Diablo 3 Beta

Just got it...I am way not impressed with it so far.

First, no skill points? At all? So far all I see is "bonus" attacks like "Bash" and "Threatening Shout".

Second, graphics are bad...like, really bad for a 2012 game. Titan Quest looks better and it came out in 2006.

Gameplay is...eh. Pretty similar to Diablo 2 so I'm enjoying that part at least. The whole thing feels super dumbed-down though, if that is even possible.

Gonna keep playing obviously but...yeah. Hopefully these are just beta issues.
 
I got in to the beta today as well. I feel the same as Maverick.
Graphics are downright pitiful for a 2012 game. What's worse is that despite the graphics being absolute crap, my gpu is at 99% usage for an average of 50fps or so, with drops down to 30 at random moments. Not that I have the newest video card, but skyrim with hd textures and everything maxed except AA runs better than diablo 3. I mean, I'm sure that by the time it's released or shortly thereafter drivers will take care of that problem, but it's still obnoxious.
 
Nothing too surprising here, it has been confirmed this game will be released for consoles some months after the PC release so it must conform to that. From 2012 the "PC section" will really be the "PC port" section.
 
Got in today as well, but didn't really get to play a whole lot. Also, dunno what's wrong but I've been experiencing a whole lot of lag. Also, every time I cast a new spell it locks up, and only after the second or third cast the animation plays smoothly.

Not impressed with the graphics, either, and I'm not too happy with the art style they went with, but at this point, it's pointless to even bring that up.
 
It seriously looks like WoW...worse than WoW, actually, I'd say. Maybe like original-graphics WoW.

Also it feels like there's a lot of stuttering for no apparent reason.
 
Sounds like this is fast becoming a pretty medicore console port.

Shame, I'm trying to sign up for it now but battlenet is messing about, sigh...
 
Got in tonight as well. Stuttering went away once it was fully downloaded. Smooth performance after that.

Initial impression: Witchdoctor is awesome. Multiplayer is fun. Looking forward to release now.
 
A few more comments (playing as Barbarian BTW):

- LOL at the constant health drops. Almost no reason to use potions so far (only level 5 but still).

- On that note, so far the game seems way too easy. With health drops and the ability to endlessly spam Bash to gain Fury, it's pretty easy to use Battle Rage to just kill everything quickly. Some of the enemies have a lot of health but they do so little damage that killing them is just a time-consuming chore with no real challenge.

- Still can't believe that there are NO skill points, attributes, ANYTHING related to that. The only thing level seems to matter for is which new abilities you can use. Super dumbed down and disappointing.

- Could be just me but the game seems way more linear than Diablo 2. Like there's basically one way to go and that's that. Diablo 2 it seemed like you could get to other areas but sometimes they would be too much for you before you levelled up more. This game just guides you along the path it wants you to take endlessly.

- Weapons will often be called the exact same thing and look exactly the same but have WAY different attributes. This is pretty dumb. For instance, I had a "Buckler" with 8 Block or something, then I found another "Buckler" that looked identical but it had 40 Block. Pretty big difference for looking exactly the same, and unless you checked out the stats you would never know it was better.

- I don't know if this was a WoW thing or what but when you view items in the inventory it comes up with a gigantic size 60 font of the damage/block/armor rating of the item. Kinda makes it hard to see what's in your inventory unless you completely move off of it. I like that it is compared to your equipped item, but the window/font could be way smaller and still effective.
 
MavericK96 said:
A few more comments (playing as Barbarian BTW):

- LOL at the constant health drops. Almost no reason to use potions so far (only level 5 but still).

- On that note, so far the game seems way too easy. With health drops and the ability to endlessly spam Bash to gain Fury, it's pretty easy to use Battle Rage to just kill everything quickly. Some of the enemies have a lot of health but they do so little damage that killing them is just a time-consuming chore with no real challenge.

- Still can't believe that there are NO skill points, attributes, ANYTHING related to that. The only thing level seems to matter for is which new abilities you can use. Super dumbed down and disappointing.

- Could be just me but the game seems way more linear than Diablo 2. Like there's basically one way to go and that's that. Diablo 2 it seemed like you could get to other areas but sometimes they would be too much for you before you levelled up more. This game just guides you along the path it wants you to take endlessly.

- Weapons will often be called the exact same thing and look exactly the same but have WAY different attributes. This is pretty dumb. For instance, I had a "Buckler" with 8 Block or something, then I found another "Buckler" that looked identical but it had 40 Block. Pretty big difference for looking exactly the same, and unless you checked out the stats you would never know it was better.

- I don't know if this was a WoW thing or what but when you view items in the inventory it comes up with a gigantic size 60 font of the damage/block/armor rating of the item. Kinda makes it hard to see what's in your inventory unless you completely move off of it. I like that it is compared to your equipped item, but the window/font could be way smaller and still effective.
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This is post-WoW Blizzard, that's what their games are going to continue to look like. As you probably already know, the original team that created Diablo is no more (and even when they were Blizzard North, they were just a group bought by Blizzard after they were impressed with their game - a fledgling Diablo). Amazing that the game was announced in '08 and it still isn't released. I think Blizz knows they've got a turd on their hands.
 
considering this is basically stage 1 of act 1, yes it's going to be easy. Go back and play diablo 2 or 1 at the early stages.
 
