If I am not mistaken this really only applied to non-magic based characters. I could swear (I could also be misremembering) leveling a barb a million times in D2 and thinking, "damn I wish a new weapon would drop because the damage on this one sucks and it is slowing me down".
That's correct; the melee characters generally required high-damage weapons, unless you were (ab)using Crushing Blow, because most of those skills added % damage (which is another fun trick nostalgia plays ... anyone else remember when Zeal only added accuracy and not damage??).
It wasn't much of an issue in D2 however because there were several weapons that were guaranteed to roll with high damage. You didn't run into a situation where you found the unique you were looking for but it was garbage because the damage rolled to low. This was also coupled with the fact that once you had the damage, you could get the other stats elsewhere; that is, you also didn't run into a situation where you found the uniqu you were looking for and the damage rolled high, but it was garbage because you didn't get a high STR roll.
This goes back to what I was saying about needing everything instead of just a few stats from each piece.
IMO, afer all is said and done, it all about the end game. D3 has no interesting end game so it needs to rely on loot.
Problem is D3 loot is boring. All random numbers.
Also being able to inspect someone else gear is stupid, all novice players are doing is looking at experience players profile and copying. No challenge.
D2 had good hard caps example FCR / All resist / FHR and you needed to be clever to reach certain breakpoint to get that edge.
Remember all
D2 was released in 2000 - excellent at it time
D3 was released in 2012 - rubbish considering what on the market.
That's correct; the melee characters generally required high-damage weapons, unless you were (ab)using Crushing Blow, because most of those skills added % damage (which is another fun trick nostalgia plays ... anyone else remember when Zeal only added accuracy and not damage??).
Well I think that answers the question then.
The problem in D2 was not "intrinsic power" - it was simply the fact that certain classes could run around killing shit without a weapon while others required a weapon to kill things.
It makes sense, but it also creates s gameplay imbalance to have certain classes being completely dependent on their weapon while others can run around without a weapon and play effectively. That's why it changed. It's the kind of obvious logic that you have to sit back and think the only people who could possibly be irked with this are casters... since melee toons and Zons have been tied to their weapon damage forever.
The rest of your post is obviously accurate about itemization. But I just don't understand this "well it's OK for some classes in D2 to be tied to weapon damage, but GODDAMNIT IF YOU MAKE THEM ALL TIED TO WEAPON DAMAGE YOU'VE COMPLETELY FUCKED UP THE INTRINSIC POWER OF MY CHARACTER" train of thought.
All it amounts to was a slight nerf to spellcasters (in that they simply couldn't ignore weapon damage any longer). Physical damage toons carry on as if nothing ever really changed. This is a huge deal? Really? To me it sounds like massively trumped-up faux outrage.
There are a hundred other points of contention with "itemization" that I could understand. This doesn't even register in the top 1000 for me. The impact is marginal and insanely overblown.
That's correct; the melee characters generally required high-damage weapons, unless you were (ab)using Crushing Blow, because most of those skills added % damage (which is another fun trick nostalgia plays ... anyone else remember when Zeal only added accuracy and not damage??).
Well I think that answers the question then.
The problem in D2 was not "intrinsic power" - it was simply the fact that certain classes could run around killing shit without a weapon while others required a weapon to kill things.
It makes sense, but it also creates s gameplay imbalance to have certain classes being completely dependent on their weapon while others can run around without a weapon and play effectively. That's why it changed. It's the kind of obvious logic that you have to sit back and think the only people who could possibly be irked with this are casters... since melee toons and Zons have been tied to their weapon damage forever.
The rest of your post is obviously accurate about itemization. But I just don't understand this "well it's OK for some classes in D2 to be tied to weapon damage, but GODDAMNIT IF YOU MAKE THEM ALL TIED TO WEAPON DAMAGE YOU'VE COMPLETELY FUCKED UP THE INTRINSIC POWER OF MY CHARACTER" train of thought.
All it amounts to was a slight nerf to spellcasters (in that they simply couldn't ignore weapon damage any longer). Physical damage toons carry on as if nothing ever really changed. This is a huge deal? Really? To me it sounds like massively trumped-up faux outrage.
There are a hundred other points of contention with "itemization" that I could understand. This doesn't even register in the top 1000 for me. The impact is marginal and insanely overblown.
They could have also gone the other way on this, they could have made melee classes less dependant on their weapons rather than making everyone completely dependent.
I would argue its about striking a balance between intrinsic power and extrinsic power. If you neglect intrinsic power then the feeling of your characters growth feels artificial dependent on his-her items. it's like a soldier who goes from using a rifle to driving a tank the soldiers ability has not improved just his weapon has, Though he can certainly overpower most enemies, but at the end the day he's a pussy not a mighty hero.(just like Grindelwald haha)
i do find it offensive and odd that my wizards power primarily depends on the power of his weapon/items, a wizards power should grow as his mastery and learning grows finding weapons should just augment that power....it even goes against the archetype of the class as blizzard caste it.
in the same way i dont think it makes sense for a melee character to be completely item dependent either, a great warriors power is the result of his strength and prowess not just of how sharp or deadly his weapon is.
basically role playing games are about mimicing or enhancing the kind of reward systems we find in the real-world, in the real world your abilities improve as a result both of you investing time in them(skill-improvement) and as a result of acquiring good tools(Items).
so a good RPG needs to manage skill improvement(Intrinsic power) and item acquisition(extrinsic power) in a way which mimics that found in the real world. IMO diablo 2 struck a better balance between these two aspects and thus going back to the OP...
