[Rant] Diablo III Burnout
It’s been two months since I’ve ridden on the hype train and bought Diablo III. Since then, I’ve had massive fun slaughtering countless baddies in the rush to inferno. I’ve spent way too much time scouring the auction house for a good deal, clicked my way through the best builds and tips for Demon Hunters, and probably spent a third of my playtime helping my friends get through their own quests because I was so ahead. I even wrote a damn review on the game, mostly in praise of it. (And that review wasn’t short).
120 hours later, I found myself frustrated with the brick wall that is Act II. So much so to the point that I gave up. My friends have already called it quits with the game before they reached 60. The popularity of public games are only a shadow of what it actually is. The internet, especially the Blizzard forums, are ablaze with negativity regarding the subject of Diablo III. And I’m finding myself cashing out my character on the Real Money Auction House, probably not to be played again. I’ve tried to play other heroes, but they fail to recapture that magic of playing through everything fresh, becoming a daze of tedium and monotony.
And I’m not alone. Looking at various discussions and videos about the problem, the general consensus seems to be that “I want to love this game, but there is something missing”. So what went wrong?
Even though I am well aware there may be a silent majority that are still playing instead of bitching, there is no denying that the game has been a disappointment to some. Yes, it is true that Diablo III had massive, probably unrealistic expectations before its release. But when I see players leaving with genuine reasons, I have to conclude that the disappointment is not merely due to overblown expectations.
A summary of, not only my own thoughts on the matter, but those of the vocal masses-
All Work and No Play
When you see a rare item drop you’re supposed to be at least a bit excited about it. Your heart is supposed to pound the moment you see a legendary item. You’re supposed to speculate how much more powerful or rich your character will be the moment you see the colored text. Most importantly, you’re supposed to be driven to play the game because you are starving for the next rare item.
The current loot system turns this core source of fun and motivation of the game on its head. It’s not that rare items are too common, or legendaries are too rare. It’s just that most of them just plain suck. “Rare” items go straight to the vendor or blacksmith 95% of the time because they are just plain worthless. Wheres the excitement in unidentifying a yellow item when you are almost positive it’s going to be garbage compared to the gear you bought off the AH? Wheres the motivation in farming for a legendary when you know there are plenty, more common items that surpass it in stats?
Players who spend millions to be able to farm the latest acts of Inferno should expect to be able to make a reasonable return on their investment. Instead, they are presented with constant stream of useless loot, with maybe a few they could monetize for some gold. Item Level 63 items are supposed to be the among the most powerful a player can acquire, but identifying one often turns out to be a anticlimactic. What is supposed to be the most addicting factor of the game turns out to be a constant stream of disappointments. It is no surprise the game suddenly feels pointless and the motivation to get the next great item isn’t there.
One of the reasons that so many drops are useless is due to the simplicity of item affixes. There are a few interesting affixes here and there like Life Steal or Damage Reflect, but basic stats such as Dexterity and Resistances trump all. This means that the value of an item is determined by a simple randomized number of a few affixes that might not even be on it. Anything with a lesser number most likely becomes trash. Unlike in Diablo II, there is nothing like “cannot be frozen”, “ignore defense”, or “Frost Nova on hit”, affixes which can make a seemingly lowly item valuable. In Diablo III, improvement is defined by a mere a number increase in either damage or survivability, which is not as exciting or noticeable as gaining entirely new skills or powers off a single item. What is just +300 damage going to mean to a player a day later? Nothing.
A huge factor that gimps the excitement of looting even further is of course the Auction House. Since all players have to ability to browse through and purchase from an endless list of enticing gear, it is no surprise the items they encounter seem trash by comparison. Whether the AH is a positive or negative factor on the game is debatable, but there is no denying the effect on the player’s perception of loot. However, I believe if gear was more complex and versatile, the AH would have less of a negative effect on the loot system; it could even turn the AH into a more positive thing as new markets would emerge for off-the-wall affixes and builds. Even a simple idea such as adding “bind on pickup” items would add some more value to the time players spend acquiring items, instead of having the worth of everything defined by a number determined by the beast that is the Auction House.
The current loot system is focused on acquiring gold instead of improvements, since the chances of getting a drop that is better than one’s AH-bought gear is so slim. When one is farming for something to sell, instead of something that improves their character, the reward system becomes much less satisfying. There is much less enjoyment from buying an item than getting it yourself. The game is better played as an action RPG, not an eBay simulator.
To Grind or Not to Grind
Attempts to break through the “brick wall” that is the infamous Act II Inferno has resulted in much weeping and gnashing of teeth, not due to lack of skill but to lack of gear. It is nearly impossible to progress through without increasingly higher end gear, which one cannot even fathom of getting by straight progression. Due to the game’s design, the only choice is to backtrack previous acts and difficulties to grind for lots of gold to buy something nice from the auction house (unless you want to lighten your wallet on the Real Money Auction House).
