Diablo 3: Gripes thread

[RickJay]

The personal disagreement will end now. You are more than welcome to continue discussing the merits, or lack thereof, of "Diablo III," including the matter of whether or not its skill system is too complex, too simplified, or whatever.

The Cubsfan-Frylock personal argument, involving accusations of who's dumber or taking things seriously or needing to chill out or whatever, will not continue after this post. Nobody else will pick up the banner.


Thanks,

RickJay
Moderator

[DigitalC]

My biggest gripe is constantly picking up useless white crap while im fighting.

[shijinn]

speaking of banners, what's the point of putting one down in the game?

[Chronos]

My biggest gripe is constantly picking up useless white crap while im fighting.

I can definitely get behind this. In D2, at least, there were a few white items that were at least worth a lot of gold, or involved in crafting-type things, but in D3, it doesn't seem like there's any point at all in white items dropping, past a very early stage in the game. And it's too easy to accidentally click on some of it, while you're clicking frantically all over the place.

[Chronos]

speaking of banners, what's the point of putting one down in the game?

If you're in the game, and there are multiple players in game, your banner is automatically in town, and any other player can teleport to your location by clicking on it (similar to what we used to do with portals, but without requiring any action by the person in the dungeon). Secondarily, your banner is also a bit of bragging, since it gets more ornate as you earn achievements.

[Ethilrist]

I can now gripe that the weapon they call a spade is a kind of bo staff, rather than a shovel which I can use to beat people with. Very, very disappointing.

Sometimes I miss Elwynn forest...

[Mekhazzio]

The in-action placeable banners are cosmetic only. Their only real use is to mark locations; the place of a book pickup, which fork you took going ahead of the group, etc.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally Posted by Chronos

I can definitely get behind this. In D2, at least, there were a few white items that were at least worth a lot of gold, or involved in crafting-type things, but in D3, it doesn't seem like there's any point at all in white items dropping, past a very early stage in the game. And it's too easy to accidentally click on some of it, while you're clicking frantically all over the place.

Yep--this is a totally legit gripe. Why litter the landscape with so much trash? I liked how Titan Quest handled it: there was trash everywhere, but it was very difficult to pick it up if you weren't pressing Alt at the time. As it is, every now and then I open my inventory and find trash in it, and I wonder, "How the hell did that get in there?"

[Ethilrist]

At the other end of the scale was Dungeon Siege, where you could just press the Alt key and Hoover up all the treasure within sight. You could also tell it not to pick up white crap...

[cckerberos]

SenorBeef, now that I've played more, I can say that the game finally reached what I would consider a good challenge level in Act 3 of Nightmare.

[Jules Andre]

Originally Posted by Cubsfan

I think the lack of permanency in character builds takes away from the game for be because on D2 you would get into a multiplayer game and the PVP bell would ring and you'd get scared that someone was going to wack you and take your stuff. Now you don't have to worry about that because once the best builds are discovered for PVP (when it launches) everyone will be able to just click a few buttons and be identical, other than some gear. That's not fun. I want to be able to build my guy and live or die by my choices, and I want my opponents to have the same restrictions. That was a big part of the fun of the PVP side of D2.
.

This is really interesting to me and I have a really hard time understanding this. You want it to be where, if someone shows up with a better build, it's an instant-win button and you have no choice but to take your whooping? No hope of fighting it out or battle being a test of skill? Or is it the reverse where you hope to have the better build so you can win lopsided fights where the other person has no shot? A whole lot of people like ganking and dominating inferior opponents, but that sounds too much like paper/rock/scissors to me.

I see it differently. If everyone is equal/identical, PVP becomes a test of reflexes and timing and skill, instead of who did the most research beforehand. But of course not everyone will be equal because not everyone plays the same class. So PVP is actually a test of knowledge and recognition. Can you see what the other does and adapt fast enough to survive? Being able to react and adapt on the fly makes for a far more dynamic experience than just paper/rock/scissors. Although, the interface isn't well tuned for this in practice, I think the concept stands.

Just an edit to add that, in general, I always disliked the idea that I had to know every single choice I intended to make for an entire game before I make any choices. I like to be able to experiment freely, without penalty. To me, there's no real lack of permanence, once I know which abilities I want I can keep them. But I can also try something new, or experiment, at my own desire. I'm a fan of the skill system.

