@SorcererV1ct0r I think you are making the basic mistake of consider Diablo series a rpgs in the first place. There is no role-playing in those games at all. There is a linear plot, you cannot make any alternative decisions that would affect the plot or the world around you. You get experience only by killing monsters. You have no control over the dialogues (monologues in the 2 first games). Plot either is very simple (Diablo 1), appears good but is actually pretty shitty (Diablo 2) or has a potential, but is executed poorly (Diablo 3) Etc etc. They are action games with rpg elements, such as leveling up and character progression and they are played the best when treated as such..
I don't think that any game who have decision making impacting plot is an rpg otherwise visual novels are a rpg. And earlier ultima games aren't... You do decision making on character progression
Anyway, Paragon = account progression, not character progression.
Having an single weak skeleton and gradually evolving, making then stronger and in greater number after mastering the skill and using +skill gear, having an undead army = rpg Everyone from the weakest to the strongest necromancer able to control 7 skeletons who scale with how big and sharp your axe is = not an rpg
Well yeah, Necromancers in D2 are fairly well-known for being able to solo end-game content without gear because the skill investment was enough. This is only possible because they can summon things to tank for them. My guess is this guy maxed out Clay Golem, Golem Mastery, Summon Resist, and then invested the rest in whatever Bone skills and Curses he is using. It's fun, it's interesting. I'm not sure I'd view it as some sort of pinnacle of game design. It's on the same level as figuring out you can use the Shield of Balduran to make Beholders trivial in BG2. It's a total rush when you first do it, and then it makes the entire experience pointless on subsequent runs.
Also, another part of this video points out another VERY important thing to mention about Diablo 1 and 2. You'll notice that this guy has about 100 mana potions between the ground and his inventory for this fight. And one way to describe BOTH of these games, as great and timeless as they are, is potion chugging simulators. There has never been two games made in history in which you could abuse instant health and mana regeneration like in Diablo 1 and 2. There is no cooldown and no limit to the amount you can have available, as this video shows. Which frankly IS bad game design. Hell, even in Baldur's Gate or Dragon Age there is finite limit on how many healing potions you can buy or craft simply based on the stock at merchants or available crafting materials. Diablo 1 and 2 have infinite resupplies.
Honestly invest much on golem is not a good idea since you can summon then without a great cost. I usually invest until i reach a good amount of slow enemy down % then some revived mobs to be meatshields and the rest into bone skills.
About poitions, potions on D2 heal/recover mana over time, much better than a insta heal with cooldown aka d3...
Any game that create abominations like teleporting hammerdins cannot truly be said to be better than a game that creates monks who fight with invisible axes. I loved D2, more so than D3, but if they were both released today and were new to the market, with comparable graphics etc, I bet my ass D3 would sell more. Blaming Blizzard for making games that tailor to market demands is just shouting at the waves.
D2 had very few classes that could actually play the end game well. Sure, you could go through it single player using many classes and skills, but to truly master the end game you had to pick one of maybe 3-5 class/skill combos. That didn't change much over the different patches, there were always a select few that simply were the best. I started playing rather late, when LoD was released, so I wasn't part of the old D2 rare era. My recollections of D2 back then was that 80% were running fire wall sorcs and the rest were 'noobs' that hadn't realized that fire wall sorcs ruled supreme. (EDIT: Just remembered the older combo of amazons with Cleg's and multishot/aiming, haha! Now that was a weird design as well, or the bugged out moving speed where you could glitch out PvP opponents if you had to high move speed, or the invisible bone spirits! Haha, D2 had a lot of funny/weird/annoying designs) After patches, when the rather exaggerated immunity system on mobs started, then came the hammerdin-era and the excessive and rather inflated rune words. When rune words started to give everyone access to oak sage, BO, teleport etc, it completely killed the "RPG" aspects of the game since now even a sorc could tank with a huge HP pool, or a tank could teleport.. D2 was great, but it was flawed. Massively so. It's actually a lot better as a single player game than online, though I don't have the patience for playing that for prolonged times since I played to much online in the past to be able to be satisfied with a weapon with anything less than +300 dmg, 30 IAS, etc.
And why is Paragon not character progression? Your view @SorcererV1ct0r seems to be twisted by your nostalgia glasses and your blatant dislike of D3. Which is of course perfectly fine, you can dislike it all you want, but twisting the truth to fit your feeling is just rather childish.
Paragon levels are changed, and even if they changed after I stopped playing, they are now character progression: http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Paragon
"Players now earn Paragon points each time they level up: 1 per level. These points can then be spent to boost up various stats in four different categories: Core Stats, Offensive, Defensive, and Utility."
Sounds like character progression to me.
Edit 2: This came out more confrontative (is that a word?) than intended, so sorry for that. No offense intended.
It's infinitely better as a solo game. Path of Exile is way better if you go solo self-found. Because once you have traded for a couple Runewords or pieces of gear, your quest is basically over. No one actually farms their own Enigma or Breath of the Dying.
And yes, Hammerdins reign supreme because their main attack ignores most immunities. And the "choices" as far as stats go was this, for nearly every build:
Strength: Enough to wear your build's gear Dexterity: Enough to reach max block Vitality: Literally every other point Energy: None
That is the stat point breakdown of 99% of all Diablo 2 builds I have ever seen.
@Skatan , have one broken piece of gear(Enigma) is completely different than have an completely broken game;
About if will sold well. Look to RoS expansion. Sold less than 1/3 of D3 sales... And blizzard din't make an second expansion. D3 sold well only on consoles focused on casual market like nintendo switch.
