Home Gaming The current state of Diablo III

The current state of Diablo III

5 min read
77

ros

Blizzard games are all the rage right now, and I’m probably going to get a lot of flack for this post, but I’m sick and tired. I love Diablo. I caught the tail end of Diablo 2 back in 2008, just in time to get excited for Diablo III, and boy was I excited. Upon launch, you could barely get on the servers to play. Much like that first date where your suitor starts naming your unborn children, this should have already been a major red flag. But, okay, we gave Blizzard the benefit of the doubt and assumed they perhaps weren’t ready for the influx of diehard fans wanting a taste of the new Diablo.

Two years later, no, I’m not kidding, two years later they released the expansion – Reaper of Souls. This was great! It came with a new class, more end game objectives, new class sets, legendary items, a range of difficulties and a new act. Again we set out grinding our hearts out for perfect gear as we pushed ourselves for faster, more efficient farming, but what for? Nothing, really. Blizzard had still not released Season leaderboards or PVP.

The Season of Grinding

Then came Season Leaderboards, and Diablo became fun again. Now you could grind out gear for a purpose as you push the leaderboards in the Greater Rifts. Endgame had a purpose, and this was all about who could farm the most efficiently, and who had the best RNG when grinding. But, as with other previous patches, it became stale again soon, but with each Season patch, came new updates and this was a good sign of progression.

dh

Last year a group of friends and I decided that each Season we would make characters and play until we got bored. During Season 4 I must have spent roughly 14 hours a day playing Diablo… It was a very lonely time for me. But also, Diablo III was that fun again. Season 5 came and with it a lot of changes to redundant sets and some class reworks. I unfortunately barely took part in Season 5 due to lack of internet, but come Season 6 I would be ready, and I was. Except I was let down, hard.

Nothing had changed between Season 5 and 6 other than a few changes and character fixes. No new items, no new features, nothing. I have been grinding, and will probably continue grinding after I’m done writing today, but only because I am a sucker for shiny legendary items.

Oh, they did add a few cosmetic items to the Season, which is cool… I guess.

No challenge

The patch has been out for three  days and already people are pushing Greater Rift 100 plus. For those of you who might be a little lost, Greater Rifts are what put you on leaderboards. You have 15 minutes to complete a rift of higher difficulty, and of course, the higher you go and faster you complete it, the better spot you get on the leader board. You can do these solo, groups of two, three, or four.

In the first iterations of Season rifting, progression was slow, and a real challenge for those who took it seriously enough to push the leaderboards. By the time I’d start losing interest in a Season, groups of four were maybe pushing 80-85 Greater Rifts. Today, after three days of Season 6, players have already pushed as far as 102.

Leaderboards

To give you some perspective, last season after, after five months, players got as far as 114. It’s almost as if Blizzard have lost all interest in Diablo III as the prepare for other titles, like the impending Overwatch.

Some would argue that there are those people who spend hours and hours grinding through the Public Test Realm, finding out the perfect gear combos, readying up for the Season so they can progress quickly, but surpassing GR100 in less than a week? I’m not so happy about that.

Where does Diablo’s future lie?

At the moment, nobody knows. At every BlizzCon die-hard fans wait for the announcement of some sort of update, patch, expansion or new title, but it never happens. It has been two years since Reaper of Souls came out, and nothing has been hinted at yet. Lore lovers will agree that the story is getting good, and we need more. But we are still waiting.

We still don’t have any sort of PvP, which was promised, but we gave up on that about three years ago. Diablo is slowly slipping away, and unless Blizzard releases new content next Season, I fear I will stop playing for good. I’m still enjoying the game, don’t get me wrong. The grind is fun, the friendship that comes with it is amazing, but I’m starting to lose hope.

I have this recurring nightmare where I’m privileged enough to get a tour of Blizzard HQ. There I’m taken through this amazing campus where they show me the different departments. Starcraft II is filled with die-hard fans, trying to figure out how they can make it great again. World of Warcraft has its own dedicated several floors. Overwatch is an entire building of devs and marketing people. Heroes of the Storm is a giant whiteboard of bad ideas. Hearthstone is basically a replica of Gringrots Bank in Harry Potter, and in a lone broom closet, far from any glamor and glory, is one lone developer trying to keep Diablo alive.

Last Updated: May 3, 2016

77 Comments

  1. Ottokie

    May 3, 2016 at 10:04

    I enjoy every new season, the point of a new season is not new content or lore. It’s about pushing yourself and trying to beat your previous season max Rift rank.

