07-12-2012, 11:41 PM
I share your perspective, Elric; I was just trying to acknowledge that finding gear has always been important, but also pointing out that it now hugely dominates.
From a more impressionistic perspective:
I felt about WoW that it was like "riding on rails" - difficult to plan your own adventure - areas 5 below your level are useless and areas 5 above your level are impossible. D3 feels even more like riding on rails somehow, being in a little train going through an amusement park, where you feel as if you are making progress but actually are just being taken along for the ride.
D3 seems very professional and developed next to D2 or D1, the combat system design (Att and Def) seems so well designed by comparison - as per my remarks about the math above. There are few strange difficulty sags or jumps, for example (leaving out Inferno which was deliberate.) Skills scale properly at all levels ... etc ...
So it's very smooth. But too smooth. Without the eccentricities some of which Elric speaks of above, so abundantly present in D1 and D2, the game feels a little soulless somehow. Perhaps I will find a way of creating my own eccentricities. Starting out a new character has always had that enjoyable sandbox feeling for me, not knowing what could be happening next. But that is not exciting now that Normal difficulty is so much easier than D1 Normal or D2 Normal.
From a more impressionistic perspective:
I felt about WoW that it was like "riding on rails" - difficult to plan your own adventure - areas 5 below your level are useless and areas 5 above your level are impossible. D3 feels even more like riding on rails somehow, being in a little train going through an amusement park, where you feel as if you are making progress but actually are just being taken along for the ride.
D3 seems very professional and developed next to D2 or D1, the combat system design (Att and Def) seems so well designed by comparison - as per my remarks about the math above. There are few strange difficulty sags or jumps, for example (leaving out Inferno which was deliberate.) Skills scale properly at all levels ... etc ...
So it's very smooth. But too smooth. Without the eccentricities some of which Elric speaks of above, so abundantly present in D1 and D2, the game feels a little soulless somehow. Perhaps I will find a way of creating my own eccentricities. Starting out a new character has always had that enjoyable sandbox feeling for me, not knowing what could be happening next. But that is not exciting now that Normal difficulty is so much easier than D1 Normal or D2 Normal.