Is Diablo 3 Another C&C4?

I know Diablo 3 and Command & Conquer 4 are two completely different games (even genres), but take a look at C&C4's reviews and you will find that both share the same characteristic: sequel of classic series got ruined by capitalist business giants (Blizzard/Activation and Westwood/EA). I am not saying D3 is dead but Blizzard should really listen and respect their customers.

First things first, I would rate this game around 7 out of 10 if this was not Diablo 3. The graphic, the music, voice acting and the design make it a decent game. However, I cannot believe this is a final product from the company that made the same D1 and D2. I would elaborate this later. I give it a 5/10 for being D3.

I have to admit that persistent internet connection requirement is sometimes unavoidable (e.g. MMORPG), but completely removing single player mode from D3? To me that is not acceptable at all. Players will still want to play on Battle.net eventually, so piracy prevention is not an excuse. Even StarCraft2 which is focused on online PvP has single player mode. One of the main reasons why I love single player mode is that I can change the game save files to experiment with different gears that is almost impossible for me to get online and test out what gears are best for my characters. They made the whole game completely Blizzard service dependent. I do not like the trend that games are no longer yours. Let's rate D2 and D3 hundred years from now. I will be able to play D2 even after years, but D3 is just a worthless game client without Battle.net of Blizzard. For this reason, I give this game 2/10 (No, 4 people in the same room does not count as MMORPG).

Now, I will explain why D3 game system is fundamentally flawed. RPG is about character development and gear collection. D3 completely neglected the first part. What so unique about your character in D3 are your name, class and gender. Every level 60 character of the same class is virtually the same without gears. The stat points are added for you automatically. The worse of all, the gears play too much role in the whole system. You do not feel your character is developing and growing. You level up simply because you want to meet the item level requirement. Why is this? Every time you level up, you get 1~3 stat point toward different categories (automatically added), depending on your character class, but one item that adds 100 strength and 100 vitality, which is common by the way, just makes your character looks like a fool. One piece of common item is almost 50 times more effective than leveling your characters.

DPS also played too much role. For example, a weapon with 1000DPS deals more damage than a 700DPS weapon that adds 150~200 points to main stat of your character. The DPS itself is more important than the stat, and the item stat is more important than your character. Your character becomes a meaningless skeleton that merely holds your gears together. The brainless DPS system also decreases the fun factor. The elemental nature of the weapons is almost meaningless, because weapons all deal the same damage regardless the nature of your enemy. They do have their differences, like cold can slow and poison has damage over time...etc, but I do not understand why Blizzard implemented the elemental system but decided to simplify it, especially when it was proven to be successful in D2.

Now, everyone is criticizing the Inferno level, but I actually like the design. The only mistake Blizzard made was to make it obvious so players think that they have to beat the Inferno level in order to "finish" the game. If inferno level can only be access through a secret portal, for example, Leah's bed after you finished the Hell difficulty, no one will complain as much. Inferno is like a challenge, for hardcore players to get great items, but not for average players to explore. Like Whimsyshire, no one would complain if the flowers are too strong, because it is a bonus level. In fact, not many players understand that you have to build up your all resistance to a certain point in order to "steal" items from those mobs. I do have to admit that Inferno was broken for melee class, but it was pretty OK for ranged class.

What made Inferno such a beast is, in fact, the fundamental flaw I mentioned earlier: this game is too gear oriented. If the stat of your characters plays about 75% of your overall damage/defense while the gear makes up the rest 25%. Inferno will be much more playable for players without gears. Now, the game design plus the difficulty of Inferno force players to spend gold in auction house. I do not know if this was an intentional design or not. If this was intended for making a profit, then Blizzard will see the profit goes way down because players are not that stupid, Mr. Obvious.

Those are just game design issues that can be addressed in future patches, although I do not know how Blizzard is going to be able to patch the gear oriented design. What disgusts me the most is the attitude of Blizzard: Blizzard created the game and wanted players to play the exactly way they wanted. I do have to admit that some of the nerfed skills are overpowered, but what about those underused skills? They nerfed some of the popular skills, but they did not think the reason behind it: why players do not choose other skills? They do not because those skills sucked. Period. The shameless person who said D3 does not need customize stat build because it got countless skill combination should be working for tobacco marketing companies.

1.0.3 is an arrogant display of Blizzard; they force you to play this game exactly they wish you to play. Yes, there are some positive changes (at least melee class can access Inferno Act3~4), but the rush changes clearly showed that they do not care about player experience. For example, they changed the drop rate and magic find for chests, and now they are thinking about changing it back. People are being told what you need to be doing in school/at work, and they do not like the same experience in game. This clearly showed that there is something wrong with Blizzard's QA department.

It is extremely easy for Blizzard to test out if the gears have the potential to be overpowered by giving QA testers the best gear within the game design BEFORE the game release. The players are not QA, and players should not be the victims of consequence of those irresponsible patch changes. As a game designer myself though, I think Blizzard needs to fire some of the management directors (or just fire one, the rest will learn). This is clearly a management/direction issue. They are responsible for those irresponsible changes. If Blizzard think twice, they could have buff some of the underused skills and classes instead of nerfing the difficulty. I do not know about others but I found the game much more boring because there is nothing left for me to do now.

It is ironic that I typed so much for a game that I dislike so much. No, it is not. I like this game; I want D3 to be another classic. I just hope people in Blizzard have the same motivation and desire to do so.

P.S. The above review is based on Patch 1.0.3a.

The annoying templar, Kormac (Diablo 3)

It's funny that many players complained about how annoying those followers are in the official Blizzard forum. I actually liked a lot of their dialogues. However, I could not find a complete list of D3 follower quotes online.


I did find this funny comic, which I did a (nice?) little translation.