I was reading the developer interview round up and read this paragraph
"With respect to itemization improvements, the team understands that one of main problems with existing legendaries is that they're often relegated to "toy status" because, while the've got fun effects, they rarely offer comparable upgrades to efficiency-based stats like DPS and EHP. The goal is to make sure that future legendaries don't just look cool, but that they're also compelling to use and make your character feel powerful, both visually and mechanically"
Like, seriously? This is a f***ing revelation to these people? It makes me want to go and slap all the developers in the face. This is the most obvious thing in any game that has items. No one is going to enjoy some fun unique ability or quirk in an item if of course the item has bad DPS, this is a prerequisite to a legendary item. Its oxygen and water, cant live without it.
How are these developers seriously just figuring this out now? Complete amature stuff right here, as if they never made a game before. Its one of those things where I just have no words, I cant...
If they say something in an interview it doesn't mean that's something they just discovered two weeks ago.
Of course they always knew that such items had to be balanced, but exactly this part ("balance") is the difficult part and especially after the quick 1.04 legendary fix it got out of hand.
If they say in an interview "we want players to have fun when killing monsters", do you also think they just came up with this "revelation" yesterday?
I don't think you got OP's point.
They MADE all these 'toy legendaries', and now they say "people don't use 'toy legendaries' because they suck".
Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. Maybe you should've figured that out before you made them.
What they probably didn't know that in a game where it's supposed to be about having fun slaying monsters that so many people would care that much about efficiency in the first place.
I have personally used weapons like Vigilance (with Deadly Reach) and Schaeffer's Hammer with decent success in mid MPs (and for pathetic amounts of gold, like 50k). They are less gimmicky than people make them out to be. My actual dps with my Schaeffer's hammer was almost twice my sheet dps (and 2.5 times my dps with WW). Stuff like movespeed on a ring or amulet are quite unique, and technically open up choices on other slots that could use better EHP (no need for Tyraels, Inna's, Lacunis), but again people are too worried about losing some of their precious dps if these can't roll quadfecta.
Things like Buriza/Hellrack, Tormentor and Maximus/Sky-Splitter probably were even designed specificallly for followers. They obviously knew the stats weren't suited for Inferno.
They are just not MP 10 material, and that's ok in any game about progression. Some things will be more end-game~ish than others. People talk as if there are just one option per slot, when that clearly was never the case.
I fully agree with how there's should be more options and that these weapons can be a very cool customization feature. But I'm not gonna be a hypocrite and sugarcoat the fact that most other games also fail in this feature (D2, PoE, etc.).
I don't think you got OP's point.
They MADE all these 'toy legendaries', and now they say "people don't use 'toy legendaries' because they suck".
Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. Maybe you should've figured that out before you made them.
lol...The devs are either totally oblivious or great actors.
A friend of mine came up with a conspiracy theory about whats really going on.
Short version.. Basically the real D3 was split up and will be sold in expansion packs. Now the D3 teams real goal is to keep hope/interest alive in order to sell the console version and xpacs.
Bashiok - Blizzard Representative - 08/01/2011 -"So how many skill combinations are there now? Well taking into account 6 active skills, all the rune combinations, and 3 passives we currently expect each class to have roughly 2,285,814,795,264 different build combinations."
"Hey, I thought you'd like the witty irony of grub-on-glowie violence!"
I was reading the developer interview round up and read this paragraph
"With respect to itemization improvements, the team understands that one of main problems with existing legendaries is that they're often relegated to "toy status" because, while the've got fun effects, they rarely offer comparable upgrades to efficiency-based stats like DPS and EHP. The goal is to make sure that future legendaries don't just look cool, but that they're also compelling to use and make your character feel powerful, both visually and mechanically"
Like, seriously? This is a f***ing revelation to these people? It makes me want to go and slap all the developers in the face. This is the most obvious thing in any game that has items. No one is going to enjoy some fun unique ability or quirk in an item if of course the item has bad DPS, this is a prerequisite to a legendary item. Its oxygen and water, cant live without it.
How are these developers seriously just figuring this out now? Complete amature stuff right here, as if they never made a game before. Its one of those things where I just have no words, I cant...
/endrant
I know it's hard but it's time to let go of the anger over the terrible state of itemization at launch. Blizz gets 1 more chance imo. This one is the big one, this is the one that counts. 1.09 must succeed.
Looking at many other of D3's more polished aspects, I'm willing to try to understand that, somehow in the mix, itemization wasn't focused on as much as it should have been.