Getting that balance right will help you to make the best game possible for your resources.
Good "lower end" balance is much better for the journey to the end-game, and to the experience of other types of gamers.
There's a reason why so many people enjoyed and praised D3 throughout the first 3 difficulties. Instead of that, shaft the melee characters and let specific classes run rampant.
There's no need to cling to old-school traditional D&D RPG mechanics, specially in a RPG that has made its name by not following those and by focusing more on the action part of it.
Give the Sorc a Staff/Wand with +%spelldamage, give the Barb a weapon with +flat damage, work it out so intrinsic spell dps*%spelldamage ~~ intrinsic %skilldamage*weapon flat damage.
I agree with you wholeheartedly from a conceptual standpoint. "Spell damage" makes a ton more sense for a magic-user than "weapon damage" does. But this discussion really isn't about those semantics (otherwise I'd have long since stoped trying to discuss, because it's not worth semantics). This discussion is about "casters should never be dependent on weapons the way they are in D3."
Your solution is very much the most logical solution and it's how WoW does it. Casters in WoW, however, still value their weapon above and beyond every other item they have because it has the largest contribution to spell power of any other source. They are still dependent on their weapons for their performance. The people I'm disagreeing with are actually disagreeing with your "spell power" suggestion too. They want NO DEPENDENCE on a statistic like weapon damage or spell damage. They want casters to behave 100% like they behaved in D2 - the wand could have 1-2 damage or 100-200 damage, the only thing that mattered was the magical properties. Therefore a level 1 wand with perfect properties would automatically be a "BiS" item even though it was available at ... level 1.
The issue Zero brings up about low-level balance doesn't manifest itself in the system until you go on a dry streak with weapon drops. If you allow SOME classes to be independant of the major statistic on a weapon then, while progressing through levels, they have a much easier time. Imagine in D3 if wizards and WDs only cared about stats on their weapons, so that 45 DPS +200 int sword you found at level 20 lasts you well into your 50s. But the barb who finds a 45 DPS +200 str level 20 weapon realizes that it is unusable by level 30 because the DPS is unacceptable. That kind of gameplay "advantage" is just unnecessary and I don't see why anyone would ever advocate that kind of system. I realize that 1-60 isn't a big deal, but there's just no reason to give certain classes that ease when it comes to any aspect of the game.
Like I said, your suggestion of differentiating "weapon damage" and "spell power" is absoltuely a very, very, viable solution (and one you'd hear absolutely no complaining from me if they implemented). But it's still going to provide the same scenario that people who think that "weapons matter too much" are currently complaining about. What you've suggested is a great idea and I fully support it, but it wouldn't actually change this conversation. The same people complaining in this thread that D3 toons are "too dependent on their weapons" would continue to complain even though your suggestion fixes the "conceptual" problem with spells using "weapon damage" in their calculation.
EDIT
You're right that, at its heart, this isn't even an "endgame" discussion. I don't see many people of any class in any Diablo game, running around at max level not using a weapon just for shits and giggles. Even if you're only equipping weapons for their magical properties and not their actual damage, it's not like a RATIONAL person was not using weapons. So the whole idea of "too much is tied to weapons" is largely semantics. Which is exactly what I don't get. It's not THAT BIG OF A DEAL... yet some people act as if it's the downfall of modern gaming or something. The focus placed on a largely-irrelevant change, I simply don't get.
However, Diablo is an aRPG. It's supposed to follow, at least on some conceptual levels, the design of RPGs. It's supposed to give you at least some feeling of immersion. This is why it becomes kind of a big deal for me and probably many others as well. Not a dealbreaker, not the #1 issue, but it's high on the list.
I get the idea of immersion side of a game and it really can make a difference, but when the lore starts to affect the balance of a game is where you lose me.
Lore wise is there any reason why melee classes should get an automatic 30% damage reduction in D3? As far as I know, no there isn't, but it is/was* a necessary evil for the game otherwise everyone would just be rolling around playing ranged classes because it the DR makes that big of a difference.
EDIT: Point being games should not sacrifice their game play/fun just for the sake of lore.
*not sure if it is still a necessary evil in the game at this point, but it certainly was back in the early stages of the game when going defensive was the only way to build a character
I just responded to this above, didn't I? Balance isn't affected at all by any of this. Balance wise, flat intrinsic spell damage*spelldamage%=intrinsic skill damage%*flat weapon damage = constant. No worries about balance. It really is only semantics.
Let's do another exercise. Say the devs want everyone to be killing stuff at X speed. So they design a normal swing of your weapon to do X damage. But they don't want people to just swing their swords, they want to give them cool abilities to use with them. So the ability does 200% of normal damage, then it gets factorized by 0.5 to get back to 'killing speed is X'. Balance wise, this is the same as the original weapon swing, it just has a cool new animation/properties. Now let's imagine the devs want damage types, for example poison that can apply a dot on hit, fire that can burn on crit etc. Now they have to refactor the abilities so 'killing speed is X'. Again, nothing changed balance wise, it's only added flavor, what could be called 'semantics'.
The same applies to crit and crit damage. Again, it's only flavor. We could be dealing the same exact damage value for all eternity and the result would be the same, balance wise. Most people would also call this boring.
