Life After Diablo III

What are some Diablo-like games that are good to play? Had some people say Dark Souls 2 was good. Recommendations?

 

Torchlight and Torchlight II?

 

What octi said. Torchlight is more like Diablo than Dark Souls. DS is an action/RPG that doesn't hold your hand, with the plot nor the gameplay. Its a great game but it has a way of making every game's combat system feel too easy, if you get what I'm saying.

 

So Torchlight over Dark Souls? Different types anyways it sounds like. I'll take a look into Torchlight!

 

Haha that is a great way to describe souls combat

 

haha, dark souls is much different than d3.

not only it is 2 genre. D3 is about crushing mobs, where souls is total opposite. the player get crushed

incredible adventure of van helsing is another d3 like game.

 

Sweet I'll check out Van Helsing, but now I am going to have to check out Dark Souls 2 so I know what the heck you all are talking about haha

 

Start with 1 imo. There's a lot of plot in 2 that kind of pulls on 1....you can play 2 w/o knowing about 1 but knowing 1 helps put together the pieces and it allows you to babble on with us DS nerds about the over all plot of the souls series ;P

 

Meh I honestly didn't understand any of the plot in 1 without looking at external sources, and I'm not done with 2 but I'm pretty much completely lost as to the plot too.

Souls is not a story driven game in the traditional sense; you really gotta dig deep and think, or just look online

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Path of Exile, it's unique and quite good. Have some high lvl summoner if you need a boost.

 

/Shrug

Dark Souls 2 is everything D3 should have been.
The thing is... it's Diablo for adults in ultra-hard mode.
Which makes it "must play" for any real gamer.

Every weapon has its place, every move has it's time. The first weapon and shield you find at level 1 can beat the whole game without spending a soul.
PvP is integrated into the plot and the game out of the box. All combat (including PvP) is brutally fair. The monsters are going to kill you... until you stop being awful.
Numerous builds exist and it matters not at all what you choose at first.
Want to focus on swords/shield, 2H weapons, polearms, dual wield, bows, claws, hand-to-hand, magic, pyromancy, miracles, hexes or any combination... go for it!
Want to focus on being a generalist with a little bit of everything? Go for it! (and its powerful once you get there!)
Want to stay level 1 with only a dagger and your wits! Go for it! (totally possible too)

How is the plot hard to follow? (and no you don't need to play DS1 to understand DS2, but there are some nods to the first one and to Demon Souls as well)


I also enjoyed Torchlight and Torchlight2, but the best part about them are the incredibly great mods you can get.

Let's face it... Blizzard is long gone and only Activision remains.

 

Dark Souls games is so insane amazing. If you havent played them yet, do it.
10x better than Torchlight, but not really comparable anyway since they are very different

 

If your talking about souls 2, I disagree on the builds. Soul memory has made it so that there ARE NO BUILDS. You are severely gimping yourself if you limit yourself to SL 150 or w/e the "community limit" is nowadays. Also, if you are min maxer, what you choose actually does matter, because you cannot go lower than certain numbers in stats if you don't choose the right starting build. (Bandit is very popular for non magic users because of 1 int and att so no levels are wasted)

About the story? Idk man, but I honestly ran through souls 1 without realizing much of what was going on. You're dumped on a land by a giant bird, and some dude tells you to ring some bells. Go. Okay? Where is the story? Like how the hell is anyone supposed to know the whole Gwyn and Gwen gwyndolin dynamic without digging deeper? Or that both serpents are not really telling the whole truth?

I loved souls 1 and souls 2 is pretty good too (though I don't like it as much due to some opinionated reasons), but the games do have some aspects that some people will not like

I'm not done with souls 2 yet but I'm fairly far into the game and there really isn't that many nods to souls 1. Yes there are random item descriptions here like the witches soul and seath statue etc but you could play souls 2 without 1 and not miss much of anything in terms of understanding

 

Soul memory is a mechanic to stop top levels from invading newbies. Thus if you have killed many and have gotten many souls or many levels, you will not be invading lowbies.
After a certain point, the mechanic levels off and everyone after a certain point has the same pool of people to invade.

Severely gimp my left foot. After a certain point you don't need more stats as your scaling stat or stats are at max effective level and you have the spell slots filled you need. You can then fill in any stats that round out your character, but there are softcaps and hardcaps and reality speaking you don't really need more levels after a certain point. At this point, PvP is varied and styles are quite broad.