Now compare to Path of Exile. who always was on top 10 most played games on steam, far above much AAA games with insane high marketing budget. And Paragon is account wide stat inflation, you got paragon with char A, char B can benefit from stat inflation. Every lv 70 necro still with 7 skeletons who scale with how big and sharp the axe that they were welding is.
@jjstraka34 Hammerdins aren't the unique who can ignore most immunities. An bone necro can ignore immunities too. In fact, only Sorceress suffer a lot from immunities. An druid who have physical and cold damagin skills in the same skill line can easily overcome any immune mob. An bone necro who can deal fire + physical(corpse explosion), magical(bone spear/bone spirit), revive mobs and etc will not suffer much from it.
Also there are magical immune mobs. Some undead on act 2 - hell are magical immune.
Even Pokemon, a children's pokcet game have more RPG elements than D3. - Immunities - The game won't start at lv cap - There are many situational skills - No cooldown - No broken damage inflation - Attributes who make sense - Better progression (...)
Elemental damage makes sense on Pokemon, but on D3 where you can poison an undead skeleton doesn't make any sense...
An loot action game who actually did it right was borderlands. Borderlands was an loot shooter who have weapons that are used as weapons, not to be used by monks as a "mutagen" who works by dismaterializing it before the punch, then rematerializing it. An single modificator in a weapon changes how the weapon works. Is not just about inflate your WD.
And no, Borderlands is not an RPG.
PS : I an not a PoE fanboy.
I don't like that skill gems are linked towards gear, so if i found an amazing stat gear but without the gem slots that i wan't, is a useless item, i don't like the gender locked class nature an see other problems. But PoE is clearly the best aRPG on the market today.
It's infinitely better as a solo game. Path of Exile is way better if you go solo self-found. Because once you have traded for a couple Runewords or pieces of gear, your quest is basically over.
Very true. I played PoE and loved it, then in the later acts I become less effective and did my first trading. My effeciency went up a few hundred percent in a matter of 30 minutes and a few days later, I quit. I didn't know then why I quit, I just did, but reading your insightful post above just made me realize that was probably it. D3 had this as well, the auction house (not the real money one, the other one), where you could trade away decent gear and buy better gear within minutes. Made it very easy, accessable. I have mixed feelings about this.. It sucks to find very good mid-tier items in aRPGs but knowing noone want them you just sell them to vendors, the auction house solved that, but it also made it so you very rarely wore anything you've found yourself. Not sure which is better, but it probably is without autcion house. Now that I play grim dawn, I sometimes crave for an auction house when I am stuck with a shitty piece of gear and just can't find any decent replacement (usually a weapon of too low damage). Still, using only what I've found or created means I have to be creative with the build and skills, so I just re-specced some and realized my kill effeciency just went up a lot! That's probably the better way to make a game..
@Skatan , have one broken piece of gear(Enigma) is completely different than have an completely broken game;
One? So you think it's a good design to give everyone access to OS/BO/Tele etc? There's plenty more runewords etc than Enigma to talk about here. Since everyone got access to BO, then Blizz had painted themselves into a corner since now everyone had inflated HP, so now all mobs need to do more damage etc. it's just not a good design choice. If every can tank, if everyone can tele, if everyone can do everything, then what's the point of having classes? I'm exaggerating to make a point, I understand classes are still needed, but still.. the very point of sorc in D2 was to have a glass-cannon build that IF optimized could do runs quickly, but if the tank can teleport and do them equally quickly it diminishes the class/role perspective. At least from opinion, since D2 was primarily a MP game and not a SP game. I think, at least.
@jjstraka34 Hammerdins aren't the unique who can ignore most immunities. An bone necro can ignore immunities too. In fact, only Sorceress suffer a lot from immunities. An druid who have physical and cold damagin skills in the same skill line can easily overcome any immune mob. An bone necro who can deal fire + physical(corpse explosion), magical(bone spear/bone spirit), revive mobs and etc will not suffer much from it.
Also there are magical immune mobs. Some undead on act 2 - hell are magical immune.
Not really true since Hammerdins did physical and magical, the two damage types that were very rarely (if ever?) used on the same mob. This means they can kill everything and anything. ALL other classes had skills that had 100% immune mobs, so you just had to run away. Sure, you could dilute your skill point distribution to have more skills on different damage types, but good luck surviving Hell Player 8 with that! Your damage would be pitiful (ie the Sorc fireball/blizzard hybrid that was so common for MF runs). Same with Druid who could combine fire and cold damage, but needed +10 skills in Hell PLayer 8 to even make a scratch in enemies. The base druid and necro (and necro only had magical damage, so that was tough if you encountered magic immunes) damage was just too low to be good enough compared to hammerdins who could go into hell player 8 NAKED and still be able to do decent damage with just 20 Blessed hammers, it's synergies, and holy shield for defense.
Not really true since Hammerdins did physical and magical, the two damage types that were very rarely (if ever?) used on the same mob. This means they can kill everything and anything. ALL other classes had skills that had 100% immune mobs, so you just had to run away. Sure, you could dilute your skill point distribution to have more skills on different damage types, but good luck surviving Hell Player 8 with that! Your damage would be pitiful (ie the Sorc fireball/blizzard hybrid that was so common for MF runs). Same with Druid who could combine fire and cold damage, but needed +10 skills in Hell PLayer 8 to even make a scratch in enemies. The base druid and necro (and necro only had magical damage, so that was tough if you encountered magic immunes) damage was just too low to be good enough compared to hammerdins who could go into hell player 8 NAKED and still be able to do decent damage with just 20 Blessed hammers, it's synergies, and holy shield for defense.
An bone necro can use IA curses/ Corpse Explosion/Iron Maiden (all of this skills are one point investment wonder) against magical immune mobs.
