Thinking of buying Diablo 3, or should I not? Need help!

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It was hard not giving in and pre-ordering as I'm a big (casual offline/LAN playing) fan of D2. Once I heard about the always online DRM and the RMAH, something seemed to smell fishy, but my gut reaction was I wanted it anyway. Seemed the always online connection, given you are essentially instancing on their servers, was going to launch just like most MMOs do... badly. These two things allowed me enough willpower to hold off, but I was certain I'd still want to pick it up after launch.

Now I'm having reservations about even picking it up at all based on what I've been able to piece together from the official forums over there. Let me disclaim that I like a bit of research before I purchase anything as I don't have the money or time for me to not like it. That said, it was hard to read through the hyperbole, blind fanboyism, and equally blind ranting, simply to find little nuggets of constructive feed back here and there, but I did it!

Please correct me if I'm wrong as I haven't played it yet, but I've come to the conclusion this game suffers from a distinct case of multiple personality disorder. One the one hand it seems Blizzard has marketed to us the successor to D2 promising all the fun that game had to offer, just with always online DRM to cut down on hacking, duping, pirating, and a RMAH for those who want to participate. I have no plans to use the RMAH. I truly have no problem with this, but is this what I'm actually going to buy?

After everything I've read so far it seems on the other hand Act/Blizz, I feel the need to put them together now, has developed this game by putting a player controlled RMAH as the centerpiece, then built the rest of the game to act like a funnel bringing you back all the way around it. This stinks to be a twist on some of the F2P models that are floating around out there, only this game cost $60 friggin bucks!


Examples why I think this to be the case:
  • An extreme amount of legendary drops have been worse than the blue drops they already have on. The best loot is turning out to be so rare that once a good legendary drop is found many will be tempted to run to the RMAH to sell it, once it's online that is. This hides under the guise of "more exciting"

  • Crafting's random out come where it seems rolling good gear is at an extreme low and is also suppose to be "more exciting". Combine that with high costs and most dropped gear is selling for much cheaper than the cost to craft it. Again, it seems crafting a really good piece will be just as rare as above with a similar outcome.

  • I've read a ton of threads where people are complaining about how Blizz have decided NOT to hash out a complex, balanced, and flexible character skill system in favor of a more streamline system hiding under the guise of "more fast pace = more fun". This puts more pressure on the reliance of dropped gear

  • I could go on and on put I've made my point. This lends itself to a player controlled real money auction house F2P model by design. There's that fishy smell again. Dare I add these to models will not jive well together and it may already be starting to show.

So, is Diablo 3 a F2P game wrapped in sheep's clothing, a sort of single/multi player not so F2P hybrid were we are forced to pay for the game and then forced again to pay for epic gear? It saddens me greatly that I'm leaning towards yes.

Please tell me I'm wrong and why, because I really really want to play a true successor to Diablo 2!
 
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If you liked D2, I think D3 is worth buying for you unless you think you'd rather do Torchlight 2. Most of your concerns are no big deal.

D3 is not competitive.
There is no reason to have better gear than you need to defeat mobs other than ego. Since there is no persistent world, there is no pressure to level any faster than anyone else unless you have a tight group of friends trying to level together.

The Auction House is optional.
You can entirely ignore the auction system and still beat the game at every difficulty level relying solely on drops - it's already been done. If you find the auction system "fishy" then by all means, ignore it. I use it only to sell items I've leveled past for quick cash.

Crafting is optional.
You can entirely ignore the crafting system and still beat the game at every difficulty level relying solely on drops - it's already been done.

"F2P"
F2P means "Free to Play." Since D3 costs $60 it is obviously not free to play. It's $60 to play. Maybe you meant "P2W" as in "Pay 2 Win" as some games are becoming (premium items/weapons for customers who pay extra)? However, as I said up top, D3 is not competitive, so there is nothing to "win." As long as your damage output and hitpoints are high enough to clear Inferno solo or with your friends, it doesn't matter if someone else in another city has quadruple your hitpoints or damage output.

