torsdag den 14. juni 2012

Thoughts on Diablo 3


Diablo 3.

As so many other people playing World of Warcraft I signed up for the annual pass in order to get beta invite and Diablo 3 for "free". I had previously played both Diablo and Diablo 2 plus Lord of Destruction and thought "This should be entertaining" , oh boy was I wrong.
The game is broken, unfinished and so unbalanced that it is unbearable - allow me to explain:
The launch along with the two weeks after was riddled with "Error 37" "Error 3003" plus a substantial amount of less common errors.  It was so frustrating not being able to login whenever you wanted, however, from a pure business point of view I do understand Blizzard since why bother to buy extra servers since it will only be needed for the first 2-3 weeks and then there is no use for it, I can understand that. But from a customer perspective - WHAT THE FUCKING HELL. 

Then there is the "balancing" of classes / mechanics which the first week was changed so often that when you logged in the next day your spec could be completely worthless due to some mechanics could be "exploited" (The first Diablo kill comes to mind along with a party of 4 monks), which honestly isn't more than a lack of testing. I rolled a wizard and just at the top of my head I can think of "Force Armor", any spec with Critical mass (Unless you roll with a ridicules amount of crit) and to that you can add spells or abilities which is downright useless such as "Meteor", "Energy Twister" Storm/Ice Armor", "Explosive Blast". However, I got nothing to complain about compared to Monks and Barbarians and how they got obliterated due to the brilliant idea to scale mob / boss damage output in a ridicules way, however, this is getting "reversed" which is nothing more than a "fast fix" since if there isn't additional "abilities" while you get more buffs + crowd control then playing in a group will make everything easier, and it does quite a bit.

However, as of current while I am farming gear (Love getting level 50 items of Azmodan) which never get any sort of useful stats e.g. intellect and dexterity on barbarians only belts I mean - Come on, I get the randomized stats but some of it is downright retarded. Speaking of retarded mob abilities some are more or less impossible with certain mob combinations - Invulnerable on any mobs which is average speed and got fast is impossible for me as a wizard. Soul Lashers is something I skip or attempt to bug since they are way to powerful in regards to speed and power while not even being elites and when they get more buffs - meh, bad design. Phasebeasts with firechains - Brilliant put Fire Chains on a mob which got teleport as standard that is fucking ingenious...
In summary I am quite disappointed with the game and if it wasn't for the Annual Pass I would be downright furious about spending 40 euroes on it. It is nothing more than a Beta game that is half broken and untested, which if you play on Inferno is so obvious that it makes you wonder who the hell the beta testers are ? I was thrilled with the "Our beta testers thought it was hard, and then we doubled the damage / HP" and I thought "Yay, this will be difficult". Difficult is not being oneshot from outside your area of view, being unable to take certain elite mobs due to their affixes (I don't mind skipping but some combinations is so painstakingly obvious impossible to kill for any class) and it just adds to the notion that the game is not thoroughly done and the doubling was just a "fast" adjustment since balancing the game would take too much time. 

I know that Diablo is a farming game, but getting level 50 loot from Act3-4 Inferno bosses is not fun nor is it well-thought through. If I were to rank the game I would give it 1/6 simply because of the amount of problems, broken abilities and general brain farts which sadly is the notion that the game gives me. Or worthless stats such as +Experience on level 60 items.

And don't give me "Patches will fix it" - Yes, but I don't expect to start a game and then wait a month or two till the fucktards who designed got enough data from the people playing and complaining so that they can balance the game because the nitwits were incapable of doing so.

The most positive thing I can say that despite WoW and Diablo 3 is two different genres it does make me appreciate how well-balanced and well-functioning that WoW is compared to the Beta game Diablo 3.