Unpopular opinion, D3 is flawed, but fun & I keep coming back

General Discussion
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As a long-term ARPG & diablo fan. I even played the original Diablo. D2 blew everything away, & pretty much the Grandfather for every loot game ever.

Like many, I was disappointed with Vanilla D3, & spend most of my time in the forum complain about it, & quit within 3 months.

When RoS launched, I was like, “wait the game wasn’t already dead?” But I picked it up as a IRL friend (we had fun in D2) asked me to give it a shot.
There are a lot of improvements but the game was still no way near D2. Over the years, there were steady improvements. I do not pretend the updates were as beefy as other live service games (cough PoE). But for a One-time cost game, to be fair, it is as good as you can probably can expect.

Between these periods, I tried a lot of arpg, like last epoch, Wolcen, & again PoE. I spend 1000hours into PoE, & sink 500€ into it, but I felt I got everything from it, & don’t feel like getting back until ,maybe PoE2. As for last epoch, I manage to beat the campaign & no urge to go further ( I probably will try other builds in future). Wolcen, I had fun but it was fairly shallow.

But 8 years on, I am still coming back to D3 most seasons, & wait for it, having fun!
I think one key different between D3 & other arpg is the community, or lack of in other games. Its good to come back & play again with online friends, even playing with randoms in pub games. For reasons, other arpgs just don’t care much for MP.

It’s always nice to power level others, help each other finish seasonal challenges, push GR etc.

Like many, I hope D4 will have more depth & more theory crafting, more unique builds & customization & most important, more beefy & quicker updates! if it can also at least retain the social, or better yet expand on the social aspect of MP, I can only imagine how awesome it will be.

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Damn… what do you even buy with all of that? I never even finished the campaign and probably have something like 50-70 hours in total so I know very little about what you can buy, other than the cool stash tabs.

OK so to the topic. I think this game gets more flack than it deserves, I get it with vanilla and I get that there are some things that should have been different and now should really not be the way it is (disparity between build powers mostly) but it is still a damn good game that people put tons of time into.

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I bought a lot of stash space, & all the special tabs. After a while, I realized, on top of the outlandish price for mtx, they are selling solutions to problems they created.
I cannot in principle support such BS. Big names like EA, Activsion get attack for far less, while PoE keeps getting away with far worse mtx shielded by hardcore white knights that ban attack anyone who criticise GGG.

Also I bought quite a “few” cosmetics. The base armors are unbelievable ugly. The game is unplayable to me with the base armors. It doesn’t take much to spend 500€ when a typical armor set cost 42€ & wings cost 32ish (last I checked), a supporter pack can cost from 60€ to mind-blowing 500ish!

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Did I get my money’s worth out of what I paid for D3? Yes I did.

Did I have fun? Yes I did, allthough as time progressed I became fed up with season as I felt I just was doing the same thing over and over so I haven’t been playing for a couple of years now, but every now and then I check back here.

Do I think D3 has become somewhat of a spectacular trainwreck? Unfortunately, also yes. There are, imho, a lot of things wrong or that could be better, but when a zdps build can solo to a GR level the developpers never intended to be achieved in the first place, I think it’s pretty safe to say that things have gone badly wrong.

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Player mods would “fix” D3 in short order.

It wouldn’t take long for a D3 RoS full-balance server to emerge with updated legendaries.

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That’s actually not an unpopular opinion despite the efforts of the D2 faithful online. We all know it has flaws, most of those flaws don’t stop it from being a fun game for the vast majority.

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There is no doubt D3 is flaw. Hopefully D4 will fix the issue. I am very sure D4 will be a “live service” game, (whether one like it or not), & update will be more beefy & regular.

How many NON live service game still have update after 8 years?

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I don’t think you are correct. That would be indicative of a subscription game, a free game, or one that sells DLC content. D4 will be B2P game with expansions. Hopefully once a year instead of having to wait 2 years for one act. I doubt we will see big content patches like WoW does, I hope we do and that would be the new seasonal stuffs.

