Why do people hate this game?

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/6933874624?page=2#21

I wouldnt generalize all of the negative feedback as “everyone hating this game”.   Sure, some of the negativity ends up going way over the top, but if you pick out key phrases, you’ll see words like unrewarding, uninspiring, boring, poor itemization, linear playthrough, always online, etc.  In other words, there are common themes to why a portion of the player base feels alienated.  Some folks prefer to rage about it while others want to provide more constructive feedback in hopes of seeing the underlying issues addressed.

I do realize that games. no matter the genre, will always have different meanings to different people.  Some play games for the pure entertainment and fun value, some play for the challenges, others play for competition and ego, others play to be the absolute best and/or to always have the best items.  And yes, none of these are mutually exclusive as there will always be players who are after several of these.  Back in May-July, I was still having a lot of fun since after completing Inferno, I started leveling alts along with playing hardcore.  Now that I have several level 60’s though (two which I paragon leveled a bit while using some of the “better” drops to slowly re-gear my “yet to be Inferno played” barbarian), it’s turned into a mostly unrewarding time sink.

To put it more simply, one of the main challenges that game developers have to do is to understand all of this in order to be able to satisfy a broad demographic.  At the same time, they have to balance the challenges with the rewards.  The majority of loot inspired games basically relate back to B.F. Skinner’s Skinner Box experiment.  In games like this though, the quality of the reward is relative since that is dependent on ones baseline gear.  What may be a high quality to one may not be for someone who already has decent items.  Yes, there are some who actually don’t care about the loot and have fun just slaying demons so the following doesn’t necessarily apply to those folks.

For D3, Normal to Hell difficulty isn’t where the itemization issue becomes problematic.  At lower levels, the rolls on items do tend to make sense including those on class specific items.  This is why it is relatively fun leveling through Normal to Hell (albeit having to go through the story line questing does become old after awhile).  What that tells me is that Blizzard could use that same functionality to roll stats which makes more sense on higher level items, but chooses not to do so (I understand that since grinding for loot is one of the aspects when you are working your way through and/or once you’ve cleared all of Inferno).

However,  relegating rolls completely to the mercy of RNG for Inferno level items leaves us with the whole “unrewarding” aspect when it comes to the loot which does drop.  It’s not about the quantity that drops, but about finding the occasional quality reward which offers a positive reinforcement which keeps players wanting to play.  If you are on the unlucky side of RNG, ultimately the desire to continue playing goes down because you’ll feel like you are doing these repetitive runs for “nothing” (sure, you now at least get experience, gold/magic find bonuses from Paragon levels but that doesn’t really count towards giving players their dopamine fix).

Since the items which do tend to drop is normally not even worthwhile to use on an alternate character (meaning the chances are also relatively low that someone else out there would want it) and/or is unsellable on the AH, it ends up as vendor trash/salvage.  Thus the reality is that many players feel like they have to farm for gold because they are unable to come across drops which would be useful either for an alt or useful to someone else if they put it up on the AH.    I’m also not advocating for the highest quality rares and legendaries to raining everywhere like a loot pinata as that is equally and more so boring/unrewarding (might as well put in a cheat mode console like TL2).  The key is finding a proper balance.

The AH itself can be its own worst enemy because some players felt driven away by it (sticker shock if they did not do more refined searches) and therefore no longer try to use it as a tool.  Which is unfortunate because I’ve tried to put up some of the “better” stuff for not much over vendor price only to have no takers.  I see profiles out there where some could have used those items which I ended up vendoring.  With both rares and legendaries now dropping at a higher rate, all this means for more players is filling up their inventory even quicker while still finding the majority of it is as vendor trash/salvage material; in otherwords, generally unrewarding.

Which is why one feature I’d like to end up seeing is a community chest where players have a shared community tab in their stash where I can place items that I want to give away (you’d need to accept and confirm just like in a trade window and would have the same AH 5 minute delay before anything you put in there goes live).  All of this would get aggregated into a server wide system where players could then search through the community chest and pick ONE item on a weekly/monthly basis (they need to meet the level requirements which would be one of the mechanisms to prevent low level bots from raiding the chest).  While I know the same can be accomplished by posting in a chat channel and opening up a game, the above does not require ones presence to be able to give away items.  For some of us, being able to do something like this where it benefits the larger community would be a substitute reward as not all us want to play AH tycoon.

Anyway, this is why I’ve become even more cynical whenever the development blog goes on about increased rewards.  The philosophy of the Diablo III decision makers have tended towards one that does not fully understand what makes games like this fun and rewarding to continually grind the same content over and over again.  They want things like the PvE game play to be overall balanced and the build diversity of each character class to also be balanced.  They buff and then overcompensate with nerfs elsewhere.  They offer challenges and increased difficulties but the rewards themselves tend to end up being extremely lackluster.  Inferno previously had some pretty obvious defined gear checks including enrage timers on elite packs.  That shows the kind of design philosophy the decision makers have in place as to what constitutes a challenge- by introducing MMORPG mechanics into an ARPG where the objectives are simple; slay demons, collect loot, use/trade loot to progress.  For every step forwards, it is offset by a few steps backwards.  Players often times say they feel at powerful at the beginning of the game but feel weak once they hit the later difficulties which is counter to the notion that there should be a general feeling of progression as your game time increases.

During the start of the PTR, the Hellfire Ring bug (unbeknownst at the time) made many players excited because it was the exact kind of reward they’ve been looking for to keep themselves busy.  While I understand the bug made it way too overpowered, the decision makers instead of capitalizing on this, decided to over nerf the ring as opposed to finding a sweet spot where players would still feel compelled to continually grind for the ring.  This further cemented in my mind that this development team does not fully grok the rewards aspect of the grindfest and are still taking an MMORPG mindset when it comes to balancing the PvE aspects of an ARPG (and before someone mentions this in relation to PvP, I think they’ve already said that PvP balance will be isolated from PvE balance).

Generally speaking, Diablo III is great when it comes to its graphics and fluid combat mechanics.  It falls short on the larger execution though when it comes to the game world (not very randomized), linear quest based story line which gets in the way, unbalanced rewards in relation to the challenge, difficulty, and time sink involved, lack of useful in-game gold sinks which goes towards progression, etc.  And if you read peoples postings, there are numerous other reasons including comparing D2 (more specifically, the LoD expansion) and D3.  Sure, some things which may have been cut out from D3 may end up returning in an expansion but as it stands, Blizzard is burning through the goodwill legacy of the Diablo franchise with some of its customer base.  Back in July, there were numerous threads asking if you’d purchase an expansion.  My own response at the time was that either way, I could not say at the time since it would really depend on how Blizzard addressed many of the games shortcomings.  As it stands now, I’ve been playing less and less since 1.0.4 and even though 1.0.5 offered a host of positive changes, bottomline, it still feels unrewarding.  With the current design philosophy of those in charge of the franchise, I just can’t see myself as a prospective customer for any Diablo III expansion at this juncture.

And this is why many are trying to provide feedback (some do it better than others) because there are still those of us who truely want to see them make some fundamental changes to the quality of rolls on Inferno level items and to scale the rewards with the difficulty and challenges to where the whole fun aspect of the game will return on its own.  However, unlike others who will continue rehashing the same thing over and over again, I know when it is time to just step away for awhile and to check back again once several patches have passed.