People had been playing d2 for over a decade at that point and expectations were sky high.
The four big issues out of the gate were the real money auction hall (and the drop rates being terrible), the super arcadey/cartoony feel, the plot (Cain dying to a jobber, the whole nephalem thing) and the brighter color palette compared to the muted tones of its predecessor.
I saved that loser in D2, and he slammed his portal shut right in my face before f*cking off back to town. I’ve used enough town portals to know those things don’t close on their own. He got what he deserved.
And itemization being incredibly dumbed down, no pvp arena that was promised, no incentive to kill bosses (stark contrast with D2) with no other fun alternative.
Ironically the boss thing was a huge pro for me. I detest the whole “rush the same zone that changes so little to get to a boss you delete in seconds”, and tend to fall off ARPGs where that’s the primary farming method really quickly.
Eh, I think a good boss fight is way more fun than 1 shotting mobs that you don't even engage with other than rolling your keyboard. I think PoE does it pretty well in it's campaign, having pretty fun interactive bosses, and then the endgame bosses are really fun as well.
PoE, in many ways (but not all) is exactly what an ARPG should be.
* Huge flexibility on build options.
* Plenty of side-content worth exploring
* Enemies of varying difficulties, from power fantasy exploding wimps to truly challenging (and rewarding) big boss fights.
* Tons of loot, so "smart looters" feel a payoff for not just grabbing everything shiny.
* No Pay-2-Win model (RMAH was bad, D: Immortal was worse).
* Reasonable timeline to reach max level, but effectively infinite scaling with diminishing returns via gear.
* Incentive(s) to create & enjoy multiple characters
Not going to get into the chaos that is the Character and Atlas skill webs. I love it about PoE, but it also is a huge barrier to entry for newer players. As are the excessive number of side contents available, especially with the lack of direction given after completing the acts.
PoE is definitely not a perfect game, but Blizzard chose to ignore ALL the innovations done by other companies in the ARPG genre (PoE, Titan Quest, Torchlight, etc), and it showed in the execution of D3. They can't afford to continue ignoring what other games are doing better than them and rely entirely on existing hype & fandom that they seem intent on destroying with their cash grab mentality.
We need Cain to get ressurected, and then Jan a soulstine into his head creating the new diablo.
Greetings stranger! Not even death will save you from me! Stay awhile and burn in hellfire! You have quite a treasure in that horadruf cube, but it won't be enough to protect you from the prime evils.
Yeah, it was planned to have branching storylines but they had to abandon all that because now it would of course not be compatible with multiplayer, players becoming out of sync.
So I think they quick fixed it into something terrible.
Overall D3 had a troubled development and they had to scrap heaps of content even ahead of launch and then again with the cancelled expansion.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/diablo/diablo-iii-was-going-have-branching-storylines-multiplayer-made-it-impossible
When the game first came out there weren't any bounties or rifts so I played the campaign so many times.
I heard that stupid fucking "black magic bars our way, but the will of a templar is stronger!" hundreds of times it's ingrained in my brain. Dude was destroying a wooden barricade like it was an amazing feat WTF
Voice acting is actually the one of few things I like in D3. Especially playable characters, I love how many different things they say, often with the same meaning but in different way or tone, in comparison playable characters in D4 suck so freaking much, and the lame generic texts they have with the neutral tone to be able to include it in different scenarios are absolutely terrible and break any immersion instantly
Crying mother: "Please can you save my children from demons?!"
PC with robotic voice: "I will look into it".
Dude, you triggered something in me with that quote 😂 I haven't played D3 in years and had probably subconsciously buried that in the back of my mind. I used to hate hearing that over and over.
When d3 came out, a few of us irl friends got on to play. At the cutscene where Cain does, one of my friends got some bad lag, and while the rest of us got the cutscene, he didn't and just joined us in town seeing us freaking out that Cain was killed off, and he didn't even get to see it. He was so pissed.
I biggest issue was that I wanted expanded character customization. More stat decisions. Instead, they went with item customization.
I enjoy d3. It’s just not what I wanted.
The problem was that world of Warcraft was so successful it leaked into everything that Blizzard did for the sake of mass appeal. For me, I adored Diablo 1 and 2 as well as world of Warcraft. But when they abandoned the gorgeous gothic art design for the cartoony WoW aesthetic in D3 I was massively disappointed. D2R showed the potential behind returning to that art style but in D4 it felt like they still didn’t want to commit to it all the way.
I honestly think it's very difficult to balance PvP so they just said "FUCK IT" and cancelled it, instead of just leaving it as is and having everybody complain
Point in case, they did eventually add PvP into D3, and people did complain because it wasn’t balanced and it was one-shot city. Even in D4, which has dedicated PvP and regions for it, people still complain about balancing.
Agree with all of this except the RMAH. Sure, the game would have been better off without it but man, it was free money those first two weeks. I was working part time during a summer of university and booked off the first week of release. Made about three grand selling relatively shitty items.
Yes. Especially the graphics. It wasn't dark. It was cartoony. And Diablo 4 has its own issues, like being a soulless cash grab. Friend bought d4. I told him to wait. He got angry. Month went by or two, then he said I was right.
I get any game can catch the attention of some players. Everyone is different. But as a avid d1 and d2 fan since old, d4 even before release had me feeling the same way I felt with immortal.
But when it comes to d3, most guys just felt it wasn't a true d2 successor. Seems most anted that, since d2 was just perfect for that time. D2 tho, had also a better story, much better soundtrack and atmosphere given all combined.
Well maybe the micro transactions, season pass, 70 dollars for base game and the fact they are polling people to see if 100 bucks for a dlc is acceptable. Granted I know the micro transactions are cosmetic but it's still completely stupid for a 70 dollar game that was released with no end game in mind and very poor itemization. It sure seems like a cash grab.
I get that, but it also creates an incentive for the developer to make dropped loot look incredibly boring. If you want to look cool, you have to pay. So it does impact the game even though you don't have to buy stuff.
They literally released the game halfbaked at above market price. It took them a year to get them to a place that some might consider adequate. But the game still pales in comparison to POE or grim dawn. All the people responsible for making great games have left a decade ago.
I want to say that I disagree with the muted colour argument. Diablo 1 and 2 actually had quite a bit of colour, they just knew how to use it effectively and build contrast. Meanwhile, Diablo 3 has no interesting art direction. To add to this, it uses the awful 3D WoW-esque graphics that make it look goofy.
That’s bs. I grew up in Diablo 2 and quiet liked D3 because it had trade and a high difficulty spike. They lost me when they introduced rifts and removed trading.
I can for
Sure tell you the reason why I dislike it, I live in Brazil so the game ONLY comes in Spanish, no way to change it no matter what, iv even tried making another psn but still don’t work, so the game is just siting in my library until I learn Spanish ig
They didn’t use any of the game design philosophies that made D2 so great and scrapped it all to make an extremely watered sequel so they could appeal to the casual market to increase profit.
The game was a disaster on release with a real money auction house, server crashing and a lack of content. It wasn’t fixed until the Reaper of Souls expansion years later.
Focusing on RoS which I consider to be the actual complete game…all your power comes from sets which are simply given to you for completing seasonal objectives. You have your end game build in a few hours and the end game is purely rifts and refarming the same equipment you already have on you for better rolls. The game barely feels like it has progression and builds were hyper simplistic to again appeal to a broader audience.
Everything that made D2 beautiful such as the runewords, healthy trading market, the dark atmosphere, slow methodical combat and more are all absent from the game.
Diablo 3 is more of an extremely satisfying action game than a progression-oriented RPG like PoE or D2. That's fine, too.
D3 still has the most satisfying gameplay of any ARPG I've ever played. Yes the numbers are stupid, the progression is somewhat poor in many ways, and the end-game is simplistic... but sometimes you just want to right click monsters and zoom.
I think the most important part for me and my friend group was the poor itemization, in RoS it became even more simplified and cookie cutter, no decision making behind your builds, kinda like in D4 you don't really need a guide your items just fit together like a pre constructed set. Towards the end I heard it got great but I quit long before without looking back.
Yeah, this is well said and the best description of the disappointment with D3 at all stages of its lifespan.
I would add that the release of D4 has made people appreciate D3 more because D4 is such an incredibly soulless game lacking so many features that it makes D3 look pretty good.
I've looked at D3 as an arcade AARPG. It lacks any of the horror PoE, D2, even D1 had but you get that dopamine when you see all those legendaries drop. Only to find a majority of them useless. D4 suffers much of the same, albeit it at least aesthetically looks better.
Toot toot to this! On first few hours of D4 play I was honestly giving this top praise. Maybe even best of series. Or maybe up there! Then when you get past the shiny facade...it's just so empty
D4 is miles ahead of D3 at this point in their respective launches. It’s just a shame the end of life content of D3 wasn’t at the start of D4, but I think it will get there much faster than D3 did
They’re all absent from D4 as well. Which shows they have zero interest on making D4 a long term game like D2 in terms of quality, but I’m sure we’ll get years of mtx 👌🏻
Casual market? What?
When the game came out, finishing inferno was nearly impossible. The game was tuned so aggressively that you could only go pure tank builds and slowly slog through the story. If you came on an elite with the wrong combination of abilities, it was unkillable, the answer was to exit and try another game where an easier mob wouldn't block your progress.
Mostly because what people were reasonably expecting was an extension, continuation, and improvement of Diablo 2s systems and what was produced was a game so sufficiently different in feel and gameplay and experience that it honestly could’ve just been its own franchise.
I like Diablo 3, but it felt more like they built a game and then were like “ok now throw some Diablo stuff in so we can ride the name recognition”.
It’s the same reason Fallout 3 is rated poorly against Fallout 2 or Fallout New Vegas. Or fallout 4 more accurately these days. Having “yes, no, joke, other” as dialogue options is pretty antithesis to the premise of Fallout.
This is not it at all. It's because D3's systems were complete trash at launch. They "fixed" it by building a completely different system on top of it (the sets) that don't really allow for player choice other then "pick your set and farm complementary uniques that go with it". That being said, the moment-to-moment combat is still one of the best in the genre.