Honestly, i can say that all modern aRPG market is very disappointing. Each time they lost more and more the "rpg" to become more and more gear farmers with mmo dumb mechanics like cooldown, stat linked towards gear, game starting at level cap, etc, etc, etc. Last Epoch i hope that will not disappoint me
The cRPG market is a disappointment too but AT least there are some good games being made like Pathfinder Kingmaker who probably can last thousands of hours. And at least there are a lot of NWN modules to play.
An bone necro can use IA curses/ Corpse Explosion/Iron Maiden (all of this skills are one point investment wonder) against magical immune mobs.
That's true! I had forgot about that. Good point.
I know I have been rambling about Grim Dawn in several threads now, but have you tried it? I find it to be a true delight and very, very well made for single player.
I geniuely am getting headache at everything @SorcererV1ct0r says. Let's see what we got here. - Using non-representative samples to make his points (naked Necro in D2 when trying to prove D2 can be beaten naked, when one or two off-screen lightinng shots in Worldstone Keep lvl. 2 would end the same Necro instantly. Using pony level as a representative of Diablo 3 in general). - Having huge nostalgia googles on. - Prioritizing feelings over facts. He doesn't feel like paragons are character progression, therefore the fact that they objectively are doesn't matter. - Claiming immunities have anything to do with game being RPG.* - Claming cooldowns have anything to do with game being RPG. Following that logic, D2 is not RPG. Ever used Valkyrie? Immolation arrow? Blizzard? Meteor? Hydra? Frozen Orb? Firestorm? Fissure? Armaggedon? Hurricane? They all have cooldowns. - Claiming situational skills have anything to do with RPGs. - Trying to use Pokemon as derogatory comparison. - Since we are on Pokemon, I like how OP described it as RPGs because it doesn't have cooldowns. Could it be because in turn-based combat cooldowns are kinda pointless? Or rather, every attack can count as one? You can only make 1 attack per turn, after all... Wait, maybe there ARE countdowns here after all... Blast Burn, Hyper Beam, Hydro Cannon, Frenzy Plant? How about Truant abillity? Or even better, BG is not an RPG. You cannot cast one magic missile after another, you have to wait few seconds. Unless you use Cooldown Deleter, I mean, Improved Alacrity... - EDIT: Buying a game he knew he wouldn't like, and then claiming cRPG market is dissapoitnment, instead acting like aware customer.
I think my headache is justified.
*Since using non-representative sample is trending there, there are unique monsters in D3 act V that are utterly immune to fire and cold respectively. Since they do exist, then immunities exist. Therefore according to the logic presented by OP, D3 = RPG.
An bone necro can use IA curses/ Corpse Explosion/Iron Maiden (all of this skills are one point investment wonder) against magical immune mobs.
That's true! I had forgot about that. Good point.
I know I have been rambling about Grim Dawn in several threads now, but have you tried it? I find it to be a true delight and very, very well made for single player.
I really liked GD. Still not good as older games but definitively worht the cost. And like any game, become much better with mods. Fun fact : I only purchased D3 after tested GD with Diablo class mods since the experience of GD with mods was so amazing that o forgot the critique...
I geniuely am getting headache at everything @SorcererV1ct0r says. Let's see what we got here. - Using non-representative samples to make his points (naked Necro in D2 when trying to prove D2 can be beaten naked, when one or two off-screen lightinng shots in Worldstone Keep lvl. 2 would end the same Necro instantly. Using pony level as a representative of Diablo 3 in general). - Having huge nostalgia googles on. - Prioritizing feelings over facts. He doesn't feel like paragons are character progression, therefore the fact that they objectively are doesn't matter. - Claiming immunities have anything to do with game being RPG.* - Claming cooldowns have anything to do with game being RPG. Following that logic, D2 is not RPG. Ever used Valkyrie? Immolation arrow? Blizzard? Meteor? Hydra? Frozen Orb? Firestorm? Fissure? Armaggedon? Hurricane? They all have cooldowns. - Claiming situational skills have anything to do with RPGs. - Trying to use Pokemon as derogatory comparison. - Since we are on Pokemon, I like how OP described it as RPGs because it doesn't have cooldowns. Could it be because in turn-based combat cooldowns are kinda pointless? Or rather, every attack can count as one? You can only make 1 attack per turn, after all... Wait, maybe there ARE countdowns here after all... Blast Burn, Hyper Beam, Hydro Cannon, Frenzy Plant? How about Truant abillity? Or even better, BG is not an RPG. You cannot cast one magic missile after another, you have to wait few seconds. Unless you use Cooldown Deleter, I mean, Improved Alacrity... - EDIT: Buying a game he knew he wouldn't like, and then claiming cRPG market is dissapoitnment, instead acting like aware customer.
I think my headache is justified.
*Since using non-representative sample is trending there, there are unique monsters in D3 act V that are utterly immune to fire and cold respectively. Since they do exist, then immunities exist. Therefore according to the logic presented by OP, D3 = RPG.
1 - Showed a paladin completing the game naked. Is possible to do it with most classes 2 - Only an affirmation 3 - Paragon is account, if you get paragon 500 with char A, you can use the same paragon points on char B. 4 - Immunities are a system who makes sense. Or burning an fire elemental makes sense? 5 - This skills on D2 have a casting delay. (see here > http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/castingdelays.shtml ) 6 - Have to do with a good design. For example, Dragon's Breath is the highest damage dealing spell on M&M VI-VIII. Why i can't spam the same skill over and over again? - Costs ridiculous amount of "resources" - Can damage my own party at CQB due high radius - Some mobs are resistant/immune (...) On D3 it will deal a massive damage scaling to how big and sharp my axe is and have 2 minute cooldown.
I really need to say who have the best game design?