Blizzard plans to add PVP at some point but the devs are quite adamant that it will be untracked casual PVP (no ladders, no seasons, no win-loss ratio, etc.) to purposely avoid any possibility of it becoming an e-sport.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Since you self identify as a casual player you have even fewer reasons to be affected by either a rock solid AH or a shady broken AH than someone who is obsessed with the game beyond actually playing it.

I have the game, I've been playing through it slowly, beating it on Normal and Nightmare so far - a few people have already solo'ed Inferno. So far the AH is just a good place to randomly dump a few rares for quick cash or look for someone who put a good piece for an accidentally low price. Sure there are a few level 60 pieces on there priced over 2 million already, but that doesn't affect me (or any casual player) whatsoever.
 
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Cool, I guess I should say I use to be casual. I may be a bit more hardcore now. Looking to have fun and be rewarded. I don't remember people running through the hardest modes in D2 wearing a bunch of blues though.
 
See if you can get a starter edition from someone and try it out. It didn't seem very difficult, I didn't have to use a potion or run away once. I am guessing the higher difficulties are actually harder, but from what I hear, its nothing compared to Diablo II
 
Normal mode is basically a tutorial. The real game starts at Nightmare. Although it is not really "hard" you will start dying (or at least coming close) there. My friend who breezed through Normal and Nightmare started really getting frustrated at Hell level - he apparently dies a lot.
 
Yeah, wish I had a SE to try it out, but no one I know is playing it. I might also state, if you didn't catch my drift from my OP, I despise F2P games. Does D3 reward you a ton less than D2?
 
D3 is going to have pvp at some point in the future. This will make it one of the most competitive games out there. If you wish to compete at the highest levels of pvp I'm positive that you're going to need the very best gear available. Just think about WoW arenas and ELO rating ladder system.

Get to grinding!
 
What it comes down to is, do you want to support what Blizzard is dishing out. I'd honestly like to play it, but then I'm supporting some things I'm strongly opposed to: intrusive DRM, dumbed down gameplay, etc. So, do I follow my principles, or give in and buy it anyways. I'd love to say I'd wait until its in the bargain bin, but we all know Blizzard games just don't drop in price overnight. So, I'll probably never play D3.
 
Pretty good game and fairly addictive. It's going to be $60 for quite some time, so better off just to buy it now than to wait.
 
B2BigAl said:
What it comes down to is, do you want to support what Blizzard is dishing out. I'd honestly like to play it, but then I'm supporting some things I'm strongly opposed to: intrusive DRM, dumbed down gameplay, etc. So, do I follow my principles, or give in and buy it anyways. I'd love to say I'd wait until its in the bargain bin, but we all know Blizzard games just don't drop in price overnight. So, I'll probably never play D3.
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FWIW I absolutely love D3. I am having a blast with it, gaming with my friends. I am a vanilla WoWer, Diablo 1/2 player, Battlefield series lover, etc. I can see myself playing all of the classes (which I am currently doing) all the way to cap and nightmare and above. It's fun, I am not stressed out the server side setup. That's what the difference is, back when I was "younger" I worried much about some of the complaints, do I like the DRM always-on, nope. Do I understand why? Absolutely. Whether people like it or not, 3rd parties have been making boat-loads of money off WoW and its virtual economy. The fact that blizz is finally making it their own, so Chinese farmers aren't reaping the rewards and the economy is much more managed, is a good thing afaic. Anyhow, would I recommend D3 to friends...absolutely! A lot of them are already playing w/ me online already.
 
As someone who has played the game up to the beginning acts of Inferno, I'd say do not purchase it. It's a shallow, streamlined husk of what it could of been.
 
I would recommend not just because of the "always on" DRM crap. Any game that requires you to be logged in to play single player, I'd say give a miss to. The reason is we really don't want that and the only way we'll have it go away is to not buy games with it. Now since there are other Diablo like games out there, I'd say just look at them.

In particular I'd avoid Blizzard's always on DRM because their servers are crap. I dunno what the deal is but Blizzard has more server downtime than anyone else I've ever seen. Was a continual source of annoyance in WoW how the game would go down for like 6-8 hours every week for scheduled maintenance, never mind crashes or the horrible trouble with patches.