I'm done asking "why". Now my only question is "when"?
yeah, how could blizzard know such a thing. I mean, it's not like they have another, older hack&slay where they got their data from, how the people were playing the game, right?
I presume you're talking about D2. And no, people didn't care nearly as much about efficiency when farming in Diablo 2 as they do in D3.
Please point me to any old-school Diablo 2 guide where they focus so much on "exp/hour" or "legendaries/hour". Most builds had very very different farming efficiency ratios. An "enchantress" could probably farm at 1/100th of the ratio of a Glacial Orb Sorc, or a Bone Spear/Spirit-Mancer.
In my imagination the blizz devs were like:
"Hold up, hold up, hold up, wait a second! People don't want to wear shitty gear for the fun of wearing them? They want to progress through the game? HOW COULD WE KNOW???"
Srsly, the only way to progress through the game are items. There is NOTHING else in this game. A lot of different things were planned, but only items made it in the game. And they didn't know that people want to progress in an (A)RPG? What kind of bloody amateurs are they?
Who said anything about progression? The subject matter there was how the whole "legendaries are useless" is a flawed and logicless argument.
Maybe a Vigilance can't beat an EF+WKL combo in terms of high-end dps, but if it's a good roll (high base DPS + 190%~ CHD) and you have decent gear, it is useable (maybe even in MP10), which is already a huge improvement over D2 that people seem to conveniently forget (or maybe didn't even know in the first place).
Keep caring only about progression and the rewards in your gaming experience and you'll be left with a very sour taste in most games. I will keep enjoying the experience of actually playing the game.
I don't think you got OP's point.
They MADE all these 'toy legendaries', and now they say "people don't use 'toy legendaries' because they suck".
Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. Maybe you should've figured that out before you made them.
lol...The devs are either totally oblivious or great actors.
A friend of mine came up with a conspiracy theory about whats really going on.
Short version.. Basically the real D3 was split up and will be sold in expansion packs. Now the D3 teams real goal is to keep hope/interest alive in order to sell the console version and xpacs.
That's not far fetched considering the removed the mystic and charms and other facets of the game that should have been implemented from the get go. Just look at how they reference the mystic now, I have a feeling the mystic will be in the expansion and not a patch.
yeah, how could blizzard know such a thing. I mean, it's not like they have another, older hack&slay where they got their data from, how the people were playing the game, right?
I presume you're talking about D2. And no, people didn't care nearly as much about efficiency when farming in Diablo 2 as they do in D3.
People need to spent some time familiarizing themselves with that fact. In D2, the best items were only obtainable via boss-runs, and the difficulty cap was much lower (even with mp8). This means that 'efficiency' was mostly about getting to the damn boss in the first place... essentially, how quickly could you traverse the relevant distance on the map. On top of that, there was a vast amount of headroom to let people play with item and skill loadouts without really affecting your ability to farm that much, because most of the time spend 'farming' was walking to a bossfight, and the rest of the time was spent facerolling it to death.
D3 gave us what we wanted... much greater variation in where we could expect to find the loot we wanted, and a much higher difficultly cap. The effect of those two changes (in conjunction with the *AH, and who wanted that is a completely different discussion) has altered player behavior in ways that Blizzard clearly didn't anticipate (and I think it's spurious to assert, with our 20/20 hindsight, that they should have seen it coming in all its gory detail).
I'd be amazed if the 'new legendaries' weren't already well under way when D3 shipped, and once the 'item problem' became clear, it was too late to back out, and too early to fudge a solution... so yeah, we got lumbered with cool procs and bad stats.
In the end, D3 isn't a subscription game. There's no cost for leaving, and none for coming back. The D3 team has a chance to redeem themselves, and clearly want to do so. If you still care about the game, the best you can do is give constructive feedback. If you don't... well... there's not exactly a shortage of good games out there. And CoD. That also exists.
I don't think you got OP's point.
They MADE all these 'toy legendaries', and now they say "people don't use 'toy legendaries' because they suck".
Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. Maybe you should've figured that out before you made them.
What they probably didn't know that in a game where it's supposed to be about having fun slaying monsters that so many people would care that much about efficiency in the first place.
I have personally used weapons like Vigilance (with Deadly Reach) and Schaeffer's Hammer with decent success in mid MPs (and for pathetic amounts of gold, like 50k). They are less gimmicky than people make them out to be. My actual dps with my Schaeffer's hammer was almost twice my sheet dps (and 2.5 times my dps with WW). Stuff like movespeed on a ring or amulet are quite unique, and technically open up choices on other slots that could use better EHP (no need for Tyraels, Inna's, Lacunis), but again people are too worried about losing some of their precious dps if these can't roll quadfecta.