Some people don't like flavor, and that's ok. Some people don't care about Wizards using attack speed and axes, and some people might not care if arrows were called spells and you could shoot them out of a hammer instead of a bow. This is all semantics, after all, the damage will apply and the monster will die regardless.
And yet, it might not really feel right. Catch my drift now?
I completely understand what you are saying and if Blizzard decided to make it so, it wouldn't bother me one bit. Although it still doesn't change my post above and my distension to lore affecting balance. There is zero reason lore wise as to why it is there, yet it is there and provides ample utility towards the game play, fun and really seems to get brushed over when mentioning lore/immersion.
D2's itemization WASN'T good. You'll get people that argued for pvp you had to max certain stats or you were dead (like hit recovery) and for PVE (like FCR and lifesteal ect), but that didn't actually make D2's itemization 'good'.
The EXACT same problems plagued D3 as in D2; Only a handful of certain items were good, because they had all the right stats on them. Almost all builds of the same class used the same items, and the rest were left in the dust because of how bad they were.
BUT, the reason you're going to see people rage at me for even mentioning that D2's itemization was horrible, is because it gave the illusion that it was at least all right, because even though you had like I said before a handful of items that were by far the best, you *could* use almost any item you wanted and still be successful. That's not because of good itemization, that's because by the time you were level 85 or around there, you out-leveled the game by so much that you could roflstomp hell mode with relative ease using whatever combination of gear you wanted.
Because D3 has inferno mode, every monster out levels you and we don't have broken affixes like crushing blow, skills like sorc's static, the game is actually hard. Because of how hard D3 is (compared to D2), it forces people to actually try and stack both DPS increasing gear and EHP increases, which with the current state of gear makes it near impossible to FIND all the gear you need, thus, bad itemization.
Now I'm a die hard D2 fan, but at least I can sit back and look at exactly what was going on. *queue up people raging*
I have to call BS on your arguments about PVP. PVP in diablo 2 wasn't special but there was a lot more build diversity than this game has. In regards to your issues with itemization, you're again mistaken. Due to the types of build diversity people could make plenty of viable builds and changes to their characters and still be perfectly fine. Diablo PVE for the most part was a terrible gauge for items because you outleveled the content so you can only judge an items value based on its PVP quality.
Lets look at a zealer paladin for example. I'll speak in generalities because I don't remember the names of all the items and runewords anymore.
you could wear 4-5 different helms (vamp,shako, CoA, runeword helms)
you could wear 4-5 different chest armors (runeword, shaftstop, tyreals might, leviatian, etc)
rings/amulets varied but there were crafted, rare and uniques in the mix
boots/gloves/belts all varied crafted,rare,unique were in the mix
weapons- rares uniques and runewords were all used
When you look at d3 in comparison. Everyone uses pretty much the same gear outside of weapons which are rare and jewelry.
For the most part for barbs you're either wearing a nice IK helm for budge reasons or a mempo
you're wearing ik armor
you're using innas pants
you're using witching hour belt sometimes IK
you're using ik gloves or rare trifecta
weapon is echoing fury or a rare
jewelry is crafted
shoulders crafted
boots pretty much always ice climbers maybe ik boots
and everyone has the same cookie cutter 2h build or WW build..yes it varies some.
Both games have their positives and negatives but overall d2 allowed you to customize your character and build it around the gear. In diablo 3 your character minus the skills you use is already done and you have to find the best gear based on the primary attribute and then obviously the trifecta stats.
Diablo 2's itemization was more appealing because there was no hard level cap and you could use the gear for any character because there was no primary stat forcing you to stick with one class. Then of course you have the ability to get pretty much great uniques 90% of the time saving the affix roll which was much more forgiving in most cases than compared to diablo 3. Additionally the only items you ever really had to reroll a few times before getting to perfection were runewords..which still were overpowered for pve standards.
Either way diablo 2's itemization was praised because you always felt rewarded when you found something and items were much easier to come by.
The big difference for me between D2 and D3 was the randomization of stats. In D2 you kind of knew how the most popular items could roll. In D3 The items are all over the place. Its as if every item in D3 is a stat trinket that has like a million different ways they can roll.
This is frustrating for me personally and it gets worse considering D3 is a harder game and you have to have very specific stats to survive the content.
Stat requirements - do you want a characters stats to affect the items they are able to equip? Level requirement - do you want a characters level to affect when they can equip the item Item Quality- do you want all items to be able to roll a specific quality and will you have a unique version of the item? Attributes given - what kind attributes can the items have in your game? Can a helms defense be enhanced by a modifier? Attribute rolls - Will the helms defense roll be able to high or low? Aesthetics - Will an item catch the players eye when on the floor or equipped by another player?
The above are a few very basic things to consider about items inside of D2. To drill down into the nitty gritty parts of items a good way is to compare D2 and D3.
D2 and D3 differ drastically on how they handle items and that is because of the top point, stat requirements.
Due to the removal of the mechanic stat allocation, items could no longer have stat requirements, which means that items in D3 carry purely numerical advantages over one another and the only boundary to equip said item is a level requirement which becomes defunct at level cap.
Level cap is something also different about D2 and D3, whilst there was a hard cap for D2, many items were scattered among different character levels and people very rarely reached the hard cap, a question the developers must of asked themselves is does this add more flavor or does it provide just another annoying roadblock?
We see that there is no boundaries to equip an item outside of character class in D3 and we are left with the question: are boundaries fun?
