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Diablo 3 Expansion Reaper of Souls Launches

Posted by Soulskill on from the stay-awhile-and-listen dept.

Today Blizzard released the first expansion to Diablo 3, titled Reaper of Souls. The expansion continues the story with Act 5, which includes trips to Westmarch and Pandemonium. The level cap goes up to 70, there's a new class: the Crusader, and a new crafting NPC: the Mystic. The Mystic lets players reroll specific stats on their gear and change how the gear looks. The loot system has seen a drastic revamp, and Blizzard recently shut down the game's controversial auction house so they could have players find better and more interesting gear by fighting monsters. There's a new type of gameplay called Adventure Mode, which unlocks all waypoints and lets players go wherever they want, unrestricted by the campaign progression. This includes completely randomized dungeons, which can pull art and monsters from almost anywhere in the game. They've combined Adventure Mode with the Bounty system, which opens up randomized objectives scattered throughout the world. Blizzard has confirmed that the first major content patch after the expansion will bring ladders and leaderboards.

23 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. no thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    still online only and 3 more expansions at 40 to 60 bucks a pop coming to up level to 100

    sorry not interested

    1. Re:no thanks by crashcy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      While online only is not much of a problem for me (thanks Google Fiber), your comment comes across as a celebration of a lack of choice.

    2. Re:no thanks by blackicye · · Score: 2

      The console versions don't have that requirement.

      The console version is a different game now essentially, with different mechanics and different content.

    3. Re:no thanks by Calydor · · Score: 2

      Since Warlords of Draenor, which is $49,99. For the standard edition, no less.

      Source: https://us.battle.net/shop/en/...

      Yes, I realize it's an expansion for WoW and not D3, but you only asked about expansion price from Blizzard and didn't specify it had to be for a specific game.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
  2. Nope. by TFlan91 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Avid Ex-Diablo fan.

    Never again, you killed the franchise Blizzard.

    1. Re:Nope. by beheaderaswp · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How about on expanding your comments as to why?

      I'd be interested in why you made that choice.

      --
      Another consultant who stuck it out.

      "We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
    2. Re:Nope. by sexconker · · Score: 2

      How about on expanding your comments as to why?

      I'd be interested in why you made that choice.

      Where to start?

      The loot system is shit - everything from the drops themselves to their rarity to the auction house was designed to extract time and money from players. Yes, the auction house was removed last week but the drops still suck. The auction house (and the design choices made in order to push players to use it) ruined the game for nearly 2 full years.

      The gameplay, story, combat etc. is uninspired. It's generally not any worse than DII but it's not any better. There's nothing substantively new here to keep people experimenting with different character classes and builds. Everything is easily power gamed and the game is nothing but grind if you want to play past a single play through to beat the higher difficulty levels. Run through the campaign once, then grind away using a build you found on the forums until you can do it again at the next difficulty. Yawn.

      The art is horrid. Being too bright/colorful isn't my main issue (though I agree it's worse than the original, darker look we saw earlier). The worst thing about the art is the god damned World of Warcraft art team shitting up everything. I'll never get over WoW's art team shitting up SC2 (compare a WoW felhound to an SC2 zergling for starters), and I'll never get over that same shitty style infesting DIII.

      The meta is a joke. 2 years in and we've still got an unstable game with regards to balance, loot, etc. Blizzard's idea of balance is results-based. If X % of players are using a certain class they balance it to adjust X up or down accordingly. They don't actually bother to balance mechanics, abilities, or class attributes, they're just balancing against popularity. It's SC2 balance all over again. Nerf Terran, buff Zerg, buff Protoss specifically against Terran, all based on 1v1 rock paper scissor matches. The loot similarly is unstable. There's no point in griding for the flavor-of-the-month item if it's going to be B-tier next month.

      Diablo III doesn't have the staying power that its predecessor had. The expansion won't change that. The game is shit from the ground up.

