D3 Dev's Lessons Learned - How Relevant to PoE?

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kruemel2222 wrote:

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Odoakar wrote:

It baffles me how they still don't get what was wrong with D3 (and what is wrong with RoS).

Skill and item system sucks big times?

Anyways, it's not like GGG doesn't "learn". They have changed their positions on many things in the last years.

BOA is something I hope they never "learn" to be blunt.

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Nubatron wrote:

You want a specific mod with a specific roll? you can target that too...through trading.

That option is not available in D3.

If you want perfect rolls on rares, you can't target that through trading in the main mode of the game: temporary leagues, because they don't exist on the market.

If you want to target good rolls on rares, you can do that in PoE through trading, but so can you in D3 through Kadela and Changing-one-mod since at one rather quick point the probability of not getting the good roll becomes low.

I actually liked D3 up until reaper of souls

ROS kinda ruined it for me, basically being forced into self found dident work for me

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DirkAustin wrote:

And you are totally forced to play D3, right?

Please don't take this absurd stance. You'll just make yourself look like an a-hole. :)

Interesting...

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mazul wrote:

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Nubatron wrote:

You want a specific mod with a specific roll? you can target that too...through trading.

That option is not available in D3.

If you want perfect rolls on rares, you can't target that through trading in the main mode of the game: temporary leagues, because they don't exist on the market.

If you want to target good rolls on rares, you can do that in PoE through trading, but so can you in D3 through Kadela and Changing-one-mod since at one rather quick point the probability of not getting the good roll becomes low.

The biggest issue is that time means next to nothing for d3, you can grind 100s of hours and never get the one legendary you need but get tons you dont and even they're good for someone else you cant trade them to get what you need. Then somebody else could have bis gear after an hour. Making the game 100% gear dependant where levels are useless is why the loot system will never be balanced.

I think what ARPG players really want is variety. This is a slightly different concept from RNG, but related; RNG is the typical method, variety is the intended result.

Variety in active abilities.
Variety in gear.
Variety in builds.
Variety in monsters.
Variety in levels.

At all levels of play, and balanced - because imbalanced variety is the illusion of choice, not the real deal.

As such, if I was making an ARPG, one of my pillars would be " everything can be a hero." Everything should have a chance to roll synergistic affixes and be significantly stronger for it, or to roll mismatched affixes and be the "trash." Every item and every monster would have at least two random affixes to facilitate this, because affixless items and monsters are just clutter with no interest value. Also, every affix needs a way to synergize, so a second affix can make a combo and no one roll guarantees a dead monster/item. And of course, there's little point in dropping rares if everyone uses uniques exclusively, no point in dropping uniques if everyone uses rares exclusively, and no point in dropping magic items if they can't become rare.

I think the biggest lesson that Bliz learned from D3 was that you should make a game... not a business model.

What's interesting to me about D3 is the balancing direction Blizzard are moving towards with the latest patch 2.2 (on the PTR now).

It's clear they've given up on balancing dozens/hundreds of uniques in the context of a costless respec build meta. This "giving up" is apparent in the overall power creep that has left behind most long-forgotten and underused uniques.

Rather, they are aiming (it's clearly not been done, yet) now on giving each class probably 2-4 6-piece end-game sets, each of which is "customizable" by a small suite of set-altering legendaries. For those of you who haven't checked D3 in a while, Blizzard are slowly but surely moving (almost) all sets to 6-piece sets.

It's a recent change and, as yet, it looks like most of the classes will only have 1-2 end game sets (and poor WDs will have none, pending the latest PTR changes to Zunis).

Why this is interesting for me, is that even Blizzard, with all its resources, realise that trying to balance hundreds of uniques outside a fairly limited "set" construct is not something they can ever appease the user base with. Rather, they are now openly focused on constraining their design goals to something more achievable and deliver the rock-scissor-paper+chess meta that (they think) the userbase will ultimately respond do.

Whether they're right or not, I've no idea - but I'm excited to try the new Tal Rasha set, as the gameplay is awesome on PTR.

P.