D2 was far more enjoyable than D3.
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How exactly is adding depth to itemization taking a step backwards? My good sir, have you seen what they threw at us for Diablo 4 in the demo? I understand itâs pre-alpha and itâs a long ways away, but the majority of the community is concerned for the life span of the game due to the fact itâs itemization had too many similarities to Diablo 3âs. Itemization is key when it comes to an ARPG, if they fail in that, then theyâve failed the entire title. Diablo 2âs itemization was/is the best example people can think of when it comes to having depth and not too much complexity. If you were to look at something like Path of Exile (I absolutely love PoE and have been playing since Prophecy league), many people strike it as overly complicated. However, Diablo 2âs felt like it had heart and depth with balance while Diablo 3âs was basically just them insulting your intelligence.
For them to have a good Diablo 4 would be for them to take D1âs atmosphere (which theyâre on the right track so far). D2âs itemization, and D3âs quality of life (walking over gold to pick it up, global stash, no stamina bar, etc) and great combat; and put all those into a blender.
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D2 will and forever be the best game ever!!!
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This is not true for everyone. You and the majority of D2 playerbase think that because D2 was tailored for all of you.
D3 was tailored for the general players in its time, which is significantly less hardcore than the general players in D2âs time. You feel Blizzard did it wrong only because it wasnât tailored for you.
D3 vanilla screwed up not because simplicity of itemization, but because
- items are too boring without +skill level, because skill has no level
- AH destroyed the game environment
After they closed AH and made better legendary effects in RoS, everything actually looks good. Itemization in D3 was not âwrongâ, just ânot tailored for D2 playerbaseâ.
And thatâs why the game died months after release. Thereâs other factors to it, but the fact it dove so far away from the roots of itâs predecessor is a large reason why the majority of itâs playerbase stopped playing it and heavily criticized it. This franchise is not meant to be casual. I donât care if youâre a casual player, thatâs fine. However, you should know what youâre getting into before you play it. Iâm sure a large percentage of the playerbase wants there to be depth in their game. The roots of the franchise should not be changed just because of casual/newer players who want to be good at the game by playing 45 minutes a week. Thatâs not what Diablo is supposed to be. Since youâre implying were selfish, youâre just as selfish for wanting the game to be dumbed down just so you only want to play 45 minutes a week. If youâre a 4fun player, thereâs plenty of other games out there tailored towards you. I work 50-60 hours a week and Iâd rather have a Diablo game with depth that doesnât hold my hand all the way through, that punishes me for my mistakes, that makes me feel rewarded for knowing more and more about the game.
Ohhh, no buddy. Diablo 3 Vanilla screwed up in itâs itemization. Severely. There was no interesting mods such as Faster Cast Rate, Faster Hit Recovery, Faster Block Rate. The fact that Attack Speed made my Wizard throw Arcane Orbs faster and the fact I had a 1.2k Physical DPS War Hammer on my Wizard made my Meteors burn more hot and do more damageâŚthatâsâŚDo I even need to explain how horrible of a design that is? How insulting and degrading that is? Did they even think about their playerbase? Did Jay Wilson and Activision Blizzard think that the human beings playing his game had brains?
RoS fixed some problems, but made even bigger problems along the way. Pigeonholing people into using Sets. Adding Ancients and Primal ancients was basically them cranking up the numbers, thatâs not a good game design. Removing trade completely to combat RMT was the equivalent of a 10 year old child kicking his computer because it wouldnât turn on rather than opening it and trying to fix the actual problem inside. The items I found had no weight to them. I could be a Crusader and find a Monk item and it would be completely worthless to me. The name Forgotten Soul could never be so accurate.
Letâs add on to the fact that lower level Legendaries were trashcan food. Basically if I found an item in Normal mode, it would have been worthless in higher levels. Where as in Diablo 2, I could find a unique in Act 1 normal and it could be useful all the way in Hell. They might as well have made our characters level 70 from the start. Whatâs the point in leveling?
Nah man, Iâm sorry. D3 is a product, not a game. If this was not called âDiablo 3â, I guarantee you it wouldnât have sold nearly as many copies as it did.