    3. Re:Nope. by ausekilis · · Score: 4, Interesting
      My friends and I were rabid Diablo II fans. I played through DII and it's expansions with many characters and genuinely enjoyed playing with friends. I refused to buy DIII, though I have played the X360 version as well as PC version. My friend did buy DIII and gave me the rundown on why he doesn't care the least about it anymore. Here's a collection of reasons:
      1. Always online. Battle.net, while useful for chatting, is Blizzards answer to Steam for their 4 games. You can no longer play with friends in a LAN party, or via home to home without stopping by a Blizzard server that isn't guaranteed to be there in 10 years.
      2. Incessant grind-fest. While the Diablo games are known for mowing enemies down for hours on end, in order to get to the maximum level pre-expansion you need to beat the game 3 times in a row. It gets tiresome the first time you do everything again. Try levelling more than one character and maintain your sanity... go on... try. D2 had pacing such that you would hit the level cap somewhere in your 3rd play through, though you could certainly grind at a lower level to give yourself better stats in the 2nd or 3rd run. This, in addition to (3)
      3. The maps are not truly random. Many dungeons have a set organization, as you may expect from a scripted story. However, compared to DII, there aren't many "random dungeons" littered along the countryside, and those that are there are much more boring than their DII counterparts.
      4. Loot and the botched Auction House. One of the big problems in DII was endless grinding for new great stuff, Blizzard tried to fix this by creating a real-money Auction House (and net themselves a little profit, much like microtransactions) and create a way for players to spend money instead of hours trying to find that new weapon. Only problem was it wasn't well received and, from what I recall, heavily abused.
      5. Different Dev Team = Different Game. A lot of the original folks behind D1 and D2 went on to form Runic Games and develop Torchlight. The DIII dev team was trying to emulate and expand on that successful formula of D2. From the few hours I played and the reports of friends, it sounds like DIII was hurting in the story and gameplay departments compared to it's predecessors. It just didn't feel "fun" in the way the others did.

      That said, I spent my money on Torchlight 2, which I still find enjoyable and more creative than DIII.

    4. Re:Nope. by Mashiki · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm guessing you actually haven't played the game since 2.0 rolled out. And while what you said was semi-true before the AH was removed it's not now. Otherwise you'd know that loot is rolled based on the character you're playing. While you'll see an "off" stat like "arcane orb" on your "pew-pew disintegrate" build, you're not going to see +133str on your offhand anymore. So that pretty much guts the whole "flavor of the month" thing. There really isn't a pure build out that kicks ass anyway for any class atm.

      Your complaint on the story? Meh. It's the same writer as Warcraft, Diablo, and everything else. There's plenty however for you to experiment with different builds for your playstyle. For quite a while I was a orb launcher, now I'm a destrobeam wizard. On several of the bosses, on torment there was no way I could beat them without using hydra's either.

      Odd that you say the game doesn't have staying power. If you base that on the number of people playing it seems to be just fine. Then again, the only thing that kept people going back to D2, was that they could hack their way to happiness.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    5. Re:Nope. by Remus+Shepherd · · Score: 4, Interesting

      D3 character builds were set by the game design and are very limited compared to D2 character builds.

      In D2 I had a crossbow-using Necromancer. That's flat-out impossible in D3. A Witch Doctor (the D3 Necro class) can't even pick up a bow, if I recall correctly.

      They severely limited player choices, while giving them free respecs. This destroyed replayability. A character of any class in D3 plays the exact same as any other character of that class. (Or could after a quick respec.) This is a fundamental problem with D3 that the expansion doesn't fix.

      It does sound as if the expansion fixes the loot/drop rate fiasco, at least. That's a separate issue, and one that is more important to some players.

      --
      Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
    6. Re:Nope. by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      Maybe they will, maybe they won't. But why should I subject myself to the whims and wants of a company? Why shouldn't they shut down the D3 server to make people buy D4 and move over there? As history has shown, it's far from impossible for a company to do something like that.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    7. Re:Nope. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Clearly Blizzard likes to shut down their servers ... I mean how can they shut down allowing people to telnet to the old battle.net chat!! I mean Diablo is 18 years old, its clear they have no respect for their customers!

                Chat (1996-2005) (they used to allow standard Telnet clients to connect to their servers for chat purposes)
              Diablo (1996-present) (limited to public chat channels)
              StarCraft (1998-present) (and expansion)
              WarCraft II (1999-present) (support added by the "Battle.net Edition" expansion)
              Diablo II (2000-present) (and expansion)
              WarCraft III (2002-present) (and expansion)

                StarCraft II (2010-present) (and expansion)
              World of Warcraft (2010-present) (and four expansions, support added in 2010 with the "migration" of WoW accounts)
              Diablo III (2012-present) (and expansion)
              Battle.net Desktop App (present)
              Hearthstone (present)

    8. Re:Nope. by jxander · · Score: 2

      Amusing that a post full of blatant lies can get +5 Interesting, if it just uses a bit of proper grammar and a tab indented list.