Sure, there are builds-of-the-month, but those are usually easy to frustrate just by learning the mechanics. Less-known builds have less strategy guides and battle-hardened people who have faced them before.
Even a lesser build or equipment set can always just force the other guy to do something stupid like charge or roll off a cliff. (works way too often)

SL 150 is one train of thought... but that is softcapping necessary stats and one offensive stat and effectively creates a glass cannon. SL 200 or so makes for a well-rounded combatant and usually allows a wider range of choices in case the opponent has built or made equipment choices which make your build less effective.

I think you are just mad that you cannot repeatedly invade people insanely weaker than you are.

 

not sure how dark souls can compare to diablo in anyway~~~

dark soul vs monster hunter, maybe...

 

Dark Souls is a good series - but I'm not sure how it relates to Diablo. Completely different genres, playstyles, and themes.

Torchlight is a good ARPG and my personal favorite Diablo alternative.

Path of Exile is great if you are a hardcore ARPG player with time to learn and get invested.

 

Um, my accounts on souls 1 were all level 120, so if people were "severely weaker" at that point that's their own damn fault. I find it offensive that you accuse me of something without having any knowledge of me. Its a pretty common sentiment throughout the community that soul memory was and is not a good thing and could have been implemented way better, such as only applying in ng+ or beyond.

By sl200, you are very near the point of no sacrifices at all for gains. You can max out your offensive stat of choice along with all the tertiary stats you want.

I suppose you enjoy the scene with everybody and their mothers in Havel's and maxed out HP with no sacrifices made to offensive ability. Mastodon helix halberd tanks in Havel's poking for 2 hit kos for days, cause everybody can afford 50 end so they keep their fast roll at 70%, which is another ridiculous aspect about 2 compared to 1.

And that soul memory leveling off point? If you aren't at least level 300+ by then you are going to have a very annoying time. Have fun dodging 6 orb affinities coming at you while they still chunk you out for massive damage with weapons cause you know, with soul memory why not level str Dex faith and int?

Each to their own.

 

More Baldur's Gate than Diablo, but try Divinity: Original Sin.

Also, Path of Exile is fantastic. Also try Grim Dawn.

 

D3 and Dark souls are both action role playing games... although the former is insanely more rpg than the diablo series has become.
D3 is on rails and requires little more choice than which color you insta-kill everything around you with.
I'll admit the recent D3 expansion has done wonders, but its a lost cause as its still not really about any player choices.

The people who loved D2 will more than likely love DS2 more than D3.

I also agree on Path of Exile. Has it's downsides though. (the devs do fix broken things, but some things just don't work how you would think they should)


Soul memory is not perfect, but it does the job.
The people complaining about it are pretty much only wanting to kill newbies because that's all they CAN kill.
Of course I like the best vs the best in PvP. Why would anyone want anything else? The whole game is about challenge, why would you even want to fight a weakling?
What glory is there in a victory you were guaranteed?

Also, if you have any trouble fighting anyone at SL200 and above... your problem is between seat and keyboard.

Be as offended as you want to be. I hit the nail on the head and you know it.

 

Yes, Path of Exile is good and free to boot.

Torchlight 1 + 2 are also nice, and not expensive.

If you're into older games, Dungeon Siege 1+2 are also dungeon-crawlers.

 

Thank you for all the suggestions!! After some looking I think I am going to give Path of Exile a go. Plenty of great alternatives too, I'll be busy for quite some time now haha.

 

That's the best choice. DS series' gameplay is not similar to Diablo at all. Different camera and controls, extremely nuanced and complex combat vs clickfest. Path of Exile on the other hand is a Diablo clone through and through. Don't get me wrong DS and DS2 are great games (my heart will always be fondest of Demon's Souls) but the gameplay similarities to Diablo style ARPG are very few.

You should also try Titan Quest and it's expansion.

 

Awesome thanks Ill check out Titan Quest too!

 

Sigh... I just hate that Diablo has now become synonymous with clickfest. (assuming this means D3's /faceroll almost random clicking everywhere as opposed to DS very specific controls)

D2 wasn't about random clicking. You had to manage resources and build your character around the concept and equipment you were looking for. Random clicking in Hell Difficulty was a death sentence as you would end up out of resources at just the wrong time.