This is where the game would begin to feel like a chore. What motivation is there for a person to constantly rerun parts of the game they already played, if the only goal is to reach further parts of the game which in itself is a rerun? Due to the current loot system, there is none. I personally made the choice to not farm at all, since later acts are not rewarding enough for my time. We are farming to farm some more. Again, the system is an endless, tedious hamster wheel with no satisfying results.
The game actually punishes you for trying to complete the game without grinding. With the drastic increase in repair costs, players are penalized for constant deaths; again, not due to lack of skill, but lack of gear. If you are undergeared, you shouldn’t even try to repeat attempts to complete inferno- you’ll just end up penniless. What is supposed to be an enjoyable challenge turns into frustration, and eventually apathy.
Repeating previous acts, as well as the difficulty of Inferno, could be tolerated, even welcomed, if it was play was actually rewarding. How great would it be if one could feasibly acquire powerful enough gear through their own play, and use that to complete Inferno? Instead, one has to earn a wage from long hours of tedious farming, due to the unavailability of viable gear players could get themselves.
It’s in the Journey, not the Destination
The road to 60 was a blast. The combat was stellar, the scenery was beautiful, and the enjoyment was multiplied by playing with friends. After 60, however, there was nothing waiting for me except failing to break through the brick wall or rerunning stuff I’ve already done. The game suddenly felt pointless. Getting to the high points of a game should feel rewarding and empowering. Ironically, the more the player progresses, the more tedious the game feels, and the weaker the player’s hero seems.
I think the biggest reason players are so disappointed is because they want to love Diablo III. They wanted this game to last them for a year, maybe two, maybe more. They want a reason to enjoy the game for longer than a few months, but unfortunately, couldn’t find one. A shame that a beautiful, big-name game with such high production values could have been so much better with a few changes. It was one hell of a ride- while it lasted.
You were entertained by a $60 game for 120 hours. I don’t see why you are sad about it. In fact, your complaints about being burned out are rather silly for the amount of money per hour enjoyment you got.
This was not random Action RPG #457 designed by small, plucky development studio #64.
This was Diablo 3, the successor to a game that spawned an active community that persisted for over a decade, designed by Blizzard, arguably the highest-profile game developer in the entire effing world. Surely you can understand how expectations were correspondingly higher for this title than they might be fore the average game?
Do you suppose the goal of this game was to create an average, throw-away experience that died out within months, or were they trying to create another colossus that lived up to the Blizzard track record of success? Because I think it was the latter, and that they badly miscalculated in their design in their eagerness to shoehorn in the RMAH as a revenue-generator. Even Blizzard now admits that their endgame, the thing that sustained Diablo 2 for so long, is a failure.
D3 shipped without a viable endgame, without PvP, without a well-thought-out loot system, without a skill system that could support diverse playstyles at higher difficulties, and without so many of the intricacies that evolved over the lifetime of D2. It’s a pretty, slick, but shallow game that failed to innovate in any significant way over its predecessor despite the long development time. It seems to me that the criticisms that Blizzard has taken a noticeable step backward with D3 are perfectly justified in this context.
Like Bob Dobalina said + if the game becomes easier then you will nuke Diablo on inferno and then what?
At the same time I can understand the frustration. I have mixed feelings.
Blizzard games used to be the very best of the PC industry. They are the largest PC developer at the moment. As a result, people have rather high expectations of them. Personally I think $0.5 per hour isn’t bad, but not great either; I have plenty of games that had a much better ratio of money spent/time played by a variety of developers. It’s just nothing compared to $/h of Diablo 2, Starcraft or even WoW. People were expecting to spend atleast 500-1000 hours in this game, just like in other Blizzard games, but what we got was a game that is unfinished and unpolished in many areas.
Holy hell this post was spot on. I mean dead freaking on. I think everyone who’s a respectable gamer knew we would have to be wary of our overblown expectations. I think everyone I knew had that same reservation, that they hoped it would be good, but they’ll cut it some slack–if, at the very least, it had strong replayability the franchise and Blizzard are known for. No one was lining up with pitchforks and torches come the release (despite the initial launch gaffs). I think, to be absolutely honest, the majority of the community gave it a fair turn. But there was no concealing its many inherent flaws Tim here has pointed out. The game is simply not fun for a very large portion of players.
Flame me all you want, if you look around the type that are still playing are min-maxing and theorycrafting (and that’s fine) but it’s not the same excited crowd of explorers looking for new and mysterious adventures. Nope. It’s mostly hardcore and casual-hardcore, with the sometimes late-to-the-party adventurer. I parted out all my gear on the RMAH and made nearly the cost of the game back and was pretty relieved (not happy, relieved) about that. Next time, I think I’ll wait a bit instead of believing one of my favorite franchises would be given the same care and consideration as it had before. As the adage goes, nothing is sacred.