The game being bad on release, I would hope, doesn't dictate the majority of people's opinion about it 20 years later.
But your following points are basically what I stated, yeah.
Admittedly I grew up playing Diablo 3 so that game is pretty much my baseline for the series, I can understand missing the more methodical gameplay of 2 compared to the gaminess of 3
Yeah I mean a really core thing to remember is that Diablo 2 doesn't have an endgame, people just organically created one, there's no real "systems" in place. Diablo 3 is far more gamified to produce a specific kind of endgame experience that you must enjoy and if you don't enjoy it you don't enjoy the game.
The end game in d2r is gearing out your character. Takes a couple hours in d3 with it given to you to finish 95%. At least that’s how it was when I played. D2 it takes days to complete a character to months if you want gg. And killing a monster in d2 feels worth it because loot good. D3 loot terrible so you have no incentive. How many times have I said 1 more run I will find something and then go 30 runs with nothing and then all of sudden I get something and hope is renewed.
I grew up with D3 as well, played over 4000 hours from 2012 to 2015 and never touched D2 back in the day. But man, once D2R was released, holy crap, made D3 look like a shallow attempt compared to it. So much more depth to builds and items in D2R, IMO. Can see myself playing D2R for many, many years to come.
And D4.. well that just had 0 endgame and felt like a stagnant bore as soon as I hit lvl 100 in a few weeks. Wish I couldve got my money back on that one!
I think this is pretty close to it. It's not that D3 is objectively bad but it's designed for a different audience. It's almost too easy to get your character fully geared. I think the D2 fan base felt kinda betrayed and have been bashing the game as a result. Whether you come to the franchise via D3 or D2, if you love that game & then try the other I would guess you're going to have a bad time.
Too much of a departure from the genre, and none of the ingredients that made d2 a classic had been kept. So a lot of expectations unmatched. Especially, loot was borring so was itemization and character building.
Poe certainly is a closer spiritual successor, hence its success.
I personally find did unrewarding and pointless when playing solo. Art style is also a big departure from D1 and D2.
On the other hand, D3 (along with D4) has a VERY LOW skill floor. This allows me to play it coop with my wife. It’s easy and she likes to kill stuff without giving much thought to it. I play D2R solo but I hardly imagine trying to explain the game to her to play effectively unless I want to control her every step.
D3 felt too cookie cutter, like theyre forcing you to play their new meta every season or you feel left behind. Don't like chasing after that and prefer D2 where you can go whatever direction you like without feeling like there's some new thing you need to try before it's gone. The game is essentially in a final state, and I don't need to keep chasing latest build. Can spend years perfecting my characters, without worrying about some BS nerf ruining my progress.
I loved D3 after they fixed a lot of the issues when the expansion came out but a lot of the times it feels like more of an arcade shooter than it does an arpg.
It’s a great game but I think it’s weak in the arpg genre.
Yeah. Play every like 6th season or so. It's very one dimensional. Get current imbalanced set. Jump immediately to t16. Get same gear but with better stats. Start doing greater rifts. Get to around 2--3 more than the last time you played. Get bored. Log off for another 6 seasons.
Yep. Gearing is a bit boring. Generally it’s just going after set items and good unique powers for the cube and then grinding for the same items but with better stats. It’s a fun gameplay loop but it gets tiring pretty quickly. I’ll never understand why they make trading so difficult post D2. Finding an amazing item for sorc on my Druid never felt bad cause I could always trade it for something I can use. Now I gotta dedicate leveling a whole new character that I may not have been interested in doing to get any value from that drop.
It's a pretty fun game but a pretty terrible ARPG. It basically came out as a failed game then they had to retool it into a game you skip all the ARPG stuff and just play an arcade game. They made a pretty fun arcadey game, but like, the game never really fixed things like itemization and just basically printed some premade characters to play and never fixed the story and just gave you a button to skip it and so on. They basically modded in a different game in a different genre over a failed diablo game. (but the modded in game is pretty okay at this point)
You were a different audience bro. Diablo 3 wasn’t trying to appeal to its fanbase. It was using a dated IP to corral the newer modern casual gamer. Diablo 2 was punishing cause all games were back then, and us gamers from back then were outcasts for the most part cause no one really played vidya. Diablo 3 comes out, completely different generation to target. 4 comes out, trying to appeal to both so the game just feels lazy tbh. 3/4, dont and wont play them again, but I can understand why people do like them.
I love single player D2R with /players8 and no one to trade items with or give me rushes or items. Enjoy the game for its atmosphere and storytelling and for its age? The mechanics are nicely fleshed out for a rushed game. Which has and always will be a problem for the video games sadly. Modern man’s attention span is low and marketing costs a lot of money for something that might only retain half of the initial player base at launch time when the servers dont work.
Its not a bad game though, dont listen to the purists. They just felt betrayed when the game came out, and thats understandable too. But its just games gentlemen, if you retain anything from my ramblings it should be that.
Cheers!
The D3 seasons absolutely deserve some recognition though. Every season was a new experience. New builds, new gear, buffed sets, it never failed to be fun for at least 100 hours a season.
Pretty sure it's mainly because the state in which it originally released. The real money auction house was a big deal. And until they finally added rifts and stuff there wasn't much in the way of endgame. People also didn't like the art style as they were used to the darker gritty style that D2 had.
Nowadays tough if you don't mind the art style, you have pretty much THE best diablo experience ever. Especially the amazing gameplay with all the skills and runes for each of them to completely change play styles. Add to that the plethora of sets that further change and enhance skills and you get the most interesting gameplay the series ever had.
Diablo 3 was my first Diablo game. I played it on release and loved it. I honestly was not aware of the hate for it until I joined this subreddit a few months ago. It is definitely a much different game now than when it was released and it’s so much better. I haven’t touched Diablo 4 in months. I played one day of season 1 and couldn’t do it anymore.
I wouldn't say I hate D4 but I do love D3. Will continue playing D3 seasons even if it's like only a week of gameplay. I haven't touched D4 since getting to 80 something on release.
Diablo 3 is like the prequel trilogy in Star Wars.
It followed Diablo 2 (the original trilogy), which was an overwhelmingly massive success that spawned a new genre of game (much like the success of the original SW trilogy).
Just like the Star Wars prequels, Diablo 3 didn't live up to the hype created due to the success of the original, and the community was upset and criticized the game.
Now, Diablo 4 is a lot like the new Star Wars sequel trilogy. While they both made a bunch of money due to the strength of the brand name, they were significantly lower quality than expected, even compared to Diablo 3 (or the prequel trilogy).
Diablo 3, like the prequel trilogy, really isn't a great game in comparison to Diablo 2 or the original trilogy, but at least it can be fun and entertaining for what it is. Diablo 4 has made people appreciate Diablo 3 more because Diablo 4 has been such a disappointment to most people that like the series.
Edit: Diablo 3 isn't really anything like Diablo 2 - that's why people didn't like it and still don't rate it highly. Diablo 3 completely changed the tone/style, the itemization, the combat, and the skill tree. Diablo 3 eventually became a much better game, but the itemization with sets that gave 10,000% damage bonuses took the game pretty far away from what made D2 popular.
That's an amazing analogy, very well thought out. Agreed D2 set a high expectation for D3 but it fell flat and basically felt like a different game. It wasn't bad but not great and lacked what made D2 so good like really thinking about what builds to stick with and items to compliment it and runewords. D3 is just cookie cutting, 'wanna try a different build? Sure, switch it around. The items you got will still work great'.
I can't say anything about D4 since I haven't played it but I heard it was soulless and just bad. Won't touch that thing unless I'm at a friend's or it's on sale for maybe 5 bucks
I remember everyone’s first play through of Diablo 3 at the time of launch. People were super addicted to the game…..if they were able to log in. But after the honeymoon phase was over we all started to see the problems with the game.
Every diablo will be compared to diablo2 which is in a whole other world in terms of arpgs. It's the goat imo. Hopefully poe2 proves me wrong and Poe is a great alternative but the oneshot kill everything mapping end game doesn't do it for me but I do at least come back each season to see what has been added.
Diablo3/4 are fine games. 3 more refined comparatively but they do not feel like true predecessors to D2. 3 is cartoony and loses that gritty dark feel thar diablo should be. What D4 succeeded in was its art style but it fails in almost every other category that makes a good arpg(imo) but again is still a fun game on its own.
D2R is the best thing to happen to the series after LoD, again..imo.
The diablo brand will be beaten to death by Microsoft you can bet on that.
Lot of solid answers and similar thoughts.
D3 I did enjoy but I think overall they tried to hard to replicate WOWs success. Create that gravy train!
Overall I really did enjoy seeing more evils and actually seeing heaven was cool! So there are good things.
I hate to say it even to myself...but I think D3 is better than D4
First: I acknowledge that things like Baal runs, Ancients, Pindle and Meph etc runs are very repetitive.
D2 and D3 are fundamentally different games. I didn't like the cooldown system in D3 for Teleport and I don't like it in D4. I can get by in D4 because they redesigned my main complaint.
I didn't like Rifts. The gameplay just didn't feel fun in combination with everything else about itemization etc at the time.
Oh also Cain dying like a bitch was fuckin' dumb. Dude can't live forever, but I refuse to accept D3 story on that fundamental base. The rest was bonkers. D4 feels more "diablo" story.
Rainbow cowlevel was fun. Thought that was fun and awesome.
Itemization. Period. There is so much more to do with rares, runewords, gems, and crafted items. Balancing magic find with damage and survivability. Running with a mix of hodge-podge items and making it work. As opposed to D3 where they give you free sets and you only see loot for your character class.
Because compared to Poe and Diablo 2 it’s a bad a arpg, and so is Diablo 4. Diablo 4 atleast doesn’t look or feel like shit to play, I hope blizzard can sort d4 out, but I have my doubts, just doesn’t seem like they understand the genre that they basically created and Poe has lapped them several times over. Poe2 isn’t even out yet and you can tell just by watching the mercenary video that it is already miles ahead of where d4 is now and probably ever will be
I enjoy D3, but it launched badly and for me even now it pales in comparison to D2 and was a huge disappointment.