When we consider stat allocation in conjunction with stat requirements on items, you start to see how customization of your characters stats start to weave themselves into not only a numerical advantage such as having more strength to do more damage but allowing you to equip heavier swords/armors.
This translates into aesthetics, if i can assign points on my character, I can equip a different sword type and therefore have a different look, meaning your investment into a stat has changed the way your character looks in the world, and adds more weight to your decision.
We then consider the inability for the majority of Diablo 2s lifespan to reset stats, thus meaning when you place points into strength to put that sword or armor on you're stuck with it, adding more weight to your decision.
It is shown that items become an embodiment of your decisions and ultimately your character reflects all your cumulative decisions. I can't honestly say Diablo 2 did a tremendous job of this but the concept was there and it added a bit of "heart" to items.
Other games have also used this concept of weaving stats and items together to create a very deep sense of game play, a few examples would be: Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale, Dungeon Siege 1, the best to show this concept in my opinion however is Dark Souls.
I'm not going to say which is better or worse, because sometimes boundaries piss people off, having the freedom of item choice in D3 is nice, stats became less of a choice and more of "dump loads into str and X and the rest in vit" in D2 which means that sometimes a player could become disenchanted with the system and just outright annoyed by it.
The cruel reality is of all this is you just can't please everyone and as a developer it winds me up so much and is something I eventually had to accept, there will always be people who dislike the games i craft and people who want to man hug IRL.
I wish you luck in development of your game
Wow thanks for the lengthy response! I really enjoy longer posts, they (usually) contain more information.
The way the item system works essentially is there are 7 different item types:
Staves - Have weapon damage which affects skills. It can have a % Damage modifier to increase the weapon damage
2H Staves - Have weapon damage which affects skills (higher than normal staves), but cannot equip a shield with it. It can have a % Damage modifier to increase the weapon damage
Shields - Have Armor (there is a % Armor modifier to increase the value on the item itself) and block chance
Boots, Chest, Helm - Have Armor and a potential % Armor modifier
Skill Gems - Equippable spells/abilities that can level up if equipped, and unlock bonus effects every levels (up to 15)
The way the game works, item requirements would be more annoying than anything else.
The passive skill tree doesn't have stats, because there are no base stats in this game, but I've gone back and forth on adding them.
What would stat points add to the game if they were not a part of item requirements?
D3 itemization is just criminally bad. Something like this shouldn't exist in 2013, and especially not by a company such as Blizzard. I'll just be short and mention the very nice fact that ALL CLASSES FUCKING WANT the exact same items, with only the primary stat varying. Head slot = only Mempo. Bracer = only Lacuni. Shoulder = only Vile Ward. Belt = only Witching Hour. Boots = only Ice Climbers. 2h weapon = only Skorn. 1h weapon = only echoing fury.
for every. fucking. class. pointless to even discuss anything further as their entire premise with the loot system is so incredibly flawed and stupid I just can't believe any of them (or at least the ones making the decisions) ever played Diablo 2 or other good and classic RPG's.
and the sad thing is, judging by RoS reveals so far, I'm afraid they, contrary to their claims, still don't understand the core of their itemization problems, and the Loot 2.0 will end up the same as Loot 1.0 but with higher rolls on everything.
Itemization is currently bad but not all classes want the same thing. Helm? Wd's are better off with a Zuni's Vision, Wiz's use Storm crow regularly. Bracers? A lot of people use crafted ones, same goes for shoulders. Belt? Some barbs are better off with a IK Belt. Boots? Nats boots (in conjunction with the set bonuses) are the best boots for dex characters. The best dps boost for intel characters are Zunis. 2 handed weapons I'll give you. 1 handers? EF's arent mandatory at all. I actually hate EF, I only use it on my barb. Monks are generally better off without it. And if you dont duel wield, a rare actually beats out an EF since you dont take advantage of the +aps.
D3 itemization is just criminally bad. Something like this shouldn't exist in 2013, and especially not by a company such as Blizzard. I'll just be short and mention the very nice fact that ALL CLASSES FUCKING WANT the exact same items, with only the primary stat varying. Head slot = only Mempo. Bracer = only Lacuni. Shoulder = only Vile Ward. Belt = only Witching Hour. Boots = only Ice Climbers. 2h weapon = only Skorn. 1h weapon = only echoing fury.
Many WDs use Zuni's helm over Mempo. Many Monks use Inna's helm over Mempo.
Many WDs use crafted bracers over Lacunis.
Crafted shoulders are a complete alternative to Vile Wards for all classes.
Many Wizards and WDs use Zuni's boots over Ice Climbers. Many Monks and DHs use Nat's boots.
Echoing Fury is completely inferior to most well-rolled rare weapons.
You were saying?
This guy was asking for what makes good itemization. If you can't give him reasonable feedback so he can make his own game, please don't talk shit for the sake of looking like an internet tough guy.
D3 itemization is just criminally bad. Something like this shouldn't exist in 2013, and especially not by a company such as Blizzard. I'll just be short and mention the very nice fact that ALL CLASSES FUCKING WANT the exact same items, with only the primary stat varying. Head slot = only Mempo. Bracer = only Lacuni. Shoulder = only Vile Ward. Belt = only Witching Hour. Boots = only Ice Climbers. 2h weapon = only Skorn. 1h weapon = only echoing fury.
for every. fucking. class. pointless to even discuss anything further as their entire premise with the loot system is so incredibly flawed and stupid I just can't believe any of them (or at least the ones making the decisions) ever played Diablo 2 or other good and classic RPG's.
and the sad thing is, judging by RoS reveals so far, I'm afraid they, contrary to their claims, still don't understand the core of their itemization problems, and the Loot 2.0 will end up the same as Loot 1.0 but with higher rolls on everything.