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Only the majority of D2âs playerbase heavily criticized it for itemization. This franchise was not meant to be casual because an average player was not casual. Now things are different.
The interesting thing is that D3 is exactly such a game for me. We enjoy the same factor, but you are more hardcore so D3 seems too easy for you. Itâs not âwrongâ, just not tailored for you.
I think you can start to make constructive feedback only after you start to understand that you are way more hardcore than an average player. I would say these are exactly what should be removed from the game, but Iâm fine if theyâre still there too.
Unfortunately - for you and for every player, casural or hardcore - nobody is ever making well-polished PC games for hardcore players any more. A well-polished game today is too costful to make and the playerbase of hardcore players canât make it profitable. This is the loss of game industry and game as an art.
The only company that is still doing that is Nintendo. This is a price for them too - they make all-age games instead of 18+ games like Diablo, and they make games only on their own console.
Thatâs a massive cash shop sink made by china. PoE is crap. Go to the fourms on that game, Everyone raging about how bad the games " balance " is and got trading is jacked beyond repair.
No. D2 was⌠Just something else. D2 was a perfect storm. I donât even think the devs really knew the gem they held in their hands. Was any one particular feature groundbreaking? No, not exactly. But it was the perfect storm of everything they had put together that made it something that may never exist again. The art style, the legendaries and the gems (i miss skulls), the simple yet complex stats, the interesting portrayal of classes, the awesome skills.
Diablo 2 is a game I will always be able to play and enjoy, and many people still are playing on ladder. For me the biggest difference between D2 and D3 is the art style. D3âs art style is pretty cool, dont get me wrong. But D2âs art style was dark gothic and gritty and it felt good. I know some of that gritty feeling will be lost in a 3D game with much higher resolutions but I think theyre doing a really good job bringing back that look and feel to diablo 4 and I am super excited to play it. I know itâs gonna be MMOish and that theres gonna be a lot of new stuff, but I love new stuff. As long as the game has that dark gothic gritty feeling, and that holy $h!t loot feeling then I will enjoy it. Oh and I would really enjoy it if all the skills were viable. D3 has a big problem with that. Though this newest patch for season 20 is addressing that. They put out two new sets and a couple legendaries focusing on sorcererâs hydras and barbarianâs frenzy (i have the two legendaries for that one and even with them frenzy gets actually pretty awesome. The new weapon makes each stack of frenzy causes it to chain to another enemy, and increases the stack size to 10, so it has amazing AOE now, and the belt makes frenzy gain the effect of every rune which is even more amazing when youre throwing axes in every direction).
D3 is a good game. Is it better than D2? Idk. Doesnât feel as good though. Iâll still be playing it until diablo 4.
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I disagree. You underestimate how many people want this game to be more hardcore. I would totally confidently say that the diablo playerbase (even right this second right now) is like 80% hardcore players because those are the kind of players that isometric RPGs attract. Look at PoE. That game is widely successful and itâs hard as heck. (I donât want to hear anyone bragging saying itâs not hard because it is. Unless youâre just going to poe trade buying all your gear which is lame and remniscent of d3 auction house). Isometric action RPGs are hard. Thatâs what makes it fun. Thats why these games have such high replayability. Hard games are more fun to replay.
Look at dark souls. That gameâs replayability is insane, people will play that game forever and keep making new characters. This includes bloodborne, nioh, and sekiro. Then obviously look how people are still grinding ladder in D2.
Casual games have no replayability because theyre easy to begin with, and once you play through it once theres no reason to play it again. Casual games generally dont have many ways to play the game, you mostly did everything on the first playthrough, and itâs just boring.
Like Skyrim. The only people playing that game are people who are using mods to spice it up because the base game is so boring. Itâs not fun when theres zero learning curve. Morrowind was amazing because the game didnât tell you everything. The information was there to learn in the game, you just had to look for it and experience it. And more than likely your first character is always garbage. So you make a new character and use what you learned on the last character.
Then morrowind had a bajillion ways to play with so many weapon types and skills. What did skyrim have? Dagger, swordmaceaxe, big swordmaceaxe, and bow. I put three into one word because there was no difference.