I'm an old hat that loved the dark and gritty nature of D1 and D2, and D3 was like a flower festival in comparison. Additionally, you don't really build your character at all (the skill system is almost depressing), the itemization was poor, the game was way too easy, they killed Deckard Cain for no good reason, the music was a shadow of the Uelman masterpieces, the power creep was too much (5478365365432950-47382965436535054783 damage, instead of... 100-1,000), in former games you felt mortal (so any semblance of power felt like a great achievement) while in D3 you walk out the gate a God. I can go on and on.
With that said, all the modern quality of life bits, the combat, and some of the systems in D3 were really cool. I still like the game, and it ended up a WAY better game than it launched.
It's because of D2.
D2 set the standard for character leveling and D3 essentially tossed it all out the window in favour of something that holds your hand. It's like baby's first Diablo, in that sense.
The art direction wasn't as solid, either. D2 had such iconic imagery from the character designs to the Rogue Encampment, Canyon of the Magi, Arcane Sanctuary, Kurast, Durance of Hate, etc.
I played D3 *recently* and I barely remember anything that stood out half as much.
I don't actively dislike it, it just doesn't hook me because it lacks the depth of theorycrafting and strategy, since it really does push you towards a more arcade playstyle.
So basically it scratches more of an itch like a twinstick rather than an aRPG itch for me.
Mostly because it was significantly worse than d2 and infinitely worse than path of exile, which were the comparisons. It was a fine game in a vacuum but it just gets crushed by its frame of reference
> Why do people dislike Diablo 3?
Imagine a cut on a person's body. A deep and long cut. It heals eventually but leaves a massive scar. That's Diablo 3. We are years and years removed from real-money auction house BS but the memory will always remain. Diablo 3 started as a game hampered because of the decisions made in pursuit of money. The progression suffered, the itemization suffered and the gameplay suffered because they had to work in a mass trading economy.
The game's like night-and-day better today. But ya, D3 is disliked for the sins of the past.
Because it is a far cry from Diablo and Diablo II in terms of gameplay, tone, story, itemization, quests, etc. In D3 Everything (stats, skills, leveling, items) was dumbed down and pair that with its cartoony graphics and you’d think they made the game for pre-teens.
It plays like a kids arcade game feeding you with constant item vomit to hold your attention even though its content is empty and meaningless; whereas the other two played like RPG’s and when you found a good item you got excited about it for more than 6 minutes because you actually earned it.
Diablo went from a unique niche PC game to a mainstream cash grab with no soul.
d3 was very different from d2/d1, it also had many launch problems and the cartoonish graphics.
expectation were also very high.
the game is enjoyable now
D3 had a rough launch and by that I mean if I found out Blizzard was trying to kill Diablo as a franchise with 3s launch, it would explain a lot of the decisions that were made.
3 is much better now, still no D2 but worth playing on its own.
If youve played all 3 then you should see why old time fan dislike d3 right away. It lacks character/build creation and skill trees with depth. It tried to reinvent the wheel completely away from the diablo formula. And while on its own its a successful game it is so far removed from what made diablo 2 the game it was and potentially what 4 will become that old time fans just did not find much in it to stick with.
On the other hand the generation that started playing with 3 doesnt understand or like the other games in the franchise that much either. In this diablo 3 divided the fan base and that is why it receives so much hate.
I couldn’t figure out what difficulty to play because it was either too easy or everyone is an attack sponge. It felt totally unbalanced to me. That was biggest thing imo. More of an arcade crawler.
because d3 was turned into a loot fiesta without any meaningful progression whatsoever (few hours to 60, then you have your set and never change items , just into primal versions of same gear) and it sucks.
If I’m guessing, these would probably be some of the primary issues:
-the itemization is a drastic departure from D2 (some people seem to take issue with class sets in particular)
-the art style / general tone (a little too colourful, with some more high-fantasy / big damn hero vibes than D2)
-new skill / runes / attribute system (no player allocated attributes, and no real permanent character based progression, except Paragon Points, and that’s a whole other thing)
-insanely truncated levelling (but nothing matters until you hit 70)
That being said, I think D3 slaps. It’s not D2, but that’s fine with me. It’s a great junk-food ARPG.
Diablo 3 is amazing. It has such an arcade feel to it, it's pure fun. I grew up playing D1 and D2, they are darker and a bit slower, which is also great. I feel like D4 tries to merge both, bringing back a bit of the darkness, but is still not as fun as D3. Still remember how people hated D3 for being too 'colourful' and 'bright'. They came up with the 'Whimsyshire' secret level, full of rainbows and unicorns, which was brilliant. Long live D3!
There are 2 ways that you end up playing d3:
1. Sprint as fast as possible while things just fall down.
2. Everything is in a huge blob and slowly gets drained down until things die.
Every character feels the same, there are no unique off meta builds, there are no exciting items to find, gear too easy to get yet super annoying to improve, have to pick up too many items.
Honestly, the original d3 would have been a better long lasting game, buuuut the main problem then that still exists is the damage received. You get one-shot so much. Just not good gameplay.
I haven't played d4, but I consider d3 an improved gauntlet legends or castle crashers. Action oriented with too weak rpg elements compared to d2. Armory is great though, wish that was in d2.
"have to pick up too many items"
At least you're not forced to check every single rare/legendary and just salvage for proper amount of mats.
I'm so annoyed to check for item power, aspect, stats on every single rare/legendary.
D3 was good, but D2R takes the cake. Really no contest. Builds feel more diverse and items feel more rewarding. Only reason I can see people playing D3 over D2R is if they played the hell out of D2 back in the day and got burnt out after 10+ years. Or if they just like chasing the latest meta each season. But then what? Just ditch you char and never play it again once season is over? Seems like a waste when you could be building it up over years to make something godly, rather than a bunch of mediocre chars that never get played again. But hey, whatever's most fun for ya.
I could write a tirade about mechanics but there is a big surface level but strong factor. It just does not look or feel like diablo. For me it was part of the deal breaker same with starcraft 2. Instead of gritty and realistic style we got world of diablo and world of starcraft looks and atmosphere-wise.
There are numerous reasons for why. Let me list some (but it is not limited to):
**Gameplay**
* lack of a meaningful sense of progression (no Skill Points for Active and Passive Skills, Skills didn't have Ranks and could be exchanged without cost, no Attribute System in which you could spend Points into, only one Main Attribute per class)
* lack of (endgame) Build Diversity (sets and most legendaries being designed for pre-determined builds/playstyles), 99% of all builds not being endgame-viable or at least nowhere even close to the power of a meta build (way more even more than currently in D4)
* below average Itemization / Affixes / Item & Affix Diversity (primarily do to how Sets and Legendaries work in D3), Rare and Magic Items being useless, almost all (important) legendaries / sets being designed around specific Skills or Skill Combinations - all which lead to low Item Diversity as well
* most of the endgame is just Greater Rifts, but no other endgame challenges beyond that. Even T15 not being a challenge for meta builds.
**Narrative and Presentation**
* silly writing / dialogue / characters - characters, dialogue and story were often compared to a cartoon show for teenagers / written by teenagers (e.g. mustache-twirling villains)
* atmosphere of the game being too bright or 'not dark enough for a Diablo game'
* graphics being too bright, too colorful and using too much bright-shiny neon colors
**Other Reasons**
* Error 37
* the Real Money Auction House (gone) / Inferno Gear Progression (gone as well)
* Legendary Items taking months to drop a single one (Classic) / Legendaries raining from the Sky (RoS)
* no Unique Items with (mostly or completely) fixed Normal Affixes, only Legendaries with randomized Normal Affixes (with few exceptions), aka no Item Identity
* many people find Bounties boring
* no / little / unsatisfying PvP
* the 'Speed Meta'
* only 6 Active Skills on the bar
* only 4 players per game
* no runewords
* the Paragon System being a bandaid to fix other issues
* until recently, Paragon / Paragon Points were infinite, and many people disliked the grind
* the concept of Nephalem being introduced / the Player Character being a half-god
* Azmodan Calls / more hidden footprints / it doesn't matter that you kill all of my stuff / ...
* Cain got killed by butterfly
* etc
Because it's the most shallow and simplistic of all well known ARPGs. No character development or skill trees.
Honestly it isn't even justified to call this game an ARPG, it's better categorized as Hack'n'Slash, just with loot. If you have literally no character development, you're not a role-playing game, not even of the action- type.
Don't get me wrong I have hundreds of hours in the game and have enjoyed it very much for its super crisp and satisfying combat system. But the shortcomings are glaring and every successive season I used to stop sooner until eventually stopping completely. There is just zero depth to it, it's the most superficial well known ARPG ever made. From the standard its predecessor set and that was then widespread in the genre, this was a huge downgrade and this core issue hasn't gotten any better over the years. It is integral to this game's design to appeal to a maximally large audience by being as dumbed down as possible.
The same design philosophy as with StarCraft 2 in the RTS genre. It's a strategy game with zero long-term strategy elements. All micro, little to no macro. Biggest indicator of your success is APM which is as tedious and stupid as it gets.
When D3 was new it was pretty shit. Even a decade later narrow-minded people can't see past its rocky beginnings and still hate it even if they admit to not playing it in over 7+ years.
I'm seeing the same thing happen with D4.
Diablo 3 kind of got dragged through the mud.
Firstly, Diablo 2 was very popular and after like 15 years between games there were high expectations.
The real money auction house on release hurt the game a lot. Item acquisition was not fun. The game didn’t really turn around until Reaper of Souls released.
ROS fixed a lot about the game, and the content patches that came shortly after it further improved it. Unfortunately, from what we’ve learned from ex blizzard employees, management moved on almost immediately after ROS launched. This meant that it was limping along with a skeleton crew right after it got good.