Things like Buriza/Hellrack, Tormentor and Maximus/Sky-Splitter probably were even designed specificallly for followers. They obviously knew the stats weren't suited for Inferno.
They are just not MP 10 material, and that's ok in any game about progression. Some things will be more end-game~ish than others. People talk as if there are just one option per slot, when that clearly was never the case.
I fully agree with how there's should be more options and that these weapons can be a very cool customization feature. But I'm not gonna be a hypocrite and sugarcoat the fact that most other games also fail in this feature (D2, PoE, etc.).
Then make those non-inferno material legendaries require less than level 60 to equip. And make them drop often too. Problem solved. Low level legendaries that drop pre-inferno.
Then make those non-inferno material legendaries require less than level 60 to equip. And make them drop often too. Problem solved. Low level legendaries that drop pre-inferno.
You mean the old crappy legendaries which didn't get any changes with the "Legendary patch", right? Absolutely,I'm all for that. And it seems like a very "easy" change to implement.
You have some very valuable low lvl legendaries. Genzaniku (socketed), See No Evil (socketed), Spectrum (high dps). I'm pretty sure allowing something like an Earthshatter to drop (and be used) by lvl 46 characters would make it a decent alternative lvling weapon (and let it keep its ilvl 63 rolls to make it interesting).
If only they were still making changes at the ratio they were post-release
I am aware of the low-lvl legendaries in PoE which have some very interesting and unique mechanics (I have actually played PoE up to the higher difficulties). And those are quite an accomplishment.
I was actually alluding to this particular part of his post:
"With respect to itemization improvements, the team understands that one of main problems with existing legendaries is that they're often relegated to "toy status" because, while the've got fun effects, they rarely offer comparable upgrades to efficiency-based stats like DPS and EHP.
Even PoE has some Legendaries which are downright useless (some people would argue that most are like this). They release a couple of those almost every other patch. Not to mention how hard it is to balance some of those Legendaries. You simply cannot balance something like a Kaom's Heart. When you have "rule breaking" mechanics, they're nearly impossible to balance.
I don't think PoE's way to doing legendaries (crazy affixes, bad stats) would work in D3, because it doesn't have an independent stat system. Items are supposed to determine how strong we are - hence why the developers mentioned "efficiency based stats",
So having an item with an insanely good "unique trait" (like Leoric's exp boost) and almost no good "stats" wouldn't really fit the current system. Now if we were talking about Crazy Affixes + Potentially Good Stats, then that would fit D3.
But people first need to understand that the random affixes are actually a part of the Diablo franchise and stop complaining about those (as you see in hundreds of posts on the official forums). "Guaranteed insane stats" are a bad thing for legendaries to have.
That particular item is high level only and has pretty strong stats, having for example up to 60% of a perfect item's es. Very much agreed with the rest of your post.
The problem with Diablo3 is how inventive can they really be when they're pigeonholed by the game's existing mechanics, or lack thereof. They can make close to best in slot items like Skorn or they can take a hike from what I understand. Double Hydras has a pretty set dps boost, after all, and it can be calculated too.
I think this is another case of D3's design having consequences beyond the immediately obvious. 'Build-enabling' items only make sense if there's such a thing a non-sensical build that can only work in conjunction with the relevant item/s, and preferably where switching builds is difficult/impossible, so that you're committing to a skill/gear combination. For that, you need an environment where there's only a few builds that work with a 'vanilla' gear loadout, then a bunch of other builds that work poorly, if at all, unless enabled by a specific set of items. In an environment where trading is easy (whether it's via an official GAH, RMAH or even just a really well-functioning trade channel), skill loadouts can be changed in seconds, and there's a lack of fundamentally bad builds (all of which are, IMO, much better than their respective alternatives) all that would result in is players taking a little longer to switch specs.
The price we pay for being able to respec without paying huge stacks of cash or completely re-rolling, not being shepherded into a very limited set of viable builds, and having access to a convenient item-trading system is that it's much trickier to make gear interesting. I still think there's room in D3 for interesting 'threshold' builds (like CM or TR), but that would take exactly the sort of overhaul of both skills and affixes that Blizzard really does take their time over.
Then make those non-inferno material legendaries require less than level 60 to equip. And make them drop often too. Problem solved. Low level legendaries that drop pre-inferno.