While I get your point it would be much better received with less broad sweeping generalizations. I know for a fact there are a few classes/specs out there that don't need the gear that is labeled as the "only" choice.
Most of this isn't helpful. The guy wants to know what is good about D2s loot (hell, he'll probably take examples from any ARPG, I'd guess) because he wants to use that knowledge to make his game better. Telling someone "everything was perfect with D2 loot" doesn't help because he's obviously not copying D2s loot 1-for-1. He needs specific feedback, not infographs made by some butthurt Blizztroll that aren't even factually correct.
Some things to think about when it comes to loot:
Player Power vs Monster Power
In D2 you could beat the game naked. This meant that the items were sorta like... icing on the cake. An imperfect item was still viable. This is why so many people say stuff like "lower level items were viable!" These items were viable because the game was less difficult. People clamored for higher difficulty in D3, they got it, and one of the side-effects is that it puts more emphasis on attaining items that are "great" instead of just "ok." Which is better? Can't say. I'm not personally a fan of being able to beat a game that's loot-centric without any loot, though.
Unkillable Players
Life Leech. My favorite topic ever. In D2 you could stack this til the cows came home (err no pun intended) and make a character that, in PvM, was exceptionally difficult to kill. Was this good design? I doubt it because it was one of the first things that the D3 team nixed. It was recognized that having characters that could basically stand in anything, and who basically had infinite life and mana with fairly low gear requirements was a bad idea. I'm not saying that D3 got this right, but I would definitely caution you about not throwing stats like Life Leech (or Mana Leech) around on lots of items or, at the very least, keep careful control on it so as not to dillute the game with that particular stat. Then again, you may want to avoid it completely and go in another direction which would also be interesting.
Skills
This is the one area that I think D2 completely outstripped D3, although we will see how Loot 2.0 addresses it. Most of the skill-specific affixes in D3 are completely inadequate and insufferable. They're almost always inferior to other offensive stats and for most builds it's not worth having them. STONE OF JORDAN (D3) is the one major example against this because of how the item is designed. However, the +all skills and +trees were pretty slick because of how they interacted with your other choices. I took exception with +individual skills that granted the ability to gain skills from other classes (Enigma), but in general there was a better interaction. A druid helm that had +Lycanthropy, for example, was great. Allowing everyone to Teleport was a dire mistake. The only downside of this was that +all skills became a pretty ubiquitous stat and was one of the main ways to increase your damage.
Weapons
This is a hot topic since the D3 team decided that weapon damage determines the damage of all your abilities whereas D2 weapons had no bearing on your damage. It is my feeling that it makes no sense for an all-powerful wizard to be running around using a weapon he found at level 4 because it's got better stats. No one complains that armor = defense and that higher level items have more armor. Yet somehow people complain about what amounts to a mechanic that ensures that some dinky level 4 newbie wand isn't the best item in the game. I don't get it, I never will. Is it a bit strange that a fireball from the sky takes your weapon damage into account? Sure. Does it provide better gameplay? Absolutely. As an adventurer why wouldn't your weapon be one of your most important items?
Charms
Never ask people to trade inventory space for power. It was a great idea in theory. In practice it was a massive annoyance. Items should be equipped. If they are to be carried around on your person then put them in some "bag" or "pouch" that is separate from the actual inventory. Do not use inventory space for this. It's infuriating.
That's all I have in terms of actual feedback on the subject, OP. I hope it helps give insight for your items in your game!
For sure! Thanks for the constructive feedback! In my game all the skills are based on you weapon damage, but I'm still wondering if that's the best way to go about it.
My thinking: Maybe do a hybrid between weapon damage and elemental type damage. For example, if fireball does 125% weapon damage now, maybe it would do 60% weapon damage and 10 Fire damage (increased by X% to Fire damage stat).
In terms of difficulty of the monsters, there are 3 levels of difficulty: I, II, III (easy enough)
The default is the easiest, which I balance the game around. A couple of people have complained how feeling nearly invincible makes the game seem pointless, so I'm trying to decrease the amount of OP items right at the start and make the player feel like they worked for those 5 property items, not just receive them easily at level one.
Diablo 3 made yellow items pretty darn rare throughout pretty much all of act one on normal, then increased their drop rates (it seems). It felt annoying, but it solves perhaps larger issues.
Another itemization feature I'm going to try is making the items with less properties have higher potential values on them for the stats. For example: a 5 property rare can roll between 10-15% attack speed. With this new system, a blue item with 2 properties could roll between 15-20% attack speed.
Everything's up in the air still, and I can't wait to read the rest of these posts and for future responses
If I were to build a game, I'd rather copy D3's itemization (or TL1).
I played a bit of TL1, and would like to know what you thought was so great about that game's itemization.
With my game, I guess its more comparable to TL1 in that the game is kind of short, and that technically it goes on forever, but the final boss can be reached in about an hour. This is on purpose, as I love an EXTREMELY fast paced game, and how sometimes I feel arpgs can be a little too slow for my taste. That's just my personal opinion, and I still love the genre (or else I wouldn't make an arpg).
How would you say UI affects itemization specifically? A few others fave mentioned this but I can never seem to get a clear response on it.
