be incredibly linear and cut and paste (Every ends up the same)...although hopefully the new legendary mods will help differentiate characters from each other.

I really wish they would add back stats at level up, and some kind of skill system that lets you change how your character ends up. Loot by itself isn't enough to keep people interested long term (or at least alot of them) there has to be some form of progression for your character, something to shoot for. Just trying to get a few more bonus stats on equipment can only last so long.

In D2 I could play 1 character for 100+ hours, and then play the exact same class in a whole new way and spend another 100 hours on it.

In D3...I played all the characters through normal...which almost killed me because it was so easy/boring that I literally was falling asleep, then 1 character though to inferno and gave up getting the rest up. I stopped after playing 2 weeks...and only lasted that long because I waited so long for the game and I desprately wanted to love it.

I'll....retry...the game again after the loot tweaks etc....but it's going to take alot for me to invest more money in it.

While I have a LOT of bad stuff to say about D3, this is a critique I've never understood. Diablo 2 characters were just as cut/paste as D3. If not more. Sure you could choose where to put dex/str/vit/energy...but how did that really matter? Builds were developed, and the optimal stat placement was found. If you wanted a dragoon Barb you put your stats like this, if you wanted a bowzon you put your stats like this. There really wasnt that much choice. And if you wanted a new playstyle you had to speedrun bhaal 4000000000 times. Not really that fun.

In D3 you can change your playstyle when you want, and I dare say that there are as many build in D3 as in D2.

The boredom of leveling a class I totally agree with, but I really dont understand why people want stat placement back when all it REALLY was, was a way for you to gimp your toon if you didnt bother to spend a few weeks mathing up the optimal placement, or spend a few hours reading a guide.

 

[BarbaricGoose]

snippers (left inside accidentally)

While I have a LOT of bad stuff to say about D3, this is a critique I've never understood. Diablo 2 characters were just as cut/paste as D3. If not more. Sure you could choose where to put dex/str/vit/energy...but how did that really matter? Builds were developed, and the optimal stat placement was found. If you wanted a dragoon Barb you put your stats like this, if you wanted a bowzon you put your stats like this. There really wasnt that much choice. And if you wanted a new playstyle you had to speedrun bhaal 4000000000 times. Not really that fun.

In D3 you can change your playstyle when you want, and I dare say that there are as many build in D3 as in D2.

The boredom of leveling a class I totally agree with, but I really dont understand why people want stat placement back when all it REALLY was, was a way for you to gimp your toon if you didnt bother to spend a few weeks mathing up the optimal placement, or spend a few hours reading a guide.

Agreed.

People love to say how the builds in D2 were "Varied," but they weren't. There were a few builds for each class that the community and theorycrafters and such had determined as being best, and all the stat and skill choices were cut & paste, save maybe a few points here & there.

In D3, it's more or less the same, except that on the road to the max level, your build will change constantly instead of being forced down a specific path like it was in D2. That, to me, is infinitely more interesting than knowing exactly what your build will be at the max level, and then building towards from the start. Once you hit the max level, yeah, it becomes like pretty much every game that has skill trees (or something like a skill tree): there is always a best build. I don't really think this is avoidable when it comes to games that have skill trees, unless you make every skill a utility skill. Which, to me, sounds pretty awful. I mean, honestly, how many ways to dodge/heal can you give a guy? Even then, people are going to find the build that offers the most damage resistance, or the most mobility, etc.

So what do you do? You try to make the lead up to that inevitable end as fun and interesting as it can be. It's kind of like life, in that regard. Except instead of becoming all powerful, we, you know, die. Wow, now I'm hugely depressed.

I think most people who talk about D2 are blinded by nostalgia. I played the original D1 and I have extremely good memories. The Butcher fight? Goddamn--that remains my one of favorite boss fights IN HISTORY. What was it, and how does it play out? Well, you probably remember: "Ahhh! Fresh meat. [hold left click until he falls over in a 2 frame animation." I'm fairly sure that if I played it again today I wouldn't find it nearly as fun. If I played it again, I'd probably think it was just okay, at best.

Aaaaanyway. This is far from praise for D3; I think the only thing D3 did right was the combat, but it nailed the combat. The blood & gore, the abilities, the dismemberments and ragdoll, yeah, I had a ball playing that game. Well, when I wasn't tearing my hair out as I went up yet another level without finding a decent drop. Seriously, I tried to beat the game just on normal with a monk without touching the AH, and I couldn't. My gear was, on average, 8 levels behind me. I had to start wearing grays just to keep my DR up. I mean, for a game that's about amassing vast quantities of epic loot, the game had very little of the aforementioned loot, and it was nigh impossible to get a drop that wasn't absolute shit. And the legendaries were, more often than not, nothing but eye candy. And if on the off, off, off, off, way fucking off chance you did find a fuckin' wizard piece of gear, it would probably be for a different class. So get busy levelin', or get busy sellin'. Crafted gear was pretty much worthless, although they have made it somewhat more useful in recent patches. And, as others have mentioned, the fact that they force you to start on normal is awful, considering how painfully easy it is. I think they did address this somewhat with the Monster Power patch, though.

