The original Diablo 3 had a pretty average launch. It sold millons, it reviewed well, but servers went belly up upon launch and fans didn’t like some of the changes to the game, or lack of changes. There was the sense among fans that Diablo III wasn’t quite all it could be. How does Diablo 3: Reaper Of Souls stack up?
I feel ill-equipped to comment. I’ve never been a big fan of the series, I’ve never played many of Blizzard’s great releases, so I’m leaving it completely up to you this week. What are your thoughts so far? How are you finding Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls?
My gut instinct, from the word on what the kids are called ‘da street’, is that people are really enjoying Reaper of Souls. The launch of this game doesn’t come with any server issues, and most people are at peace with what Diablo 3 means now on a mechanical level. This is a Diablo 3 launch without teething issues. It’s a launch where the game itself is allowed to be the focal point.
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.
Comments
26 responses to “Community Review: Diablo 3: Reaper Of Souls”
Enjoying the loot system now. Adventure mode is great too.
As for Act V itself. MrsBS and I went through every map to the finer details and found at first glance the huge maps were awesome but towards the end I got a bit sick of them and wanted the smaller maps of the vanilla campaign back. Adventure mode is fantastic though. Love it!
I felt the same about the larger areas. Impressive but I felt it flowed better with more smaller areas rather than fewer larger ones
It’s a phenomenal expansion. Squeezing in quick sessions always seems worthwhile as the loot has become really enticing.
It even makes the skill system worthwhile, as you might find loot better suited to another playstyle.
Dare I say it – but it’s kinda nice not having to start again from scratch just so I can use it.
I’ve been playing a lot of PoE and a bit of TL2, but I highly recommend people take a second look.
Anyone who thinks all the new content isn’t worth $50 would have to be a communist.
Not worth $50 for 1 new act and a new character, plus the ability to change items. Everything else was a free patch, including local servers. And totally not worth the $90 for my collector’s. But hey, I’m addicted and I’m willing to pay good mola for my hit.
EDIT: And adventure mode. I guess they have to justify the price somehow.
it’s blizzard doing the best they can with average game mechanics. with other arpg’s showing much more promising item and skill attribute systems (torchlight, path of exile) it’s a hard job – but they’ve done extremely well. happy to be playing for the next month or so for sure.
Haven’t played PoE (though I have done a fair bit of research on the huge tree skill system, and it does seem interesting) – but I don’t understand people praising Torchlight as a far better game than D3.
I found Torchlight to be too easy, too quickly. I played an engineer, traded with some friends to get the full epic/legendary engineer set, and now at level 79 everything is trivial. I can nearly one shot everything in a level 95-100 dungeon by using 3-4 abilities.
I much prefer D3’s system of being able to change skills to suit your playstyle depending on what sort of zone/enemies you’re up against. The scaling difficulty and item drops are far better also, imo.
Bought it and played it for a few hours last night. Started a new Crusader. Was surprised at the amount of gear that dropped that I could use! Including two lowbie legendaries. The Australian servers made sure the gameplay was smooth as silk.
Loving it far more than the original D3.
Fuck Diablo. It’s consumed hundreds of hours of my life and I can’t kick the habit.
PLEASE SEND HELP!
Yes but you can click the habit.
Try the veal!
Haha…winner!
They’ve fixed the game but I don’t know if it’s as good for people that didn’t already commit time to the original version.
Adventure mode is pretty much what Diablo should be. Access to all acts, no Scooby Doo villains showing up to say “Foolish Nephalem, you may have thwarted one of my plans but you’ll never thwart my next plan. By the way, that plan is just happening right over here and it’s pretty easy to thwart.” The loot system gives regular upgrades and legendaries can now give you completely different play styles.
The game is now interesting.
Once you finish the game that is. I enjoyed playing through the campaign and story of all the Diablo games (albeit D1 being rather loose). Learning about the lore, etc.
But once you’re done with that, adventure mode is awesome. An excellent addition.
I just want to click things and watch them explode into piles of shiny loot.
Diablo 3 RoS helped me kick my crack addiction. I have a far worse problem now, and I can’t seem to log off the game.
I got Diablo 3 last weekend. About 4 hours in. Haven’t thought about much else since.
Skeleton King? Meet my JARS OF JUMPY SPIDERS.
I haven’t gotten RoS, however i came back to the game for the 2.0 patch, and i gotta say, they’ve fixed so much stuff i hated in the original release.
Thank god the auction house is gone, and the new loot and difficulty settings are awesome, i haven’t had such a flip in opinions about a game in a long time, the game that is out now should have been the one they released!