You mean the old crappy legendaries which didn't get any changes with the "Legendary patch", right? Absolutely,I'm all for that. And it seems like a very "easy" change to implement.
You have some very valuable low lvl legendaries. Genzaniku (socketed), See No Evil (socketed), Spectrum (high dps). I'm pretty sure allowing something like an Earthshatter to drop (and be used) by lvl 46 characters would make it a decent alternative lvling weapon (and let it keep its ilvl 63 rolls to make it interesting).
If only they were still making changes at the ratio they were post-release
Yes those.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
"With respect to itemization improvements, the team understands that one of main problems with existing legendaries is that they're often relegated to "toy status" because, while the've got fun effects, they rarely offer comparable upgrades to efficiency-based stats like DPS and EHP. The goal is to make sure that future legendaries don't just look cool, but that they're also compelling to use and make your character feel powerful, both visually and mechanically"
Like, seriously? This is a f***ing revelation to these people? It makes me want to go and slap all the developers in the face. This is the most obvious thing in any game that has items. No one is going to enjoy some fun unique ability or quirk in an item if of course the item has bad DPS, this is a prerequisite to a legendary item. Its oxygen and water, cant live without it.
How are these developers seriously just figuring this out now? Complete amature stuff right here, as if they never made a game before. Its one of those things where I just have no words, I cant...
/endrant
Of course they always knew that such items had to be balanced, but exactly this part ("balance") is the difficult part and especially after the quick 1.04 legendary fix it got out of hand.
If they say in an interview "we want players to have fun when killing monsters", do you also think they just came up with this "revelation" yesterday?
I have personally used weapons like Vigilance (with Deadly Reach) and Schaeffer's Hammer with decent success in mid MPs (and for pathetic amounts of gold, like 50k). They are less gimmicky than people make them out to be. My actual dps with my Schaeffer's hammer was almost twice my sheet dps (and 2.5 times my dps with WW). Stuff like movespeed on a ring or amulet are quite unique, and technically open up choices on other slots that could use better EHP (no need for Tyraels, Inna's, Lacunis), but again people are too worried about losing some of their precious dps if these can't roll quadfecta.
Things like Buriza/Hellrack, Tormentor and Maximus/Sky-Splitter probably were even designed specificallly for followers. They obviously knew the stats weren't suited for Inferno.
They are just not MP 10 material, and that's ok in any game about progression. Some things will be more end-game~ish than others. People talk as if there are just one option per slot, when that clearly was never the case.
I fully agree with how there's should be more options and that these weapons can be a very cool customization feature. But I'm not gonna be a hypocrite and sugarcoat the fact that most other games also fail in this feature (D2, PoE, etc.).
lol...The devs are either totally oblivious or great actors.
A friend of mine came up with a conspiracy theory about whats really going on.
Short version.. Basically the real D3 was split up and will be sold in expansion packs. Now the D3 teams real goal is to keep hope/interest alive in order to sell the console version and xpacs.
Bashiok - Blizzard Representative - 08/01/2011 -"So how many skill combinations are there now? Well taking into account 6 active skills, all the rune combinations, and 3 passives we currently expect each class to have roughly 2,285,814,795,264 different build combinations."
"Hey, I thought you'd like the witty irony of grub-on-glowie violence!"
That alone makes those toy legendaries no so much toy legendaries on intent.
Ye its also their "fault", but hey **** happens!
I know it's hard but it's time to let go of the anger over the terrible state of itemization at launch. Blizz gets 1 more chance imo. This one is the big one, this is the one that counts. 1.09 must succeed.
Looking at many other of D3's more polished aspects, I'm willing to try to understand that, somehow in the mix, itemization wasn't focused on as much as it should have been.
I'm done asking "why". Now my only question is "when"?
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
BiS items will allways be around, and be worth loads more than the "bad items".
The question is how bad should the non-BiS items be before people stop care about them.
What are you talking about?
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
Please point me to any old-school Diablo 2 guide where they focus so much on "exp/hour" or "legendaries/hour". Most builds had very very different farming efficiency ratios. An "enchantress" could probably farm at 1/100th of the ratio of a Glacial Orb Sorc, or a Bone Spear/Spirit-Mancer.
Who said anything about progression? The subject matter there was how the whole "legendaries are useless" is a flawed and logicless argument.