Spot on. D3 is a loot oriented game, and the loot is incredibly boring. Farming gold (or spending real money) to buy someone else’s leftovers because you don’t find upgrades yourself is about as un-funny as it can get.
And don’t even start on 1.2 % chance to freeze on hit or barbarian belts with int and dex or level 60 items with xp bonus… the list goes on and on and on.
You don’t get it! So many people use this statement and its completely ignorant. You can’t compare blizzard games to regular games, the blizzard brand is based on producing good games and their unique selling proposition or differentiator from other competitors is in fact that they produce games that are enjoyable for years. You have to compare them with games that have the same selling proposition. You could compare COD with Diablo 3, because COD can be enjoyed for years, and in this case diablo 3 loses horribly, because it cannot deliver to the expectations the customers have and should have due to previous knowledge.
When you take that away, they lose their core identity and just become another game developer. Imagine all the customer who had these expectations and bought Diablo 3 because blizzard games represents long lasting gaming experience. They changed their differentiator and that’s why people are pissed. Now for the next game blizzard might publish people will be more reluctant to purchase it and will probably do a more thorough examination of what they are actually buying, because they can no longer trust what blizzard once stood for.
With this game they have lost their differentiator, they are not the best at producing endless games anymore. They have become mediocre in play Time, Price, Service, gaming experience.
First I heard that D3 was really coming and was very excited. Later on I heard that Blizzard North was not making this one anymore because it had been disbanded years ago. At this point I had bad feeling about how this 3rd part would be but I ignored it and hyped towards the release.
15th May my heart was beating hard and my hands were sweating when I took that Diablo III package off the store shelf > rushed home, installed and started playing. It was awesome and everybody on chat were excited also and asked about everything in the game. I noticed immediately many similarities to WoW (played WoW for a couple of years > stopped for good quite soon after Cataclysm) > ignored even this. So time went by and I was happy when I proggressed to inferno act II without any farming just plain proggression. I also made a decision that I’m not gonna buy anything from AH/trade just drops as it supposed to be. Then act II stopped me and couldn’t do shit with current gear and I was amazed and later angry and now bored with this almost pointless farming (real gear upgrades are far too rare) when I know that all you need is gear and little to no playing skills needed.
Then the 1.0.3 patch came with WoW enrage timers and huge repair costs and lots of other fun stuff (I know only barbarian aspect). At this point I finally admitted to myself that this 3rd Diablo isn’t good anymore and the patches/hotfixes are going to the gearcheck only -direction. I’ve now played about 140 hrs and currently at Ghom > it requires gear even with the Overpower Crushing Advance -trick which they call overpowered (can’t do with my current gear which isn’t so bad). IF this Crushing Advance -trick could be done with only the LoH weapon equipped then I would call it overpowered > which isn’t so bad thing either.
So I don’t know how long I dare with this empty of excitement farming of gear to beat Ghom. But now I know one thing for sure I will not buy any of Blizzard(-Activision)s game in the future with blind trust to its high quality instead I wait patiently and see what kind of reaction it gets during 1st month in the player community and other reviews (written and youtube) and then decide if I buy it or not. This is especially the case with Diablo IV if it ever comes or the expansions to D3. I’ll wait and see how the future patches of D3 are going to be like…
You actually were able to log in and play on release day? Lucky you.
I definitely feel you. If it was never required to go back and farm previous acts to progress, I think the game would have been better off unless farming was fun. Players stuck at the point of Act II (or any other stage) just feel more frustration than enjoyment, and no surprise- they quit.
Focusing #1 on making the game FUN, instead of making it challenging or profitable, is the way to go. In fact, if Blizzard had not made these mistakes I think they would be making more money in the long run because there would be more people still playing to use the Real Money Auction House, and more gamers will continue trusting them to deliver what acesreung had mentioned- a long lasting gaming experience.
And ofc the main reason for this dull gear farming is the fact that e.g. every barb is the same without gear and gear only makes the difference between them.
This is the main difference compared to previous Diablos. For example in D2 your characters build was built on your character and gear just added some more power to it and you could strengthen your character with 98 skill points which you could use as you wanted and build really individual build. Only some reached lvl 99 but anyway there were proggression present a way longer than in D3. In D3 proggression stops when you reach lvl 60 which is quite fast and then begins this boring gear grind.
Really nice rant, on point on many subjects. All in all I had fun with Diablo 3, too bad they destroyed the legacy and fun with the mandatory AH. To many yellows that worth shit, to many legendaries (i have 200+ mf and i’m finding one daily – so i can’t complain about that) that are no good. Bill Roper, Blizzard North are gone, and it shows. I want to love this game, but at it’s current state… I will check on Trochligth.