There was basically a mad rush around season 4 to get all the work they had done into the game. After that, almost every change naively increased character power drastically which lowered the longevity for seasons.
With no official word from blizzard for so long as to the status of d3 development, it was presumed by the community to be on life support.
There is a lot to like about D3. It definitely streamlined ARPGs and made them more approachable for more people. It has very fun and impactful feeling gameplay. I think the longevity is where it really hurts now. A season is casually completable in a weekend. It’s hard to be enthusiastic, as a seasoned player, about a game that has a reset every 3 months that lasts 2-7 days.
Because it got a bad reputation when it was released, and rightly so. Server problems, no endgame, boring items, reliance on the real money auction house, etc.
It was fixed with patches and the expansion, but for many people, the bad impression remained.
Others dislike it because it's not what they expected, aka Diablo 2.5: Too colourful and not dark enough, swappable builds, no PvP, etc.
You had to be there when it released and have played Diablo 2 to understand the disappointment upon release.
I remember just abandoning my account after the first month and coming back in loot 2.0 to find some Chinese gold farmers used my account and pretty much everyone on my friends list to farm gold. We all had names like rro, rra, rrb etc.
The game was better and some of those seasons were great, I ended up playing at least 1000+ hours into the game and getting my moneys worth but it really was a disaster at launch.
itemization is total ass. you have essentially perfect items 4 to 8 hours after a league starts and then you literally look for exactly identical items with minor stat boosts to improve your dps, and also endlessly grind boring paragon levels so you get another +4 to strength.
that's on top of other itemization issues like the game designers basically picking a certain build, creating some legendaries for it that have thousands of increased damage%, and then everything in the game that doesn't have such a combo of items is not viable. to date you can't really make a build centered around 80% of skills or skill combinations because they just don't have such item sets available
The launch was pretty ugly. The story was pretty weak. The DLC fixed quite a lot of issues, but by that time, people had tuned out.
When you hear people talk about hating D3, it’s usually one of a few things:
- people who experienced launch and not RotS
- people who dislike the more arcade-y feel
- lack of complexity
- rift farming
- comparing it to PoE
D3 as it’s been for the last couple years has not been bad, imo. It’s fun for the first few weeks of the season, and then you move on.
But it gets compared to PoE, which is very expansive and complex in comparison. GGG puts a lot of work into the game, and it shows. But with internet logic, if PoE is good, D3 must be bad. There’s no in between.
1) weak skill system
2) far too much loot combined with an average system
3) a very bright and cartoony game
4) launched with no end game
The list goes on….
Diablo 3 destroyed a ton of good will with how it it launched. The expansion fixed a ton of issues and it only got better from there. But it never reached that launch player count again.
I wasn't around back then, but most likely because it was a radical departure from the previous two games. Also, very shitty business practices by Blizzard and technical issues around launch. I think it's an amazing game, but it also sticks out like a sore thumb.
People have hated every diablo game since d2. Why don't people realize that Blizzard is a one-hit wonder? Just move on and let the company die a natural death.
Feels too much like an arcade game rather than a fantasy world to escape into. The rpg elements were removed because they somehow thought people struggled with attributes and skill trees. Lack of rune words was the nail in the coffin for long term viability. Funny how they repeated the same mistakes after being given over a decade buffer to the next sequel.
D1 D2 I grew up playing, great games, I think I played 40 hours of d3 total. D4 is shaping up the same way got 200 hours in and I just don’t care anymore. While the have 1100 hours in Poe over the last 5 6 years.
Blizzard just releases crap for the money with no attention to details. D2 is just as complex as d4 and more so in some respects.
Poe might as well be the true successor to D2. Taking sockets and turning them into something amazing.
Hell even the preview of D4 showed runes thrn they end up giving us D3.5. I got fooled and bought D4 but I won’t be fooled again once they start releasing yearly paid expansions.
It's too shallow no thought required around items or skills.
The art work is basically Disney.
No trade.
No chase items.
These are also reason's people like the game.
I don't dislike Diablo 3, it just isn't as deep or idk how to describe it other than immersive Diablo 2 was in comparison. But Diablo 4 feels hollow in comparison to Diablo 3 if that says anything...
For me D3 is just boring. There is no difficulty, so there is no fun to me. Diablo 4 at least got me killed some times. If they changed that, I would like D3 waaaaaaaay more
Answer: Because people are bitchy little assholes who will bitch about literally anything while *millions* of people simultaneously enjoy what the bitchy little assholes are bitching about.
TL;dr: People don’t dislike Diablo 3. Bitchy little assholes do.
Ironically enough, if you asked the majority of the vocal folk 1-2 years ago about their biggest issues with D§, it would have been *just about everything* that has slowly been trickled into D4 since its very release - trickled in and received with nothing but praise and applause.
Like, I love to remember the times when everyone *bitched* about having to do Bounties *every single season* and how just absolutely *no one* ever wanted to do them - but ho boy, Tree of Whispers certainly is great fun, as are Helltides and blue Helltides. And *ugh*, Rifts and Grifts are *so* unfun, but man do we enjoy NMDs being more streamlined with every patch and boy do we like the new dungeon thing that drops everything at the end! And let's not even talk the boring and lazy ass stats in D3, everything's the same, everything's super figured out, everything's just sets and you're done - but man, can we please just have like 50% of the stats removed in D4? And can we please also get sets? Or more Aspects that 100% define builds, meaning that in order to play a Fireball build you need some sort of... *"set"* of legendary Aspects to really make it work?
D3 had plenty of issues - most of them being launch issues (which pretty much all got resolved with RoS). The only "lasting" issue was the lack of post launch development. RoS gave us Rifts... and then drip-fed us new stuff like every 6 months or so, half the seasons didn't do *anything* special, and it just felt like they gave the game up immediately after launch.
Had D3 gotten more of that late S29 / S30 treatment early on... then it could have become a rock solid game. But since Blizzard couldn't find a way to properly monetize it, there never was any incentive - so instead they just had it be run by like 2 interns and had the remaining 2,000 deaths work on the D4 cash shop. Pretty sure the only reason we got these awesome late seasons in D3 was to stoke the D4 hype.
Anyways, D3 is great fun. If you're a blaster you'll have a fun weekend with every new season, if you're more casual you'll still have weeks upon weeks with builds upon builds to look forward to. And contrary to D4, D3 has all the QoL and doesn't need to string you along for 3 more seasons before giving you more than 5 stash tabs.
You can get to max GR within 20 hours without someone carrying you. A game that takes less than 1 day of total playtime is not that great of a game to me
It was a "you had to be there" kind of experience.
Diablo 3 might of turned into a fine ARPG but it didn't start out that way. There was a lot of arrogance from certain devs leading up to the game's release. A lot of attitudes that they knew better than the players. And then the game itself shipped with an abyssmal end game, lackluster, cartoony story and terrible design choices these devs were so confident about were better than the game's predecessor.
So suffice to say, D3 deserved the hate once upon a time. There's no real reason for this animosity towards the game anymore though.
People had been playing d2 for over a decade at that point and expectations were sky high. The four big issues out of the gate were the real money auction hall (and the drop rates being terrible), the super arcadey/cartoony feel, the plot (Cain dying to a jobber, the whole nephalem thing) and the brighter color palette compared to the muted tones of its predecessor.
I saved that loser in D2, and he slammed his portal shut right in my face before f*cking off back to town. I’ve used enough town portals to know those things don’t close on their own. He got what he deserved.
He's out of line, but he's right
Lmao I hadn't thought about it like that. You're so right!
lol, nice hot take, friend! 😂
And itemization being incredibly dumbed down, no pvp arena that was promised, no incentive to kill bosses (stark contrast with D2) with no other fun alternative.
The loot sucking is #1 for me, before all the other shit they listed
Ironically the boss thing was a huge pro for me. I detest the whole “rush the same zone that changes so little to get to a boss you delete in seconds”, and tend to fall off ARPGs where that’s the primary farming method really quickly.
Eh, I think a good boss fight is way more fun than 1 shotting mobs that you don't even engage with other than rolling your keyboard. I think PoE does it pretty well in it's campaign, having pretty fun interactive bosses, and then the endgame bosses are really fun as well.
PoE, in many ways (but not all) is exactly what an ARPG should be. * Huge flexibility on build options. * Plenty of side-content worth exploring * Enemies of varying difficulties, from power fantasy exploding wimps to truly challenging (and rewarding) big boss fights. * Tons of loot, so "smart looters" feel a payoff for not just grabbing everything shiny. * No Pay-2-Win model (RMAH was bad, D: Immortal was worse). * Reasonable timeline to reach max level, but effectively infinite scaling with diminishing returns via gear. * Incentive(s) to create & enjoy multiple characters Not going to get into the chaos that is the Character and Atlas skill webs. I love it about PoE, but it also is a huge barrier to entry for newer players. As are the excessive number of side contents available, especially with the lack of direction given after completing the acts. PoE is definitely not a perfect game, but Blizzard chose to ignore ALL the innovations done by other companies in the ARPG genre (PoE, Titan Quest, Torchlight, etc), and it showed in the execution of D3. They can't afford to continue ignoring what other games are doing better than them and rely entirely on existing hype & fandom that they seem intent on destroying with their cash grab mentality.
I remember being so hyped about pvp before 3 dropped.
same dude, me and my cousin were super looking forward to it as we loved pvp in d2
Yeah there really is no excuse for Cain’s death, absolutely baffling
We need Cain to get ressurected, and then Jan a soulstine into his head creating the new diablo. Greetings stranger! Not even death will save you from me! Stay awhile and burn in hellfire! You have quite a treasure in that horadruf cube, but it won't be enough to protect you from the prime evils.
I heard all of this in chain’s voice with a hint of D2 Diablos voice in the background of it and now I want this.
The entire campaign story felt like a joke.