Im done typing here i think i covered everything
Edit: added paragraph spacing for easier reading.
Forum Mod Edit: This post has been edited by a moderator due to masked language as it is in violation of the Code of Conduct.
I mean this is a loaded question.
How bout a short and sweet answer.
I log into D3, can barely stand playing it, and quit, even if is 95 percent of GRift ill hit this feeling of disgust for what im doing where its like im out, I donât care if the next 10 seconds of play would allow me to reap the benefits of the time I spent to get this far in this Grift, I cant play that 10 seconds more, its that unenjoyable.
Without getting into the at least 3 straight days of typing it would take to explain why, comparing D1/2/3 in detail, just know thatâs the feeling I have, while trying to force like, Diablo 3.
I donât log n going âok I hate this gameâ. I log in âok, I love D3 I have to love itâ and I still cant even play it > 10 min rn.
So at this point all I can do is continue to refine my comparison of D2/3, start astreaming account, post a youtube video, and hope it gets more than 2 views.
Thatâs all I can do.
I can keep trying to like D3, and smash my face into the screen trying to have fun grifting in groups, chasing nothing, etc, but I log out before it gets to that point.
One of the biggest reasons D2 is so âgrandâ is it has rare loot to chase, D3 doesnât, and if these games boil down to addition and dopamine and such, well d2 takes the cake hands down bc of its rare loot existing. Everything else aside, if tahts what these games boil down to for many, then D2 has the rare loot, thatâs why its âso opâ, as pathetic and true as it is.
Its about loot.
How and methods and maps and group play and all that is secondary.
If the loot isnât there, it isnât an âaddictsâ game. Does that make sense?
If theres no super cool rare items to chase, theres no drive to play, ie a leaderboard and primal gear isnât 'super cool rare loot".
Thatâs my non-biased, objective best shot at picking one thing, out of like 100s of options as to âwhy d2 is so arrestingâ relative to D3.
To me, its obvious.
âholy grailâ ring a bell? Thatâs bc people are chasing rare loot.
âholy grailâ in D3 would take like 2 weeks to 'complete". A month. whatever, nothing long-term.
Theres way more to it than loot, but if you âhave to pick oneâ the ultimate molten core of the earth comparing the two would be âd2 has rare, new, loot hidden deep beneath it, Diablo 3 doesnât, at allâ and thatâs your most critical difference.
If a game was âclick the green box, or the Red box, and be rewarded with rare loot if you are right, escalating if you get 2 right clicks in a rowâ. That game wouldnât sell JUST because super rare loot is awaiting.
The whole game has to come togeteher, but then again, if thereâs no rare loot TO chase, thatâs new, thatâs super rare, thatâs interesting, theres no drive to play the game.
That make sense?
It starts with rare loot thatâs new, being there in the end, the rest of the game follows.
Ie, what is Diablo 2 without the rare loot? ummmâŚnothing.
What is Diablo 3 without the rare loot? Well D3 doesnât even have rare new loot so thereâs your answer.
I think im onto something thatâs been said before, but I think it should be front page brought to the D4 devs. You donât put rare, cool looking, cool feeling, super rare, interesting loot in the endgame, or early game too, all levels have to have that âSuper rare, but not totally impossibleâ loot to find. Primals are nowhere near rare enough, or new items. Forget about your game doing well then. It HAS to be there, Diablo 2 has it, its why the game has longevity.
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The longest per year Iâve played D3 is about 2 weeks, PoE is about the same amount of time. I stop playing because I get board. Diablo II Lord of Destruction I play about 11 months a year.
In the Diablo series I play the barbarian, and in PoE I play the maurader. With D3 and PoE the build I enjoy playing is whirlwind, nothing else. In D2 LoD I have about 2 dozen barbarian builds I play with and about half of them are a thrill to play.
Some of my favourite D2 LoD barbarian builds.
- Whirlwind Mace Mastery barb - Steeldriver to IK Ogre Maul to ebotd Thunder Maul.
- Double Throw / Frenzy Throw Mastery barb - upped Balanced Knife x 2 to upped Deathbit x2 to a combo of Warshrike / Gimmershred / Lacerator with a might/Infinity Merc. (hella fun but time consuming with repairs.)
