Talk me into, or out of, UEE for xbox 360.
#1
Greetings! Long time eh? Smile

As per the title, I'm on the fence for D3. With UEE coming soon I figure this is my chance to make with the adventuring. At present all I have is my xbox 360 (no online connection) and a lack of information concerning Diablo 3 on console, indeed Diablo 3 at large. Will someone be so kind as to provide said information or links to said information?

•How well does it run? FPS, load times etc.
•What exactly is the mob density like?
•How well balanced is the game? Gear, mobs, classes etc.
•How are the controls? I lean towards melee combat.
•How are drops? Is it a grind for gear or is it fairly easy to get good equipment?

Ultimately I'm looking for a fun adventure where I can invest some time in my characters that has good replay value.

Thanks folks!
R.I.P. Pete! I can't believe you're gone. Sad
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#2
I only have first-hand experience with the PC version, but I'm still having a ton of fun with this game. From what I've read about the console, it is a solid interpretation. People like the controls, and the aiming mechanism is apparently tricky at first, but good once you get the hang of it. Drops are now plentiful (not like when it was first released on PC); you'll have no trouble finding good gear for your toons.

Happy hunting,

Aahz

EDIT- timely link:

http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comment...-new-video
Battletag: Aahzmadius#1570

B.net profile: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Aahzm...570/career
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#3
Thanks for the link. I'm slowly gathering bits and pieces of information, but I'm not really finding anything concerning framerate or mob density on last generation consoles yet. I'll check out the link now.

Nomad
R.I.P. Pete! I can't believe you're gone. Sad
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#4
They also just announced that the XBone & PS4 versions will be getting patches just like the PC versions:

http://www.diablofans.com/news/48169-ele...upport-for
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#5
/raise skeleton

I tried out D3 on a friend's PS4, and while I did not play long enough to form a solid read on loot system etc, those are covered by other reviews. I tried out a Witch Doctor, Demon Hunter, and Crusader.

What I can say, I was really impressed with the core gameplay control. The inventory menu is ok, kinda fiddly at times but that's also due to me being more of a PC guy.

But on the core gameplay control itself, and I can't believe it's not butter etc, I found controlling the character on the PS4 to be more precise and fun vs the PC control, and the gameplay in general to be more fun on the console version.

It definitely feels more streamlined, arcade-y in a fun way, and just 110% more emphasis on fun. Playing local\couch co-op is spiritually similar to playing Gauntlet\Golden Axe.
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#6
I'll pitch in my two cents here for anyone else reading this. Please note I have not played it online or finished the expansion pack yet, only the original game.

Firstly, I wouldn't recommend paying more than $20 maximum for a new sealed copy of it. I say this simply based on how much genuine effort I feel Blizzard put into making this game a quality product. Suffice it to say I think they failed in many aspects.

If you're looking for couch coop games on your console, this isn't a bad choice. Diablo III will probably not amaze you in any way, and is at least loosely similar enough in gameplay to the prior installments in the series that the hack and slash gameplay will be about what you expect. It makes an acceptable time sink/social activity if you have some good company to share it with. However, this is not without its issues - all but the first player may experience a problem every time you fire the game back up where ALL of their skills and subskills are marked with the 'new' star. There is no way to get rid of these without going into every individual skill and highlighting every single subskill every time you restart the game. And if you don't, it gets rather difficult to tell what new things were unlocked (we do not have Xbox Live, so it is possible this issue is fixed in an update you would benefit from if you have XBL). If you want ANY challenge, make sure you go into the Options menu and turn up the difficulty one knotch when the game starts to feel too easy, for it will only keep getting easier, and if killing major Act bosses in 5 seconds is not your idea of fun, you'll be glad you did.

If you're looking for memorable story and characters, look elsewhere. Diablo III is mostly generic and uninspired in this regard, and never seems to make up its mind if it wants to shove story/dialogue in your face, or deny parts of it from you entirely. Characters indicated by the game as having new things to say will sometimes leave if you spoke to someone else first or walked off a ways. Other characters (especially the villains, which are the worst) will repeatedly interrupt you with unsolicited dialogue while you navigate the battlefields, their speech easily drowned out during combat even with Voice volume set 50% higher than anything else.

If you're looking for a game that feels like Diablo I or II, don't get it for that reason. Most of the polish in Diablo III went into graphics, sound and cinematics. Blizzard always does great with these. The game looks nice enough, sounds nice, cinematics are of course insanely detailed. But none of those make the game 'Diablo' any more than they make the game fun.

On to questions asked in the original post:

•How well does it run? FPS, load times etc.
It ran very smooth on our Xbox 360. I don't think I noticed the framerate choke up at any point during play. Unless they seriously messed something up, I imagine it performs just as well on the other consoles.