7 - Pokemon is a casual game. A very interesting casual game, but is not an game made for 18+ audience. I din't said bad things about Pokemon, only that it aims on children's and if children's can deal with immunity, adults can too. 8 - DO:S2 is a turn based game and have cooldowns. BG you can cast once per turn(6 secs), this have nothing to do with cooldown.
1. You showed the most broken and imbalanced class in the game doing it. Congratulations. Also, this is still not a representative sample, no matter how you cut it. Try to do naked melee run, I dare you. 2. Based on your double standards and inability to get over a disappointment from years ago, I don't think my guess is inaccurate. 3. Still it is a progression system. The fact that it is implemented as a account-wide system is - in short - to encourage players to create and play with multiple characters at the same time while not feeling like they're losing progress. To explain it deeply would require to get over the history of the game, though and I doubt you are up to that. 4. You are dodging the question. Yes, it makes sense. No, it doesn't make a RPG game a RPG game. 5. The same thing as cooldown, basically. Just named differently. 6. I haven't played the game so I can't judge the validity of your statement. Still, skills like that doesn't make a RPG game a RPG game. You are dodging the question once again 7. Tell that to a competitive battler. You'll get laughed in your face. IVs, EVs, breeding mechanics, Hidden Power mechanics and many more. 8. Don't know that game, can't judge and therefore I don't care. Also, no.
1 - On D1 - Hellfire with a monk i can do that 2 - Not double standards. If M&M VI had this awful system aka dragon breath scaling with how big and sharp my axe is and with a cooldown, i will hate it . I said many problems with D2, mainly Enigma and attribute system. This is not nostalgia. 3 - Account progression. You agree with that. 4 - Where i said that immunities make a game an rpg? Only said that is a system who i like 5 - No, is not. See the link 6 - Skill progression is an element present on rpg games. 7 - Yes, but the game freak develop pokemon with a public in mind. Competitive players are a minority 8 - Show how is possible to have cooldown in a turn based game
1. I have learned I cannot take anything you say without proof already. Even if you can, that's still exception rather than rule. 2. Not at all. Especially when I use your arguments against you. 3. Progression. You agreed on that. 4. Given what you suggested in a quote below... You called immunited an RPG game mechanic, at the same time suggesting it is tied to the genre when it is not. 5. The only thing that can work in your favour there is that bit:
This is done to prevent slow down of graphical performance and to avoid abusive use of the skills.
which indicated the design philosophy. In any other rate, they work as cooldown skills, only worse because - as the link explains - some skills are connected with its "casting delay". You have failed to convince me. 6. We were talking about so-called "situational skills" rather than "skill progression here". The former you havent' adressed at all. The latter isn't exclusive to RPGs. 7. Doesn't matter. The game are designed so that they are easy to understand to anyone, yet still have mechanics for those who want to go deeper into them. Just because a minority of players (and again - I don't know if I can believe you at all) don't use them doesn't mean they [the mechanics] are not there. 8. You have misunderstood what I meant by that. I was basically making fun of you. In your own words:
Even Pokemon, a children's pokcet game have more RPG elements than D3. - Immunities - The game won't start at lv cap - There are many situational skills - No cooldown - No broken damage inflation - Attributes who make sense - Better progression
I think "Show how is possible to have cooldown in a turn based game" is my line here. It is you who said something silly regarding it in the first place.
1 - Search by yourself. Monks on hellfire are unarmed masters. I will not download D1 and hellfire only to proof a point. But at least search on wikia "The monk is a powerful unarmed combatant. They are strong and dextrous. Monks have some skill with fighting with staves, but eventually they will do significantly more damage bare handed." https://diablo.gamepedia.com/Monk_(Hellfire)
So yes, monks dismaterializing their axe to punch then rematerialize it is a bad mechanic present on D3....
2 - You din't used a single argument
3 - CHARACTER progression. Have an way to buff all of your characters in a account is :
A ) A specific in depth character progression who make one character stronger B ) An way to inflate status on all characters or "account progression" Hell, even cod have a progression system. Not a rpg-like character progression
4 - Have different "sources" types with different proprieties and immunities are a very common rpg element. Where is the mistake? NWN, IWD, BG, VtMB, Diablo 1, Diablo 2, M&M, etc, etc, etc; all of this games have immunities. Fire should work like fire aka not working on fire creatures like fire elemental or a fire golem, wather should work like wather, poison like poison(...) different elemental damage should't be just different flash colors
5 - As the mechanic suggests, on earlier 2000 era, processing power was far more limited. This spells draw many particles and guess what. None of then have a greater casting delay than their "duration" It was present much more to prevent loading the game with much particles than to artificially forces you to swtich to a less optimal skill in order to prevent skill spam since developers din't figured out a better way to balance the game.
Cooldown mechanic started with generic mmos as a "bandaid" to fix a broken system and guess what. Now every mmo is about spam the same rotation instead of spam the same skill(din't fixed anything).
6 - My point is that there are no skill progression on D3.
Having an single weak skeleton and gradually evolving, making then stronger and in greater number after mastering the skill and using +skill gear, having an undead army = rpg Everyone from the weakest to the strongest necromancer able to control 7 skeletons who scale with how big and sharp your axe is = not an rpg
7 - I know. I never said that pokemon is a bad game. Only that if a game can be aimed to children and have good mechanics, the excuse "wider audience" makes no sense...
8 - You are right. Cooldown is most a bad game mechanic than a element who makes a game less rpg...
9 - According to your own words "Could it be because in turn-based combat cooldowns are kinda pointless?"
There are turn based games who you need to wait for X turns.
