What has changed ? Is change always good ?
Blizzard has come up with another game with the name of "Diablo". It took me a while to cover up the entire game there are a lot of things i would like to write here but i'm going to try to keep it short.
1) Of course, constant internet connection. I'm terribly disappointed with the fact that i cannot play Diablo whenever i want to chill after a friday evening due to server breakdown or i'm stuck in the office without an internet connection.
You may think its a good thing since it allows you to connect to your friend easily whenever you want but Diablo 2 did that as well and it did not require any type of internet connection.(-1)
2) Many people could not login and play Diablo as they want because they get some kind of stupid error that prevents them from logging in the game. I feel like as if i'm a kid trying to login Everquest back when i had 128k adsl internet. So Blizzard, thank you for this nostalgic feeling of desperation.(-1)
Let's get to the real stuff.
3) Difficulty design.
Blizzard decided to make an auction house where people can easily purchase other people's items. Items change significantly (very) as you reach new difficulty levels. Since you have access to every type of item in the game, all you have to do is to get some rare item from a friend who finished "hell" difficulty and "nightmare" difficulty is a piece of cake all of a sudden.
Not to mention the stat differences change significantly every level which makes lower levels extremely easy to play with higher level items.
They should have given creatures new abilities or certain buffs instead of changing the stats that much as the difficulty increases. It would also force the player to use proper tactics and methods to reach new levels which is very satisfactory.
The trick here is that, give just enough amount of stats for a player who has just finished nightmare difficulty, who would find hell very difficult compared to nightmare with more cunning foes ( not making it easy by purchasing new items from the AH ) and low level difficulty not as easy as it is now.
I'm not even gonna talk about inferno in this game. It's not fun, its just a major headache without the proper items and there are like no variety of skills. At least we have the "hardcore" option which is mostly ruined by connection issues, lags, frequent disconnects. Its still fun.
I really think Blizzard dropped the ball at designing proper difficulty levels, which resulted in bad itemization and easy going gameplay for nightmare and hell difficulties.
Itemization, difficulty design, inferno (-2).
4) Character development.
Anyone else missed Drognan? Or the mad alchemist Lysander ? Gambler Alkor from Act III in Diablo 2 ?
My point is, lack of new characters is truly disturbing. There are like no memorable new characters at all in Act I-II-III. (-1)
5) Lack of a knightly character or a dark caster.
I miss my necromancer. Witch doctor is more like a doctor instead of a real dark caster. Also a strength user with a shiny armor is a great missing feature in the game. (-1)
5) Okay graphics. Its low compared to what we have nowadays but its playable and thats what matters. (+0.5)
6) Sequel to Diablo. (+1)
Its a 5.5 .
You see, it pains me more than you think to give such a low grade to a game i really used to love to play. However, i think its safe to say that it deserved it. Its still a game worth buying and playing but it'll always be a bad game when compared to what it was.
Thanks for reading.