When did the beta actually start or did it start today? I found it strange that I received a key when the only account I had was a 5 year old wow account I havn't played in 4 years. My Diablo and D2/LOD keys were never attached to it. Interesting I must say. Still downloading client right now.
 
MavericK96 said:
- Weapons will often be called the exact same thing and look exactly the same but have WAY different attributes. This is pretty dumb. For instance, I had a "Buckler" with 8 Block or something, then I found another "Buckler" that looked identical but it had 40 Block. Pretty big difference for looking exactly the same, and unless you checked out the stats you would never know it was better.
Click to expand...

Ugh that sucks so freaking much!

The spanish version of D2 was like that, since it was translated by a program word by word, and they translated even the german names. So a Zweihander ="Espada de dos manos" = Two Handed Sword, in general most items had a crappy version with the same spanish name, so i had to pick almost everything up and later see if it was actually the good or the crappy item class, and since only koreans used to clean the ground from all drops i would get lumped with them.

I eventually was able to make a franken-install mixing the proper english files from a pirated copy with my original spanish ones and the cd key in order to get nice and different item names (besides, some enemies names were retardedly mistranslated, Hollow One was actually named Number One Hole).
 
Only played for a second last night. Created my dude and killed a zombie.

I will say, the music is definitely Diablo!
 
FYI, D2 had weapons named the same but with different stats. Even the uniques. The game would roll a base item and stats then add the unique attributes after. The most money went for 'perfect' uniques.
 
Got my key last night after I zonked out. The client is downloading while I'm at work... :p
 
MavericK96 said:
- Still can't believe that there are NO skill points, attributes, ANYTHING related to that. The only thing level seems to matter for is which new abilities you can use. Super dumbed down and disappointing.
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I just wanted to address this one comment.
First, I understand your comment in the sense that it feels disappointing. To understand why Blizzard made those design choices, you have to do a lot of back reading. I'll try to summarize.

In Diablo 2 (which if you haven't been playing recently, it's surprising how much they continued to update that thing...) and World of Warcraft the developers noticed a trend: players were placing points in the exact same locations every-time and any changes that were made were only made with the purpose of creating an optimal/perfect build.

WoW's talent point system had a massive overhaul as a result of this. They realized that having a talent tree that everyone filled out the same way for a given build ultimately came down to "false choice." They have since been trying to design RPG systems that are fundamentally different than systems which look like there are decisions, but ultimately result in cookie cutter builds.

An example is the Priest (which is a class I played.) Although there were three (usable) options as a Priest (which made the Priest versatile) all the builds using those three variations ended up the same. There would be only a 4 skill point personal preference difference for a Holy, Disc, or Shadow Priest which is minimal at best when you consider at the time there was 71 skill points (IIRC) at level cap (I'm sure certain classes had even less choice.) With that in mind, it wasn't a large leap for Blizzard to make the assessment that it made more sense to simply select your specialization, that comes as a package, and try to find other ways to offer choice and optimization for each individuals character builds (rather than skill points in a tree.)

Whether you like the changes of course is subjective, but what impresses me about Blizzard is that not only did they notice that as a design flaw, they have been taking steps to change it and keep it interesting.
 
To those that received invites does anyone not have an active WOW subsription? Just want to see if they are inviting non sub's as well.
 
Troub said:
To those that received invites does anyone not have an active WOW subsription? Just want to see if they are inviting non sub's as well.
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I don't have an active WoW subscription and was just invited. I must say, Diablo 3 is awesome. Day 1 purchase for sure.
 
Troub said:
To those that received invites does anyone not have an active WOW subsription? Just want to see if they are inviting non sub's as well.
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Received an invite last night without an active WoW subscription. :)
 
Got mine last night and haven't played WoW since 2006.

Got to level 9 before going to bed playing wizard. Pretty fun so far. Didn't have any problems with lag or stuttering.

I did notice it ignored my blizzard authenticator and let me log on without it. Also my friends list is empty. I'm assuming it's a different authentication server.
 
I got a key last night also. My wireless must've died in the middle of the night, and the DL client wasn't smart enough to automatically resume once the connection was restored, so....still DL'ing.

For what it's worth - I haven't had an active WoW sub since July/August 2011. Also haven't played Diablo 2 or anything like it. Coming in with a fresh/unbiased opinion...we'll see.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
I just wanted to address this one comment.
First, I understand your comment in the sense that it feels disappointing. To understand why Blizzard made those design choices, you have to do a lot of back reading. I'll try to summarize.

[...]

Whether you like the changes of course is subjective, but what impresses me about Blizzard is that not only did they notice that as a design flaw, they have been taking steps to change it and keep it interesting.
Click to expand...

I understand what they're trying to do but I guess it still just feels dumbed down to me. They could at least have a skill tree or something. Right now it feels like unless you hit a "milestone" in levelling, there is no real sense of progress.