•What exactly is the mob density like?
On the first difficulty, you will encounter a variety of densities. Sometimes one or two, sometimes a large group. Generally any area will have a mix of different sized mobs, and you will find yourself swarmed occasionally.

If I read correctly somewhere, the mobs become much bigger on higher difficulties. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.


•How well balanced is the game? Gear, mobs, classes etc.
I can't comment on this having only played one. As is typical of these kinds of games, my Wizard felt like he had skills that weren't worth bothering with, and others that were arguably far more effective, but I can't foresee how they might scale to higher difficulties.


•How are the controls? I lean towards melee combat.
Great. It is really smooth to play this type of game with a console controller.


•How are drops? Is it a grind for gear or is it fairly easy to get good equipment?
I can't speak to this personally, but many other opinions I've heard suggest that this becomes an issue on the highest difficulty levels.


"Ultimately I'm looking for a fun adventure where I can invest some time in my characters that has good replay value."
That wasn't this game for me. I felt no desire to play it again. No compulsion to try a different class. No want to see higher difficulty levels. I suspect I never will until someone else wants to play it with me years from now. It was a little fun at first, but right around the start of Act III it lost my interest until I was glad it was over with, my only drive to complete it being, well, a completionist, which is why I even picked it up at all (to complete the series so far).


Standing on its own, in contrast to games these days, I won't say Diablo III is a bad game. But I won't say it is a good game. To me it was just another game. And a forgettable one. I can't even remember one piece of music from it. I had no expectations going into it (such as from playing previous Diablo games or other games in the same genre), and it still managed to disappoint me with things it was trying to do but didn't do right.
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#7
As usual, take this with a grain of salt since I still continue to play D3 regularly on the PC. But I did want to mention the soundtrack is much improved in the expansion Reaper of Souls. I think you can even find a free stand-alone version of the RoS soundtrack to sample while you're not playing.

I have not played on the console, so I don't have any specific comments on it. (Santa brought my son an Xbox One for Christmas, so I'll eventually buy RoS for it, once the price is right.) Some of the game elements from D1 and D2 are still in there, particularly looking for gear. RoS improves the item hunt significantly, plus adds some nice challenges at end game.
Battletag: Aahzmadius#1570

B.net profile: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Aahzm...570/career
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#8
I just came across this video that does a good job giving you the gist of the Diablo III story/dialogue experience. Act III in particular is very accurate.

Diablo 3 in 3 Minutes (some minor Spoilers)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcJ_XT3oWtY

EDIT: I finally finished the Reaper of Souls expansion pack recently. I think it is marginally better than the original game in its current form/version (which I understand was itself improved significantly by the expansion pack, but I never played earlier versions of Diablo III, so I can't compare).

The whole expansion just felt like an, "Oh, oops, that ending will make a lot of work for us to justify the story of a Diablo IV some day. Can we add on an expansion pack where we set up the ending to better pave the way for a sequel?"

They also felt they needed to add a bunch of other NPCs to talk to in the town that offer new dialogue periodically as the game progresses. Most of it was, well... awful. Only one of the 'important' extras said anything worthwhile, in my opinion, pondering what all the children who witnessed all of this pointless carnage and bloodshed in the game will make of the world when they grow up. The rest was stuff like a mother in denial who keeps asking if you've seen her kids (presumably dead) and to tell them to stop playing and come home... pretty much the entire expansion pack. And a woman who was rescued by a man who spends the entire expansion pack thanking and admiring her rescuer, a conversation they're still having different parts of every time you come back to town!

Woman: "You're a hero!"
Man: "No I'm not."
Woman: "But... you saved me!"

So, what I originally said stands. Don't buy this game if you expect or want anything clever. To me it just feels like a hastily assembled mess that was poorly thought out, with no real longevity. As I said earlier if you can get it cheap it might be worth playing through once, but personally its something I could barely motivate myself to finish once and doubt I'll ever play again once, maybe twice the rest of my life. That's a strange contrast compared to Diablo or Diablo II, either of which I've easily played from start to finish at least 50+ times. And I have mixed feelings about Diablo II, if that tells you how mediocre Diablo III feels to me at best.

Not meaning to be so negative about it, but as far as my gaming library goes, Diablo III has all the personality of a mannequin. I wanted to like it, and I started to a little in the first Act, and then whatever little potential it had went poof. I don't regret giving it a chance, and I'm not upset that it is so different from its prequels, I just find an absence of greatness about it. Engaging music, immersive atmosphere, cool story, gratifying gameplay, distinct foes with different looks and behaviors... I found none of that here.
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