Diablo 3 - Beta thread

[Skizzy]

I thought the beta was just okay. It says a lot about the game when I completed Act 1 in an hour and a half, exploring every single area of every dungeon/outside map. During the time playing, I had to drink one health potion the entire time.. whether or not that was just my character being too overpowered, I don't know (Monk). The gripes I had with the game are:

- Game is too easy. I understand that this is a dungeon crawler, and you're meant to be able to take monster after monster. When I don't have the need to drink one of my many health potions I racked up over the course of Act 1, or run away from a boss or one of those lightning imbued monsters (those were the devil in D2), I consider it to be too easy. I walked up to a boss and spammed two skills until he was dead, which leads me to my next point..
- Limited skills to use. Obviously you unlock more skills as the game goes on, but I think I remember having more skills to use than just three during the end of Act 1 of Diablo 2. This meant as I monk, I had an aura up, I had a charge building skill, and I had a finishing move. The finishing move was worthless as well, and it was much more efficient to just spam my charge building skill.
- No attribute points. I don't think I need to go into much detail here, but this is just one less way to tailor your character to your own play style. Everyone knew about this though.
- No skill tree? I ask this in a question because I'm not completely sure this is true. Maybe it will unlock in a later act, but as I leveled up, I just automatically learned the skill associated with that level. All I had to do was talk to a stone in town and see if I wanted to replace one of my three skills I'm limited to that are on my bars. Hardly any customization there at all.
- No reason to go to town. Besides having to go to town to advance in your quest (this only happened a few times), and while this may seem like a nuisance to most, I think it added some immersion. On the rare chance that my inventory filled up (this happened once), all I had to do was use the disenchanting cube and break them down into parts I could use to build armor at the Forge. There was no "oh shit, I'm full- have to TP back to town for a second to sell/repair". Speaking of repair, I didn't have to repair once.


I think that pretty much sums it up. I was seriously really looking forward to this game as I spent hundreds of hours playing Diablo 2, and skipped countless days of school to stay home and play it. I remember checking Diablo3.net (before it was owned by Blizzard) many times a month to see if there was any news on if a Diablo 3 was in production or not. I think that this will no longer be a first-day purchase for me. I will have to wait and look for reviews when the higher Acts come out. Don't get me wrong, the game was fun, and it may be worth the gameplay/price factor when you think about all the Acts, and then doing them over again in Nightmare and Hell difficulties. It just doesn't hold a candle to Diablo 2, and because I listed all the points above, I don't think that's just nostalgia talking.

Edit: Removed my points about the act being too short and too little quests due to official word that the beta is only half of Act 1.

 

[butterfliesrpretty]

I thought the beta was just okay. It says a lot about the game when I completed Act 1 in an hour and a half, exploring every single area of every dungeon/outside map. During the time playing, I had to drink one health potion the entire time.. whether or not that was just my character being too overpowered, I don't know (Monk). The gripes I had with the game are:

- Acts are too short. I remember spending many hours wondering around Act 1 in Diablo 2 in the many different zones. There are about two or three outside zones in D3 and just as many random caves and they're the same size as Diablo 2's.
- Game is too easy. I understand that this is a dungeon crawler, and you're meant to be able to take monster after monster. When I don't have the need to drink one of my many health potions I racked up over the course of Act 1, or run away from a boss or one of those lightning imbued monsters (those were the devil in D2), I consider it to be too easy. I walked up to a boss and spammed two skills until he was dead, which leads me to my next point..
- Limited skills to use. Obviously you unlock more skills as the game goes on, but I think I remember having more skills to use than just three during the end of Act 1 of Diablo 2. This meant as I monk, I had an aura up, I had a charge building skill, and I had a finishing move. The finishing move was worthless as well, and it was much more efficient to just spam my charge building skill.
- No attribute points. I don't think I need to go into much detail here, but this is just one less way to tailor your character to your own play style. Everyone knew about this though.
- No skill tree? I ask this in a question because I'm not completely sure this is true. Maybe it will unlock in a later act, but as I leveled up, I just automatically learned the skill associated with that level. All I had to do was talk to a stone in town and see if I wanted to replace one of my three skills I'm limited to that are on my bars. Hardly any customization there at all.
- No reason to go to town. Besides having to go to town to advance in your quest (this only happened a few times), and while this may seem like a nuisance to most, I think it added some immersion. On the rare chance that my inventory filled up (this happened once), all I had to do was use the disenchanting cube and break them down into parts I could use to build armor at the Forge. There was no "oh shit, I'm full- have to TP back to town for a second to sell/repair". Speaking of repair, I didn't have to repair once.
- Lack of quests. I remember doing one side quest and it was to help this chick get her tomes back. It lasted all of 30 seconds and I was done. What happened to all the side quests? Remember, there were five optional quests in Diablo 2, and then your primary Act 1 quest. I think this and the lack of zones were what made this too short.