Now with WoW being integrated with battle.net, the whole thing is subject to being down a fair bit.

It is just rather annoying when you say "Ya, I'd like me some of this game, I'll fire it up," and you can't because the servers are down.

So I'd say give it a miss. There's soon Torchlight 2 as others have mentioned and if you ask about other Diablo like games in a new thread I imagine you'll get a bunch of suggestions to try. If you are really in to Diablo, well then go for it, but that you are having some concerns tells me you aren't and you can probably find other games in the same style that don't have the DRM issues.

I'm just a big advocate of standing up on this always on DRM thing, because otherwise we risk seeing it in all games and then the day will come where your ISP floods or something (happened to mine) and you are down for 3+ days straight and your rage builds to epic levels as you can't play -anything- because we let always on DRM become a standard.
 
If you liked d2 get it. Really not a fan of this always on DRM but I understand why it exists(for this game) and choose to accept it. Don't let the nerd rage that's out there right now sway you, it's diablo and its fun.
 
Musulsa said:
If you liked D2, I think D3 is worth buying for you unless you think you'd rather do Torchlight 2. Most of your concerns are no big deal.

D3 is not competitive.
There is no reason to have better gear than you need to defeat mobs other than ego. Since there is no persistent world, there is no pressure to level any faster than anyone else unless you have a tight group of friends trying to level together.

The Auction House is optional.
You can entirely ignore the auction system and still beat the game at every difficulty level relying solely on drops - it's already been done. If you find the auction system "fishy" then by all means, ignore it. I use it only to sell items I've leveled past for quick cash.

Crafting is optional.
You can entirely ignore the crafting system and still beat the game at every difficulty level relying solely on drops - it's already been done.

"F2P"
F2P means "Free to Play." Since D3 costs $60 it is obviously not free to play. It's $60 to play. Maybe you meant "P2W" as in "Pay 2 Win" as some games are becoming (premium items/weapons for customers who pay extra)? However, as I said up top, D3 is not competitive, so there is nothing to "win." As long as your damage output and hitpoints are high enough to clear Inferno solo or with your friends, it doesn't matter if someone else in another city has quadruple your hitpoints or damage output.

Blizzard plans to add PVP at some point but the devs are quite adamant that it will be untracked casual PVP (no ladders, no seasons, no win-loss ratio, etc.) to purposely avoid any possibility of it becoming an e-sport.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Since you self identify as a casual player you have even fewer reasons to be affected by either a rock solid AH or a shady broken AH than someone who is obsessed with the game beyond actually playing it.

I have the game, I've been playing through it slowly, beating it on Normal and Nightmare so far - a few people have already solo'ed Inferno. So far the AH is just a good place to randomly dump a few rares for quick cash or look for someone who put a good piece for an accidentally low price. Sure there are a few level 60 pieces on there priced over 2 million already, but that doesn't affect me (or any casual player) whatsoever.
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^This, couldn't have said it better myself.
 
I'm going to wait for it be completed before I consider purchasing it. Paying $60 to be a beta tester is not my cup of tea.
 
I think its a fantastic game with a rather remarkable amount of polish and quality to it myself. Id say dont hesitate a single second.
 
I can make many complaints about Diablo 3 - the way the skill system works with redundant runes unlocking too late and unused skills, the item balance, the retcons and dumb points of the story and dialog+voice acting, etc. - but the basics are great IMO. The gameplay feels good, the rising difficulty is genuine and rewarding, and the artstyle is very impressive.
I'm not using the AH - not wasting my time profiteering when I could be having fun playing instead.

Very polished and genuinely fun game, you'll get your 60$ worth. Just don't expect the second coming
 
I've played D3 for about 15 hrs and I have to say that it really is a great game. I'm using a lvl 28 Demon Hunter and the amount of firepower coming off that character is jaw dropping! The act of comboing up all the different abilities to lay waste to Diablos minions is super satisfying. I'll agree that the need for the constant internet connection is frustrating and internet lag does affect the games performance in single player but I have to admit that as a whole the game is a blast to play and well worth the $60 price point (IMO).
 