      1. You list "always online" as a problem, then immediately compare it to the other main platform that requires (nearly) Always Online: Steam. Battle.net chatting has pros and cons v Steam. You don't actually have to pause the game or bring up an overlay to use it, but it's harder to keep multiple conversations separate
      2. Grindfest? Compared to D2? Clearly you've never played either game. Leveling in Diablo 2 took an absolutely absurd amount of time. Less than 1% of players (by Blizzards metrics, so grain of salt) ever made it to the cap of 99 in D2. You can reach the level cap in D3 within a week, easily. Of course, then there are innumerable Paragon Levels after that (tiny little buffs, but they stack up over time) Blizzard's official intent was to create an equivalent level of difficulty to reach maximum Paragon level in D3 as to reach level 99 in D2 Either way, you certainly didn't reach the cap "somewhere in your 3rd play-through"
      3. The maps are random enough. Sure Zone 1 always connects to Zone 2, but beyond that, how they connect is random, which hallways leads to the stairs is random, which sidequests spawn is random. Speaking of Sidequests, D3 has many MANY more non-plot related events. Some are simple, some are more involved. Some are scripted events, some are just random dungeons full of monsters... but any way you slice it, there is WAY more side-tracking in D3. The expansion even introduced entire optional quests lines (relatively short ones, but still) for all 3 of your hirelings, the Blacksmith, Jeweler, etc.
      4. Loot has been completely revamped, and the AH is gone. Sure, the AH was a spectacular failure, and maybe it was just a blatant moneygrab, but at least it was something new. Blizz tried a new thing, it didn't work, they removed the thing. I can't say that it was ever abused, at least not any more than any market can be abused. Sure, people probably tried to corner markets or bot for loot, but I dno't know if that counts as abuse of the sales system
      5. Dev teams always change. Some people stick around, some people leave. Doesn't mean the game will be better or worse. One definite improvement was the story line. I suppose that you're claim of "it sounds like..." should be a clue that you're just making shit up, but the characters in D3 are much more realized, backstories much more fleshed out. Part of that is simply time and tech. We can support beautifully rendered cut scenes these days, which helps. But the story doesn't just exist in those cut scenes. Characters will tag along with you and occasionally chatter a bit. Not a lot, just enough to get to know them... so that we feel a little investment later when we're called upon to rescue them.

      Far be it for me to tell you how best to spend your time and money, but you might want to actually give it a shot before pontificating

      --
      This signature is false.
  3. The launch was smooth by Korveck · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was playing Act IV, not knowing the exact time of RoS launch, and was surprised by the announcement that RoS had launched. I left the game after killing the Key Warden and created a new game for Act V. There was no need to log out. The server was stable. I don't think I ever experienced an expansion launch as smooth as this one.

  4. Too Little Too Late by 228e2 · · Score: 2

    I sorta enjoyed DIII. But I've long stopped playing this along with anyone I used to play with months ago.

    Maybe if they came out with this sooner with a higher cap, but Diablo just might be done for me.

    I'll give Warcraft another chance.

    --
    Since when does being a Socialist mean 'someone who has a different opinion than me'?
    1. Re:Too Little Too Late by Anubis+IV · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So if a developer listens to valid criticism, fixes the game, and charges you the price of a full game for the fix, then screw them?

      FTFY. And yes, especially when it's not up to the level of quality we expect from companies that are known for saying "we'll release it when it's done".

      I'm an old-time Warcraft, Starcraft, and general Blizzard fan, but Blizzard started burning various bridges with their fans a few years ago, maybe a year or two after the Activision merger, and for awhile the pace of their doing so seemed to be accelerating, what with the real money auction house (or pretty much anything related to D3, for that matter), the real name ID system, dropping LAN support in their games, and various other smaller things. As a company that used to be known for putting quality and their customers first, those things ran completely contrary to what attracted me to Blizzard in the first place.

      It seems like they're finally getting some sense back, but they'll need to re-earn my trust before I start throwing money their way again. I haven't purchased anything from Blizzard since World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade, and I currently don't have any plans to do so in the foreseeable future. And because most of my friends are feeling just as burned by the company, the peer pressure we used to apply on each other to pick up the latest Blizzard game has simply evaporated. We've moved on to other games from other companies.

      Blizzard's not dead to us, but it certainly isn't anything special any longer.

  5. Fuck the haters... by MugenEJ8 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The "ding" when a legendary/set item drops is crack cocaine to my little brain.

  6. D3 was fun, expansion probably will be too by Petersko · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I bought Diablo 3 and I got about what I expected from it - 60-ish fun hours. I expect I'll get about the same from the expansion pack. At under a buck and hour it's cheap entertainment. That's how video games worked for most of my life.