I think that pretty much sums it up. I was seriously really looking forward to this game as I spent hundreds of hours playing Diablo 2, and skipped countless days of school to stay home and play it. I remember checking Diablo3.net (before it was owned by Blizzard) many times a month to see if there was any news on if a Diablo 3 was in production or not. I think that this will no longer be a first-day purchase for me. I will have to wait and look for reviews when the higher Acts come out. Don't get me wrong, the game was fun, and it may be worth the gameplay/price factor when you think about all the Acts, and then doing them over again in Nightmare and Hell difficulties. It just doesn't hold a candle to Diablo 2, and because I listed all the points above, I don't think that's just nostalgia talking.

so you play the first act in beta and it's not one of the harder difficulties and you're mad about it not being hard. Go outside man.

 

[v0rtic3s]

- Acts are too short. I remember spending many hours wondering around Act 1 in Diablo 2 in the many different zones. There are about two or three outside zones in D3 and just as many random caves and they're the same size as Diablo 2's.

So, if they're the same size as D2, then where's the problem? Not as many as D2, just the same size?

- Game is too easy. I understand that this is a dungeon crawler, and you're meant to be able to take monster after monster. When I don't have the need to drink one of my many health potions I racked up over the course of Act 1, or run away from a boss or one of those lightning imbued monsters (those were the devil in D2), I consider it to be too easy. I walked up to a boss and spammed two skills until he was dead, which leads me to my next point..

It's not going to be that way upon release. The difficulty of the game right now is undergoing balance, as with skills and everything else in the game.

- Limited skills to use. Obviously you unlock more skills as the game goes on, but I think I remember having more skills to use than just three during the end of Act 1 of Diablo 2. This meant as I monk, I had an aura up, I had a charge building skill, and I had a finishing move. The finishing move was worthless as well, and it was much more efficient to just spam my charge building skill.

Skills change drastically with Runestones, so they're more than likely counting on players finding early/low level Runestones before the end of Act I in order to be able to alter their skills.

So, theoretically, you'll have "more" than three skills, since skills can be drastically altered with Runestones, which is what the skills really revolve around in D3, instead of having a few massive trees of countless skills.

- No attribute points. I don't think I need to go into much detail here, but this is just one less way to tailor your character to your own play style. Everyone knew about this though.

No need with the way the skill system is set up and, frankly, the days of uber number crunching are over. True, you don't necessarily have to make it number crunching, and could make the allotment more simplified, but with the way the Runestones work, you will actually be able to play the way you want to, with many skill variations. Or, so they say...

- No skill tree? I ask this in a question because I'm not completely sure this is true. Maybe it will unlock in a later act, but as I leveled up, I just automatically learned the skill associated with that level. All I had to do was talk to a stone in town and see if I wanted to replace one of my three skills I'm limited to that are on my bars. Hardly any customization there at all.

No, there's no skill tree, and that's how skills are basically learned.

- No reason to go to town. Besides having to go to town to advance in your quest (this only happened a few times), and while this may seem like a nuisance to most, I think it added some immersion. On the rare chance that my inventory filled up (this happened once), all I had to do was use the disenchanting cube and break them down into parts I could use to build armor at the Forge. There was no "oh shit, I'm full- have to TP back to town for a second to sell/repair". Speaking of repair, I didn't have to repair once.

The main reason to return to town aside from quests, will be to change-out skills, which is no longer going to be allowed anywhere outside of town. You'll be able to switch skills as much as you want, but you have to go back to town to do it now.

- Lack of quests. I remember doing one side quest and it was to help this chick get her tomes back. It lasted all of 30 seconds and I was done. What happened to all the side quests? Remember, there were five optional quests in Diablo 2, and then your primary Act 1 quest. I think this and the lack of zones were what made this too short.

Cant speak to this, but I doubt they've left the game that bare for a finished product.