NWN 2 after launch, because bugs made it impossible for me to finish final battle. While I have fond memories of NwN, even OC, from NWN 2 I only remember clunky UI, bugs, truly unsufferably long mission with orcs, bugs that made characters dissappear when changing locations, other bugs, annoying companions - when I played NwN 2 I was still a kid, and it was the first game I felt that my companions are obnoxious and annoying (Qara is still one of my least-favourite companion in any game, and Casavir is even more boring than ME1 Tali), and more bugs. I hear that nowadays it's much better, so I'm going to give it another chance.
It's not like Troika and Obsidian wanted to ship unfinished games. They were basically forced to by publishers. In the case of KOTOR 2, it was pushed out the door to get it on store shelves in time for Christmas.
An justified disappointment still an disappointment... My ex girlfriend forced me to wait her for two and half hours(only waited cuz blonde, green eyed beauties aren't exactly much common in my country) but she had an good justification;
About nwn2 i got disappointed because the camera was awful and spells was too nerfed compared to pnp but this isn't really a problem since nwn2 can be modded.
And honestly i liked more the OC of nwn2 than of nwn1.
My latest big disappointment is probably No Man Sky. The trailers promised so much but in the end when the game was released, a lot of things were missing. Also the game focuses too much on resources grinding where I expect it to be more about discoveries and traveling in space (probably my fault for not checking enough what the gameplay will be).
Since then, the game was patched a lot and I heard that it's better now but I'm not really interested in trying again.
While KotOR 2 could definitely could use some polish (no pun intended), it has some brilliant role-plays ideas, one of my all-time favourite villains, and the most sophisticated piece of media in Star Wars setting I've encountered (and TLJ clearly wishes to be as profound as KotOR 2). So it wasn't disappointment for me. NWN 2, on the other hand, it really hurt, because I had lots of fun with the first game.
My latest big disappointment is probably No Man Sky. The trailers promised so much but in the end when the game was released, a lot of things were missing. Also the game focuses too much on resources grinding where I expect it to be more about discoveries and traveling in space (probably my fault for not checking enough what the gameplay will be).
Since then, the game was patched a lot and I heard that it's better now but I'm not really interested in trying again.
Wow, i lucky din't liked much "futuristic" games, there aren't many good ones and most good franchises are being destroyed... To be honest most of their "futuristic weapons" and "futuristic vehicles" looks much more like toys than actual weapons/vehicles. There are few exceptions like Metro and Fallout who i enjoy. Fallout 4/Fallout 76 isn't a disappointment because i wasn't expecting anything good from bugthesda. I was expecting a very dumbed down game and that is what they launched(luckly din't wasted my money).
As long as you don’t hype yourself up for a game you can experience it for what it is and not what you thought it was going to be.
Granted, some companies tend to over hype gaming experiences (looking at you No Man Sky) which can tend to be deceitful, but being patient and waiting for a game and reviews or fixes can limit the disappointment.
The strange thing with my experience with No Man Sky is that I learn about the game only a few weeks before the release so I didn't have much time to hype myself. I don't really know how it happens that I was so hyped by this game.
i think the most disappointing game i have ever played was baldur's gate dark alliance
i remember hearing a baldur's gate game coming out for the ps2, and i thought; WOW! this will be great, bg for PC is such a great game and i can't wait to play it with my friends although i had no idea on how they were going to do mouse and keyboard controls.....
and then i started seeing screen shots, and red flags were going off, and i was thinking to myself; this doesnt seem right.....
so when the game came out i rented it from blockbuster ( you know, that store that has existed for eons loooooooooooooooooooooool....... ) and i started playing it with my friend and my first reaction was; what in the sweet *intercourse* is this *feces* ?
i was blown away on how different it was, and i felt so cheated that they used the baldur's gate name to make some whacky ass action "rpg", i was just so appalled at how robbed i felt, this was not baldur's gate at all, the ONLY similarity was that you started off at the elf song tavern in BG the city and Drizzt was in it ugh
even the 3 character options were kind of dumb; dwarven fighter i could understand, but a human archer lol? and an elven "mage" that could were full plate and you couldn't choose gender, race or class, just those 3 basic characters *sigh*
the BG series for console in my opinion were a complete travesty, i've never been so mad at how badly a game was represented, and because of that, i never had fun playing it, i always though to myself that those 2 games were just cash grab trash from a title they stole to make money ( although at the time i believe black isle studios was struggling with money or something, but seriously, this wasn't the way to go )
and then a year or two later champions of norath came out, and i felt better, this is what they should have done/called it in the first place, i didn't feel as cheated and it made it much easier to enjoy the game, although i believe in the second one there was that one part where all the baddies were glowing and would kill you in hit if they hit you and you had to do some "stealthing" to get by them, that was crap, but other than that, i will cut the champions of norath series some slack, but BG series for console, those 2 games can forever suffer in every pit of the 9 hells for all eternity oi
D2 fans being disappointed about D3 is an amusing example for me, because I felt the same about D2 coming from D1 and to this day I don't fully understand the D2 hype.
I usually play sorcerer and I don't like the D2 character development process, where you have to limit yourself to a small number of active skills. Before synergy you even had to save your skill points if you wanted to build a good character, instead of being able to put them in your current main attack spell when you levelled up. Having to save skill points to built an effective character is very bad design in my opinion. The super specialization also meshed badly with the heavy immunities on the higher difficulty levels.
Increasing the power of your sorcerer by finding spell books and studying them felt much more natural to me than the increased dependance on good gear in D2.
In addition, D1 felt darker with characters like Wirt, the Skeleton King, Lazarus and the Butcher.
I am not saying D2 is objectively worse than D1. It is certainly better in terms of long-run motivation, with collecting sets and gems. In Diablo I there is nothing really new to find on the higher difficulty levels once you have learned each spell. But for the first few playthroughs: D1 > D2, and when I started playing D2 as a D1 veteran, I was certainly disappointed.