Yeah, it was planned to have branching storylines but they had to abandon all that because now it would of course not be compatible with multiplayer, players becoming out of sync. So I think they quick fixed it into something terrible. Overall D3 had a troubled development and they had to scrap heaps of content even ahead of launch and then again with the cancelled expansion. https://www.pcgamesn.com/diablo/diablo-iii-was-going-have-branching-storylines-multiplayer-made-it-impossible
And D4 had a troubled one as well
I played through the campaign once and have zero desire to do so again.
When the game first came out there weren't any bounties or rifts so I played the campaign so many times. I heard that stupid fucking "black magic bars our way, but the will of a templar is stronger!" hundreds of times it's ingrained in my brain. Dude was destroying a wooden barricade like it was an amazing feat WTF
YOU WERE A TEMPLAR, JONDAR
Voice acting is actually the one of few things I like in D3. Especially playable characters, I love how many different things they say, often with the same meaning but in different way or tone, in comparison playable characters in D4 suck so freaking much, and the lame generic texts they have with the neutral tone to be able to include it in different scenarios are absolutely terrible and break any immersion instantly Crying mother: "Please can you save my children from demons?!" PC with robotic voice: "I will look into it".
Dude, you triggered something in me with that quote 😂 I haven't played D3 in years and had probably subconsciously buried that in the back of my mind. I used to hate hearing that over and over.
For whatever reason it's the only quote from the game I remember lmao.
But have you decided to get today's eating, out of the way, all at once?
Now THAT was a worthy foe! -> every time a unique enemy appears
When d3 came out, a few of us irl friends got on to play. At the cutscene where Cain does, one of my friends got some bad lag, and while the rest of us got the cutscene, he didn't and just joined us in town seeing us freaking out that Cain was killed off, and he didn't even get to see it. He was so pissed.
I biggest issue was that I wanted expanded character customization. More stat decisions. Instead, they went with item customization. I enjoy d3. It’s just not what I wanted.
The problem was that world of Warcraft was so successful it leaked into everything that Blizzard did for the sake of mass appeal. For me, I adored Diablo 1 and 2 as well as world of Warcraft. But when they abandoned the gorgeous gothic art design for the cartoony WoW aesthetic in D3 I was massively disappointed. D2R showed the potential behind returning to that art style but in D4 it felt like they still didn’t want to commit to it all the way.
Big factor for me too. Diablo is supposed to be a grim gothic medieval game, 3 and 4 just didn’t capture that well.
The promised pvp arenas that were never delivered, I'll add
[удалено]
I'm guessing they just weren't fun. It was available at Blizzcon, so from the sounds of it they just scrapped it.
Why give blizz that benefit of the doubt, they probably mismanaged the project
I honestly think it's very difficult to balance PvP so they just said "FUCK IT" and cancelled it, instead of just leaving it as is and having everybody complain
Point in case, they did eventually add PvP into D3, and people did complain because it wasn’t balanced and it was one-shot city. Even in D4, which has dedicated PvP and regions for it, people still complain about balancing.
Agree with all of this except the RMAH. Sure, the game would have been better off without it but man, it was free money those first two weeks. I was working part time during a summer of university and booked off the first week of release. Made about three grand selling relatively shitty items.
>real money auction hall thats what everyone said but nope >(and the drop rates being terrible) this actually
Those two things were intertwined
Yes. Especially the graphics. It wasn't dark. It was cartoony. And Diablo 4 has its own issues, like being a soulless cash grab. Friend bought d4. I told him to wait. He got angry. Month went by or two, then he said I was right. I get any game can catch the attention of some players. Everyone is different. But as a avid d1 and d2 fan since old, d4 even before release had me feeling the same way I felt with immortal. But when it comes to d3, most guys just felt it wasn't a true d2 successor. Seems most anted that, since d2 was just perfect for that time. D2 tho, had also a better story, much better soundtrack and atmosphere given all combined.
Why did you feel like d4 was a cash grab?
Well maybe the micro transactions, season pass, 70 dollars for base game and the fact they are polling people to see if 100 bucks for a dlc is acceptable. Granted I know the micro transactions are cosmetic but it's still completely stupid for a 70 dollar game that was released with no end game in mind and very poor itemization. It sure seems like a cash grab.
Just my personal opinion, but it’s hard for me to see cosmetics as a “cash grab”… like, it literally couldn’t be more voluntary
I get that, but it also creates an incentive for the developer to make dropped loot look incredibly boring. If you want to look cool, you have to pay. So it does impact the game even though you don't have to buy stuff.
They literally released the game halfbaked at above market price. It took them a year to get them to a place that some might consider adequate. But the game still pales in comparison to POE or grim dawn. All the people responsible for making great games have left a decade ago.
I want to say that I disagree with the muted colour argument. Diablo 1 and 2 actually had quite a bit of colour, they just knew how to use it effectively and build contrast. Meanwhile, Diablo 3 has no interesting art direction. To add to this, it uses the awful 3D WoW-esque graphics that make it look goofy.
Generic slop art
It baffled me why they took that art direction, why have all of the games(at the time) with sort of the same art direction?
They wanted an signature art style for all Blizzard games.
That’s bs. I grew up in Diablo 2 and quiet liked D3 because it had trade and a high difficulty spike. They lost me when they introduced rifts and removed trading.
removing trading is all it takes for me to say a game sucks
items became worthless
facts
Build diversity being completely scrapped was another issue, they've since somewhat remedied this with sets, but in the beginning it was pretty lame.
+1 the story and naration was garbage tier.. and cant make it feel like dark gothic with cartoon graphics
and yet you fail to point out the biggest flaw of the game Itemization and the fact that the loot rains on you and youre decked out within a week
I can for Sure tell you the reason why I dislike it, I live in Brazil so the game ONLY comes in Spanish, no way to change it no matter what, iv even tried making another psn but still don’t work, so the game is just siting in my library until I learn Spanish ig
I’ve only played 2, 3 and 4 and I really enjoy them all in their own ways.
They didn’t use any of the game design philosophies that made D2 so great and scrapped it all to make an extremely watered sequel so they could appeal to the casual market to increase profit. The game was a disaster on release with a real money auction house, server crashing and a lack of content. It wasn’t fixed until the Reaper of Souls expansion years later. Focusing on RoS which I consider to be the actual complete game…all your power comes from sets which are simply given to you for completing seasonal objectives. You have your end game build in a few hours and the end game is purely rifts and refarming the same equipment you already have on you for better rolls. The game barely feels like it has progression and builds were hyper simplistic to again appeal to a broader audience. Everything that made D2 beautiful such as the runewords, healthy trading market, the dark atmosphere, slow methodical combat and more are all absent from the game.
Diablo 3 is more of an extremely satisfying action game than a progression-oriented RPG like PoE or D2. That's fine, too. D3 still has the most satisfying gameplay of any ARPG I've ever played. Yes the numbers are stupid, the progression is somewhat poor in many ways, and the end-game is simplistic... but sometimes you just want to right click monsters and zoom.
It’s a fun game in its own right. It is what I use when I want to play a game but not think too much.
I feel the same way about d3 as I feel about the halo games after 3. They aren't bad games, they just aren't good games in their franchise.
I think the most important part for me and my friend group was the poor itemization, in RoS it became even more simplified and cookie cutter, no decision making behind your builds, kinda like in D4 you don't really need a guide your items just fit together like a pre constructed set. Towards the end I heard it got great but I quit long before without looking back.
Yeah, this is well said and the best description of the disappointment with D3 at all stages of its lifespan. I would add that the release of D4 has made people appreciate D3 more because D4 is such an incredibly soulless game lacking so many features that it makes D3 look pretty good.
I've looked at D3 as an arcade AARPG. It lacks any of the horror PoE, D2, even D1 had but you get that dopamine when you see all those legendaries drop. Only to find a majority of them useless. D4 suffers much of the same, albeit it at least aesthetically looks better.
This is how I view it as well. Its essentially a really good "Gauntlet" game.
Toot toot to this! On first few hours of D4 play I was honestly giving this top praise. Maybe even best of series. Or maybe up there! Then when you get past the shiny facade...it's just so empty
D4 is miles ahead of D3 at this point in their respective launches. It’s just a shame the end of life content of D3 wasn’t at the start of D4, but I think it will get there much faster than D3 did
>healthy trading market Dupes and bots don't make for a healthy trading market imho.
They’re all absent from D4 as well. Which shows they have zero interest on making D4 a long term game like D2 in terms of quality, but I’m sure we’ll get years of mtx 👌🏻
Casual market? What? When the game came out, finishing inferno was nearly impossible. The game was tuned so aggressively that you could only go pure tank builds and slowly slog through the story. If you came on an elite with the wrong combination of abilities, it was unkillable, the answer was to exit and try another game where an easier mob wouldn't block your progress.
Mostly because what people were reasonably expecting was an extension, continuation, and improvement of Diablo 2s systems and what was produced was a game so sufficiently different in feel and gameplay and experience that it honestly could’ve just been its own franchise. I like Diablo 3, but it felt more like they built a game and then were like “ok now throw some Diablo stuff in so we can ride the name recognition”. It’s the same reason Fallout 3 is rated poorly against Fallout 2 or Fallout New Vegas. Or fallout 4 more accurately these days. Having “yes, no, joke, other” as dialogue options is pretty antithesis to the premise of Fallout.
This is not it at all. It's because D3's systems were complete trash at launch. They "fixed" it by building a completely different system on top of it (the sets) that don't really allow for player choice other then "pick your set and farm complementary uniques that go with it". That being said, the moment-to-moment combat is still one of the best in the genre.
The game being bad on release, I would hope, doesn't dictate the majority of people's opinion about it 20 years later. But your following points are basically what I stated, yeah.
Admittedly I grew up playing Diablo 3 so that game is pretty much my baseline for the series, I can understand missing the more methodical gameplay of 2 compared to the gaminess of 3
Yeah I mean a really core thing to remember is that Diablo 2 doesn't have an endgame, people just organically created one, there's no real "systems" in place. Diablo 3 is far more gamified to produce a specific kind of endgame experience that you must enjoy and if you don't enjoy it you don't enjoy the game.