The reason for the beta right now is skill balancing and testing of server load. They're still making a lot of tweaks to the mechanics of the Runestones (obviously not included in the beta) and a few other things, so I'd bet that more quests will be seen in the finished product.

It's been said by Blizz, and others, many times... the skills, game balance/difficulty level, quests etc. are all just "basic" right now for the purpose of testing, balancing etc. The beta is in now way necessarily a reflection of what the full game will be upon release in terms of any of those things.

On that note, truly... who knows... as it's just a small beta, a tiny glimpse of the game, it's visuals and basic mechanics. I don't think Blizz would screw themselves or fans with some lackluster game, after putting so much time and money into it... but then again, we wont know until it launches.

They do absolutely need to do away with the bullshit always-on DRM scheme, since D3 is not a damn MMO, and the whole "being protected from hackers" bullshit is just that... bullshit. I played D2 online for over five years, and never once had a hacker or duped item ruin a game experience of effect me in the least.

I understand them wanting to "'protect" the RMAH from dupers/hackers overrunning it and killing anyone else having a chance to sell things, but still, I don't see how devs as capable as Blizz "could not" come up with a way to make an offline mode with offline characters unable to be brought online. Seems like a steaming pile of horseshit to me.

 

[CrimsonKnight13]

They do absolutely need to do away with the bullshit always-on DRM scheme, since D3 is not a damn MMO, and the whole "being protected from hackers" bullshit is just that... bullshit. I played D2 online for over five years, and never once had a hacker or duped item ruin a game experience of effect me in the least.

I understand them wanting to "'protect" the RMAH from dupers/hackers overrunning it and killing anyone else having a chance to sell things, but still, I don't see how devs as capable as Blizz "could not" come up with a way to make an offline mode with offline characters unable to be brought online. Seems like a steaming pile of horseshit to me.

I was horrified to have lag while playing a single player game... the beta is installed on an SSD.

 

[krameriffic]

I thought the beta was just okay. It says a lot about the game when I completed Act 1 in an hour and a half, exploring every single area of every dungeon/outside map. During the time playing, I had to drink one health potion the entire time.. whether or not that was just my character being too overpowered, I don't know (Monk). The gripes I had with the game are:

The beta is not the entire first act but closer to the first 1/3 of the first act according to current estimates.

God I'm glad they get really informed testers into their betas.

 

[]|[ Mar']['in ]|[]

in addition to that, the devs said that the first part is basically a tutorial. At blizzcon they had interviews of people who were allowed to play nightmare/hell/inferno difficulties and all they talked about was how ridiculously hard it was.

 

[xenios]

I thought the beta was just okay. It says a lot about the game when I completed Act 1 in an hour and a half, exploring every single area of every dungeon/outside map. During the time playing, I had to drink one health potion the entire time.. whether or not that was just my character being too overpowered, I don't know (Monk). The gripes I had with the game are:

- Acts are too short. I remember spending many hours wondering around Act 1 in Diablo 2 in the many different zones. There are about two or three outside zones in D3 and just as many random caves and they're the same size as Diablo 2's.
- Game is too easy. I understand that this is a dungeon crawler, and you're meant to be able to take monster after monster. When I don't have the need to drink one of my many health potions I racked up over the course of Act 1, or run away from a boss or one of those lightning imbued monsters (those were the devil in D2), I consider it to be too easy. I walked up to a boss and spammed two skills until he was dead, which leads me to my next point..
- Limited skills to use. Obviously you unlock more skills as the game goes on, but I think I remember having more skills to use than just three during the end of Act 1 of Diablo 2. This meant as I monk, I had an aura up, I had a charge building skill, and I had a finishing move. The finishing move was worthless as well, and it was much more efficient to just spam my charge building skill.
- No attribute points. I don't think I need to go into much detail here, but this is just one less way to tailor your character to your own play style. Everyone knew about this though.
- No skill tree? I ask this in a question because I'm not completely sure this is true. Maybe it will unlock in a later act, but as I leveled up, I just automatically learned the skill associated with that level. All I had to do was talk to a stone in town and see if I wanted to replace one of my three skills I'm limited to that are on my bars. Hardly any customization there at all.
- No reason to go to town. Besides having to go to town to advance in your quest (this only happened a few times), and while this may seem like a nuisance to most, I think it added some immersion. On the rare chance that my inventory filled up (this happened once), all I had to do was use the disenchanting cube and break them down into parts I could use to build armor at the Forge. There was no "oh shit, I'm full- have to TP back to town for a second to sell/repair". Speaking of repair, I didn't have to repair once.
- Lack of quests. I remember doing one side quest and it was to help this chick get her tomes back. It lasted all of 30 seconds and I was done. What happened to all the side quests? Remember, there were five optional quests in Diablo 2, and then your primary Act 1 quest. I think this and the lack of zones were what made this too short.