Honestly, Ultima died on 8. They turned Ultima into a platformer...
Nah, Ultima 8 had it strengths. The gameplay was pretty bad, but world design, story and some of the magic systems were solid. Most importantly it was still consistent with the earlier games, while Ultima 9 had:
Avatar starting on Earth without any titan powers
Blackthorne reappearing as evil without any explanation
Brainwashing shrines of virtues
Terrible dialogue "What's a Paladin?"
Avatar having been stripped of his evil side magically
The last item especially contradicts against everything that came before. And sadly, storywise Ultima 9 would have worked best if you had picked the evil ending of Ultima 7...
Comments
Anyway, Paragon = account progression, not character progression.
Having an single weak skeleton and gradually evolving, making then stronger and in greater number after mastering the skill and using +skill gear, having an undead army = rpg
Everyone from the weakest to the strongest necromancer able to control 7 skeletons who scale with how big and sharp your axe is = not an rpg Paladins and most classes can do it too
Honestly invest much on golem is not a good idea since you can summon then without a great cost. I usually invest until i reach a good amount of slow enemy down % then some revived mobs to be meatshields and the rest into bone skills.
About poitions, potions on D2 heal/recover mana over time, much better than a insta heal with cooldown aka d3...
D2 had very few classes that could actually play the end game well. Sure, you could go through it single player using many classes and skills, but to truly master the end game you had to pick one of maybe 3-5 class/skill combos. That didn't change much over the different patches, there were always a select few that simply were the best. I started playing rather late, when LoD was released, so I wasn't part of the old D2 rare era. My recollections of D2 back then was that 80% were running fire wall sorcs and the rest were 'noobs' that hadn't realized that fire wall sorcs ruled supreme. (EDIT: Just remembered the older combo of amazons with Cleg's and multishot/aiming, haha! Now that was a weird design as well, or the bugged out moving speed where you could glitch out PvP opponents if you had to high move speed, or the invisible bone spirits! Haha, D2 had a lot of funny/weird/annoying designs) After patches, when the rather exaggerated immunity system on mobs started, then came the hammerdin-era and the excessive and rather inflated rune words. When rune words started to give everyone access to oak sage, BO, teleport etc, it completely killed the "RPG" aspects of the game since now even a sorc could tank with a huge HP pool, or a tank could teleport.. D2 was great, but it was flawed. Massively so. It's actually a lot better as a single player game than online, though I don't have the patience for playing that for prolonged times since I played to much online in the past to be able to be satisfied with a weapon with anything less than +300 dmg, 30 IAS, etc.
And why is Paragon not character progression? Your view @SorcererV1ct0r seems to be twisted by your nostalgia glasses and your blatant dislike of D3. Which is of course perfectly fine, you can dislike it all you want, but twisting the truth to fit your feeling is just rather childish.
Paragon levels are changed, and even if they changed after I stopped playing, they are now character progression:
http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Paragon
"Players now earn Paragon points each time they level up: 1 per level. These points can then be spent to boost up various stats in four different categories: Core Stats, Offensive, Defensive, and Utility."
Sounds like character progression to me.
Edit 2: This came out more confrontative (is that a word?) than intended, so sorry for that. No offense intended.
And yes, Hammerdins reign supreme because their main attack ignores most immunities. And the "choices" as far as stats go was this, for nearly every build:
Strength: Enough to wear your build's gear
Dexterity: Enough to reach max block
Vitality: Literally every other point
Energy: None
That is the stat point breakdown of 99% of all Diablo 2 builds I have ever seen.
About if will sold well. Look to RoS expansion. Sold less than 1/3 of D3 sales... And blizzard din't make an second expansion. D3 sold well only on consoles focused on casual market like nintendo switch.
Now compare to Path of Exile. who always was on top 10 most played games on steam, far above much AAA games with insane high marketing budget. And Paragon is account wide stat inflation, you got paragon with char A, char B can benefit from stat inflation. Every lv 70 necro still with 7 skeletons who scale with how big and sharp the axe that they were welding is.
@jjstraka34 Hammerdins aren't the unique who can ignore most immunities. An bone necro can ignore immunities too. In fact, only Sorceress suffer a lot from immunities. An druid who have physical and cold damagin skills in the same skill line can easily overcome any immune mob. An bone necro who can deal fire + physical(corpse explosion), magical(bone spear/bone spirit), revive mobs and etc will not suffer much from it.
Also there are magical immune mobs. Some undead on act 2 - hell are magical immune.
Even Pokemon, a children's pokcet game have more RPG elements than D3.
- Immunities
- The game won't start at lv cap
- There are many situational skills
- No cooldown
- No broken damage inflation
- Attributes who make sense
- Better progression
(...)
Elemental damage makes sense on Pokemon, but on D3 where you can poison an undead skeleton doesn't make any sense...
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An loot action game who actually did it right was borderlands. Borderlands was an loot shooter who have weapons that are used as weapons, not to be used by monks as a "mutagen" who works by dismaterializing it before the punch, then rematerializing it. An single modificator in a weapon changes how the weapon works. Is not just about inflate your WD.
And no, Borderlands is not an RPG.
PS : I an not a PoE fanboy.
I don't like that skill gems are linked towards gear, so if i found an amazing stat gear but without the gem slots that i wan't, is a useless item, i don't like the gender locked class nature an see other problems. But PoE is clearly the best aRPG on the market today.
But I dunno, just some random rambling.