Give me new content every 4 months that moves the story along with a theme, new dungeons, new gear, recipies, local events, and so on. I just hope we don’t see seasonal resets just to enjoy a season. I’m not opposed to a restart mode for those interested. It’s one of the things I prefer in D2, you keep progressing your character.

So far the slighty shared world is borrowed from MMOs, hopefully content drops, and keep moving forward with characters are another 2 the borrow.

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D3 is flawed. In some aspects it is egregiously so. D3 is nowhere near the game it could have been. And it is an absolute failure when compared to what the franchise deserves. However I personally have absolutely enjoyed playing the game for the last 8 years off and on. There is no doubt I have gotten my money’s worth. No other game has kept me coming back even if only for a month or two for that long.

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Just doesn’t line up with:

You pretty much summed up an amazing game - not a game that you claim to be an absolute failure.

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Well said. I personally can admit D3 has some serious design flaws and I’ve long been very critical about the constant power creep but I haven’t let those hinder me having fun.

It’s just unfortunate that some people - no need to mention names, most should realize to whom I refer - are so hung up on the flaws that they have to periodically come to the forum to moan about them, sounding like a broken record.

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The optimist in me keeps hoping, one day, somehow, they’ll figure out a way to let players ‘mod’ D3. Even if not to the same extent as D2, even if it only works on non-seasonal – as long as it’ll let the massive audience of creativity tinker with the game, D3 would probably see a significant resurgence in popularity.

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The one thing I would love is a moldable UI to give me the information that is not present like some buffs or bonuses. I know there is that cheating UI thingy but I’m not asking for that.

For example, shadow clones. Each class has 3 types. Give me a buff icon that says what build they are, a timer, and health indicators. Or some items increase your damage for a time or the next hit but aren’t always visable.

I’m sure you are talking more gameplay altering mods. That will never happen. Just as I’m sure any UI mods won’t be allowed either.

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I don’t think this is a controversial or unpopular opinion to have, even among the remaining D3 community.

In fact, I think that is fairly understandable.

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The game has unparalleled fluid attack motion.
It is what keeps POE from dominating is that Diablo is more responsive in combat.

I wish they would listen.
But in the case of Blizzard I think they lost what was the vision of the game and the people who can remind them are gone.

I think they keep missing the mark because they aim for the wrong target.

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I don’t think it’s ‘impossible’ but more that it would require a deep dive into how to implement such a system that’s safe for the servers and game and still extensive and approachable enough to be a ‘feature’ worth having. And in that regard, you’re right – there’s no way in hell the skeleton crew still checking in on D3’s corpse is going to invest that kind of time, nor would D3 get that kind of attention and approval from management for that kind of work regardless. D3 is, for lack of a description, dead to them.

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I didn’t mean it’s not possible to implement, just that it ain’t happening at this stage of the game. All their eggs are in the D4 basket now. Skeleton crew running D3 with not enough resources or time to do anything big like allowing for mods safely, another expansion, or even another class. More sets, item and skill adjustments, a remote possibility for new set dungeons, and meh themes.

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The hell… what? Just how. That is totally insane amounts of money for cosmetics. Do they at least look super awesome for that price?

And on principle, my problem would be after they were acquired by tencent. Who is involved in developing that social score system in China that will basically be used to almost force you to conform to what the government wants you to be like. That is not why I stopped playing, it happened after I did. But that would be the reason to stop if I hadn’t already.

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Just my 2 cents: Making everything BoA killed Diablo. If D4 uses the same BoA system on everything, I’m not even going to bother. I don’t care how much “depth” or whatever is put into it. For me, the economy makes the Diablo community. I like trading. I like hoarding goods to give to friends or trade for stuff I need/want. WoW gets away with BoA/BoP but still have a “thriving” economy for hoarding/trading/auctioning for gold, but Diablo is a totally different animal. The same principles being applied have proven it totally kills the game for me.

But glad you like it well enough to actually still play it. :slight_smile:

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And you must have missed my point. Maybe I wasn’t clear. Yes d3 is an amazing game despite my other points. Could it have been better? Yes. Did the game get the treatment and respect the franchise deserves? Absolutely not. Despite that it is still a good game that has given much joy and entertainment over the years.