Board 8 > Diablo 3 just got a new class.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Necromancer added... for fifteen dollars. Seems kind of insanely overpriced for a game that barely has anyone still playing it.
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Blizzard literally gives no fucks about D3 these days. It's all Overwatch, Hearthstone and HotS. Poor D3 :(
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I've been playing around a little bit of it

Corpse Explosion too good
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I think you're severely underestimating how many people still play D3.
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Not sure why they'd add Necromancer of all classes. Kind of a lot of overlap with the Witch Doctor. Feels like you'd wanna add Druid. Or Rogue.

Then again I know a guy who literally boycotted D3 because they replaced the Necromancer with the Witch Doctor so maybe market research says that's the one to add.
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Called it.
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necromancer was the most requested class by far. witch doctor doesn't quite fit the same niche

granted, i hate diablo 3 and i love blizzard
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I think gradual content like this is exactly the right way to support D3, and $15 isn't that much.


But holy shit, this is al there is. This is all the game gets. I find the depth of gameplay in running rifts endlessly for completely random loot so you can't work towards specific items so pointlesss. Adding a new class is awesome. .. but it doesn't help at all if what you'll use it for sucks.

I'm pretty sure the team for D3 is very small. It's just not something they actively developed for, which is a shame. They could print money if they developed the game like Path of Exile. I'd be happy to play a D3 that had legit dev backing.
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Should've been the Necrodancer class.
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sounds like a good excuse to all make new HC necromancers on master and see how far we get before falling apart

(also a lot more fun than THE HEIST)
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Who are you to doubt THE HEIST Drakeryn.
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wow
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All the people that "fixed" D3 moved on to WoW and basically implemented all the D3 stuff into WoW. Except what they originally conceived got watered down into an endless grind instead of a goal to push as high as you can go.
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I don't understand why you'd pay 15 dollars for one class unless you were just that big a fan of the class in D2.
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I haven't played in forever. Is the Crusader fun?
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15 seems overpriced but then again it's not a lot of dough
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If I still played Diablo 3 at this point, no reason not to pay the $15 unless I had no interest in the class at all. With a game like that if you're still playing now you're just trying to milk every last bit of gameplay you can.
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I didn't care about spending 15 for it and I could use the stash tabs as well. Corpse explosion is probably my favorite skill in the entire game now.
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I laughed at the people who said "RIP Path of Exile" to this.
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Its literally $15 for a single class in a game that hasnt seen a significant update for something like 2 years now(Just small balance and QoL changes since the last major update).

Not even close to worth the value.
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metaIslug posted...

Remember when you bought an extra thing and it would come with more content ...and 2 classes? boy time flies

You mean like Lord of Destruction? To be fair, that was over $30 in 2001 dollars, vice $15 in 2017.
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"They just came out with a new class"

"This game is dead and they aren't doing anything to support it"

Pick one.
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metaIslug posted...

Remember when you bought an extra thing and it would come with more content ...and 2 classes? boy time flies

Remember when these extra things cost as much as the original game itself and amount to about an extra chapter's worth of content and sometimes no new characters?
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SmartMuffin posted...

"They just came out with a new class"

"This game is dead and they aren't doing anything to support it"

Pick one.

it's literally both
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I don't think it particularly needs to be "supported" - it's a fun game, it's done

an extra class is neat, but even if they didn't come out with anything it'd still be a fun game
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CoolCly posted...

SmartMuffin posted...

"They just came out with a new class"

"This game is dead and they aren't doing anything to support it"

Pick one.

it's literally both

What percentage of five year old games with no subscription fee do you think get significant content updates?
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I'm finding myself thinking smartmuffin is making valid and logical points. I appreciate this for its rarity and am savoring it.
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ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

I'm finding myself thinking smartmuffin is making valid and logical points. I appreciate this for its rarity and am savoring it.

It's one of the rare times I agree with SmartMuffin too.
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red13n posted...

Its literally $15 for a single class in a game that hasnt seen a significant update for something like 2 years now(Just small balance and QoL changes since the last major update).