I have to say in regards to the size of some sections of the expansion: are you just TROLLING OCD sufferer’s Blizzard? 🙁 Oh sure, these three REALLY BIG dungeons are “optional”. Clearly you don’t understand how my mind works.
Loot 2.0 is great, upgrades drop often, at launch I played 66 hours on my barbian found maybe 2 legendaries and atm probably put 40 hours between 3 characters since buying RoS found upwards of 25 legendaries so that makes the game just so much fun
Crusader is a fun character to play, absolutely love being able to use 2h with a shield
As mentioned above the act V maps just seemed so massive it really felt like a chore near the end
Advantage mode is great way to lvl as playing the campaign 50 is boring and just having access to all bosses and areas from the get go is just awesome
The new difficulty settings is much better then the old one
And Aussie servers are the best 35ms latency is much better then the 2second+ lag at launch
I gotta say. I’ve been a pretty harsh critic of D3. I put it away pretty shortly after release, out of disgust. With RoS? I’m a fan.
They changed a lot. A LOT. And the impact and overall effect of what they’ve changed and how means that this thing actually plays like a sequel to Diablo 2: a similar system, refined and improved. As opposed to what it originally was – some weird knock-off which borrowed elements from D2.
They seem to have set up Aussie servers, so gone are the days of rubber-banding and attack/loot lag in a single player game. They’ve dropped a bunch of the solo-unfriendly pushes into multi with randoms. The ditching of the AH and rebalancing of loot such that stuff which drops is more likely to be for your class? Actually useful legendaries? Brilliant. Level-scaling difficulty, options to change difficulty on the fly (instead of playing through the entire fucking game twice first), adventure mode… it’s just a dramatically different beast to launch.
One I can actually recommend, finally.
Sounds promising big rig.
I’m holding out for the PS4 version (I don’t PC game really), which I believe includes ROS. Do you think this complete package is something to get excited about? Are these new changes applied to the original game too? Just tell me to Google all of these questions if it’s easier! 🙂
Ahhh, I wouldn’t be the expert, I didn’t try it pre-RoS, I just took the word of a trusted friend and took a gamble. Google might be your friend, but:
My understanding is that loot 2.0, level-scaling, Aussie servers, and probably adventure mode are part of the base game and the result of their ‘big patch’. I THINK the RoS specifics are the new crafting NPC (alter stats/wardrobe customization – if you’re familiar with World of Warcraft, it’s basically Transmogrification and Reforging), and the additional Act V which continues the story. (In a pretty decent way that I personally enjoyed.)
Base game changes: new difficulty system, new loot system, dramatic rebalancing of skills, upgrades to artisans, new events (specifically cursed chests and shrines) and I think the endgame content with the Infernal Machine got changed here but I’m not sure because I didn’t try until post-expansion.
Expansion changes: levels 61-70, new artisan that lets you reroll item drops, new class (Crusader), act 5, adventure mode (which includes bounties and Nephalem Rifts, both new ways to play ), a new skill and new passives for existing classes and maybe other stuff that doesn’t immediately come to mind.
Just so you know, there is one more expansion coming. If you’re holding out for the complete package, you’re probably looking at another two year wait plus however long it takes for Blizzard to port that content to the PS4.
As someone that sunk literally hundreds of hours into the base game, I honestly think the experience with the expansion is so much better than the original that playing the game with the 2.0.1 patch but not the expansion content is dramatically less appealing than just going for the expansion.
That being said, some of the changes to the PC version are based on changes made to the console version (specifically the loot system). Who’s to say what will be added to the PS4 version that will then be included in the next PC expansion?
@transientmind and @trjn – you guys are awesome! Thanks for the info. I’ll pour over it in more detail on my bus ride home. And yes, I’m familiar with WoW. I sank 1.5 years into that game about 6 years ago. Ah those good ol’ WoW memories.
Loving it!
Adventure mode is what Diablo should be, boss runs with your mates.
The only thing lacking, IMO… Is that you cant trade items, and all the Bind to account. Other than that, the game is great.
Been playing since Diablo 1 and Diablo 3 hasn’t let me down.
Well you can trade some items. It’s only certain items like an identified legendary that you can’t trade. But not that it makes a huge difference in the long run…just means that some items still hold value for trade.
The Transmog system rocks! Its pretty cheap to change my characters look. I got a legendary dagger that randomly squeals like a pig during attacks and when I speak to NPC’s.
I can not express how much better the updates and RoS is. Adventure mode is all kinds of awesome. I’m just having a terrible time explaining this to all my friends who packed it in a long time ago. The disenfranchised masses are reluctant to return.
Low price at the market 27 $
https://www.g2a.com/r/2zak