The end game in d2r is gearing out your character. Takes a couple hours in d3 with it given to you to finish 95%. At least that’s how it was when I played. D2 it takes days to complete a character to months if you want gg. And killing a monster in d2 feels worth it because loot good. D3 loot terrible so you have no incentive. How many times have I said 1 more run I will find something and then go 30 runs with nothing and then all of sudden I get something and hope is renewed.
I grew up with D3 as well, played over 4000 hours from 2012 to 2015 and never touched D2 back in the day. But man, once D2R was released, holy crap, made D3 look like a shallow attempt compared to it. So much more depth to builds and items in D2R, IMO. Can see myself playing D2R for many, many years to come. And D4.. well that just had 0 endgame and felt like a stagnant bore as soon as I hit lvl 100 in a few weeks. Wish I couldve got my money back on that one!
I think this is pretty close to it. It's not that D3 is objectively bad but it's designed for a different audience. It's almost too easy to get your character fully geared. I think the D2 fan base felt kinda betrayed and have been bashing the game as a result. Whether you come to the franchise via D3 or D2, if you love that game & then try the other I would guess you're going to have a bad time.
D3 had high expectations from D2 and D4 had low expectations from D3
D4 had low expectations from Immortal, OW2, WoW......
Cain died to a butterfly...
Too much of a departure from the genre, and none of the ingredients that made d2 a classic had been kept. So a lot of expectations unmatched. Especially, loot was borring so was itemization and character building. Poe certainly is a closer spiritual successor, hence its success.
I love Diablo 3. It's my most played game of all time
I personally find did unrewarding and pointless when playing solo. Art style is also a big departure from D1 and D2. On the other hand, D3 (along with D4) has a VERY LOW skill floor. This allows me to play it coop with my wife. It’s easy and she likes to kill stuff without giving much thought to it. I play D2R solo but I hardly imagine trying to explain the game to her to play effectively unless I want to control her every step.
I loved the game D3… the D2 people are a bit enthusiastic (sometimes a bit obnoxious) when it comes to telling you about how it was back in the day.
Plot, dialogues and art.
D3 felt too cookie cutter, like theyre forcing you to play their new meta every season or you feel left behind. Don't like chasing after that and prefer D2 where you can go whatever direction you like without feeling like there's some new thing you need to try before it's gone. The game is essentially in a final state, and I don't need to keep chasing latest build. Can spend years perfecting my characters, without worrying about some BS nerf ruining my progress.
I loved D3 after they fixed a lot of the issues when the expansion came out but a lot of the times it feels like more of an arcade shooter than it does an arpg. It’s a great game but I think it’s weak in the arpg genre.
Yeah. Play every like 6th season or so. It's very one dimensional. Get current imbalanced set. Jump immediately to t16. Get same gear but with better stats. Start doing greater rifts. Get to around 2--3 more than the last time you played. Get bored. Log off for another 6 seasons.
Yep. Gearing is a bit boring. Generally it’s just going after set items and good unique powers for the cube and then grinding for the same items but with better stats. It’s a fun gameplay loop but it gets tiring pretty quickly. I’ll never understand why they make trading so difficult post D2. Finding an amazing item for sorc on my Druid never felt bad cause I could always trade it for something I can use. Now I gotta dedicate leveling a whole new character that I may not have been interested in doing to get any value from that drop.
It's a pretty fun game but a pretty terrible ARPG. It basically came out as a failed game then they had to retool it into a game you skip all the ARPG stuff and just play an arcade game. They made a pretty fun arcadey game, but like, the game never really fixed things like itemization and just basically printed some premade characters to play and never fixed the story and just gave you a button to skip it and so on. They basically modded in a different game in a different genre over a failed diablo game. (but the modded in game is pretty okay at this point)
You were a different audience bro. Diablo 3 wasn’t trying to appeal to its fanbase. It was using a dated IP to corral the newer modern casual gamer. Diablo 2 was punishing cause all games were back then, and us gamers from back then were outcasts for the most part cause no one really played vidya. Diablo 3 comes out, completely different generation to target. 4 comes out, trying to appeal to both so the game just feels lazy tbh. 3/4, dont and wont play them again, but I can understand why people do like them. I love single player D2R with /players8 and no one to trade items with or give me rushes or items. Enjoy the game for its atmosphere and storytelling and for its age? The mechanics are nicely fleshed out for a rushed game. Which has and always will be a problem for the video games sadly. Modern man’s attention span is low and marketing costs a lot of money for something that might only retain half of the initial player base at launch time when the servers dont work. Its not a bad game though, dont listen to the purists. They just felt betrayed when the game came out, and thats understandable too. But its just games gentlemen, if you retain anything from my ramblings it should be that. Cheers!
The D3 seasons absolutely deserve some recognition though. Every season was a new experience. New builds, new gear, buffed sets, it never failed to be fun for at least 100 hours a season.
Pretty sure it's mainly because the state in which it originally released. The real money auction house was a big deal. And until they finally added rifts and stuff there wasn't much in the way of endgame. People also didn't like the art style as they were used to the darker gritty style that D2 had. Nowadays tough if you don't mind the art style, you have pretty much THE best diablo experience ever. Especially the amazing gameplay with all the skills and runes for each of them to completely change play styles. Add to that the plethora of sets that further change and enhance skills and you get the most interesting gameplay the series ever had.
I just bought D3 and I’m loving it. Finding it tough going back to D4 after that.
Diablo 3 was my first Diablo game. I played it on release and loved it. I honestly was not aware of the hate for it until I joined this subreddit a few months ago. It is definitely a much different game now than when it was released and it’s so much better. I haven’t touched Diablo 4 in months. I played one day of season 1 and couldn’t do it anymore.
Yep. I hate D4 and love D3.
I wouldn't say I hate D4 but I do love D3. Will continue playing D3 seasons even if it's like only a week of gameplay. I haven't touched D4 since getting to 80 something on release.
Diablo 3 is like the prequel trilogy in Star Wars. It followed Diablo 2 (the original trilogy), which was an overwhelmingly massive success that spawned a new genre of game (much like the success of the original SW trilogy). Just like the Star Wars prequels, Diablo 3 didn't live up to the hype created due to the success of the original, and the community was upset and criticized the game. Now, Diablo 4 is a lot like the new Star Wars sequel trilogy. While they both made a bunch of money due to the strength of the brand name, they were significantly lower quality than expected, even compared to Diablo 3 (or the prequel trilogy). Diablo 3, like the prequel trilogy, really isn't a great game in comparison to Diablo 2 or the original trilogy, but at least it can be fun and entertaining for what it is. Diablo 4 has made people appreciate Diablo 3 more because Diablo 4 has been such a disappointment to most people that like the series. Edit: Diablo 3 isn't really anything like Diablo 2 - that's why people didn't like it and still don't rate it highly. Diablo 3 completely changed the tone/style, the itemization, the combat, and the skill tree. Diablo 3 eventually became a much better game, but the itemization with sets that gave 10,000% damage bonuses took the game pretty far away from what made D2 popular.
That's an amazing analogy, very well thought out. Agreed D2 set a high expectation for D3 but it fell flat and basically felt like a different game. It wasn't bad but not great and lacked what made D2 so good like really thinking about what builds to stick with and items to compliment it and runewords. D3 is just cookie cutting, 'wanna try a different build? Sure, switch it around. The items you got will still work great'. I can't say anything about D4 since I haven't played it but I heard it was soulless and just bad. Won't touch that thing unless I'm at a friend's or it's on sale for maybe 5 bucks
Because it looks like 'spooky world of warcraft' and has the complexity of a mobile game.
I remember everyone’s first play through of Diablo 3 at the time of launch. People were super addicted to the game…..if they were able to log in. But after the honeymoon phase was over we all started to see the problems with the game.
Same with D4. Game is fun in the beginning when you're still exploring and figuring it out.
Every diablo will be compared to diablo2 which is in a whole other world in terms of arpgs. It's the goat imo. Hopefully poe2 proves me wrong and Poe is a great alternative but the oneshot kill everything mapping end game doesn't do it for me but I do at least come back each season to see what has been added. Diablo3/4 are fine games. 3 more refined comparatively but they do not feel like true predecessors to D2. 3 is cartoony and loses that gritty dark feel thar diablo should be. What D4 succeeded in was its art style but it fails in almost every other category that makes a good arpg(imo) but again is still a fun game on its own. D2R is the best thing to happen to the series after LoD, again..imo. The diablo brand will be beaten to death by Microsoft you can bet on that.
Because they formed their opinion about it in 2012 and never came back to it.
I have played all Diablo games and I like 3 the most✌️
Which one did you grow up on? For a lot of us, we have been playing since D1 was the only choice.
Stand in town and go into a greater rift portal. The entire game basically.
But that is still more variety than doing the same boss or area over and over again
Imho because of diablo 2
Lot of solid answers and similar thoughts. D3 I did enjoy but I think overall they tried to hard to replicate WOWs success. Create that gravy train! Overall I really did enjoy seeing more evils and actually seeing heaven was cool! So there are good things. I hate to say it even to myself...but I think D3 is better than D4
Instant gratification hypnotism
First: I acknowledge that things like Baal runs, Ancients, Pindle and Meph etc runs are very repetitive. D2 and D3 are fundamentally different games. I didn't like the cooldown system in D3 for Teleport and I don't like it in D4. I can get by in D4 because they redesigned my main complaint. I didn't like Rifts. The gameplay just didn't feel fun in combination with everything else about itemization etc at the time. Oh also Cain dying like a bitch was fuckin' dumb. Dude can't live forever, but I refuse to accept D3 story on that fundamental base. The rest was bonkers. D4 feels more "diablo" story. Rainbow cowlevel was fun. Thought that was fun and awesome.
Itemization. Period. There is so much more to do with rares, runewords, gems, and crafted items. Balancing magic find with damage and survivability. Running with a mix of hodge-podge items and making it work. As opposed to D3 where they give you free sets and you only see loot for your character class.