    Reply

    • Alien Emperor Trevor

      May 3, 2016 at 10:14

      Have you played the new WF event? It’s quite fun when you don’t get saddled with headless chickens.

      Reply

      • Ottokie

        May 3, 2016 at 10:15

        Did 2 runs, got 1 point, saw the end weapon needs 100 points. So I will be skipping this event xD

        Reply

        • Alien Emperor Trevor

          May 3, 2016 at 10:25

          lol it’s much better now since they patched it. Get 1 point for 1st level, 10 (I think) for second, 25 for third. So you only need to do it a few times for get the weapon. It was 1, 5, 10 when I started and finished it – plus they’ve made the executioners easier too. Once you’ve done those you can access the new boss fight with Kela, and she has a guaranteed drop of one of the new weapon-specific mods & according to legend, the new secondary.

          Reply

          • Ottokie

            May 3, 2016 at 10:31

            Sweet, then I will complete the event somewhere in this week.

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            May 3, 2016 at 10:36

            Pro-tip: Shoot those MF drones as soon as you see them. Even toned down those things are the most lethal enemies in the event, even worse than the main enemies. They killed me more than anything else – reduced my full health Inaros to zero in a couple of seconds if I wasn’t careful.

          • Admiral Chief in New York

            May 3, 2016 at 10:43

            RhinoP FTW

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            May 3, 2016 at 10:48

            P stands for paper, right? ;P

            I’ve seen so many of those dropping like flies.

          • Ottokie

            May 3, 2016 at 10:50

            Would have taken Valkyr, but if I remember correctly the energy is reduced to 10

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            May 3, 2016 at 10:52

            Start with zero, but there are energy pickups, plus with Inaros Rage is a default, so energy is easy to get, not that I used his abilities anyway seeing as they didn’t do much. A single shot from the Sancti Tigris to the face is usually enough.

          • Ottokie

            May 3, 2016 at 10:53

            Do they get harder? I had my 6 forma Dex Sybaris and they fell in one shot.

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            May 3, 2016 at 10:55

            Wait until you get the level scaling modifier when you play the lvl 60 T3. The highest I saw was a lvl 108. That needed a few shots to kill.

          • Ottokie

            May 3, 2016 at 10:55

            Mmmmm, now that sounds a bit more interesting xD

          • Admiral Chief in New York

            May 3, 2016 at 10:57

            6 forma???

            Geez

          • Ottokie

            May 3, 2016 at 10:58

            It looked so flippen good with my Nova, I decided to make it my main weapon

          • Admiral Chief in New York

            May 3, 2016 at 11:00

            LOL, yeah I’m building some weapons that require forma (already have the weapon BP’s, so I need to build em) so I’m short some.

            PoorForma

          • Ottokie

            May 3, 2016 at 11:02

            Got a 3 hour Infinity booster this weekend, almost spent some forma on my Soma Prime, then remembered I have no more forma left xD

            Back to crafting

          • Admiral Chief in New York

            May 3, 2016 at 11:07

            I need forma BPs, where is the best place to farm those?

          • Ottokie

            May 3, 2016 at 11:09

            They are Void trash. Or you could ask Trev to go farming Ash P BP with him xD

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            May 3, 2016 at 11:10

            lol. I gave up on that a long time ago. Last time I farmed for that was with you.

          • Ottokie

            May 3, 2016 at 11:11

            One day you will get it… probably the same day I get a Atlas systems

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            May 3, 2016 at 11:14

            I’d rather buy it – eventually I will heh. Defense is my least favourite mission.

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            May 3, 2016 at 11:09

            In the void, but the trick is you have to want something else. Then you’ll get 100s.

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            May 3, 2016 at 11:02

            I’d forma a lot more stuff if it wasn’t such a pain to relevel the gear. And then forma it again. And relevel again.

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            May 3, 2016 at 11:01

            Speaking of looking good, with the event update my Ember P got a PBR update. I’m in love all over again. Hot damn! Pun intended.

          • Ottokie

            May 3, 2016 at 11:04

            Have to go check it out, her rendering was a bit dated

          • Admiral Chief in New York

            May 3, 2016 at 10:53

            I just hold at the beginning, grab some energy, activate skin, then roll like thunda!

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            May 3, 2016 at 10:56

            I get annoyed when teamed with Ash’s bladestorming everywhere. Running around trying to find enemies before they turn red heh.

          • Admiral Chief in New York

            May 3, 2016 at 10:43

            Wasn’t it 5 points for T2 and 10 points for T3?

            Anyway, the boss fight was kinda fun actually!

