So... Was anyone else disapointed by the design of DIABLO?

[buddee1]

*SPOILERS*
So I have played through Diablo III a few times now and one thing keeps bugging me. The final boss, Diablo obviously, was really disappointing in both design and gameplay. To me, he looks far too effeminate and skeletal to be threatening. Now if this design was constant throughout the three games I would understand, but in the first and second game Diablo is a very muscular villain who towers over you. Combat wise I think he is a very cheap boss, especially for single players. Multiple instant kill attacks, immunity to disables and an extremely annoying teleport makes him a chore to fight. You don't feel a great sense of accomplishment when you beat him, you feel like you have just swatted an annoying bug you have chased around the room. But this is just my opinion and I want to hear what you have to say. Do you like his new design and did you enjoy fighting him, or would you did you have them to stick with old design and have a longer and better fight.

 

[Sneaklemming]

I had never played Diablo II and so the closest I got was baldurs gate. Having watched a few livestreams it simply looks like a singleplayer mmo. So I guess I was a little disappointed by how the gameplay looked so hollow as you describe.

I'd be more than happy to be proved wrong if someone wants to throw a guest key at me.

 

[Loop Stricken]

Considering how he came about in Diablo 3, I thing his design is absolutely fine.

Boo-titty-hoo, he possessed a girl so now he's more lithe than bulky. Big whoop.

 

[buddee1]

Considering how he came about in Diablo 3, I thing his design is absolutely fine.

Boo-titty-hoo, he possessed a girl so now he's more lithe than bulky. Big whoop.

It wasn't even that he looked like a girl, it's that he looked goofy. He has an over-sized head that looks like it would make him fall over if he walked a few feet, two little arms that hang by his side, and the body of a rejected H. R. Giger sketch. He makes me laugh, not afraid like Azmodan or Belial did when they first ere shown.

 

[burningdragoon]

*reads title*

Um... yeah. People have been complaining about the design of Diablo 3 for years now.

*reads post*

Oh you mean the actual character? I'll, uh, just see myself out then.

 

[Moriim]

Honestly I felt like Diablo was actually a challenge this time around. It may have just been that summoner Necros were OP, but I felt like he was a total pushover in D2. I felt kind of disappointed really, I had more "ohshitohshitohshit" moments fighting Andariel than I did by the time I got to Hell in D2.

In terms of his actual design? I dunno it wasn't any more ridiculous than Belial's enormous fking arm spikes or Azmodan's...moob piercings...

 

[evilneko]

This thread needs pics.

but I felt like he was a total pushover in D2.

Much like pretty much everything else in D2.

Classic Diablo ftw. Sure, he doesn't jump and run around as much as in D2 (read: at all) but he has a nasty claw swipe and the Apocalypse spell. And he stood there spewing blood all over you when he died.

And then he turned into a teenage boy and you took his soulstone and jammed it into your forehead.

What The Hell, Hero?

 

[oplinger]

I..

okay Diablo 3 feels just like diablo 1 and 2 to me. Just without all the stat juggling, for more WoW like "gear is magical super powerness."

Diablo was never difficult for me...in one -or- two. And he looked silly in both games.

Also hack, lazy game design, is sort of what makes things hard. How would you have done it? Given him new mechanics to dodge? You learn the damn mechanics, and stab him in the freaking eyes. Not hard. Or do you make him hit harder and make any mistakes not viable for success? That's really freaking hard.

What you're pissed about, is they didn't make it -fun- and I totally agree, Diablo is not a fun, fulfilling boss fight. None of the bosses are in Diablo.... At all. They never have been, except the first couple in 1 and 2 (The butcher felt more satisfying to me than Lazarus or Diablo)What the bosses in Diablo usually boiled down to for me, in 1 and 2, was smack the ***** 'till it stops moving, and spam potions. In 3, it's smack it until it stops moving...and use the skills i have available to not die. More to it at least, but I don't really feel threatened, and there's no suspense. So it takes out all accomplishment.

 

[Diablo2000]

Diablo with boobs...
*shivers*

Why? Just why?
Ok, I know "Why", it just suck just as much...

 

[LawlessSquirrel]

I actually rather like it. It's not perfect by any stretch, and not exactly diabolical, but a thorned and sharp look is suitable.

I choose to believe it's not THE Diablo anyway. If you go through the behind-the-scenes, it sounds more like it's meant to be Leah as a Prime Evil of Diablo's lineage...or that's how it started out before they got into the plot-hole side of things. So I guess I'm retconning their retcon to make myself feel better. Indoctrination Theory, anybody?

As for the gameplay...I never encountered any instant-kill attacks, but I keep hearing about them. Was it where he puts you in a cage? Can you not...walk an inch to the side?

He was a push-over, like every other boss in that game. And no, I don't just mean in damage and health, I mean in that he barely touched me at all, and the majority of the other bosses didn't even get that close.

It was anti-climatic though, and not very satisfying, I'll agree with you there.

 

[Odditiesend]

The "look" of it was fine to me, aside from a few goofy things like the butterfly wings, Adria's look/voice change etc. If anyone played the original Diablo there's some nice updated versions of some of the monsters/quests/backgrounds in it (Nostalgia is a powerful thing no?) I didn't like the look of Diablo 2, nor the gameplay really (shrieking fallen ones and mobbing situations).