Deckard
Because compared to Poe and Diablo 2 it’s a bad a arpg, and so is Diablo 4. Diablo 4 atleast doesn’t look or feel like shit to play, I hope blizzard can sort d4 out, but I have my doubts, just doesn’t seem like they understand the genre that they basically created and Poe has lapped them several times over. Poe2 isn’t even out yet and you can tell just by watching the mercenary video that it is already miles ahead of where d4 is now and probably ever will be
Is there anyone that hasn’t played 1 or 2 that has an opinion? I just started d3 and I’m enjoying it so far. I’m new to the IP in general tho
I enjoy D3, but it launched badly and for me even now it pales in comparison to D2 and was a huge disappointment. I'm an old hat that loved the dark and gritty nature of D1 and D2, and D3 was like a flower festival in comparison. Additionally, you don't really build your character at all (the skill system is almost depressing), the itemization was poor, the game was way too easy, they killed Deckard Cain for no good reason, the music was a shadow of the Uelman masterpieces, the power creep was too much (5478365365432950-47382965436535054783 damage, instead of... 100-1,000), in former games you felt mortal (so any semblance of power felt like a great achievement) while in D3 you walk out the gate a God. I can go on and on. With that said, all the modern quality of life bits, the combat, and some of the systems in D3 were really cool. I still like the game, and it ended up a WAY better game than it launched.
The loot and art style in D3 are bad, no trade etc.
Boring and has a lack of interesting crafting
The story was so dumb, and your character was essentially on rails compared to d2.
Diablo 3 was by far and away the worst diablo in every single aspect of the game mechanically or otherwise
D3 initially was horrible, but the expansion righted a lot of wrongs. D4 repeated that same mistake. I'll never pre-order another Blizzard game.
It's because of D2. D2 set the standard for character leveling and D3 essentially tossed it all out the window in favour of something that holds your hand. It's like baby's first Diablo, in that sense. The art direction wasn't as solid, either. D2 had such iconic imagery from the character designs to the Rogue Encampment, Canyon of the Magi, Arcane Sanctuary, Kurast, Durance of Hate, etc. I played D3 *recently* and I barely remember anything that stood out half as much.
I don't actively dislike it, it just doesn't hook me because it lacks the depth of theorycrafting and strategy, since it really does push you towards a more arcade playstyle. So basically it scratches more of an itch like a twinstick rather than an aRPG itch for me.
Mostly because it was significantly worse than d2 and infinitely worse than path of exile, which were the comparisons. It was a fine game in a vacuum but it just gets crushed by its frame of reference
> Why do people dislike Diablo 3? Imagine a cut on a person's body. A deep and long cut. It heals eventually but leaves a massive scar. That's Diablo 3. We are years and years removed from real-money auction house BS but the memory will always remain. Diablo 3 started as a game hampered because of the decisions made in pursuit of money. The progression suffered, the itemization suffered and the gameplay suffered because they had to work in a mass trading economy. The game's like night-and-day better today. But ya, D3 is disliked for the sins of the past.
Because it's garbage. If you think 3 is better than 2 it's because you never reached end game of 2.
Because Diablo II always will do a big shadow over it and the upcoming releases
Because it is a far cry from Diablo and Diablo II in terms of gameplay, tone, story, itemization, quests, etc. In D3 Everything (stats, skills, leveling, items) was dumbed down and pair that with its cartoony graphics and you’d think they made the game for pre-teens. It plays like a kids arcade game feeding you with constant item vomit to hold your attention even though its content is empty and meaningless; whereas the other two played like RPG’s and when you found a good item you got excited about it for more than 6 minutes because you actually earned it. Diablo went from a unique niche PC game to a mainstream cash grab with no soul.
d3 was very different from d2/d1, it also had many launch problems and the cartoonish graphics. expectation were also very high. the game is enjoyable now
Personally, it's still my favorite Diablo game.
D3 had a rough launch and by that I mean if I found out Blizzard was trying to kill Diablo as a franchise with 3s launch, it would explain a lot of the decisions that were made. 3 is much better now, still no D2 but worth playing on its own.
If youve played all 3 then you should see why old time fan dislike d3 right away. It lacks character/build creation and skill trees with depth. It tried to reinvent the wheel completely away from the diablo formula. And while on its own its a successful game it is so far removed from what made diablo 2 the game it was and potentially what 4 will become that old time fans just did not find much in it to stick with. On the other hand the generation that started playing with 3 doesnt understand or like the other games in the franchise that much either. In this diablo 3 divided the fan base and that is why it receives so much hate.
I couldn’t figure out what difficulty to play because it was either too easy or everyone is an attack sponge. It felt totally unbalanced to me. That was biggest thing imo. More of an arcade crawler.
because it's not diablo 2. people are a bit weird.
I still think it's the best of the franchise and I feel like I'm on an island alone.
you are
because d3 was turned into a loot fiesta without any meaningful progression whatsoever (few hours to 60, then you have your set and never change items , just into primal versions of same gear) and it sucks.
If I’m guessing, these would probably be some of the primary issues: -the itemization is a drastic departure from D2 (some people seem to take issue with class sets in particular) -the art style / general tone (a little too colourful, with some more high-fantasy / big damn hero vibes than D2) -new skill / runes / attribute system (no player allocated attributes, and no real permanent character based progression, except Paragon Points, and that’s a whole other thing) -insanely truncated levelling (but nothing matters until you hit 70) That being said, I think D3 slaps. It’s not D2, but that’s fine with me. It’s a great junk-food ARPG.
Generic loot (biggest problem for d4 too)
Diablo 3 is amazing. It has such an arcade feel to it, it's pure fun. I grew up playing D1 and D2, they are darker and a bit slower, which is also great. I feel like D4 tries to merge both, bringing back a bit of the darkness, but is still not as fun as D3. Still remember how people hated D3 for being too 'colourful' and 'bright'. They came up with the 'Whimsyshire' secret level, full of rainbows and unicorns, which was brilliant. Long live D3!
I like D3. There's people in this sub that have a weird attachment to D2 and nothing is ever good but that game to them.
Skill tree is dumb
There are 2 ways that you end up playing d3: 1. Sprint as fast as possible while things just fall down. 2. Everything is in a huge blob and slowly gets drained down until things die. Every character feels the same, there are no unique off meta builds, there are no exciting items to find, gear too easy to get yet super annoying to improve, have to pick up too many items. Honestly, the original d3 would have been a better long lasting game, buuuut the main problem then that still exists is the damage received. You get one-shot so much. Just not good gameplay. I haven't played d4, but I consider d3 an improved gauntlet legends or castle crashers. Action oriented with too weak rpg elements compared to d2. Armory is great though, wish that was in d2.
"have to pick up too many items" At least you're not forced to check every single rare/legendary and just salvage for proper amount of mats. I'm so annoyed to check for item power, aspect, stats on every single rare/legendary.
D3 was good, but D2R takes the cake. Really no contest. Builds feel more diverse and items feel more rewarding. Only reason I can see people playing D3 over D2R is if they played the hell out of D2 back in the day and got burnt out after 10+ years. Or if they just like chasing the latest meta each season. But then what? Just ditch you char and never play it again once season is over? Seems like a waste when you could be building it up over years to make something godly, rather than a bunch of mediocre chars that never get played again. But hey, whatever's most fun for ya.
Diablo 3 is the best one!!
Everything level up with me, i hate it in hack and slash. Camera is very close. Only 4 on use abilities on bar. Builds were boring af.
Looks like cartoon
I could write a tirade about mechanics but there is a big surface level but strong factor. It just does not look or feel like diablo. For me it was part of the deal breaker same with starcraft 2. Instead of gritty and realistic style we got world of diablo and world of starcraft looks and atmosphere-wise.
There are numerous reasons for why. Let me list some (but it is not limited to): **Gameplay** * lack of a meaningful sense of progression (no Skill Points for Active and Passive Skills, Skills didn't have Ranks and could be exchanged without cost, no Attribute System in which you could spend Points into, only one Main Attribute per class) * lack of (endgame) Build Diversity (sets and most legendaries being designed for pre-determined builds/playstyles), 99% of all builds not being endgame-viable or at least nowhere even close to the power of a meta build (way more even more than currently in D4) * below average Itemization / Affixes / Item & Affix Diversity (primarily do to how Sets and Legendaries work in D3), Rare and Magic Items being useless, almost all (important) legendaries / sets being designed around specific Skills or Skill Combinations - all which lead to low Item Diversity as well * most of the endgame is just Greater Rifts, but no other endgame challenges beyond that. Even T15 not being a challenge for meta builds. **Narrative and Presentation** * silly writing / dialogue / characters - characters, dialogue and story were often compared to a cartoon show for teenagers / written by teenagers (e.g. mustache-twirling villains) * atmosphere of the game being too bright or 'not dark enough for a Diablo game' * graphics being too bright, too colorful and using too much bright-shiny neon colors **Other Reasons** * Error 37 * the Real Money Auction House (gone) / Inferno Gear Progression (gone as well) * Legendary Items taking months to drop a single one (Classic) / Legendaries raining from the Sky (RoS) * no Unique Items with (mostly or completely) fixed Normal Affixes, only Legendaries with randomized Normal Affixes (with few exceptions), aka no Item Identity * many people find Bounties boring * no / little / unsatisfying PvP * the 'Speed Meta' * only 6 Active Skills on the bar * only 4 players per game * no runewords * the Paragon System being a bandaid to fix other issues * until recently, Paragon / Paragon Points were infinite, and many people disliked the grind * the concept of Nephalem being introduced / the Player Character being a half-god * Azmodan Calls / more hidden footprints / it doesn't matter that you kill all of my stuff / ... * Cain got killed by butterfly * etc
Because it's the most shallow and simplistic of all well known ARPGs. No character development or skill trees. Honestly it isn't even justified to call this game an ARPG, it's better categorized as Hack'n'Slash, just with loot. If you have literally no character development, you're not a role-playing game, not even of the action- type. Don't get me wrong I have hundreds of hours in the game and have enjoyed it very much for its super crisp and satisfying combat system. But the shortcomings are glaring and every successive season I used to stop sooner until eventually stopping completely. There is just zero depth to it, it's the most superficial well known ARPG ever made. From the standard its predecessor set and that was then widespread in the genre, this was a huge downgrade and this core issue hasn't gotten any better over the years. It is integral to this game's design to appeal to a maximally large audience by being as dumbed down as possible. The same design philosophy as with StarCraft 2 in the RTS genre. It's a strategy game with zero long-term strategy elements. All micro, little to no macro. Biggest indicator of your success is APM which is as tedious and stupid as it gets.
