FTL：超越光速 FTL: Faster Than Light p.478

玩家开始‘玩’拍卖行（Auction House）而不是游戏本身，因为我们过于计较《暗黑破坏神 3》刚发售时的奖励机制了 [...] 拍卖行的出现破坏了奖励循环，玩家游戏体验也被拍卖行夺走，毕竟游戏的魅力就在于杀死怪物，看到传说中的掉落物并捡起它。^[1]

What happened is that players started playing the Auction House and not the game, because of how stingy we were when we launched Diablo III [...] In the process they were wrecking their reward loop, they were robbing themselves of the magic of Diablo, of killing a monster and seeing the legendary drop and picking it up.

Josh Mosqueira
《暗黑破坏神 3》游戏总监

Josh Mosqueira,
Diablo III's game director

暴雪花了两年时间才意识到问题——拍卖行必须关掉。

2014 年 3 月，资料片《暗黑破坏神 3：夺魂之镰》（Reaper of Souls）发布，拍卖行被移除，加入了改进后的“Loot 2.0”系统，极大地增加了装备掉落几率，且掉落的装备与玩家职业相关率也提高不少。

《暗黑破坏神 3》虽然是一部好游戏，但毁于市场化游戏装备的糟糕决策，《暗黑破坏神 3：夺魂之镰（Reaper of Souls）》与之对比则凝聚了很多经典创意。除了第五层的剧情和新职业圣教军（Crusader）外，扩展版还增加了一个冒险模式，你可以在游戏的各个区域自由旅行，通过完成简单的任务收取悬赏，如“完成事件 X”、“清除区域 Y”或“杀死 Boss Z”。

完成悬赏会产生稀有装备、武器材料，同时，悬赏机制还是一种无需重刷相同关卡即可升级或收集物品的好方法。

其他主要新增内容还包括具有独特力量的传奇宝石、更强大的装备制造系统、迷人且完全重新设计的难度梯度，这些机制为玩家提供了更高的游戏自由度。

此外，秘境（Rifts）添加了一个无尽游戏的机制，这是一类特殊地牢，玩家必须杀死一定数量的敌人才能与强悍的 Boss 战斗。在大秘境（Greater Rifts）中有非常严格的时间限制，而且难度几乎可以提升到无穷无尽。

It took two years for Blizzard to acknowledge the obvious – the Auction House had to go.

In March 2014, they released the Reaper of Souls expansion, removing the Auction House and adding a revamped “Loot 2.0” system, dramatically increasing item drop rates and making them more relevant for whichever class you're currently playing.

If Diablo III was a good game ruined by poor decisions, Reaper of Souls is a cohesive pack of great ideas. Together with a fifth story act and a new class – the Crusader –, the expansion added an Adventure mode, where you freely travel across all areas of the game collecting bounties – brief missions like “complete event X”, “clear area Y” or “kill boss Z”.

Completing bounties yields rare items, crafting ingredients and is a good way to level up or gather items without having to replay the campaign again.

Other key additions include legendary gems with unique powers, a more robust crafting system, enchanting and fully reworked difficulty settings, offering players much more freedom in how to play.

Moreover, a solid endgame was finally added with the Rifts – special dungeons where you must kill a certain number of enemies to battle a tough boss. On Greater Rifts you have a very strict time limit, and the difficulty levels are virtually endless.

《暗黑破坏神 3》需要一直在线的数字版权管理（DRM）方式导致了一些问题，因为玩家在发布后数周内无法连接到服务器和玩游戏。暴雪允许主机脱机玩，但 PC 不行，这一决策再次激起了人们的愤怒。

Diablo III's always-online DRM led to several issues, as players were unable to connect to the servers and play the game for weeks after launch. The outrage reignited when Blizzard made the console ports able to play offline, but refused to do so with PCs.

与资料片一起出现的是赛季制度，它每隔几个月就会重置排行榜并添加只有新鲜角色才能体验的新内容（至少在最初），暗示玩家从第 1 级重新开始游戏。

有了更为灵活的技能系统，重置体系就运行地自如，因为宝石、传奇物品和具有特殊能力的防具套装的稳定供应为玩家提供了不少新鲜感和新的游戏玩法。

另外值得一提的是套装地下城（the Set Dungeons），这是一个隐藏区域，在那里收集了完整装备套装的玩家可以在自定义挑战中使用套装赋予的力量来测试他们的技能。
暴雪还添加了丰富的装饰奖励，例如头像框、宠物、横幅、翅膀和可以应用到设备上的独特外观。其中大部分装饰都是通过达成游戏特殊成就来赢得。《暗黑破坏神 3》的唯一 DLC 是在 2017 年推出的，增加了死灵法师（Necromancer）职业，价格为 15 美元。

虽然拍卖行在发布时严重破坏了游戏体验，但《夺魂之镰》后来设法将《暗黑破坏神 3》变成了一个友好、令人上瘾且高度打磨后的游戏。它可能缺乏《恐怖黎明（Grim Dawn）》和《流放之路（Path or Exile）》中更硬核的体验，但对于大多数主流玩家来说，《暗黑破坏神 3》是他们所需要的，直到《暗黑破坏神 4》发售。

Together with the expansion came the Seasons, which every few months reset the leaderboards and add new content that only freshly made characters can experience (at least initially), persuading people to restart the game from Level 1. This worked particularly well with the more flexible skill system, as the steady addition of gems, legendary items and armour sets with special powers provides new playstyles to try every few months. New seasons are still being released as of 2021.

Also worth mentioning are the Set Dungeons, hidden areas where players who gathered complete equipment sets can test their skills with the powers granted by the set in custom challenges.

Blizzard also added an abundance of cosmetic rewards, such as portrait frames, pets, banners, wings and unique appearances you can apply to your equipment. Most of these are won by earning special in-game achievements – Diablo III's only DLC came in 2017, adding the Necromancer class for $15.

While the Auction House heavily damaged the game at launch, Reaper of Souls later managed to turn Diablo III into a friendly, addictive and highly polished package. It may lack the more hardcore experience found in Grim Dawn and Path of Exile but, for most mainstream players, Diablo III is all they need until Diablo IV.