I think that pretty much sums it up. I was seriously really looking forward to this game as I spent hundreds of hours playing Diablo 2, and skipped countless days of school to stay home and play it. I remember checking Diablo3.net (before it was owned by Blizzard) many times a month to see if there was any news on if a Diablo 3 was in production or not. I think that this will no longer be a first-day purchase for me. I will have to wait and look for reviews when the higher Acts come out. Don't get me wrong, the game was fun, and it may be worth the gameplay/price factor when you think about all the Acts, and then doing them over again in Nightmare and Hell difficulties. It just doesn't hold a candle to Diablo 2, and because I listed all the points above, I don't think that's just nostalgia talking.

Holy crap there is a lot of misinformation in this post.

 

[Superhuman]

Holy crap there is a lot of misinformation in this post.

Almost the entire post is misinformation.

 

[CJRP]

I'm actually happy that it is always online and similar to an MMO. I love MMOs and I love the aspect of not having any cheaters/dupers around. Sure, someone usually finds a way to dupe money along the way in an MMO but it never lasts.

Think of Borderlands. If that game had a similar setup as Diablo 3 its online content would actually be worthwhile. Same with Titan Quest.

So I don't see what the big deal is. Nearly everyone has an Internet connection that is always on. Just sign on and forget about it. If you loose your connection go do something else.

 

[Skizzy]

So, if they're the same size as D2, then where's the problem? Not as many as D2, just the same size?

Sorry for that confusing bit. I meant there are less zones though the ones that are there are about the size of Diablo 2's. So overall, Act 1 was much smaller than Diablo 2's.

The beta is not the entire first act but closer to the first 1/3 of the first act according to current estimates.

Where did you see this? Until I see an official post I'm shrugging it off. I'll have to go back and kill the last boss again and see what it says. I'm almost positive it said something about the end of Act 1.

Holy crap there is a lot of misinformation in this post.

Can you explain? My post was mostly opinionated.

so you play the first act in beta and it's not one of the harder difficulties and you're mad about it not being hard. Go outside man.

Did you even play Diablo 2? You don't remember fighting Andariel and having to back up and rethink your strategy? Or having to hide behind a wall real quick and use a pot? Of course not, you're ProGamer1000. And no, it's cold out there.

 

[Psych0]

Did you even play Diablo 2? You don't remember fighting Andariel and having to back up and rethink your strategy? Or having to hide behind a wall real quick and use a pot? Of course not, you're ProGamer1000. And no, it's cold out there.

This is why this closed beta is a bad idea.

It seems a lot of people are getting into this beta and do not understand anything about it.

Anyway it is a well known fact around the bnet D3 beta forums that playing to Skeleton King in D3 CB is equivalent to playing to Blood Raven in Diablo II.

I strongly suggest you fire back up Diablo II and play to Blood Raven. The first few encounters in Diablo II on normal are extremely easy and small in scope.

 

[Skizzy]

This is why this closed beta is a bad idea.

It seems a lot of people are getting into this beta and do not understand anything about it.

Anyway it is a well known fact around the bnet D3 beta forums that playing to Skeleton King in D3 CB is equivalent to playing to Blood Raven in Diablo II.

I strongly suggest you fire back up Diablo II and play to Blood Raven. The first few encounters in Diablo II on normal are extremely easy and small in scope.

I was comparing the boss to Andariel, not Blood Raven. Yes, Blood Raven was easy, and yes, that's about the same amount of playtime it took to get to her, which is why I consider Act 1 to be so short. If you're incinuating that there is more to Act 1 than the boss I fought, then again, please find me an official source mentioning that. I'm at work and can't look or else I would. It seems almost all the beta testers assume it to be the end of Act 1 beta because that's what Blizzard told us, and that's what all the professional reviews are saying. Look up HuskyStarcraft's Diablo 3 beta play through. I consider him to be a well-known person throughout the gaming community and yet his play through videos say "Complete Act 1 Playthrough".