Diablo 2 may have been segmented into certain builds for the super-hardcore, but I played the game a ton and never cared about "max" builds. Plus, why change something that almost everyone loved? Just kinda doesn't make sense for a Diablo sequel and is kind of off-putting, TBH. This is coming from someone who doesn't care for WoW but loved Diablo 2.

I'm sure this will be a decent game but it's gone from more or less a definite day 1 purchase to a most likely not now.
 
I just checked and got the invite as well. I've been playing Path of Exile for the past week (D3 clone), and it is awesome so far.

I'm prepared to be disappointed for D3, but I will give it a shot. I can't believe how Blizz could screw this up.
My impression of the beta will determine if I cancel my Newegg preorder.

I was wondering if they'd release the game before my CC expires that they have for that newegg order.
 
Troub said:
To those that received invites does anyone not have an active WOW subsription? Just want to see if they are inviting non sub's as well.
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I've never played wow but I got an invite.
 
MavericK96 said:
I understand what they're trying to do but I guess it still just feels dumbed down to me. They could at least have a skill tree or something. Right now it feels like unless you hit a "milestone" in levelling, there is no real sense of progress.

Diablo 2 may have been segmented into certain builds for the super-hardcore, but I played the game a ton and never cared about "max" builds. Plus, why change something that almost everyone loved? Just kinda doesn't make sense for a Diablo sequel and is kind of off-putting, TBH. This is coming from someone who doesn't care for WoW but loved Diablo 2.

I'm sure this will be a decent game but it's gone from more or less a definite day 1 purchase to a most likely not now.
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Hey, that's totally valid. Maybe Blizzard turned the system into the style of game that isn't for you. I think the big thing will be what it looks like in full-form. Because everyone is aware that what we are seeing in this Beta is the smallest tip of a massive iceberg in-so-far-as content and what the end game is going to be like. It seems to me like they just want people to enjoy playing their classes and less about focusing on choices that (like I said earlier) ultimately didn't matter.

I'd love to hear about your opinions on this after the game comes out and see if there is a change in your opinion (that is if you end up buying it.) To be honest, I myself am undecided on if I like the new system or not either.

The change seems new and fresh and I like that aspect as some of the more traditional D&D elements of RGP's in general have kind-of gotten old. But on the other hand, like you say, in certain ways it doesn't feel like an RPG (albeit of the action variety) at all.
 
got in, probably goign to give it a go later tonight after work, i hope its atleast better than D2, otherwise its time to reinstall that, i miss playing this shit, wish i didnt just abandon my account ....
 
Fracking A - D1/D2 fan and I still don't have an invite. Super jelly.
 
Played it both solo and 2p co-op and had a lot of fun. The graphics definitely weren't that great, but the gameplay was.
 
DarthV said:
Played it both solo and 2p co-op and had a lot of fun. The graphics definitely weren't that great, but the gameplay was.
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The graphics were meh, but the gameplay was excellent. I like the way crafting is done as well.
 
I really dont like the concept of lvling up to unlock hotbar slots. I guess this wont matter once I lvl enough to get them all unlocked.

I dont like having 6 skills in my skillbook and only 3 slots to choose from on the hotbar.

That being said, I did have fun playing to lvl 8 last night with the Wizard class.
 
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MavericK96 said:
I understand what they're trying to do but I guess it still just feels dumbed down to me. They could at least have a skill tree or something. Right now it feels like unless you hit a "milestone" in levelling, there is no real sense of progress.

Diablo 2 may have been segmented into certain builds for the super-hardcore, but I played the game a ton and never cared about "max" builds. Plus, why change something that almost everyone loved? Just kinda doesn't make sense for a Diablo sequel and is kind of off-putting, TBH. This is coming from someone who doesn't care for WoW but loved Diablo 2.

I'm sure this will be a decent game but it's gone from more or less a definite day 1 purchase to a most likely not now.
Click to expand...

Many of the changes and things they are doing in D3 have been addressed and talked about ad nauseum by their dev team and press. The original goal for D3 was to develop a classic hack n slash game with some RPG elements. They wanted to focus more on the feel of the hack n slash, making sure it had some impressive abilities and smooth gameplay. They wanted people to just be able to play and not focus on what combo of spells or abilities they needed to use in which order.

For this reason they took out a lot of the extra skills and steered clear of skill points. They wanted to stay away from anything that would pause the action of the game. This included added more health drops, keeping potions and abilities simple to use with a quick button or mouse click and getting rid of the identify spell. Some will feel this is "dumbed down", but that is the point really. They want you to just be able to have fun focusing on the action, killing things, and exploring areas.

I imagine there will also be a lot more cut scenes and story elements added like they did for SC2. It will primarily be a linear type game with several smaller deviations allowed to give some versatility in replayability. This I hope will probably be leveraged by DLC content, much of it coming from a large community and player base.

These are just my impressions from the information gathered from their released news and interviews as well as past experience from all their different types of games. If you look at many of their games outside of WoW there was a ton of user created mods as well as a few official mods that were released. Just look at things like Tower Defense, DOTA, etc. All of them grew from mods to Blizzard games.
 
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