I can think of just one downside, and that’s the value offered to casual players.
Hitting monsters in Diablo 3 is fun, and there are no questionable design decisions to obscure that. They’re great because they let the core gameplay, which was always good, shine.
The improvements made by the patch and the expansion aren’t great just because of what they add to the game. I say this as a huge fan of the genre and active admirer of Path of Exile, the game which was my default choice until Blizzard released the 2.0 patch. Sure, if you want you could really nitpick Diablo III’s design, but ultimately any minor grievances seem so trivial when compared to the enjoyment I had and will continue to have with Diablo III for years to come.Diablo 3 is now the best action-RPG available. It's addictive on a level few games can match, so much so that it's easy to largely overlook its flaws. So many systems from previous Diablo titles have been improved, making for an approachable, rewarding and deeply satisfying treasure hunting game. Twelve long years of waiting and fans are finally playing Diablo III, and, if my recent marathon sessions are any indication, they will be for the foreseeable future.
Be sure to stay tuned to IGN throughout the week to catch my full review! Right now it’s off to a pretty good start, but I’m going to be putting a lot more time into it before rendering a final verdict. Those are some of my feelings on Reaper of Souls based on a relatively short amount of playtime, but as you probably know, the true value of its many additions can only be fully explored with extensive play. Shields have become potentially exciting drops, but Blizzard has done a good job of ensuring you don’t feel neutered without one. The decision to work with or without a shield has a huge impact on how the Crusader plays, while also adding value to a typically undervalued item type. Their many shield-dependent skills, like shield bash and blessed shield, provide a dynamic that’s largely missing from the other characters. They hit with satisfying authority like the latter, but with crowd-control and support powers that liken them to the former. The new Crusader class feels terrific so far though, filling the void between the Monk and the Barbarian nicely. Efforts have been made to make more item modifiers feel impactful in Reaper of Souls, but at the end of the day, survivability and raw damage output are still king, and drowning me in items to sift through doesn’t solve that problem. For instance, items like Enigma from Diablo 2, drastically changed the way characters played by giving them abilities they otherwise couldn’t obtain.
The stark simplicity of what makes a piece of gear desirable boils item decisions down to math, rather than more interesting choices like what playstyles they might facilitate. The rising tide of loot also makes plain one of Diablo 3’s biggest and most persistent shortcomings: itemization. I found my inventory filled to the brim every 15 to 20 minutes or so, forcing me to make town runs more frequently than I like to. This makes playing Reaper of Souls a more consistently rewarding experience, but it comes with caveats as well. They’re still the juiciest carrots on the stick, but the stick is mercifully shorter than before. I snagged my first legendary inside of an hour after starting up (compared to only seeing a handful of them drop in over 200 hours of Diablo 3). You’ll see far more rare and legendary drops than before, and thankfully, more of it than ever will have stats that are relevant to whatever character you play. Much has been made of “Loot 2.0” – an initiative to fix the loot grind, which was, by Blizzard’s own admission, badly handicapped by the now defunct auction houses. Not only is it visually interesting, but it plays into a sense of hopelessness and otherworldly danger that doesn’t always come across in Diablo 3’s four story acts. Citizens run for their lives only to be suddenly possessed by evil spirits who commandeer their bodies, turning them into fresh vessels for an assortment of ghastly supernatural foes. The streets of Westmarch, the region this expansion’s new act centers around, are dreary and bleak – a tone well-established by muted colors and finely honed art direction.