[Love Rhombus]

Originally Posted by Left Hand of Dorkness

Yep--this is a totally legit gripe. Why litter the landscape with so much trash? I liked how Titan Quest handled it: there was trash everywhere, but it was very difficult to pick it up if you weren't pressing Alt at the time. As it is, every now and then I open my inventory and find trash in it, and I wonder, "How the hell did that get in there?"

It seems like it's changed, unless I'm misunderstanding. Now you just walk past gold and it picks it up automatically.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally Posted by Love Rhombus

It seems like it's changed, unless I'm misunderstanding. Now you just walk past gold and it picks it up automatically.

Gold does, but loot doesn't; nevertheless, its text is pretty big and underfoot and easy to click on by accident, and there's no sound cue (I think) to indicate it's picked up. It's a very small annoyance, but I wish that you could filter out white loot so it didn't even show up.

Also, I agree with whoever said that the skill-switching interface could be more elegant. I'd love to be able to switch skills very quickly, like in less than a second, and continue moving around. I'd also love to be able to assign different skill configurations to a hotkey, so that I could (for example) press Ctrl+1 to pull up my configuration designed for fighting tons of mobs up close, or Ctrl+2 for the configuration that works best against slow bosses.

That capability might be in the game; if it is, somebody tell me please!

[DigitalC]

Another gripe: the stuff that drops is like 8 levels below the level you are when you get them, so buying stuff on the AH is far far superior to playing like D2. It really takes away the whole finding goodies part of the game, which is basically the main thing it had going for it.

[cckerberos]

Also, bosses are only guaranteed to drop rares the first time you kill them in Normal. The first time you kill them in Nightmare, Hell, etc.? Expect to get the same garbage blues you get from any other enemy.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally Posted by DigitalC

Another gripe: the stuff that drops is like 8 levels below the level you are when you get them, so buying stuff on the AH is far far superior to playing like D2. It really takes away the whole finding goodies part of the game, which is basically the main thing it had going for it.

Meh. You could get the same experience in D2 by rolling second toons, or by having friends who donate gear to you. In Titan Quest, once I got a character to level 40+, new toons were always tricked out with amazing gear ASAP. It made it kind of fun but also made the game kind of easy. The AH seems to me to encourage the same dynamic, which is part of the reason I'm avoiding it.

[DigitalC]

Originally Posted by Left Hand of Dorkness

Meh. You could get the same experience in D2 by rolling second toons, or by having friends who donate gear to you. In Titan Quest, once I got a character to level 40+, new toons were always tricked out with amazing gear ASAP. It made it kind of fun but also made the game kind of easy. The AH seems to me to encourage the same dynamic, which is part of the reason I'm avoiding it.

I just think it's a bad decision to have stuff drop items way below the level at which you kill them. Maybe it's a balance problem and you ARE meant to run around in level 18-22 gear in your 30s but it just feels wrong.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally Posted by DigitalC

I just think it's a bad decision to have stuff drop items way below the level at which you kill them. Maybe it's a balance problem and you ARE meant to run around in level 18-22 gear in your 30s but it just feels wrong.

Is the level based on the minimum level for wearing it?

[Chronos]

It could also be that you're not moving forward fast enough for your leveling. Monster loot is based on the monster, not on you, so if you rush ahead and kill more challenging monsters, you'll get better loot. This would also address the common complaint that the game is too easy.

[shijinn]

Originally Posted by DigitalC

My biggest gripe is constantly picking up useless white crap while im fighting.

i don't care really but it is such that i would, while in an area with merchants, rather throw these on the ground than waste time walking over to sell them. couldn't they at least price them on par with the dropped gold?

[Ethilrist]

Originally Posted by Chronos

It could also be that you're not moving forward fast enough for your leveling. Monster loot is based on the monster, not on you, so if you rush ahead and kill more challenging monsters, you'll get better loot. This would also address the common complaint that the game is too easy.

And, you get better loot if you're in a party. If it dropped cool stuff in solo play, it'd have to drop noticeably overpowered stuff in a group. Not that I'd complain, mind you...

[shijinn]

"I don't have enough Arcane power."

Disintegrate looked and sounded very cool before i tried it, but that quote gets old very quickly. it seems in every Blizzard game Blizzard is the spell to use.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally Posted by shijinn

"I don't have enough Arcane power."

Disintegrate looked and sounded very cool before i tried it, but that quote gets old very quickly. it seems in every Blizzard game Blizzard is the spell to use.