My game uses a pretty basic itemization UI: 25 inventory slots, 5 equipment slots, 4 skill gem slots. You can right click to equip, left click and drag, etc. Is there something intrinsic I'm missing that is unnoticeable at a glance but makes an under the hood difference?
And +skills were never random rolls - you couldn't roll between 1 and 50 +skill. In D3, all relevant stats have pretty huge ranges, which adds to the perception that the itemization sucks.
I'm still messing with the item ranges to figure out a good balance of random and pointless.
If I'm understanding this whole discussion at all (somewhat difficult to extrapolate from varying opinions but trying hard), +1 skill was an easy way to boost DPS.
Perhaps in my game a good way to do this would be to have items that give +1 fire skills, or +1 melee skills, or +1 area skills
I think no one has mentioned prefixes and suffixes yet, just affixes like they are now in D3.
D2 had many interesting affixes, yes, but it also included the inability of many of the flat out best affixes to roll together. With enough interesting affixes this wouldn't be an issue with D3, however this is not the case.
Let's take, for example, a weapon in D3. It can roll +flat dmg, +dmg%, +crit dmg, +socket, +attack speed, +mainstat. This is the perfect roll for all builds and all characters dps wise, no exceptions. Lifesteal might be more desirable instead of attack speed or mainstat if you can't get any of it elsewhere, but that's it. Any other affix is, by comparison, bad.
Let's now imagine that these all could not roll at the same time. A rare could still have 6 mods, however 3 would have to be prefixes and 3 affixes. You could have 4+ of these mods as prefixes. Some builds would value +flat dmg and +attack speed more than +mainstat or +dmg%. Even if it's still just boring dps increases we're dealing with, now there's some flavor to it. The perfect weapon isn't predetermined for all situations anymore.
This is obviously just a band-aid for the 'we don't have enough interesting stats to throw at you' problem. But it's a pretty good band-aid and it could be argued that even if there were 10 equally desirable stats, giving the itemization team the ability to disallow a few of them from rolling together would be a powerful tool in their hands. A lot more powerful than just disallowing more brackets from the same category of affix to roll together, like it is currently.
The way I've attempted to deal with the whole CC/CD thing in my game was by only allowing CC to roll on weapons, with a higher number value compared to D3. We'll see if it works out well
if you hand Lord Voldemort a shitty wand he's still Lord Voldemort. the ideal wand maximises his power but even with a shitty wand he's still one of the most powerful wizards alive....
I'd simply like to point out that in the 7th he spent countless resources trying to obtain the elder wand so he could kill Harry
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That's correct; the melee characters generally required high-damage weapons, unless you were (ab)using Crushing Blow, because most of those skills added % damage (which is another fun trick nostalgia plays ... anyone else remember when Zeal only added accuracy and not damage??).
It wasn't much of an issue in D2 however because there were several weapons that were guaranteed to roll with high damage. You didn't run into a situation where you found the unique you were looking for but it was garbage because the damage rolled to low. This was also coupled with the fact that once you had the damage, you could get the other stats elsewhere; that is, you also didn't run into a situation where you found the uniqu you were looking for and the damage rolled high, but it was garbage because you didn't get a high STR roll.
This goes back to what I was saying about needing everything instead of just a few stats from each piece.
Problem is D3 loot is boring. All random numbers.
Also being able to inspect someone else gear is stupid, all novice players are doing is looking at experience players profile and copying. No challenge.
D2 had good hard caps example FCR / All resist / FHR and you needed to be clever to reach certain breakpoint to get that edge.
Remember all
D2 was released in 2000 - excellent at it time
D3 was released in 2012 - rubbish considering what on the market.
Well I think that answers the question then.
The problem in D2 was not "intrinsic power" - it was simply the fact that certain classes could run around killing shit without a weapon while others required a weapon to kill things.
It makes sense, but it also creates s gameplay imbalance to have certain classes being completely dependent on their weapon while others can run around without a weapon and play effectively. That's why it changed. It's the kind of obvious logic that you have to sit back and think the only people who could possibly be irked with this are casters... since melee toons and Zons have been tied to their weapon damage forever.
The rest of your post is obviously accurate about itemization. But I just don't understand this "well it's OK for some classes in D2 to be tied to weapon damage, but GODDAMNIT IF YOU MAKE THEM ALL TIED TO WEAPON DAMAGE YOU'VE COMPLETELY FUCKED UP THE INTRINSIC POWER OF MY CHARACTER" train of thought.
All it amounts to was a slight nerf to spellcasters (in that they simply couldn't ignore weapon damage any longer). Physical damage toons carry on as if nothing ever really changed. This is a huge deal? Really? To me it sounds like massively trumped-up faux outrage.
There are a hundred other points of contention with "itemization" that I could understand. This doesn't even register in the top 1000 for me. The impact is marginal and insanely overblown.
They could have also gone the other way on this, they could have made melee classes less dependant on their weapons rather than making everyone completely dependent.