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            May 3, 2016 at 10:47

            Yes, they patched it later to make it quicker. I finished the whole thing when it when it was still tricky. Now you only have to repeat the T3 twice to redo the boss fight, instead of 5, which is way better. Before that I was like… um… no, once is enough.

          • Admiral Chief in New York

            May 3, 2016 at 10:52

            Masehare, and here I went and powered through the “old” version

  2. Alien Emperor Trevor

    May 3, 2016 at 10:07

    The last Blizzard game I played was Diablo… 2.

    Reply

  3. VampyreSquirrel

    May 3, 2016 at 10:08

    I still have to drop into the new season, which I may just start tonight.

    Reply

    • HairyEwok

      May 3, 2016 at 10:35

      I tried playing a season… Playing alone is no fun man, no fun at all.

      Reply

      • VampyreSquirrel

        May 3, 2016 at 10:37

        That’s why I join @ottokie:disqus 😛

        Reply

        • Ottokie

          May 3, 2016 at 10:40

          You need some speed leveling tonight?

          Reply

          • VampyreSquirrel

            May 3, 2016 at 10:40

            haha, can do that. I’ll set to T10 and you can boost me.

          • Ottokie

            May 3, 2016 at 10:41

            I think T5 is max for below level 70 😛

          • Admiral Chief in New York

            May 3, 2016 at 10:41

            I only have one character, and he isn’t even level 70

          • Ottokie

            May 3, 2016 at 10:42

            Then we have to fix it 🙂

          • Admiral Chief in New York

            May 3, 2016 at 10:42

            Can’t, busy with my Alt for Division!

          • Ottokie

            May 3, 2016 at 10:43

            Okie dokie

          • Admiral Chief in New York

            May 3, 2016 at 10:45

            Also, never got into D3 that much tbh, but most likely wasn’t fun since I did it alone

          • Ottokie

            May 3, 2016 at 10:46

            Yea, alone it’s boring. But running with a full group is very entertaining when you compete with each other for DPS

          • VampyreSquirrel

            May 3, 2016 at 10:48

            He hasn’t been on Battle.net for OVER a year… he’s lost.

          • Admiral Chief in New York

            May 3, 2016 at 10:51

            LOL really?

            …waitaminute…

            YOU SPY ON ME??????????

          • VampyreSquirrel

            May 3, 2016 at 11:04

            Nope, I have you on battlenet and it tells me you’ve been offline for over a year 😛

          • Admiral Chief in New York

            May 3, 2016 at 11:07

            SPY!!!

          • VampyreSquirrel

            May 3, 2016 at 11:14

            LOL! Nope.

          • VampyreSquirrel

            May 3, 2016 at 10:48

            ag, whatever… Tsomething and adventure mode.

          • Ottokie

            May 3, 2016 at 10:45

            Just call me on Skype when you need the boost, I will probably be in Overwatch tonight 😛

          • VampyreSquirrel

            May 3, 2016 at 10:49

            Lol! Cool. I’ll distract you so you can get me to lvl 70 and a bit beyond and then you can go back to Overwatch.

          • Ottokie

            May 3, 2016 at 10:50

            What class are you running this season?

          • VampyreSquirrel

            May 3, 2016 at 11:05

            Thinking WitchDoctor… but going to check what armor sets are dropping from the season thing.

          • VampyreSquirrel

            May 3, 2016 at 11:08

            Yeah, Witch Doctor it is.

        • Vulcha

          May 3, 2016 at 11:11

          Is there no official Lagz community/clan?

          Reply

          • VampyreSquirrel

            May 3, 2016 at 11:15

            I don’t know about it if there is one lol

          • Vulcha

            May 3, 2016 at 11:16

            Seems like it should be a thing.

          • Ottokie

            May 3, 2016 at 11:17

            I am still clanless, so maybe Kyle can organize one *wink wink

          • VampyreSquirrel

            May 3, 2016 at 11:18

            Yeah, there’s a few people that still play D3, so we could probably get away with making one.

        • HairyEwok

          May 3, 2016 at 14:30

          How do you even play with him, all he does is suck a persons soul out. He’s like the true Diablo XD

          Reply

          • VampyreSquirrel

            May 4, 2016 at 08:37

            It helps being over 1000km from him… so it takes longer to happen.

          • HairyEwok

            May 4, 2016 at 08:47

            Ahhh yes lag.

  4. For the Emperor!

    May 3, 2016 at 10:13

    I really enjoyed Season 5 – I made my first seasonal character and pushed GR close to 70 I believe. Then I stopped. I am not playing Season 6, not because it will suck, but rather because I enjoyed S5 so much after taking a few months off, that I am skipping S6 so that S7 will be amazing again. But what Blizzard REALLY need to do, is make a Witcher/Mass Effect/Dragon Age style RPG in one of their game worlds. If they do that, with the budget, talent and rich lore available to them, the pre-orders would be over 9000!