Hmm--disintegrate has been my go-to spell since I got it a few levels ago. My loadout is something like:
-Spectral blade (to take out nearby enemies--I alternate with shock pulse, not sure which is better)
-Disintegrate (for range and crowded enemies it seems spectacular)
-Frost nova (seems like a really good defense, to the point that I've hardly used any of the other defensive skills--any recommendations on others I should try?)
-Wave of Force (Hydra is pretty fun but I'm not sure how useful it is; twister seems useless)
-Ice Armor (I've played a bit with the other optiosn but keep coming back to this)
-Explosive Blast (the only one I've unlocked in this set).

So battles tend to be me disintegrating enemies until they approach, trying to remember to do an explosive blast as they come in, frost nova-ing once they're in close and spectral-blading them, then wave-of-forcing once they unfreeze. Something like that.

Disintegrate does great damage, I think, and though it eats up mana like crazy, so far it seems worth it.

[Crowbar of Irony +3]

For me, it's that some areas are just too darn big. Yes, those first appearin act 2.

And that the voice acting, in-game cutscenes and the mood of the graphics remind me more of Warcraft than grim-dark. The plot is fine but the writing is really cliche.

[Mister Rik]

Originally Posted by Left Hand of Dorkness

Gold does, but loot doesn't; nevertheless, its text is pretty big and underfoot and easy to click on by accident, and there's no sound cue (I think) to indicate it's picked up. It's a very small annoyance, but I wish that you could filter out white loot so it didn't even show up.

I'm missing the D2 thing where you could hold down the Option key (on a Mac - I suppose it was Alt on Windows) to show all the item names for stuff on the ground. I'm getting somewhat inconsistent results regarding whether or not the game displays the nametags. It's almost like it shows them for a minute after the stuff drops, but if I don't pick it up right away the names disappear and I'm left waving my mouse around hoping to mouse over something.

Originally Posted by DigitalC

Another gripe: the stuff that drops is like 8 levels below the level you are when you get them

I remember the opposite problem in Dungeon Siege - everything that dropped was a few levels too high to use, so I ended up packing around a ton of shit that I couldn't use yet, and couldn't sell because the next town was miles away.

Originally Posted by Crowbar of Irony +3

And that the voice acting, in-game cutscenes and the mood of the graphics remind me more of Warcraft than grim-dark. The plot is fine but the writing is really cliche.

I'm getting annoyed with those "New Lore" things, when you pick up one of those green-text books and a voiceover starts talking. There really ought to be some subtitles for those, because a lot of the time I've got a baseball game on the radio and I can't hear the lore.

[shijinn]

Left Hand of Dorkness, Blizzard fits my playstyle. this is my typical keypress order:

- a defensive spell. currently it's Magic Weapon though as i feel a little OP.
- Blizzard. this get cast first and allows my AP to fill and give me other options. it's a great defensive spell.
- Primary spell. free and keeps my AP up for other options. i am using Magic Missile. between Blizzard and the Templar follower i don't get hit much.
- The Panic Button. Archon.
- this still leaves me with 2 button to play around with, i change them for variety and kicks. currently set to Slow Time and Wave of Force.

i tried Spectral Blade earlier on but i think i'll try it again when i have the gear for a melee sorc.
Disintegrate is fun but you run out of both juice and options. too dangerous.
Frost Nova is cool. an alternative is Slow Time and Wave of Force. pushing them away beats retreating to keep your distance. with Time Warp, you get 20% added damage!
Hydra seems useful for picking off elusive stragglers and is great simply because it's added damage at no AP cost.
i don't use Explosive Blast, though i will try it again when i spec melee.

Originally Posted by Mister Rik

I'm missing the D2 thing where you could hold down the Option key (on a Mac - I suppose it was Alt on Windows) to show all the item names for stuff on the ground. I'm getting somewhat inconsistent results regarding whether or not the game displays the nametags. It's almost like it shows them for a minute after the stuff drops, but if I don't pick it up right away the names disappear and I'm left waving my mouse around hoping to mouse over something. ...

change it under Gameplay/Item Label Display. you can choose to set it to toggle; hold to show; or have it fade 10 seconds after you push the button. i forget the default button for it, check under Key Bindings.

[shijinn]

you know what? writing the previous post, i've changed my mind and am switching to a more offensive build instead. swtiching Blizzard for 228% damage Arcane Orb. i wasn't sure at first, but now i really appreciate and enjoy the current skill system over D2's.

[sohvan]

Originally Posted by shijinn

"I don't have enough Arcane power."