The writing in Diablo 3 is terrible, but the story is still engaging, the design is solid and overall I humbly think it's a wonderful game. Looking forward to the expansion

 

[teebeeohh]

Yes he looks kinda silly but the fight was not as cheap as you say, he can be frozen and the insta kills just do a lot of dmg and thus can be avoided by something like diamond skin. The teleport was kinda annoying but once I got the pattern to used it freeze him, drop a meteor and run. However I have only fought him with my wizard so far so maybe other classes have a harder time.

What did bug me was that your companion gets rooted for the fight. My character works on the assumption that I always have somebody to heal me and I had to switch around a lot of skills

 

[Seishisha]

I think in terms of mechanicle design the boss's are actualy alot more interesting than they used to be in Diablo 2, most boss fights boiled down to mitigate the dammage with potion spam or life steal or just move out of the way of more dangerous attacks, now though in Diablo 3 the boss's can stun you, teleport to avoid attacks, have more aoe thats actualy troublesome, pull you in close or just straight up attack from a distance, even though some of those thigns did feature in diablo 2 with potion spam and good lifesteal is was never a threat, getting smacked by belials metoer fist thing in diablo 3 hurts alot and you can't just chug potions to recover, so mechanicly i think the D3 does have superior boss battles.

Style wise i dont mind the more girly diablo because it does kind of make sense, but i did also prefer the older versions.

In terms of disapointment the only thing that stood out to me in the battle was the fact that he was supposed to be all seven evils combigned but i never realy got the sense that his attacks were based on the seven evils, i would have loved to have seen some call backs to diablo 2 boss's like duriel's freeze aura, andarial's poison, baal's manasteal etc, missed oppertunity in my opinion.

 

[buddee1]

I..

okay Diablo 3 feels just like diablo 1 and 2 to me. Just without all the stat juggling, for more WoW like "gear is magical super powerness."

Diablo was never difficult for me...in one -or- two. And he looked silly in both games.

Also hack, lazy game design, is sort of what makes things hard. How would you have done it? Given him new mechanics to dodge? You learn the damn mechanics, and stab him in the freaking eyes. Not hard. Or do you make him hit harder and make any mistakes not viable for success? That's really freaking hard.

What you're pissed about, is they didn't make it -fun- and I totally agree, Diablo is not a fun, fulfilling boss fight. None of the bosses are in Diablo.... At all. They never have been, except the first couple in 1 and 2 (The butcher felt more satisfying to me than Lazarus or Diablo)What the bosses in Diablo usually boiled down to for me, in 1 and 2, was smack the ***** 'till it stops moving, and spam potions. In 3, it's smack it until it stops moving...and use the skills i have available to not die. More to it at least, but I don't really feel threatened, and there's no suspense. So it takes out all accomplishment.

Personally, I found all of the other bosses to be FAR more satisfying. The build up to the Butcher was great and defeating him made you feel awesome. Belial deceived you then turned into an enormous monster that couldn't even fit on screen, it felt like I was taking down a threatening boss. Azmodan mocks you throughout the level, when you kill him you showed him how week he really was. There was really no build up to Diablo which made him non threatening.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Diablo's persistently bizarre pronunciation of "terror" was my biggest problem with that fight.

 

[The Abhorrent]

As far as the visual design of Diablo is concerned, the more feminine figure isn't unreasonable. To be honest, it's actually somewhat disturbing and occassionally comes off as "something's just wrong there"... which could be considered appropriate, if one looks at the context of what Diablo is. S/He is the lord of terror, and delights in tormenting people; which could include the player, when you think about it.

---

As for the encounter design? Not quite so favourable.

To start off, I haven't played Diablo II through to it's conclusion (and didn't play the first game at all) so I can't say how accurately it's based off of the fights against him in the previous game(s). However, it does seem to be very reminiscient of the fight against him in Diablo II (no idea about the first game); at least based off of what I've seen in Youtube videos.

But having fought against him myself (only on normal mode, not going too far into the game), it was more annoying and tedious than anything. He does have a ton of health, but it only seems to drag out the fight; most of his attacks weren't too dangerous (only the "shock-blaze" was a big concern and had to be avoided), though some were annoying (bone cages, which led to the impale attack). The mid-fight area transition was a drag too.

While most of the game kept the fights at a reasonable length, or at least interesting while they lasted... this one felt as if it was much longer than it should had been. Not too interesting either, just long and tiresome.

 

[ManOwaRrior]

Diablos new design is fine.
I found Belial and Azmodan to be cheap, simply another monstrous demon, but then again, so where Baal and Duriel in D2.
Mephisto in D2 had a really cool design though.

Gameplay wise, the improved game design and combat mechanics lead to shorter fights, which in turn makes the eventual victory feel less epic.
When i fought Diablo in D2 with my Barbarian on normal for the first time, I would only hit him every third swing. He would slow me down with his frost strike and almost instantly kill me with his red lightning. The fight against him was long and a chore: Strike at him as long as you have potions, run away when he casts read lightning. TP when you are out of potions. It was more like a war of attrition than a fight, but a war nonetheless.
The eventual victory felt that much greater because of it.

But I have yet to experience the new Diablo on Hell or Inferno, so maybe things will change then.

 

[LilithSlave]

I don't like the design of any of the Diablo games. So there's nothing for me to be disappointed about.