Not even close to worth the value.

it's definitely a strange move. I wonder if it's a test case for Diablo 4 price modelling. Typically with long running service games on PC you don't see extended periods (years in D3's case) of a game being in maintenance mode before a sizable content update. Then again, it's hard to see why Blizzard would move on from their retail model after Diablo 3 sold like 30 million copies.
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Fwiw Diablo 3 and ROS is 20$ right now

So this character is about worth almost as much as the game. (It's fun though)
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iiicon posted...

red13n posted...

Its literally $15 for a single class in a game that hasnt seen a significant update for something like 2 years now(Just small balance and QoL changes since the last major update).

Not even close to worth the value.

it's definitely a strange move. I wonder if it's a test case for Diablo 4 price modelling. Typically with long running service games on PC you don't see extended periods (years in D3's case) of a game being in maintenance mode before a sizable content update. Then again, it's hard to see why Blizzard would move on from their retail model after Diablo 3 sold like 30 million copies.

I don't think they have any plans for Diablo 4. They screwed the pooch too badly on Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2.
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I think Necro is something they had planned for an expansion that in all likelihood got cancelled(Theres at least a couple NPC convos that hint at an expansion in RoS)
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SmartMuffin posted...

CoolCly posted...

SmartMuffin posted...

"They just came out with a new class"

"This game is dead and they aren't doing anything to support it"

Pick one.

it's literally both

What percentage of five year old games with no subscription fee do you think get significant content updates?

Diablo 3's direct competitor Path of Exile?
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Path of Exile is 1 1/2 years newer and I am pretty sure is 'free to play'
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Anagram posted...

iiicon posted...

red13n posted...

Its literally $15 for a single class in a game that hasnt seen a significant update for something like 2 years now(Just small balance and QoL changes since the last major update).

Not even close to worth the value.

it's definitely a strange move. I wonder if it's a test case for Diablo 4 price modelling. Typically with long running service games on PC you don't see extended periods (years in D3's case) of a game being in maintenance mode before a sizable content update. Then again, it's hard to see why Blizzard would move on from their retail model after Diablo 3 sold like 30 million copies.

I don't think they have any plans for Diablo 4. They screwed the pooch too badly on Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2.

"Sold like 30 million copies"

"Screwed the pooch too badly"
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And is actively developed and balanced and is continually rewarding to come back and play with new seasons instead of being the same exact experience you had last time you tried playing
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I mean sure, have fun with whatever game you want I enjoy both and don't mind, but just because one game is something you prefer doesn't mean you are comparing apples to apples. You aren't.
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CoolCly posted...

Diablo 3's direct competitor Path of Exile?

also like every big game on PC except for Overwatch and PUGB, which will both be around for years. service games are the new normal. the only difference is whether you pay upfront or through microtransactions (or both!)
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VeryInsane posted...

"Sold like 30 million copies"

"Screwed the pooch too badly"

Blizzard was recruiting for a new Diablo game last year btw
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I am comparing apples to apples.

I LOVE Diablo 3. The base gameplay is EXCELLENT. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it's *better* than Path of Exile. All of the classes are cool and fun to play. The unique mobs were all well designed with varying abilities that made them fun to fight. There's lots of great zones to play through. Rifts are a really cool concept of endlessly scaling content to challenge yourself against. There's lots of interesting items to make builds around.

But Blizzard has chosen to not have an active dev team on this game and just have a couple minor updates to keep a small playerbase strung along. This is a stupid as hell decision.


The current way Diablo 3 works is like this: The only worthwhile thing to do is push rifts as far as you can. Everything you do is intended to work towards that goal, farming bounties or whatever.

To do this, you can only play a few sets which give you insane damage bonuses. If you try doing a build that does not have a set giving 1000% damage bonuses to certain abilities, or does not use Legacy of Nightmares, you will have no success. So you can only play the sets that give bonuses, and not all of the sets are even good. So what builds you can do are extremely limited. There is little to no creativity beyond the established builds on using the VERY DIVERSE skillsets the characters have, or using a lot of uniques. Either a unique fits into a sets build, or it doesn't.