Disintegrate looked and sounded very cool before i tried it, but that quote gets old very quickly. it seems in every Blizzard game Blizzard is the spell to use.

I find I can cast disintegrate almost endlessly with arcane power and diamond skin prism. Prism is crazy good as an offensive cooldown in general, and my arcane power issues were greatly reduced after I got it. I don't even use signature spells anymore.

[Mister Rik]

Oh yes, my other gripe: Where are the damned paladins? I likes my paladins! Are barbarians seriously my only straight melee option?

[Mogle]

Originally Posted by Mister Rik

I'm missing the D2 thing where you could hold down the Option key (on a Mac - I suppose it was Alt on Windows) to show all the item names for stuff on the ground. I'm getting somewhat inconsistent results regarding whether or not the game displays the nametags. It's almost like it shows them for a minute after the stuff drops, but if I don't pick it up right away the names disappear and I'm left waving my mouse around hoping to mouse over something.

Pushing Alt still works for me, you can change the behavior of the item name tags in Options->Gamplay.

I'm getting annoyed with those "New Lore" things, when you pick up one of those green-text books and a voiceover starts talking. There really ought to be some subtitles for those, because a lot of the time I've got a baseball game on the radio and I can't hear the lore.

You can find all known lore entries in your journal(J by default), I suppose they did it the way they did so it wouldn't distract you too much from the gameplay.

[cckerberos]

Originally Posted by Left Hand of Dorkness

Disintegrate does great damage, I think, and though it eats up mana like crazy, so far it seems worth it.

It's a death sentence as the game gets harder, since you can't cast it and move at the same time. IME, Arcane Orb is the better choice as it does more damage to more mobs faster. Oh, and you can cast it while running for your life

[sandra_nz]

I just worked out that I could move by holding the mouse down, I've been click-click-clicking my way around from level 1 - 25

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally Posted by shijinn

Left Hand of Dorkness, Blizzard fits my playstyle. this is my typical keypress order:

Interesting. It's got two spells that I haven't got yet, but will definitely be something I'll try later. I'm not really sure how to spec melee (would this mean loading up on vitality and str items?), but I think that's kind of how I'm playing now, especially since i've been keeping the enchantress follower for awhile.

I might try rolling a distance sorcerer--oh, wait, no, this isn't D2, I don't need to create an entirely new character and play through the first four hours of the game all over again just to see what that'd be like! I might try changing my wizard loadout, wait five seconds, and see what it's like. Sweet!

[Mister Rik]

Originally Posted by Mogle

Pushing Alt still works for me, you can change the behavior of the item name tags in Options->Gamplay.

You can find all known lore entries in your journal(J by default), I suppose they did it the way they did so it wouldn't distract you too much from the gameplay.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by sandra_nz

I just worked out that I could move by holding the mouse down, I've been click-click-clicking my way around from level 1 - 25

CTRL+ALT+DEL comic from back in March

[Chronos]

Huh, when I get one of the New Monster Lore things, all that happens at first is that I see a little button saying "New Lore" in the corner of the screen. It fades away after a couple of minutes, or if I press it, then a window pops up on the left with the text, narrated either by Cain or by that other scholar whose name I can't remember. The voiceover can get interrupted by other speech, but the text window stays there until I actively close it. So far as I know, I haven't changed any settings relating to this, so I had assumed that was the default behavior.

[Ethilrist]

Originally Posted by sandra_nz

I just worked out that I could move by holding the mouse down, I've been click-click-clicking my way around from level 1 - 25

Bear in mind that if you click-and-hold to move, ground clickables like piles of rocks don't get highlighted when you mouse over them, so you might be missing loot, particularly in cluttered dungeons where some barrels are breakable and some aren't. I find that I prefer click-clicking in a zigzag pattern so I can mouse over stuff between clicks.

[MJinks]

My new main gripe: The EU server has been down for the last 6 hours and still there's no sign of it coming back up.

Seeing as how I bought the game knowing it would force us to always be online I only have myself to blame. I apologise to Ubisoft for my blatant hypocrisy when I refused to buy their games for the same reasons.

[Crowbar of Irony +3]

Originally Posted by Mister Rik

Oh yes, my other gripe: Where are the damned paladins? I likes my paladins! Are barbarians seriously my only straight melee option?

A melee wizard may work...

You can try balancing Strength and Intelligence, and bringing up Vitality as high as you can. Go for skills such as Storm Armor, Spectral Blade, Frost Nova with the Mist option, Explosive Blast and maybe Hydra. The only good passive to go with all this may be Blur though.

