I think I’ve figured out a way to wrap up my feelings on this game. It’s not a sequel to Diablo II; it’s a sequel to the original Diablo. The gameplay seems lacking compared to D2, but on the other hand, they seem to have perfectly captured the atmosphere of the original, which was its strongest point. And the storyline feels a lot more like something that follows on from the original, in place of D2, than it does like something that follows from D2: We’re starting off in Tristram again, Adria’s back in the story, etc.
One other thing I’ve noticed, is there doesn’t seem to be any such thing as vendor trash any more, and there’s a much greater disparity between buying prices and selling prices. I haven’t yet found any nonmagical item that’s worth more than 5 gold, and even the magic items are mostly only 30-50 to sell them, but they still cost thousands of gold to buy. I guess that’s meant as an incentive to use them for crafting, instead.
So you can unlock multiple attack types for your mouse buttons - for instance the right click on the demon hunter can be either a piercing attack or a slowing attack - but to switch them, you have to go into the skills menu. Is there some faster way to do it so that you can use the skills more situationally, or is it designed like that so you basically need to pick one skill and go with it?
While that was largely true for most characters/builds, it was not always true. And even when true, it’s an oversimplification of the issue, because if you wanted to use certain gear with high requirements, you had to sacrifice points that would go into other stats. And besides, if you thought the way stats and item requirements were deployed wasn’t optimal, then you FIX IT, you don’t have to just throw it all out.
Well, I’m happy to hear that! Thanks for the info.
OK, is anyone else getting that the servers are too busy right now?
And on a different note, is there any way to tell it to remember your password? Nobody but me uses this computer; there’s no reason I should have to re-enter my password every time.
I keep getting kicked off, yeah. Not really surprised, remember the issues with the servers when playing D2?
What I’m wondering about is being able to use headsets to talk to people in game … you keep seeing it on commercials, but D2 is the only MMORPG I’ve ever played, and I don’t recall that being an option there.
Is there a manual or something? I’d like to spend a bit of time reading up on how things are working now, especially things like the inventory and skills systems.
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And on a different note, is there any way to tell it to remember your password? Nobody but me uses this computer; there’s no reason I should have to re-enter my password every time.
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Well, my son has key fob authenticator thingy that he uses to get into his WoW…not sure if it remembers his password though. I always had to put the password in when I played WoW, but it will remember your username at least.
I downloaded it to my server at home last night and my son played…he said it only took him an hour or so to get through the whole demo, but that it was pretty cool. According to him the Demon Hunter (the class I was planning to play) is pretty overpowered…but, then, he always seems to think that about everything that isn’t gimped in his opinion.
Does anyone know if you purchase the game on one Battlenet account if you can play it using another? I’ve bought the game already, but I don’t see any need to buy a second copy for my youngest son (who has a Battlenet account of his own), since we’ll never be playing at the same time. Once I’ve loaded the game, can he log in using his own Battlenet account and play his own characters?
So, I played for about 2 hours today. My battle-tag is Autolycus#1971. Does that mean I’m the 1971st person to select that name? I guess Bruce Campbell is more popular than I thought. Only 13 more and it would have at least been my birth-year.
Anyway, after downtime and numerous delays, I finally got in. In that aforementioned 2 hours, I was lucky enough to get a great group. I was barb, and there was a Demon Hunter and, ummm, a monk IIRC. In any case, in those 2 hours, we beat the entire beta from start to finish. It was just endless mob rape. Not that that’s a bad thing, but I can definitely see where people say it’s way too easy. I only got below 50% HP a few times, and only then that’s when I strayed a bit from the group, or on the end boss. Also, c’mon The Skeleton King, what am I, 10? I was hoping for a bit more originality, although the story seems nice. I honestly didn’t have much time to experience it what with how fast my group was blazing through everything.
