Diablo 3 - System revisions & Blue post discussion

More blue posts today, mostly about the itemization changes.

As a former WoW player(TBC&Cata), Blizzard (different dev team, I know) has played with itemization before e.g. removing/replacing attributes entirely etc, I find that Diablo 3 change inconsequential, you're going to stack your core regardless what its labeled as, as for secondary stats... if they bring back that Mystic and give her the option to "Reforge" I'll laugh my ass off.

The blizzard don't know what he want because they want to make a game like diablo2 so a game what have a huge player base like wow and the other games... they want to make a massive game where you can earn cash by money auction house etc... but they dont want to make an easy game where you just farming the item's and you go only for personal profit...

Sry for my broken english:P

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Snuffeldjuret wrote:

I also preferred Diablo 1 over 2 in all ways except Diablo 2 LANs was more enjoyable than Diablo 1 LANs (but only because the game was bigger in content).

Seconded. I loved the first Diablo for its powerful, "Gothic" atmosphere. It really made me feel I was exploring a sinister realm under a doomed town.

The second game played to the things I enjoyed in Diablo, but that were not really necessary for me (vastly inflated itemisation, for example). But it took away lots of the atmosphere I so loved.


The third instalment of the series seems to even further that gap. Plus, since all those posts about overhauling and simplifying, I honesty think that with the "old" Blizzard, that game would have landed on the scrap heap. Like Warcraft Adventures - they put a lot of effort into that, but ultimately scrapped it deep in development because it didn't live up to their standard.

Can you imagine that happening with today's Blizzard?
It can't happen - even if they wanted to: They made such a fuzz, they included the game in a package for a year-long subscription to WoW... they must release it. Even if it is utterly mediocre.


By the way, I'm totally new to PoE, but by what I've seen so far, it is the game I would have wished Diablo III to be.

So D3...

I think what that dev team is suffering from is consolidation overload. They are like: this is tedious, let's get rid of it!

Health potions are tedious, we'll turn them into orbs you get while fighting.

Having stat allocation is useless because most people just do the same thing, let's make them static.

Competing for items creates a winner and a loser, let's get rid of it.

Going to more than one shopkeeper is tedious, let's consolidate them.

Salvaging and doing all this stuff is tedious, we'll just get rid of that.

Choosing your build carefully and building a custom character is too rigid, let's get rid of that.

and so on...

Soon D3 devs will be saying:

Running places is too tedious, we'll just have the character stand in place.

Attacking more than once is tedious.

Dying is not fun, let's just get rid of HP.

Games are boring, let's make a movie instead.

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zeto wrote:

Games are boring, let's make a movie instead.

Seems to be working great for bioware :P


As for the changes:
Getting rid of ID scolls to eliminate unecessary tedium is fine - but then replace it with even worse form of tedium, watching a progress bar, that's a fail right there.
I bet I can click scroll-item1-scroll-item2-scroll-item3 faster than watching the progress bar three times.

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Avireyn wrote:

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Snuffeldjuret wrote:

By the way, I'm totally new to PoE, but by what I've seen so far, it is the game I would have wished Diablo III to be.

I agree completely!

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Malice wrote:

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zeto wrote:

Games are boring, let's make a movie instead.

Seems to be working great for bioware :P


As for the changes:
Getting rid of ID scolls to eliminate unecessary tedium is fine - but then replace it with even worse form of tedium, watching a progress bar, that's a fail right there.
I bet I can click scroll-item1-scroll-item2-scroll-item3 faster than watching the progress bar three times.

Plus, while you're watching that progress bar, you're not interacting with the game.
While your stats are allocated automatically, you're not interacting with the game.

What I'm getting at: Even if some tasks lead to the same result (like allocating stat points) they still make the player take a caretaker role for their character. They get to decide. Even if most decide to go with the "a guide told me to" route. It's still the player's decision and action.

The more things get automated, the less a player feels involved. The less he feels involved, the less bond he has to a game, the shorter he will play it, and the less fun he will have.

I think, nowadays, companies take streamlining too far. The do no longer only hone the edges. They hone away the knife.

Exactly. I used to play a couple other games where players wanted perks like not having to bring money from the banker to the shop or the trainer by using a credit card system or zero gold weight.