- Zerker barb - Not revelling patented build.
- Frenzy barb Axe Mastery - Rare axes to double Butcherâs Pupil to ebotd Berserker axes edeath Berserker axe.
D3 just doesnât have this kind of endgame diversity, especially considering Iâve not shared all the other gear and charms I use for these builds. Which by the way take a lot of time each to grind, mf and trade to complete. Not to mention I have 20 more endgame viable barbarian builds.
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Yup. But for many here that means i think D2 is garbage. Both a good games. I just like D3 better.
I mean just on sets alone Barb has 5 unique builds. Mixing sets you have easily 20, adding in LoN/LoD you have much more. I donât care if most can8do GR150. There are plenty of uild diversity for those seeking it.
D2 LoD has more than 200 endgame weapons for the barbarian, none of which include the 9 set weapons a barbarian can use. This doesnât include the 100+ skill combinations a barbarian can have. D2 players have never had the development team hold our hands every ladder. They gave us a game and we figured out hundreds of builds because the game is so diverse.
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Wasnât saying D3 has more, just that it has plenty. Just because they donât make a tier list or people donât use them doesnât mean they donât exist.
As for the hand holding, I have made dozens of builds that have ever been published because I play how I like not what Iâm told. So there is plenty of potential for many builds per class as well.
Again tired of saying these things because you all canât read it for some reason, Iâm not claiming D3 has deeper systems than D2, it doesnât. It just a more fun game IMO. I had more fun experimenting with making builds in D3 than D2 because I loathed the campaign after 1 play through to do it all over again with a different build. D3, was more fun due to changing on the fly when a new piece of gear dropped.
D3 better than D2? Yes and No would be my answer.
Diablo 3 did some things better, such as fluidity of combat, boss battles, and the game world not being large squares interconnected. D2 did a lot of things better, such as more build diversity, more stats that can be relevant to a build that can do well (Yes I know I can make a build in D3 with stats other than the core 6 crit chance, crit damage, mainstat, area damage, attack speed, resist all/armor, but good luck getting into T13 with that), and overall more things to do that feel relevant. You can run around and just butcher monsters to try to get loot to drop, kill the bosses, explore for treasure chests and they all have roughly the same chances for good loot. D3 just has Greater Rifts or youâre wasting your time when compared to drops in the other 99% of the game.
D3âs build diversity can go up, but when sets give so much freaking power it feels like youâre punishing yourself for not using one. No one really likes to be stuck in Torment 10, and the only way to crawl out of that is using a set or using LoD. Despite what people say, Legacy of Nightmares is still a set, you need both rings to get the bonus.
So yeah, each game did things better than the other. What it boils down to is just which things are more important to you when you play an ARPG?
Itâs a special kind of narcissism to make a comment like that.
I didnât really take this entire post as some kind of pissing match. I took it as a post of people sharing what they like better. My op in this thread was sharing my opinion that D2 LoD is a funner game. You felt the need to share yours with me directly, though I wasnât interested in your opinion, you seem to think we all need to be caught up on your position. I shared because op asked. You sharing with me has lead me to believe that D3 has diversity in builds, so I appreciate that, but Iâm still not interested in what you like better - thatâs my special kind of narcissism.
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No it isnât because I constantly say I liked both games, itâs OK not to like one, and so on, yet get constantly accused if crapping on D2 because I didnât like the lack of respec option and thought the campaign was meh. Yet despite saying, people still donât comprehend it.
My bad for going off a bit. Been cooped up for a week, no work, low on food, and it typically seems to get drawn into a D2/D3 issue. Was just pointing out D3 has plenty of build diversity as well, just most donât bother.
Is not better is no worst is plain different, because the mechanics of D3 are way better than D, but the gameplay in general is more fun in D2âŚin D2 even whit trade was hard to gear a character in D3 gearing a character is too easy
D2 LoD now has multiple and basically unlimited respect options. Thought the unlimited option does require playing the game in hell difficulty past the Den of Evil.
I hope things pick up asap for you.
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