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Honestly, i can say that all modern aRPG market is very disappointing. Each time they lost more and more the "rpg" to become more and more gear farmers with mmo dumb mechanics like cooldown, stat linked towards gear, game starting at level cap, etc, etc, etc. Last Epoch i hope that will not disappoint me
The cRPG market is a disappointment too but AT least there are some good games being made like Pathfinder Kingmaker who probably can last thousands of hours. And at least there are a lot of NWN modules to play.
That's true! I had forgot about that. Good point.
I know I have been rambling about Grim Dawn in several threads now, but have you tried it? I find it to be a true delight and very, very well made for single player.
- Using non-representative samples to make his points (naked Necro in D2 when trying to prove D2 can be beaten naked, when one or two off-screen lightinng shots in Worldstone Keep lvl. 2 would end the same Necro instantly. Using pony level as a representative of Diablo 3 in general).
- Having huge nostalgia googles on.
- Prioritizing feelings over facts. He doesn't feel like paragons are character progression, therefore the fact that they objectively are doesn't matter.
- Claiming immunities have anything to do with game being RPG.*
- Claming cooldowns have anything to do with game being RPG. Following that logic, D2 is not RPG. Ever used Valkyrie? Immolation arrow? Blizzard? Meteor? Hydra? Frozen Orb? Firestorm? Fissure? Armaggedon? Hurricane? They all have cooldowns.
- Claiming situational skills have anything to do with RPGs.
- Trying to use Pokemon as derogatory comparison.
- Since we are on Pokemon, I like how OP described it as RPGs because it doesn't have cooldowns. Could it be because in turn-based combat cooldowns are kinda pointless? Or rather, every attack can count as one? You can only make 1 attack per turn, after all... Wait, maybe there ARE countdowns here after all... Blast Burn, Hyper Beam, Hydro Cannon, Frenzy Plant? How about Truant abillity? Or even better, BG is not an RPG. You cannot cast one magic missile after another, you have to wait few seconds. Unless you use Cooldown Deleter, I mean, Improved Alacrity...
- EDIT: Buying a game he knew he wouldn't like, and then claiming cRPG market is dissapoitnment, instead acting like aware customer.
I think my headache is justified.
*Since using non-representative sample is trending there, there are unique monsters in D3 act V that are utterly immune to fire and cold respectively. Since they do exist, then immunities exist. Therefore according to the logic presented by OP, D3 = RPG.
1 - Showed a paladin completing the game naked. Is possible to do it with most classes
2 - Only an affirmation
3 - Paragon is account, if you get paragon 500 with char A, you can use the same paragon points on char B.
4 - Immunities are a system who makes sense. Or burning an fire elemental makes sense?
5 - This skills on D2 have a casting delay. (see here > http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/castingdelays.shtml )
6 - Have to do with a good design. For example, Dragon's Breath is the highest damage dealing spell on M&M VI-VIII. Why i can't spam the same skill over and over again?
- Costs ridiculous amount of "resources"
- Can damage my own party at CQB due high radius
- Some mobs are resistant/immune
(...)
On D3 it will deal a massive damage scaling to how big and sharp my axe is and have 2 minute cooldown.
I really need to say who have the best game design?
7 - Pokemon is a casual game. A very interesting casual game, but is not an game made for 18+ audience. I din't said bad things about Pokemon, only that it aims on children's and if children's can deal with immunity, adults can too.
8 - DO:S2 is a turn based game and have cooldowns. BG you can cast once per turn(6 secs), this have nothing to do with cooldown.
2. Based on your double standards and inability to get over a disappointment from years ago, I don't think my guess is inaccurate.
3. Still it is a progression system. The fact that it is implemented as a account-wide system is - in short - to encourage players to create and play with multiple characters at the same time while not feeling like they're losing progress. To explain it deeply would require to get over the history of the game, though and I doubt you are up to that.
4. You are dodging the question. Yes, it makes sense. No, it doesn't make a RPG game a RPG game.
5. The same thing as cooldown, basically. Just named differently.
6. I haven't played the game so I can't judge the validity of your statement. Still, skills like that doesn't make a RPG game a RPG game. You are dodging the question once again
7. Tell that to a competitive battler. You'll get laughed in your face. IVs, EVs, breeding mechanics, Hidden Power mechanics and many more.
8. Don't know that game, can't judge and therefore I don't care. Also, no.
2 - Not double standards. If M&M VI had this awful system aka dragon breath scaling with how big and sharp my axe is and with a cooldown, i will hate it . I said many problems with D2, mainly Enigma and attribute system. This is not nostalgia.
3 - Account progression. You agree with that.
4 - Where i said that immunities make a game an rpg? Only said that is a system who i like
5 - No, is not. See the link
6 - Skill progression is an element present on rpg games.
7 - Yes, but the game freak develop pokemon with a public in mind. Competitive players are a minority
8 - Show how is possible to have cooldown in a turn based game
2. Not at all. Especially when I use your arguments against you.
3. Progression. You agreed on that.
4. Given what you suggested in a quote below... You called immunited an RPG game mechanic, at the same time suggesting it is tied to the genre when it is not.
5. The only thing that can work in your favour there is that bit:
6. We were talking about so-called "situational skills" rather than "skill progression here". The former you havent' adressed at all. The latter isn't exclusive to RPGs.
7. Doesn't matter. The game are designed so that they are easy to understand to anyone, yet still have mechanics for those who want to go deeper into them. Just because a minority of players (and again - I don't know if I can believe you at all) don't use them doesn't mean they [the mechanics] are not there.
8. You have misunderstood what I meant by that. I was basically making fun of you. In your own words:
- Immunities
- The game won't start at lv cap
- There are many situational skills
- No cooldown
- No broken damage inflation
- Attributes who make sense
- Better progression
I think "Show how is possible to have cooldown in a turn based game" is my line here. It is you who said something silly regarding it in the first place.