In the end, there needs to be a spectrum of tasks that a player must perform... not all of them are going to be pleasant or easy. The trick is to frame these activities within the confines of the world itself, so it makes sense.

Basically: Actions should have opportunity cost associated with them... the actions should be immersive and germane. They don't always have to be fun, they just have to make sense.

If ID scrolls have no value because they are plentiful and you replace the ID scroll system with a timer bar... as a game visionary, you are a failure.

Slippery slope might be a fallacy in argument, however it's real in application... it's very easy to start chopping out the important filler activities that actualize and immersify(tm) your world because they don't represent the absolute 'core fun gameplay.' D3 is on its way to culling everything but the core gameplay, which consists of clicking on the map and clicking on the enemy... that's it.

Excellent point, Zeto.

I just thought it through with those apparently "pesky" ID scrolls we know since Diablo.


In Diablo, they served a very real purpose: If you didn't have an ID scroll, you had to shell out 100 Gold to ID an item. So it was either keep track of your ID scrolls, take a few with you (which lead to the player having to judge how many it would be good to take with, since his inventory space was very limited), and judge which loot it was best to identify (and possibly throw away. There were "negative" item stats like "-10% to Hit").
In short: Resource management.
Added to that, actually finding ID scrolls in the dungeon gave you a small amount of pleasure, because you could immediately determine the worth of one more of your items and you saved 100 Gold.

With D2, they sort of broke that system. Not only by making Gold utterly worthless, but by completely invalidating ID scrolls by having Deckard Cain identify items for free. The mechanic "dumbed down" to: Load up inventory, Town Portal, ID ALL, sell/sort out.

And of course they can't implement the system as-is in D3. They too realize it's broken. So they do away with it completely, filling it with a dull "bar" which serves no purpose but to show players how their time is wasted.


I'm not saying that the original system was the bee's nuts. But it served a purpose, and it engaged the player by having him deal with a few problems (edit: and his loot; in D2, I often wouldn't even know half the things I'd picked up).
Now they're down to: "Watch this bar". "Watch it again".

*grabs popcorn*

The current identify scroll system is a copy of Depths of Peril. Right click and wait, wait is based on level difference between you and item.

The town portal system is a copy of Mythos.



The changes to itemization were required to streamline the balance even more, the same reason stat alocation are automatic and damage scaling is based on weapon. Now they know people WILL go for their class stat and other classes wont benefit from it indirectly. All they need to do is compare people with identical class stat.

So its very easy to balance now. The same way they did the individual resource system. So whenever they need to balance it, they dont affect everything else, because they effects dont cause a chain effect.

The removal of the white items value was to remove players freedom. Farming whites under certain conditions were more efficient, people would just farm whites, break them up and ignore a sizeable cost in mass crafting. It was too advantageous. Whenever players device a method that is efficient but not the obvious intended choice, devs go and remove it. You Cattle! Stop straying away from the intended path.

They are not designing a game, they are designing a clock.

Diablo 2 wasnt a clock. It was an imbalanced roguelike. And I loved it for that and thats why I love every other ARPG hack and slash game not called Diablo 3. Its not the same genre anymore, because the philosophy behind the design decisions are similar to a competitive online game, or a dota game, or an p2p modern mmo with its instanced tightly balanced battleground/arenas.
Not the roguelike design decisions that defined the genre and made it so fun.

And they are trying to sell it to every single ARPG Hack and Slash gamer as if it was the same thing. The game is an aberration of design.

I spotted the changes back in the first video of the gameplay when I saw the new design for skills investment caps, removal of power through specialization, addition of effective cooldowns, forced situational usage of skills, the linear level design of maps so people to force people to go through everything in every map and so on. Follow the line. Subsequent removal of stat alocation, dozens of limitations to itemization, certain bonuses only available on very limited types of items, heavy requirements for items. Motherfuckers ruined my game.

Everything they did was remove players freedom. In the end they want everyone to play the game in a specific way, progress at the same rate, do the same content, use the intended strategies for each class, experience the intended difficulty. In the end, it doesnt matter who is playing the game. For all I know a machine could be playing it and it would be as effective as the best player.