Maybe a Vigilance can't beat an EF+WKL combo in terms of high-end dps, but if it's a good roll (high base DPS + 190%~ CHD) and you have decent gear, it is useable (maybe even in MP10), which is already a huge improvement over D2 that people seem to conveniently forget (or maybe didn't even know in the first place).
Keep caring only about progression and the rewards in your gaming experience and you'll be left with a very sour taste in most games. I will keep enjoying the experience of actually playing the game.
That's not far fetched considering the removed the mystic and charms and other facets of the game that should have been implemented from the get go. Just look at how they reference the mystic now, I have a feeling the mystic will be in the expansion and not a patch.
People need to spent some time familiarizing themselves with that fact. In D2, the best items were only obtainable via boss-runs, and the difficulty cap was much lower (even with mp8). This means that 'efficiency' was mostly about getting to the damn boss in the first place... essentially, how quickly could you traverse the relevant distance on the map. On top of that, there was a vast amount of headroom to let people play with item and skill loadouts without really affecting your ability to farm that much, because most of the time spend 'farming' was walking to a bossfight, and the rest of the time was spent facerolling it to death.
D3 gave us what we wanted... much greater variation in where we could expect to find the loot we wanted, and a much higher difficultly cap. The effect of those two changes (in conjunction with the *AH, and who wanted that is a completely different discussion) has altered player behavior in ways that Blizzard clearly didn't anticipate (and I think it's spurious to assert, with our 20/20 hindsight, that they should have seen it coming in all its gory detail).
I'd be amazed if the 'new legendaries' weren't already well under way when D3 shipped, and once the 'item problem' became clear, it was too late to back out, and too early to fudge a solution... so yeah, we got lumbered with cool procs and bad stats.
In the end, D3 isn't a subscription game. There's no cost for leaving, and none for coming back. The D3 team has a chance to redeem themselves, and clearly want to do so. If you still care about the game, the best you can do is give constructive feedback. If you don't... well... there's not exactly a shortage of good games out there. And CoD. That also exists.
Then make those non-inferno material legendaries require less than level 60 to equip. And make them drop often too. Problem solved. Low level legendaries that drop pre-inferno.
You have some very valuable low lvl legendaries. Genzaniku (socketed), See No Evil (socketed), Spectrum (high dps). I'm pretty sure allowing something like an Earthshatter to drop (and be used) by lvl 46 characters would make it a decent alternative lvling weapon (and let it keep its ilvl 63 rolls to make it interesting).
If only they were still making changes at the ratio they were post-release
I was actually alluding to this particular part of his post:
Even PoE has some Legendaries which are downright useless (some people would argue that most are like this). They release a couple of those almost every other patch. Not to mention how hard it is to balance some of those Legendaries. You simply cannot balance something like a Kaom's Heart. When you have "rule breaking" mechanics, they're nearly impossible to balance.
I don't think PoE's way to doing legendaries (crazy affixes, bad stats) would work in D3, because it doesn't have an independent stat system. Items are supposed to determine how strong we are - hence why the developers mentioned "efficiency based stats",
So having an item with an insanely good "unique trait" (like Leoric's exp boost) and almost no good "stats" wouldn't really fit the current system. Now if we were talking about Crazy Affixes + Potentially Good Stats, then that would fit D3.
But people first need to understand that the random affixes are actually a part of the Diablo franchise and stop complaining about those (as you see in hundreds of posts on the official forums). "Guaranteed insane stats" are a bad thing for legendaries to have.
I think this is another case of D3's design having consequences beyond the immediately obvious. 'Build-enabling' items only make sense if there's such a thing a non-sensical build that can only work in conjunction with the relevant item/s, and preferably where switching builds is difficult/impossible, so that you're committing to a skill/gear combination. For that, you need an environment where there's only a few builds that work with a 'vanilla' gear loadout, then a bunch of other builds that work poorly, if at all, unless enabled by a specific set of items. In an environment where trading is easy (whether it's via an official GAH, RMAH or even just a really well-functioning trade channel), skill loadouts can be changed in seconds, and there's a lack of fundamentally bad builds (all of which are, IMO, much better than their respective alternatives) all that would result in is players taking a little longer to switch specs.
The price we pay for being able to respec without paying huge stacks of cash or completely re-rolling, not being shepherded into a very limited set of viable builds, and having access to a convenient item-trading system is that it's much trickier to make gear interesting. I still think there's room in D3 for interesting 'threshold' builds (like CM or TR), but that would take exactly the sort of overhaul of both skills and affixes that Blizzard really does take their time over.
Yes those.