So far it doesn’t seem nearly as scary as the older ones, but I think that’s mostly because I’m older now. There were definitely many fun moments with mobs flooding the screen, and Blizzard has really nailed the atmosphere of the dungeons. Most importantly, playing has been fun. Mindless, smashy smashy fun. And there seem to have been a lot of little improvements that will hopefully make up for all the little shortcomings. Time will tell.
Here goes nothing, trying to log back in again. The servers are certainly being stressed, that’s for sure.
Generally the skills are assigned based on types. So you’ll usually have a resource-maker on your left click, a resource-spender on right click, and then various other categories of spells on 1-4 keys.
So, for example, the Monk by default has punchy spirit-makers on left click, big spirit-wasters on right click, defensive skills on 1, “techniques” on 2, “focus” on 3, and auras on 4. The categories can be a bit vague, but generally you can only have one skill from each category usable at a time.
HOWEVER. If you go into the gameplay options in the menu, there’s a box you can check to allow “Elective Mode”. This allows you to pick skills from any category and assign them to the six skill keys (left click, right click, 1-4). So if you want both the healing blast and the damage shield from the Monk’s defensive skills, you can have both (though you’ll lose a slot from another category). It’s the sort of thing I’m not sure why the hide in the menu and I feel should be unlocked from the start (along with the damage numbers on tooltips… why would anyone not want those??)’
But yes, in general, you are supposed to pick six skills and go with it.
OK, I’m not entirely certain how this activity/action bar thing is supposed to work, or how you assign skills. There seems to be either a serious lack of documentation or it’s well hidden.
For those complaining about the difficulty: I wonder if they’re still working on the multiplayer scaling? Because I’m trying to go solo as a barbarian (so I can take my time and listen to all the dialog, etc.), and the Skeleton King is kicking my butt (and I’ve died from a few other elite monsters, too).
Oh, and as another aside: Does anyone else find it peculiar how the game starts up? You have to run the Diablo III launcher, and then that starts the Diablo III setup app, and then that starts the Blizzard launcher, and then finally that starts the Diablo III app itself. Trying to shortcut the process doesn’t seem to work.
Now, I understand why you would need two apps (the first one makes sure the second one is up to date), but why four?
I solo’ed with a barb, didn’t even come close to dying, and found the Skeleton King to be a piece of cake. I think I drank one pot during an iffy moment just as a precaution, and it was the first pot I drank the whole game. But I took my time and did full area clears, so I was around level 10 and decently equipped when I fought him.
The thing that makes me go what the hell, is how the weapon equiping interacts with skills.
I equip my mage with a more powerful sword and she does more damage. Wands fine but i give her a two handed battle axe and suddenly her magic missile does more damage?
Feels even wierder with the monk. His actual attacks are visibly unarmed (or that brass knucle weapon whose name i’m blanking on) but when he’s not attacking he wanders around with the weapon you gave him.
It’s definitely designed to pick a spell before combat starts and stick with it, rather than changing on the fly. If you switch an assigned skill, it goes on a lengthy cooldown, so they clearly don’t want you to be doing that easily. I wasn’t fond of the 6 ability limit but I think it kinda works. It gives you the same sort of strengths and weaknesses while fighting but doesn’t lock you in to using only a handful of total abilities ever like the D2 system does.
If you hit ‘S’ the skill menu (where you assign skills) comes up. Beyond that I’ll need more info on what you’re having trouble with.
I like that the skills do damage based off weapons instead of a set amount (because it’s easier to scale and balance stuff), but I agree it feels a bit weird. I did a runthrough with the monk and was disappointed that my staff basically sat on my back the whole time as I just punched and kicked stuff.
Wait a minute. If I give my wizard a sword, she’ll do more damage with her spells?
Well, hell.
magnusblitz, I think it’s the bar that lets you have a spell or something assigned to a number. I kept getting dropped, so I didn’t play with it much. I’ve only just hit level 6, and (see above) just discovered how to do more damage than I have been. I may try again later tonight to see what happens (night being in the USA East coast).