You usually get 1 free set due to the season goals, so you get that, and then beyond that you just begin running rifts endlessly. Rifts by themselves are a really cool concept. But when they are *the only thing you do*, they get very repetitive. Sure you go to all the different tile sets, but after awhile they all become the same. There's no goal to work towards - you just keep running rifts. You can't really do much to work towards particular gear goals - you get deaths breaths and bloodshards every run, which help you "roll for a unique", but its not really targeted, it's 1 in thousands chances even using those. There are a few item types that has a good chance of being rolled with death breaths, but for the most part its pretty unlikely. There are very few pieces of gear you can do something specific to earn, like Ring of Royal Grandeur. This means that your method of progressing your character to get better at rifts, is to just endlessly run rifts. If you've reached a plateau of how strong your character is and what you can run, all you can do its keep running for hours and hours and hope your upgrade drops, with nothing you can do to add to it.
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This was a fine concept at first - but after awhile gets tiring. And that leads us to what Drakeryn said - "it's done". If you've played Diablo 3 already, there's not really any reason to keep playing it. But that's ridiculous - it's an incredible game that has a lot of potential to still be fun.

I *want* to play Diablo 3, but I don't want to just endlessly run rifts. it gets old fast.

They recently released a recreation of the Diablo 1 dungeons as a content update. They had this cool graphical update that made the game pixelated back then which was awesome. And then we went into the Tristram catacombs to experience that sweet sweet Diablo 1 content. And it was just a rift. There was no recreation of the Diablo 1 locations, or interesting gameplay elements. It was just a rift with the cool pixelated look.

It was basically a slap in the face. It was the biggest content update Diablo 3 had in a very long time... and it was literally nothing.

The Necromancer update is cool, for sure. Another class is awesome. Except, there is no dev team actively monitoring the game, adding content to do, and balancing current builds and content to keep things fresh. Why would I want to play this Necromancer? So I can endlessly run rifts again? Seriously?

I'm not here to say Diablo 3 sucks compared to Path of Exile. I'm here to say that Diablo 3 is an awesome game, and Path of Exile is a similarly awesome game in the same genre that shows how to stay fresh and relevant - and Blizzard just isn't doing that. Every other Blizz game is actively developed by a content creation team. But D3 just has these token efforts meant to keep stringing along the playerbase. It sucks. This game could still be so much more... but they just don't want it to be.

I want to play Diablo 3. Just give me something to do.
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My point has nothing to do with what you just said, that's fair.

I just meant that Diablo doesn't have a steady stream of income to pay a dev team while I assume PoE does. Also WoW needed the Diablo team to save it, sadly.
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It *could* have a steady stream of income though. They could easily go f2p - it's not like they don't already run that model.
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CoolCly posted...

It *could* have a steady stream of income though. They could easily go f2p - it's not like they don't already run that model.

While an interesting idea, they could actually lose a whole bunch of customers that way who get mad because they bought the game and now people are getting to play it for free.
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Actually you guys know what else is 15$

Starcraft Remastered.
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BowserCuffs posted...

While an interesting idea, they could actually lose a whole bunch of customers that way who get mad because they bought the game and now people are getting to play it for free.

All the customers who... already paid a long time ago and don't provide any new income stream???

That's easily solvable though - just give all of the "veteran" players special rewards for having purchased the game originally, kinda like they just did with Heroes of the Storm when HotS 2.0 launched. It even functions as a way to pull those old players back in and get invested in whatever new revenue model they use.



I'll also note that I have absolutely no problem with the Necromancer costing $15. I've spent more than that on my PoE Necromancer to make my summons look baller as fuck. I would gladly give them $15 for this Necromancer, if I had any confidence whatsoever that they game will continue to be developed outside of the Necro. But I don't have that confidence.
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CoolCly posted...

All the customers who... already paid a long time ago and don't provide any new income stream???

Customers that could potentially buy future Blizzard products.

CoolCly posted...

That's easily solvable though - just give all of the "veteran" players special rewards for having purchased the game originally,

I've seen other games try this. It doesn't work that well. At best, they're still angry over people getting to play without paying for the game. At worst, they feel insulted for it.

Bearing in mind, I personally would love it if D3 went F2P but I can imagine the backlash would be significant.
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The backlash would be tiny. Look at Team Fortress 2.
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