    What got me was seeing people putting in hundreds of hours, and then complaining on the forums about how some aspect of the game annoys them. "Blizzard better fix this or I'm done with Diablo!" I don't want to come off like an aging hater. You know, "Kids today with their..." But it sure feels like the stereotyped sense of entitlement we ascribe to millenials.

  7. From someone who gave up on the game... by Last_Available_Usern · · Score: 5, Informative

    I reinstalled the game a few weeks ago after not playing for ages due to a constant feeling of never finding decent items and being tied to the AH for upgrades. The game (even just post patch, not even counting the xpac) is so much more playable. If you're on the fence, I can give you a few bullet points that have kept me interested:

    1) With the AH gone, way more legendaries and meaningful items drop.
    2) The drops (both rare and legendary) are often more meaningful as they cater the stats to your class for the most part.
    3) All items (including legendaries) roll max-level with appropriate stats for the person who made the game.
    4) +Skill and +DmgType has become very prevelent stats on many pieces now, making it less about sheet DPS and cookie cutter builds and more about building a spec that compliments your playstyle and the gear you've found.
    5) Paragon levels are shared across all characters so no more grinding paragon for all your toons.
    6) Paragon points are used to supplement stats like Int/Dex/Str, Vitality, Life on Hit, Crit Dmg, etc, allowing you to customize your build further and fill in the blanks your gear lacks.

    All in all, I really like the changes and what little I've seen that they added to the Xpax (namely the Mystic for customizing drops in both appearance and stats) I like as well.

    1. Re:From someone who gave up on the game... by netsavior · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Epic?
      there are Legendary [orange/brown] and Set [green]items
      I assume that is what you are talking about.

      Playing for 40 hours without a drop is supposed to be impossible.
      There is a timer called "safety net" that is ticking away any time you are in combat killing monsters. If you get a legendary or set item, the timer goes to 0. If the timer gets to 2 hours, your chance to get a legendary item steadily ticks up until it is at 100%, then you get a drop, then it goes back to 0.

      the most you can play (actually play, not just sit there) is just over 2 hours before getting a legendary. If not, you should record a video of you playing for 5 hours straight with no drops and put it on the youtubes, because you are bugged.

      Blizz claims most people will not have to rely on the safety net, only the truly unlucky... but my experience is, you can set your watch by the 2 hour gap between legendaries.

  8. Re:I'm a Modern Gamer by sexconker · · Score: 2

    Here's how I see the world:

    1. Everything sucks
    2. I will not pay for anything, no matter what the quality to cost ratio is. Any game with a price tag is the man trying to keep me down. In fact, if daily raging taser-sex with a different college's cheerleaders followed by a 29-foot roast beef buffet were priced at $0.02 and I had a half-off coupon, I'd still bitch like the entitled little fuck I am.
    3. Everything sucks

    Seems to me that sex with an entire cheerleading squad and a 29-foot roast beef buffet are the same thing.
    Not sure how the taser is involved.

  9. Re:And it costs almost as much as a new game... by Remus+Shepherd · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Through Normal difficulty, Path of Exile is an amazing game. The character build paths are numerous and distinctive, the item/gem mechanics are interesting, and the skill tree is a genuine work of art. It beats D3 soundly.

    But after the end of Normal, PoE starts to seem a little lackluster. I finished Normal at level 35, and I won't see any random maps until the end of Merciless at about level 65. So that's 30 levels -- and two full playthroughs -- to go with no new content. Add to that the fact that character builds that worked at level 35 will probably fail at high level, and specific unique items may be required for high-level builds. I just don't feel compelled to stay with the game. The high-level PoE game looks very intimidating and not very fun.

    That's not to say D3 is any better; it's still grinding the same content with very little fresh loot. And D3 (plus the expansion) is expensive while PoE is free. I just wish there was more to do at high levels in both games. Adventure mode sounds like a step in the right direction.

    For casual players who don't intend to play through either game the expected three times, I heartily recommend Path of Exile. The new D3 content doesn't make up for the flaws in D3 -- the characters, skills, and combat mechanics are still poorly designed and lack the appeal of D2. PoE has that appeal, plus some innovative charm of its own.

    For the heavily invested type of player who loves the grind...I don't know which to recommend. I'm not that type of player.

    --
    Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
  10. Re:And it costs almost as much as a new game... by Luckyo · · Score: 2

    Because PoE is free, and requiring online connection is their business model to keep it free.

    Diablo is pay to buy, and until recently also pay to win on top of that. All while requiring online connection specifically to facilitate pay to win.