    Reply

    • Mossel

      May 3, 2016 at 12:54

      Hopefully way over 9000. 9000 for the Gauteng province alone!

      Reply

      • For the Emperor!

        May 3, 2016 at 13:47

        LoL ja. Wanted to grab one of the DBZ Vegeta “over 9000” images and edit it to 9 million, but then work happened 🙁 Diablo had like 13m sales in the first week (combined with pre-orders I think) so I believe something like what I envision would probably have 20m+!

        Reply

  5. Original Heretic

    May 3, 2016 at 10:13

    D3 just didn’t have the same appeal to me as D2. I played it, maxed out a couple of characters. Then lost complete interest. It was same shite, different day. Got boring.

    Reply

    • Pariah

      May 3, 2016 at 10:24

      I found D2 more boring than D3.

      And yes, D3 got old, fast.

      Reply

      • Original Heretic

        May 3, 2016 at 10:32

        D2 had more of a sense of accomplishment when you levelled up. And when they added Throne of Baal, it became amazing.
        But hitting max level in D3 was just far too easy. After that, it was all about getting better equipment. Which all comes down to chance. I hate that. Passionately,

        Reply

        • Pariah

          May 3, 2016 at 10:34

          Diablo 2 was boring though. I have never once completed a nightmare playthrough. I just couldn’t stand it. D3 at least had me pushing for end-game gear and Paragon levels. D3’s gameplay was at least fun and exciting. D2 didn’t have that.

          But in the end, they do get old. There’s only so much loot grinding you can do before it becomes yawn.

          Reply

          • miaau

            May 3, 2016 at 12:46

            D2 was one of my “relaxing” tools. Come home from work, go kill Mephisto or Baal a few times. Make supper. Feel better. In that way, it was awesome. Also, my Assasin was so deadly, it should have been banned. My Assasing of lower level than other chars, did WAAAAAAY more damage and survived way longer.

            Also, must type in “players 8” into console, before playing, to make the game more interesting AND get more XP.

  6. Brian

    May 3, 2016 at 10:51

    Other aspects of DIII that are bad – Playing solo is a huge waste of time if you plan to be a little competitive. Current group meta requires 3 support builds and only 1 DPS to be effective. Botting was a major issue for over 2 seasons and only dealt with towards the end of last season. There is currently too much emphasis on paragon points.

    I don’t really see a problem with people pushing 100+ already. With the power creep that happens every season, it was to be expected that we would see groups go well beyond 100 this season. With the changes to the gems this season, I expect some individuals break the 100 grift barrier solo.

    Reply

  7. Goran

    May 3, 2016 at 12:39

    D3 is dead a long time ago….with this terrible dmg mechanism that totally depends of blizzard itsself , with no choice at all but to follow what blizzard decides its strong gear and weapon, with no diversity at all, with no skill choice and elemental builds, no PVP, no group builds at all for some caracters as dh and crus….d3 is only and all about cosmetics and distraction from the point that game is dead. Cold dead. And revamped d2 would be better than this.

    Reply

  8. Craig "Crios" Boonzaier

    May 3, 2016 at 13:26

    2.4.1 is a minor patch, considering how large 2.4 was.
    Also, its free, and we will continue to get free content/updates every 3 months with the seasons.
    If activision had their way, you would be paying for every one of these “dlc’s”

    Reply

  9. Guava_Eater

    May 3, 2016 at 14:17

    When it comes to feeling rewarded for the time you put in, D3:RoS is still the best bang for your buck. I can pick it up, play for a few hours and feel a sense of accomplishment knowing my character is better than when I logged on.

    Bite me The Division

    Bite me Destiny

    You waste my time with your RNG on RNG divided by RNG multiplied by RNG crap!

    Reply

  10. Yatty

    May 3, 2016 at 17:11

    Make a new Diablo game, 3’s name is already ruined and its reputation will be hard to get back.
    He’ll even a reboot will be something.

    Reply

  11. Charl van der Merwe

    May 4, 2016 at 11:59

    It sounds like you really got your money’s worth, what other game could even try and claim hours per rand spent ratio like diablo ? How many hours did you spend in Diablo 1 and 2 compared to 3 ? and still the complaining is astronomical
    I got more hours out of diablo 3 than any other game other then HOTS. I enjoyed it, but now I’m done with it.

    Was still a great game.

    Reply

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