Point is, the game had its issues, but the stat/skill system, and, I think, the combat, weren't part of them.

 

[wulfy42]

It's a start, but characters are still going to be incredibly linear and cut and paste (Every ends up the same)...although hopefully the new legendary mods will help differentiate characters from each other.

I really wish they would add back stats at level up, and some kind of skill system that lets you change how your character ends up. Loot by itself isn't enough to keep people interested long term (or at least alot of them) there has to be some form of progression for your character, something to shoot for. Just trying to get a few more bonus stats on equipment can only last so long.

In D2 I could play 1 character for 100+ hours, and then play the exact same class in a whole new way and spend another 100 hours on it.

In D3...I played all the characters through normal...which almost killed me because it was so easy/boring that I literally was falling asleep, then 1 character though to inferno and gave up getting the rest up. I stopped after playing 2 weeks...and only lasted that long because I waited so long for the game and I desprately wanted to love it.

I'll....retry...the game again after the loot tweaks etc....but it's going to take alot for me to invest more money in it.

While I have a LOT of bad stuff to say about D3, this is a critique I've never understood. Diablo 2 characters were just as cut/paste as D3. If not more. Sure you could choose where to put dex/str/vit/energy...but how did that really matter? Builds were developed, and the optimal stat placement was found. If you wanted a dragoon Barb you put your stats like this, if you wanted a bowzon you put your stats like this. There really wasnt that much choice. And if you wanted a new playstyle you had to speedrun bhaal 4000000000 times. Not really that fun.

In D3 you can change your playstyle when you want, and I dare say that there are as many build in D3 as in D2.

The boredom of leveling a class I totally agree with, but I really dont understand why people want stat placement back when all it REALLY was, was a way for you to gimp your toon if you didnt bother to spend a few weeks mathing up the optimal placement, or spend a few hours reading a guide.

People keep saying this. I never once followed a build in D2 that someone else made. I tried hundreds if not thousands of builds over the years (Since they changed with patches and added synergies etc). I played fun builds that could only get through nightmare difficulty barely.....and even a few that specialized in using something like ravens to the max (barely could get through normal even!!)....but I played them my way...by my choice...and with my decisions and directions.

And it was fun.

In D3....I still don't use builds..but now...it doesn't matter, because there is only 1 build for each class...and each of those is quite boring (At least to me).

I can STILL go back and enjoy D2 (I did fairly soon before D3 came out again)...even though I have actually played all the possibly builds pretty much by now...it's been long enough for many of them that starting fresh again is still quite fun.

I created the first Hyrbid Kick/trapsin in Gamefaqs at least....back when the class was first released, and came up with quite a few original and fun builds over the years that many other players tried and enjoyed.

That was a HUGE part of the fun for me. I never was into PvP or even playing with others much...although I played ladder for the trading/runewords etc. I played mostly solo, never rushed and always played through the whole game from start to finish with each character (although I totally twinked out new characters usually).

Even with that I gave away all my equipment tons of times...took a break, and then would start fresh again a year later.

So yes, there is a HUGE difference between D2 and D3. In d2 you COULD create your own characters..and many of us did. Not everyone just followed set builds, put all stats in the same way etc. The game (d2) had HUGE potential as a mostly single player game with the mutliplayer aspect mainly used for trading (I did party with some friends on gamefaqs every so often but the majority of the time I solod).

None of what made D2 fun for me (even vanilla D2 before the expansion) was really in D3. I never felt like I really got anything out of leveling. I never felt like I had any control over how my character turned out or grew. I didn't even have the fun of finding new good equipment because the AH sold WAY better EQ just for gold...and by the time I realized I was ruining the only possible fun in the game (running for EQ) it was too late (and honestly the random drops were too random..and not good enough to really want to run for anyway...when you could pop into the AH and buy way better EQ in 2 minutes).

D2 had so much going for it. I was a great single player game as well as a multiplayer game. It was a excellent Meta Game as well, where planning out your character in advance and using synergies between stats, skills, equipment, charms etc (at least once charms were added in the expansion) had a huge impact on how you played.

Runewords, charms, stat setup, skill setup, synergies, equipment, hirelings etc etc all made a big difference in how your character played. There was literally thousands of ways to build a character in D2 between the different classes.

There is only 1 way to build each character class in D3....with the ability to switch how individual skills work at will (mostly minor charges though). It gutted my favorite part of the game completely. Then it took the fun of loot drops in D2...where you could get useful rares even early on in the game...ones that would always be useful and that you could trade for other great stuff...and where you could get named equipment with special properties that could again change how your character played...constantly while playing, and destroyed that as well.

D3 was a game that uses the same theme/story...and is an action RPG as well, but it's not a spiritual successor to D2 at all. It was, and will probably remain, my biggest disappointment in gaming history. And that is including games like FFX-2, Knights of the old republic online and the even more recent Neverwinter Knights online. Of all the games I have ever been waiting for with baited breathe, D3 kicked me in the gut the hardest.