 

[sekira05]

I thought the beta was just okay. It says a lot about the game when I completed Act 1 in an hour and a half, exploring every single area of every dungeon/outside map. During the time playing, I had to drink one health potion the entire time.. whether or not that was just my character being too overpowered, I don't know (Monk). The gripes I had with the game are:

- Acts are too short. I remember spending many hours wondering around Act 1 in Diablo 2 in the many different zones. There are about two or three outside zones in D3 and just as many random caves and they're the same size as Diablo 2's.
- Game is too easy. I understand that this is a dungeon crawler, and you're meant to be able to take monster after monster. When I don't have the need to drink one of my many health potions I racked up over the course of Act 1, or run away from a boss or one of those lightning imbued monsters (those were the devil in D2), I consider it to be too easy. I walked up to a boss and spammed two skills until he was dead, which leads me to my next point..
- Limited skills to use. Obviously you unlock more skills as the game goes on, but I think I remember having more skills to use than just three during the end of Act 1 of Diablo 2. This meant as I monk, I had an aura up, I had a charge building skill, and I had a finishing move. The finishing move was worthless as well, and it was much more efficient to just spam my charge building skill.
- No attribute points. I don't think I need to go into much detail here, but this is just one less way to tailor your character to your own play style. Everyone knew about this though.
- No skill tree? I ask this in a question because I'm not completely sure this is true. Maybe it will unlock in a later act, but as I leveled up, I just automatically learned the skill associated with that level. All I had to do was talk to a stone in town and see if I wanted to replace one of my three skills I'm limited to that are on my bars. Hardly any customization there at all.
- No reason to go to town. Besides having to go to town to advance in your quest (this only happened a few times), and while this may seem like a nuisance to most, I think it added some immersion. On the rare chance that my inventory filled up (this happened once), all I had to do was use the disenchanting cube and break them down into parts I could use to build armor at the Forge. There was no "oh shit, I'm full- have to TP back to town for a second to sell/repair". Speaking of repair, I didn't have to repair once.
- Lack of quests. I remember doing one side quest and it was to help this chick get her tomes back. It lasted all of 30 seconds and I was done. What happened to all the side quests? Remember, there were five optional quests in Diablo 2, and then your primary Act 1 quest. I think this and the lack of zones were what made this too short.

I think that pretty much sums it up. I was seriously really looking forward to this game as I spent hundreds of hours playing Diablo 2, and skipped countless days of school to stay home and play it. I remember checking Diablo3.net (before it was owned by Blizzard) many times a month to see if there was any news on if a Diablo 3 was in production or not. I think that this will no longer be a first-day purchase for me. I will have to wait and look for reviews when the higher Acts come out. Don't get me wrong, the game was fun, and it may be worth the gameplay/price factor when you think about all the Acts, and then doing them over again in Nightmare and Hell difficulties. It just doesn't hold a candle to Diablo 2, and because I listed all the points above, I don't think that's just nostalgia talking.

More people judging the game based on Act I to Blood Raven.

/facepalm

 

[Skizzy]

More people judging the game based on Act I to Blood Raven.

/facepalm

If Act 1 is longer than the beta, that would only clear up the game being too short and lack of quests. No comment on the majority of points I made? Heh.

 

[GMSTBFLA]

It's been really good. Most of the learning from the beta for us was more technical: standing up the hardware, stress testing it, and optimizing for online play -- things like that. We get a lot of good data just watching players play and we get a lot of good feedback as well. We did restrict the content so it's only the first half of the first act. Which is basically the tutorial.

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/121/1212676p1.html

 

[sekira05]

If Act 1 is longer than the beta, that would only clear up the game being too short and lack of quests. No comment on the majority of points I made? Heh.

Not when its beyond obvious that you're trolling.

 

[Skizzy]

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/121/1212676p1.html

Thanks for that link, edited those two points out of my post. Thank you!

Not when its beyond obvious that you're trolling.

Says the guy who added absolutely nothing to the conversation. At least my thoughts of the game caused a few good replies to surface.

 

[Syntaxx]

Well I went home a couple days to check my account, I did not get in. BUT MY WIFE GOT IN!!! SO i've been playing on her account.. SO WIN!! So stoked for this game.. I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!

Well job blizzard well job!! <333 8==========D ~~~~~