"The monk is a powerful unarmed combatant. They are strong and dextrous. Monks have some skill with fighting with staves, but eventually they will do significantly more damage bare handed." https://diablo.gamepedia.com/Monk_(Hellfire)
So yes, monks dismaterializing their axe to punch then rematerialize it is a bad mechanic present on D3....
2 - You din't used a single argument
3 - CHARACTER progression. Have an way to buff all of your characters in a account is :
A ) A specific in depth character progression who make one character stronger
B ) An way to inflate status on all characters or "account progression"
Hell, even cod have a progression system. Not a rpg-like character progression
4 - Have different "sources" types with different proprieties and immunities are a very common rpg element. Where is the mistake? NWN, IWD, BG, VtMB, Diablo 1, Diablo 2, M&M, etc, etc, etc; all of this games have immunities. Fire should work like fire aka not working on fire creatures like fire elemental or a fire golem, wather should work like wather, poison like poison(...) different elemental damage should't be just different flash colors
5 - As the mechanic suggests, on earlier 2000 era, processing power was far more limited. This spells draw many particles and guess what. None of then have a greater casting delay than their "duration" It was present much more to prevent loading the game with much particles than to artificially forces you to swtich to a less optimal skill in order to prevent skill spam since developers din't figured out a better way to balance the game.
Cooldown mechanic started with generic mmos as a "bandaid" to fix a broken system and guess what. Now every mmo is about spam the same rotation instead of spam the same skill(din't fixed anything).
6 - My point is that there are no skill progression on D3. 7 - I know. I never said that pokemon is a bad game. Only that if a game can be aimed to children and have good mechanics, the excuse "wider audience" makes no sense...
8 - You are right. Cooldown is most a bad game mechanic than a element who makes a game less rpg...
9 - According to your own words "Could it be because in turn-based combat cooldowns are kinda pointless?"
There are turn based games who you need to wait for X turns.
I hear that nowadays it's much better, so I'm going to give it another chance.
About nwn2 i got disappointed because the camera was awful and spells was too nerfed compared to pnp but this isn't really a problem since nwn2 can be modded.
And honestly i liked more the OC of nwn2 than of nwn1.
This thread is more than only about D3, or Diablo in general. Please go discuss Diablo in the no-reload thread.
Since then, the game was patched a lot and I heard that it's better now but I'm not really interested in trying again.
To be fair, most armor on fantasy rpgs tends to be awful too....
As long as you don’t hype yourself up for a game you can experience it for what it is and not what you thought it was going to be.
Granted, some companies tend to over hype gaming experiences (looking at you No Man Sky) which can tend to be deceitful, but being patient and waiting for a game and reviews or fixes can limit the disappointment.
i remember hearing a baldur's gate game coming out for the ps2, and i thought; WOW! this will be great, bg for PC is such a great game and i can't wait to play it with my friends although i had no idea on how they were going to do mouse and keyboard controls.....
and then i started seeing screen shots, and red flags were going off, and i was thinking to myself; this doesnt seem right.....
so when the game came out i rented it from blockbuster ( you know, that store that has existed for eons loooooooooooooooooooooool....... ) and i started playing it with my friend and my first reaction was; what in the sweet *intercourse* is this *feces* ?
i was blown away on how different it was, and i felt so cheated that they used the baldur's gate name to make some whacky ass action "rpg", i was just so appalled at how robbed i felt, this was not baldur's gate at all, the ONLY similarity was that you started off at the elf song tavern in BG the city and Drizzt was in it ugh
even the 3 character options were kind of dumb; dwarven fighter i could understand, but a human archer lol? and an elven "mage" that could were full plate and you couldn't choose gender, race or class, just those 3 basic characters *sigh*
the BG series for console in my opinion were a complete travesty, i've never been so mad at how badly a game was represented, and because of that, i never had fun playing it, i always though to myself that those 2 games were just cash grab trash from a title they stole to make money ( although at the time i believe black isle studios was struggling with money or something, but seriously, this wasn't the way to go )
and then a year or two later champions of norath came out, and i felt better, this is what they should have done/called it in the first place, i didn't feel as cheated and it made it much easier to enjoy the game, although i believe in the second one there was that one part where all the baddies were glowing and would kill you in hit if they hit you and you had to do some "stealthing" to get by them, that was crap, but other than that, i will cut the champions of norath series some slack, but BG series for console, those 2 games can forever suffer in every pit of the 9 hells for all eternity oi
I usually play sorcerer and I don't like the D2 character development process, where you have to limit yourself to a small number of active skills. Before synergy you even had to save your skill points if you wanted to build a good character, instead of being able to put them in your current main attack spell when you levelled up. Having to save skill points to built an effective character is very bad design in my opinion. The super specialization also meshed badly with the heavy immunities on the higher difficulty levels.
Increasing the power of your sorcerer by finding spell books and studying them felt much more natural to me than the increased dependance on good gear in D2.
In addition, D1 felt darker with characters like Wirt, the Skeleton King, Lazarus and the Butcher.
I am not saying D2 is objectively worse than D1. It is certainly better in terms of long-run motivation, with collecting sets and gems. In Diablo I there is nothing really new to find on the higher difficulty levels once you have learned each spell. But for the first few playthroughs: D1 > D2, and when I started playing D2 as a D1 veteran, I was certainly disappointed.
- Avatar starting on Earth without any titan powers
- Blackthorne reappearing as evil without any explanation
- Brainwashing shrines of virtues
- Terrible dialogue "What's a Paladin?"
-
- Avatar having been stripped of his evil side magically
The last item especially contradicts against everything that came before. And sadly, storywise Ultima 9 would have worked best if you had picked the evil ending of Ultima 7...