I would argue its about striking a balance between intrinsic power and extrinsic power. If you neglect intrinsic power then the feeling of your characters growth feels artificial dependent on his-her items. it's like a soldier who goes from using a rifle to driving a tank the soldiers ability has not improved just his weapon has, Though he can certainly overpower most enemies, but at the end the day he's a pussy not a mighty hero.(just like Grindelwald haha)
i do find it offensive and odd that my wizards power primarily depends on the power of his weapon/items, a wizards power should grow as his mastery and learning grows finding weapons should just augment that power....it even goes against the archetype of the class as blizzard caste it.
in the same way i dont think it makes sense for a melee character to be completely item dependent either, a great warriors power is the result of his strength and prowess not just of how sharp or deadly his weapon is.
basically role playing games are about mimicing or enhancing the kind of reward systems we find in the real-world, in the real world your abilities improve as a result both of you investing time in them(skill-improvement) and as a result of acquiring good tools(Items).
so a good RPG needs to manage skill improvement(Intrinsic power) and item acquisition(extrinsic power) in a way which mimics that found in the real world. IMO diablo 2 struck a better balance between these two aspects and thus going back to the OP...
Getting that balance right will help you to make the best game possible for your resources.
There's a reason why so many people enjoyed and praised D3 throughout the first 3 difficulties. Instead of that, shaft the melee characters and let specific classes run rampant.
There's no need to cling to old-school traditional D&D RPG mechanics, specially in a RPG that has made its name by not following those and by focusing more on the action part of it.
I agree with you wholeheartedly from a conceptual standpoint. "Spell damage" makes a ton more sense for a magic-user than "weapon damage" does. But this discussion really isn't about those semantics (otherwise I'd have long since stoped trying to discuss, because it's not worth semantics). This discussion is about "casters should never be dependent on weapons the way they are in D3."
Your solution is very much the most logical solution and it's how WoW does it. Casters in WoW, however, still value their weapon above and beyond every other item they have because it has the largest contribution to spell power of any other source. They are still dependent on their weapons for their performance. The people I'm disagreeing with are actually disagreeing with your "spell power" suggestion too. They want NO DEPENDENCE on a statistic like weapon damage or spell damage. They want casters to behave 100% like they behaved in D2 - the wand could have 1-2 damage or 100-200 damage, the only thing that mattered was the magical properties. Therefore a level 1 wand with perfect properties would automatically be a "BiS" item even though it was available at ... level 1.
The issue Zero brings up about low-level balance doesn't manifest itself in the system until you go on a dry streak with weapon drops. If you allow SOME classes to be independant of the major statistic on a weapon then, while progressing through levels, they have a much easier time. Imagine in D3 if wizards and WDs only cared about stats on their weapons, so that 45 DPS +200 int sword you found at level 20 lasts you well into your 50s. But the barb who finds a 45 DPS +200 str level 20 weapon realizes that it is unusable by level 30 because the DPS is unacceptable. That kind of gameplay "advantage" is just unnecessary and I don't see why anyone would ever advocate that kind of system. I realize that 1-60 isn't a big deal, but there's just no reason to give certain classes that ease when it comes to any aspect of the game.
Like I said, your suggestion of differentiating "weapon damage" and "spell power" is absoltuely a very, very, viable solution (and one you'd hear absolutely no complaining from me if they implemented). But it's still going to provide the same scenario that people who think that "weapons matter too much" are currently complaining about. What you've suggested is a great idea and I fully support it, but it wouldn't actually change this conversation. The same people complaining in this thread that D3 toons are "too dependent on their weapons" would continue to complain even though your suggestion fixes the "conceptual" problem with spells using "weapon damage" in their calculation.
EDIT
You're right that, at its heart, this isn't even an "endgame" discussion. I don't see many people of any class in any Diablo game, running around at max level not using a weapon just for shits and giggles. Even if you're only equipping weapons for their magical properties and not their actual damage, it's not like a RATIONAL person was not using weapons. So the whole idea of "too much is tied to weapons" is largely semantics. Which is exactly what I don't get. It's not THAT BIG OF A DEAL... yet some people act as if it's the downfall of modern gaming or something. The focus placed on a largely-irrelevant change, I simply don't get.
I get the idea of immersion side of a game and it really can make a difference, but when the lore starts to affect the balance of a game is where you lose me.
Lore wise is there any reason why melee classes should get an automatic 30% damage reduction in D3? As far as I know, no there isn't, but it is/was* a necessary evil for the game otherwise everyone would just be rolling around playing ranged classes because it the DR makes that big of a difference.
EDIT: Point being games should not sacrifice their game play/fun just for the sake of lore.
*not sure if it is still a necessary evil in the game at this point, but it certainly was back in the early stages of the game when going defensive was the only way to build a character
I completely understand what you are saying and if Blizzard decided to make it so, it wouldn't bother me one bit. Although it still doesn't change my post above and my distension to lore affecting balance. There is zero reason lore wise as to why it is there, yet it is there and provides ample utility towards the game play, fun and really seems to get brushed over when mentioning lore/immersion.
I have to call BS on your arguments about PVP. PVP in diablo 2 wasn't special but there was a lot more build diversity than this game has. In regards to your issues with itemization, you're again mistaken. Due to the types of build diversity people could make plenty of viable builds and changes to their characters and still be perfectly fine. Diablo PVE for the most part was a terrible gauge for items because you outleveled the content so you can only judge an items value based on its PVP quality.
Lets look at a zealer paladin for example. I'll speak in generalities because I don't remember the names of all the items and runewords anymore.
you could wear 4-5 different helms (vamp,shako, CoA, runeword helms)
you could wear 4-5 different chest armors (runeword, shaftstop, tyreals might, leviatian, etc)
rings/amulets varied but there were crafted, rare and uniques in the mix
boots/gloves/belts all varied crafted,rare,unique were in the mix
weapons- rares uniques and runewords were all used
When you look at d3 in comparison. Everyone uses pretty much the same gear outside of weapons which are rare and jewelry.