[Ethilrist]

Originally Posted by Mister Rik

Oh yes, my other gripe: Where are the damned paladins? I likes my paladins! Are barbarians seriously my only straight melee option?

What are you talking about? There's a paladin following you around for most of the first act.

[Mister Rik]

Originally Posted by Ethilrist

What are you talking about? There's a paladin following you around for most of the first act.

Well, "templar" anyway, though he is indeed a "holy warrior" like a paladin. But I can't play him.

Though I just realized there's a D2 paladin joke during some of the random dialog. Leah asks my templar escort if there are any women in his order, and he says something along the lines of, "What an interesting idea! Perhaps I'll mention it to my superiors!" I suspect this is referring to the fact that paladins were always male in D2 (since the class/gender combos were locked in).

Another gripe just occurred to me: In D2, I could always clearly see what my character was wearing/wielding. Not so in D3. Aside from my wizard's pointy hat, I really can't see much change when she dons new gear. Caveat: I'm still in Act I. Perhaps the gear gets more colorful and distinctive later on?

[DigitalC]

I'd say monks are straight melee.

[Galanthus]

I'm just pissed off that I can't play as the server has been down for most of the day.

I've always refused to buy games that insist you log on for copy protection reasons but I made an exception for this one as I've been looking forward to it for so long.

The truth is however, this sucks, it's about greed and control.

I may never buy another Blizzard game again.

[Chronos]

I'd say monks are straight melee.

They also eventually get a few aura skills. And barbarians also get a handful of things that used to belong to the paladin. Really, the classes seem to be largely a scrambling of the D2 classes.

[Amblydoper]

I want Blizzard to add some sort of double-click-to-move feature. If I have to backtrack across a huge area that I already cleared, I hate holding the mouse button down. My D3 sessions have been limited by arm/wrist fatigue. It would be helpful if I could double click somewhere to make my character move, then just move the cursor around to point her in the right direction.

[SenorBeef]

You can just click and hold and it'll go constantly towards the mouse cursor.

[Mogle]

Originally Posted by Mister Rik

Another gripe just occurred to me: In D2, I could always clearly see what my character was wearing/wielding. Not so in D3. Aside from my wizard's pointy hat, I really can't see much change when she dons new gear. Caveat: I'm still in Act I. Perhaps the gear gets more colorful and distinctive later on?

There are different armour models, not sure how many and I haven't seen anything really extravagant yet, but you may need to zoom in to see the differences clearly.
But I do have good news with regard to colour, if you don't like the default colours on your equipment, you can buy dyes from vendors and change them.

[Frylock]

Originally Posted by SenorBeef

You can just click and hold and it'll go constantly towards the mouse cursor.

Amblydoper said "I hate having to hold the mouse down."

[Tom Scud]

Having played through act 3, I have a gripe: the boss fights are boringly similar; big boss, don't stand still and let him hit you, he summons adds, you burn them down, you burn down the boss. There are a couple bosses (mostly the end bosses) that add a bit of don't-stand-in-the-fire to the mix, but really pretty much the same.

[Jragon]

Would anybody care to give me a rundown of the Diablo mythos, or at least give me a site with a rundown that doesn't involve aimlessly clicking around a wiki for 5 hours? I never played the first two (well, I played them with my friends, but they moved so fast we skipped any cutscenes and clicked through dialogue so I never got the story element), and honestly I don't feel like doing so at the moment. I know the story isn't that important, but I'd at least like to know what's going on. I understand some stuff about the world stone being destroyed which allowed Sanctuary to be noticed by Heaven and Hell... and something about Prime Evils and the fighter archetype character from the first game becoming Diablo after killing him, but that's about it.

[Jragon]

Originally Posted by Jragon

Would anybody care to give me a rundown of the Diablo mythos, or at least give me a site with a rundown that doesn't involve aimlessly clicking around a wiki for 5 hours? I never played the first two (well, I played them with my friends, but they moved so fast we skipped any cutscenes and clicked through dialogue so I never got the story element), and honestly I don't feel like doing so at the moment. I know the story isn't that important, but I'd at least like to know what's going on. I understand some stuff about the world stone being destroyed which allowed Sanctuary to be noticed by Heaven and Hell... and something about Prime Evils and the fighter archetype character from the first game becoming Diablo after killing him, but that's about it.

Oops, I meant to put this in the main thread. Not the gripes thread. Ignore this.