D3 is pretty much NOT a Diablo game. Its a console game based on the Diablo universe similar to the "adventures" spin-offs typical of consoles. Demon souls, DS1 and DS2 are in the original thought process and continue the real Diablo feel. Realtime decisions, realtime action, dark storyline, deep mysticism, and easy to learn, difficult to master. (the latter being the only part the DS series does not subscribe to IMHO)

 

Well, I would argue that D3 (and especially in Reaper of Souls) is very much about building your character around very specific gear. To be optimal and the best you can be, you need specific gear with good synergy, and a specific build that will work with that specific gear. This is both good and bad.

There isn't much about concept, since reaching the higher tiers of difficulty requires using specific skills with good synergy (both with each other and with your gear), as opposed to skills that fit your concept. You can craft a character around a build concept, but it may or may not work at higher difficulties.

And in Reaper of Souls, you essentially want to build your character to a point where you no longer really need to worry about running out of resources. This is harder to do, and at lower levels of gear and difficulty, you routinely run out of resources (which is what makes the higher difficulty levels impossible without specific gear).

I would also argue that in D2, due to be able to instantly consume endless quantities of potions, resource management wasn't THAT difficult. Unless, of course, you ran out of potions at just the wrong time.

I'm not defending Diablo, or saying D3 > D2. I'm just pointing out a few things that popped to mind.

 

Well, my experience with post RoS D3 is now limited, but truthfully unless something has massively changed you really can smash your face on the keyboard and progress in softcore despite piling corpses (putting on the zakara's meant you were guaranteed... you really could be the worst gamer on the planet and still advance to endgame). Doing that in D2 was a no-no.

The potions allowed you to delay resource issues but not avoid them. Normal potions were released over time. Only rejuv potions restored instanty, and your supply of those was limited (at least until you crafted some more FullRejuv). While potions were plentiful, space was not. You usually carried only 16, and whatever leftovers you had in your inventory. Most of us filled inventory with charms, not potions. Bad resource management meant death, Xp loss, and gold loss to a degree where in endgame a few deaths undid everything you did that night. In D3, you cannot lose...(in softcore) ever. You don't even need to start in town anymore. While I wouldn't say D2 resource management was "difficult" it most certainly took more design, thought and action than D3.

 

If only single player is concerned, D3 probably is as hard as D2 in higher difficulties.

In D2, stacks mana pots and there is no resource management to be honest. And, there is no real char building in terms of single player imo, the item you can access to is so limited.

For multi-player, both games are pretty much face roll in SC.

 

I get the feeling you guys never played D2... you cannot literally /faceroll D2 like you can D3.
You will die and lose XP multiple times in a row. In late game this could easily wipe out everything you did that night.

I am not sure where you guys got your infinite inventory or belts... but it wasn't the legit game. (someone used trainers apparently)
If you spammed pots you were constantly refilling from inventory or the ground... and if the normal pots were good enough, then you didn't play endgame.
Either way, you wasted time (better used for more XP) or space (better used for charms) or cheated. (really sad)

Not that D2 was hard... but its light years more complex than D3 will ever be. "Challenged" players could not reach endgame and Hell difficulty reasonably filtered out any season player who wasn't at least mildly competent. (even with duped gear it wouldn't be good enough)
In D3, you can seriously put on your helmet and smash your face or head into the keyboard and reach endgame. Players literally put on Zakaras, immediately move to the top difficulty and die/leech their way to endgame.
The difference is a country mile. If you cannot tell the difference, then I mourn for you.

 

Marvel Heroes
Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing 2
Titan Quest
Bastion
Dungeon Siege 2 & 3
Death Spank: Thongs of Virtue
Hammerwatch
Divinity 2
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
Underworlds

I have them in my collection, but I'm sure there are other good diablo-like games not mentioned on my list.

 

Titan Quest is HIGHLY similar to the Diablo experience and in some ways even better. Anything else that's relatively close is Torchlight II and that's nice too, aside from the lack of a decent story.

 

Path of Exile? Hmm... I should try that out. A friend owns this game, I'll ask permission to borrow it from him.

 

I believe it's free to play.

 

Path of Exile and Marvel Heroes are both free to play. Try them out, it won't cost you anything.

 

Path of Exile has some interesting twists on the genre. I love how there's no gold.. And I also love that even the potions are upgradable..

 

I like the gold and gems system from Diablo. Even if I am unlucky / suck at the game, I feel like I am still making progress when when I put my time into it. It's like a guaranteed return.

How does Path of Exile do this?