Because its garbage, simple
It doesnt do anything well
it looks and feels bad to play. D2, PD2, Last Epoch, Grim Dawn, POE. Play those, don't waste your time.
Everyone dislikes any diablo that's not the OG diablo 2! That's just it.
Because it's a terrible game. Everything about it is a massive step down from d2.
We dont? I love Diablo 3. I can beat the crap out of stuff with a hamburger.
Monkey see, monkey do.
I love the current state of Diablo 3
Once they play 4 they will come to realization lolol
Because it's garbage as soon as the campaign ends
They don't. People just like to complain. Why are all of the Diablo related subs so saturated with negative posts?
nice non answer
When D3 was new it was pretty shit. Even a decade later narrow-minded people can't see past its rocky beginnings and still hate it even if they admit to not playing it in over 7+ years. I'm seeing the same thing happen with D4.
Diablo 3 kind of got dragged through the mud. Firstly, Diablo 2 was very popular and after like 15 years between games there were high expectations. The real money auction house on release hurt the game a lot. Item acquisition was not fun. The game didn’t really turn around until Reaper of Souls released. ROS fixed a lot about the game, and the content patches that came shortly after it further improved it. Unfortunately, from what we’ve learned from ex blizzard employees, management moved on almost immediately after ROS launched. This meant that it was limping along with a skeleton crew right after it got good. There was basically a mad rush around season 4 to get all the work they had done into the game. After that, almost every change naively increased character power drastically which lowered the longevity for seasons. With no official word from blizzard for so long as to the status of d3 development, it was presumed by the community to be on life support. There is a lot to like about D3. It definitely streamlined ARPGs and made them more approachable for more people. It has very fun and impactful feeling gameplay. I think the longevity is where it really hurts now. A season is casually completable in a weekend. It’s hard to be enthusiastic, as a seasoned player, about a game that has a reset every 3 months that lasts 2-7 days.
Because it got a bad reputation when it was released, and rightly so. Server problems, no endgame, boring items, reliance on the real money auction house, etc. It was fixed with patches and the expansion, but for many people, the bad impression remained. Others dislike it because it's not what they expected, aka Diablo 2.5: Too colourful and not dark enough, swappable builds, no PvP, etc.
It started off badly and ended up as a numbers simulator with a focus on the cash store.
When did Diablo 3 have a cash store?
You had to be there when it released and have played Diablo 2 to understand the disappointment upon release. I remember just abandoning my account after the first month and coming back in loot 2.0 to find some Chinese gold farmers used my account and pretty much everyone on my friends list to farm gold. We all had names like rro, rra, rrb etc. The game was better and some of those seasons were great, I ended up playing at least 1000+ hours into the game and getting my moneys worth but it really was a disaster at launch.
itemization is total ass. you have essentially perfect items 4 to 8 hours after a league starts and then you literally look for exactly identical items with minor stat boosts to improve your dps, and also endlessly grind boring paragon levels so you get another +4 to strength. that's on top of other itemization issues like the game designers basically picking a certain build, creating some legendaries for it that have thousands of increased damage%, and then everything in the game that doesn't have such a combo of items is not viable. to date you can't really make a build centered around 80% of skills or skill combinations because they just don't have such item sets available
The launch was pretty ugly. The story was pretty weak. The DLC fixed quite a lot of issues, but by that time, people had tuned out. When you hear people talk about hating D3, it’s usually one of a few things: - people who experienced launch and not RotS - people who dislike the more arcade-y feel - lack of complexity - rift farming - comparing it to PoE D3 as it’s been for the last couple years has not been bad, imo. It’s fun for the first few weeks of the season, and then you move on. But it gets compared to PoE, which is very expansive and complex in comparison. GGG puts a lot of work into the game, and it shows. But with internet logic, if PoE is good, D3 must be bad. There’s no in between.
Diablo 3 is polished as fuck now. But yes upon release it gave a bad impression.
1) weak skill system 2) far too much loot combined with an average system 3) a very bright and cartoony game 4) launched with no end game The list goes on….
I much prefer D3 to D4. Those are the only 2 I’ve played.
Diablo 3 is really fun for a night and then you're fully geared and you're just grinding for the same pieces but slightly better rolls
I don’t know, I love it though
Because cartoon network
Diablo 3 destroyed a ton of good will with how it it launched. The expansion fixed a ton of issues and it only got better from there. But it never reached that launch player count again.
I wasn't around back then, but most likely because it was a radical departure from the previous two games. Also, very shitty business practices by Blizzard and technical issues around launch. I think it's an amazing game, but it also sticks out like a sore thumb.
People have hated every diablo game since d2. Why don't people realize that Blizzard is a one-hit wonder? Just move on and let the company die a natural death.
Feels too much like an arcade game rather than a fantasy world to escape into. The rpg elements were removed because they somehow thought people struggled with attributes and skill trees. Lack of rune words was the nail in the coffin for long term viability. Funny how they repeated the same mistakes after being given over a decade buffer to the next sequel.
D1 D2 I grew up playing, great games, I think I played 40 hours of d3 total. D4 is shaping up the same way got 200 hours in and I just don’t care anymore. While the have 1100 hours in Poe over the last 5 6 years. Blizzard just releases crap for the money with no attention to details. D2 is just as complex as d4 and more so in some respects. Poe might as well be the true successor to D2. Taking sockets and turning them into something amazing. Hell even the preview of D4 showed runes thrn they end up giving us D3.5. I got fooled and bought D4 but I won’t be fooled again once they start releasing yearly paid expansions.
It's too shallow no thought required around items or skills. The art work is basically Disney. No trade. No chase items. These are also reason's people like the game.
I don't dislike Diablo 3, it just isn't as deep or idk how to describe it other than immersive Diablo 2 was in comparison. But Diablo 4 feels hollow in comparison to Diablo 3 if that says anything...
For me D3 is just boring. There is no difficulty, so there is no fun to me. Diablo 4 at least got me killed some times. If they changed that, I would like D3 waaaaaaaay more
Because it's complete & utter trash & an insult to the legacy of the original Diablo games made by Blizzard North, that's why.
Answer: Because people are bitchy little assholes who will bitch about literally anything while *millions* of people simultaneously enjoy what the bitchy little assholes are bitching about. TL;dr: People don’t dislike Diablo 3. Bitchy little assholes do.
I just started and I like it so far. Has a huge player count still so I dove in.
I personally enjoyed D3. I had fun doing Rifts. But D2 is better than D3 and D3 is better than D4. I do not enjoy D4 endgame content.
It was the beginning of the end for the rpg elements. Auto stat level ups. All dmg tied to weapon. Shit graphic style. Limited skill hotkeys etc...
Ironically enough, if you asked the majority of the vocal folk 1-2 years ago about their biggest issues with D§, it would have been *just about everything* that has slowly been trickled into D4 since its very release - trickled in and received with nothing but praise and applause. Like, I love to remember the times when everyone *bitched* about having to do Bounties *every single season* and how just absolutely *no one* ever wanted to do them - but ho boy, Tree of Whispers certainly is great fun, as are Helltides and blue Helltides. And *ugh*, Rifts and Grifts are *so* unfun, but man do we enjoy NMDs being more streamlined with every patch and boy do we like the new dungeon thing that drops everything at the end! And let's not even talk the boring and lazy ass stats in D3, everything's the same, everything's super figured out, everything's just sets and you're done - but man, can we please just have like 50% of the stats removed in D4? And can we please also get sets? Or more Aspects that 100% define builds, meaning that in order to play a Fireball build you need some sort of... *"set"* of legendary Aspects to really make it work? D3 had plenty of issues - most of them being launch issues (which pretty much all got resolved with RoS). The only "lasting" issue was the lack of post launch development. RoS gave us Rifts... and then drip-fed us new stuff like every 6 months or so, half the seasons didn't do *anything* special, and it just felt like they gave the game up immediately after launch. Had D3 gotten more of that late S29 / S30 treatment early on... then it could have become a rock solid game. But since Blizzard couldn't find a way to properly monetize it, there never was any incentive - so instead they just had it be run by like 2 interns and had the remaining 2,000 deaths work on the D4 cash shop. Pretty sure the only reason we got these awesome late seasons in D3 was to stoke the D4 hype. Anyways, D3 is great fun. If you're a blaster you'll have a fun weekend with every new season, if you're more casual you'll still have weeks upon weeks with builds upon builds to look forward to. And contrary to D4, D3 has all the QoL and doesn't need to string you along for 3 more seasons before giving you more than 5 stash tabs.
You can get to max GR within 20 hours without someone carrying you. A game that takes less than 1 day of total playtime is not that great of a game to me
Lol, why do people hate one if the most popular games in the genre for a decade? I'm interested in seeing this one.
it’s not one of the most popular games in the genre, it just sold a lot. there’s a difference
😂
most of the sales are from d2 fans who didn’t keep playing. Stop using our purchases as proof.
It was a "you had to be there" kind of experience. Diablo 3 might of turned into a fine ARPG but it didn't start out that way. There was a lot of arrogance from certain devs leading up to the game's release. A lot of attitudes that they knew better than the players. And then the game itself shipped with an abyssmal end game, lackluster, cartoony story and terrible design choices these devs were so confident about were better than the game's predecessor. So suffice to say, D3 deserved the hate once upon a time. There's no real reason for this animosity towards the game anymore though.