I pre-ordered the game through blizzard and so far i have enjoyed it.

The co-op makes the game a bit more challenging. Playing solo gets boring, the monsters are weaker with fewer players in the game.

After the amount of time i played, I cannot justify spending $60 on the game. Main reason is there isn't much re-playability with just a level lock on items. Once you hit 60, you can buy gear through the auction house and equip them. Blizzard should have kept a attribute system similar to Diablo 2 with attribute requirements on items and allowed a single attribute reset before you reach Hell.

Unless you have some spare cash laying around, wait until the price drops. Game still needs a bit of work. Demon Hunter and Wizard are completely over-powered and Blizzard servers are giving a lot of people grief with stability/latency (I have to play co-op just to complete a quest without losing progress from getting disconnected).
 
I would certainly recommend getting it. I am a cautious buyer as well, mainly because of price and I'm cheap. But this is seriously the most fun I've had from a video game in a long time. Don't get to wrapped up in all the smoke and mirrors of things that people are ranting about. I'm not a Blizz fanboy or anything, I don't have blind allegiance to a brand or company, silly imo. I look for value.

You will have no problem getting in say 20 hours, and at that rate thats 3 bucks per hour. Probably less than you would spend on say going to the movies. If you're even remotely interested, played simliar games, you can't go wrong with giving it a shot. But my point is, you will get value out of the game and then you can decide some of the issues for yourself. Like the AH for example, lots of people complaing about it, you could remove it from the hero sel screen and honestly I wouldn't care or notice.

IMO there are 2 ways a video game is an absolute fail. One, you pay $xx price and don't even play the game or very very little. Might of as well flushed it down the toilet. Second, you pay $xx dollars and put in avergae time and in the end it's just an agonizing experience which is kind of a weird conundrum, cuz if it was so agonizing why did X hrs get invested so you basically can default back to number 1. And hope this isn't getting long in the tooth, but D3 will not fall into this category. I've basically taken 2 characters through on normal and I don't plan on stopping. Are there some things I would change, sure, but in reality they are just small minor tweaks.
 
Okay, so I've been resisting getting the game because of all the shit I didn't like about it, but it was raining all weekend, I was bored, and my curiosity got the better of me. I can tell you that, despite all the poor decisions they made, the game is...fun. I've bitched about it a lot, but at the end of the day it's still a good time. Do I wish the old stat/skill system was there? Yep, sure do. Do I like the online DRM? Nope, sure as hell don't. Am I having fun playing it? Yeah..yeah, I am.

It still hasn't changed my opinion of Blizzard and their motives behind their decisions, but they still managed to put out a fun game. It does have a lot of problems they still need to iron out though. Crafting is pretty much worthless if you use the AH, there's a lot of imbalances, etc. All the normal BS that typically goes along with an MMO (not that D3 is an MMO) at launch. The always connected crap is still awful, even with my dedicated T1 business line, I still get weird glitcy lag and disconnects, that I know aren't because of my connection.

Oh, and one more thing MAKE SURE YOU ARE USING AN AUTHENTICATOR!!!!! Tons of people have already been hacked (even with and auth, but it's the least you can do), and from the sounds of it, Blizzard doesn't give a shit, and you're SOL if someone steals all your stuff. Don't bother asking for help over at the forums there either if your account does get hacked, those Blizzard drones are about the most worthless group of twats I've ever seen. Of course, a lot of this could be avoided if, ya know, you didn't have to have an online connection to play a single player game..but I digress.

I'd give it a 7/10, and yes, I'd recommend picking it up if you are an ARPG fan. It's got some problems, but it's still enjoyable. Not nearly as good as D2, but still good.
 
Meh, i say skip this steaming pile of fecal matter.Always on DRM is ok for those helpless sheeple who gladly paid $60+ for an empty shell of a game without an always online connection.They gladly except enslavement,stupid fools.Now if i can only get rid of that lame spyware facebook software off of my smartphone.
 