For the most part for barbs you're either wearing a nice IK helm for budge reasons or a mempo
you're wearing ik armor
you're using innas pants
you're using witching hour belt sometimes IK
you're using ik gloves or rare trifecta
weapon is echoing fury or a rare
jewelry is crafted
shoulders crafted
boots pretty much always ice climbers maybe ik boots
and everyone has the same cookie cutter 2h build or WW build..yes it varies some.
Both games have their positives and negatives but overall d2 allowed you to customize your character and build it around the gear. In diablo 3 your character minus the skills you use is already done and you have to find the best gear based on the primary attribute and then obviously the trifecta stats.
Diablo 2's itemization was more appealing because there was no hard level cap and you could use the gear for any character because there was no primary stat forcing you to stick with one class. Then of course you have the ability to get pretty much great uniques 90% of the time saving the affix roll which was much more forgiving in most cases than compared to diablo 3. Additionally the only items you ever really had to reroll a few times before getting to perfection were runewords..which still were overpowered for pve standards.
Either way diablo 2's itemization was praised because you always felt rewarded when you found something and items were much easier to come by.
This is frustrating for me personally and it gets worse considering D3 is a harder game and you have to have very specific stats to survive the content.
The way the item system works essentially is there are 7 different item types:
Staves - Have weapon damage which affects skills. It can have a % Damage modifier to increase the weapon damage
2H Staves - Have weapon damage which affects skills (higher than normal staves), but cannot equip a shield with it. It can have a % Damage modifier to increase the weapon damage
Shields - Have Armor (there is a % Armor modifier to increase the value on the item itself) and block chance
Boots, Chest, Helm - Have Armor and a potential % Armor modifier
Skill Gems - Equippable spells/abilities that can level up if equipped, and unlock bonus effects every levels (up to 15)
The way the game works, item requirements would be more annoying than anything else.
The passive skill tree doesn't have stats, because there are no base stats in this game, but I've gone back and forth on adding them.
What would stat points add to the game if they were not a part of item requirements?
Thanks for the input! only 3 more pages to read
Itemization is currently bad but not all classes want the same thing. Helm? Wd's are better off with a Zuni's Vision, Wiz's use Storm crow regularly. Bracers? A lot of people use crafted ones, same goes for shoulders. Belt? Some barbs are better off with a IK Belt. Boots? Nats boots (in conjunction with the set bonuses) are the best boots for dex characters. The best dps boost for intel characters are Zunis. 2 handed weapons I'll give you. 1 handers? EF's arent mandatory at all. I actually hate EF, I only use it on my barb. Monks are generally better off without it. And if you dont duel wield, a rare actually beats out an EF since you dont take advantage of the +aps.
Many WDs use Zuni's helm over Mempo. Many Monks use Inna's helm over Mempo.
Many WDs use crafted bracers over Lacunis.
Crafted shoulders are a complete alternative to Vile Wards for all classes.
Many Wizards and WDs use Zuni's boots over Ice Climbers. Many Monks and DHs use Nat's boots.
Echoing Fury is completely inferior to most well-rolled rare weapons.
You were saying?
This guy was asking for what makes good itemization. If you can't give him reasonable feedback so he can make his own game, please don't talk shit for the sake of looking like an internet tough guy.
While I get your point it would be much better received with less broad sweeping generalizations. I know for a fact there are a few classes/specs out there that don't need the gear that is labeled as the "only" choice.
My thinking: Maybe do a hybrid between weapon damage and elemental type damage. For example, if fireball does 125% weapon damage now, maybe it would do 60% weapon damage and 10 Fire damage (increased by X% to Fire damage stat).
In terms of difficulty of the monsters, there are 3 levels of difficulty: I, II, III (easy enough)
The default is the easiest, which I balance the game around. A couple of people have complained how feeling nearly invincible makes the game seem pointless, so I'm trying to decrease the amount of OP items right at the start and make the player feel like they worked for those 5 property items, not just receive them easily at level one.
Diablo 3 made yellow items pretty darn rare throughout pretty much all of act one on normal, then increased their drop rates (it seems). It felt annoying, but it solves perhaps larger issues.
Another itemization feature I'm going to try is making the items with less properties have higher potential values on them for the stats. For example: a 5 property rare can roll between 10-15% attack speed. With this new system, a blue item with 2 properties could roll between 15-20% attack speed.
Everything's up in the air still, and I can't wait to read the rest of these posts and for future responses
With my game, I guess its more comparable to TL1 in that the game is kind of short, and that technically it goes on forever, but the final boss can be reached in about an hour. This is on purpose, as I love an EXTREMELY fast paced game, and how sometimes I feel arpgs can be a little too slow for my taste. That's just my personal opinion, and I still love the genre (or else I wouldn't make an arpg).
My game uses a pretty basic itemization UI: 25 inventory slots, 5 equipment slots, 4 skill gem slots. You can right click to equip, left click and drag, etc. Is there something intrinsic I'm missing that is unnoticeable at a glance but makes an under the hood difference?
If I'm understanding this whole discussion at all (somewhat difficult to extrapolate from varying opinions but trying hard), +1 skill was an easy way to boost DPS.
Perhaps in my game a good way to do this would be to have items that give +1 fire skills, or +1 melee skills, or +1 area skills