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Curium244 said:
Meh, i say skip this steaming pile of fecal matter.Always on DRM is ok for those helpless sheeple who gladly paid $60+ for an empty shell of a game without an always online connection who gladly except enslavement.Stupid fools.
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Someone's bitter
 
My brother bought it last night and gave me the guest pass and I just got done playing a few quests. Seems fun even though I am not an RPG player anymore.
I've never played the other 2 and the last rpg I really played was ultima 3 or 4 on my Amiga in 1993.
 
B2BigAl said:
What it comes down to is, do you want to support what Blizzard is dishing out. I'd honestly like to play it, but then I'm supporting some things I'm strongly opposed to: intrusive DRM, dumbed down gameplay, etc. So, do I follow my principles, or give in and buy it anyways. I'd love to say I'd wait until its in the bargain bin, but we all know Blizzard games just don't drop in price overnight. So, I'll probably never play D3.
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I didnt like it at first but when you get right down to it it makes sense and most of those complaining have never actually played the game. There is no true single player mode. Your friends can hop into your game at any time and you can make it public with a click of a button.

I will take that over an offline single player mode any day of the week.

These complaints made sense for games like Ass creed 2 but people are just bitching to bitch on this one.
 
Curium244 said:
Meh, i say skip this steaming pile of fecal matter.Always on DRM is ok for those helpless sheeple who gladly paid $60+ for an empty shell of a game without an always online connection.They gladly except enslavement,stupid fools.Now if i can only get rid of that lame spyware facebook software off of my smartphone.
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Wow, you come across as a complete and utter asshole.
 
I would add one thing, this is almost certainly not a game you'll be playing for years like D2. With the way they've structured things, replayablility is slim to none. They've killed farming for the most part, so everyone is just buying all the best stuff out of the AH. There's no way to do a different build, so there is zero incentive to ever play a class over again since you can just change up the build at any time on any difficulty. Crafting is just completely worthless with the AH, so it's not like you could even farm for random crap to do some crafting and selling.

You'll have fun with it for a few weeks, maybe a few months, which is worth the asking price IMO. Just don't think you'll be plugging away at it for years to come like most of us did with the predecessor. Btw, this isn't just my jaded opinion, it's what a lot of folks over at the blizz forums are feeling as well. Seems like the devs are kinda butthurt the community isn't really embracing the changes...but what did they expect.
 
krakerman said:
Wow, you come across as a complete and utter asshole.
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Agreed!

Curium244 said:
Meh, i say skip this steaming pile of fecal matter.Always on DRM is ok for those helpless sheeple who gladly paid $60+ for an empty shell of a game without an always online connection.They gladly except enslavement,stupid fools.Now if i can only get rid of that lame spyware facebook software off of my smartphone.
Click to expand...

Also, when trying to tear things up like this, it would probably be to your benefit if you learned the difference between except and accept.
 
After playing the first act in co-op and solo mode, I have to say the game is a lot more challenging playing solo. The game simply doesn't scale well in co-op(in normal difficulty).
 
nxgravity said:
After playing the first act in co-op and solo mode, I have to say the game is a lot more challenging playing solo. The game simply doesn't scale well in co-op(in normal difficulty).
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Normal was pretty easy in coop but normal is more like a long tutorial IMO NM and up is where it gets fun and challenging.
 
Disposed said:
Normal was pretty easy in coop but normal is more like a long tutorial IMO NM and up is where it gets fun and challenging.
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Normal is incredibly easy, I had no fear running in and murdering everything, solo or co-op, without even having to think if I'll survive. Nightmare though, is where gear and awareness matters a bit more.
 
I was on the fence whether to buy at launch or not. I did end up buying and am having fun playing; it can be blast at times. However, I do not think that it is worth $60. In hindsight I should have waited a few months for it to drop in price, $40 would have been a realistic day one price.
 
For everyone commenting on difficulty:

Normal can be done blindfolded. Nightmare requires a little bit more thought. Hell is another step up. Inferno will make you run into a corner and cry.

Co-op scaling in normal is mild. At the higher difficulties it scales higher with more players. With 4 players in normal, the mobs have 325% hp and deal 100% dmg. In Inferno, they have 430% hp and deal 145% dmg. It's almost detrimental to party up in Inferno.
 
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