Hello everyone, I've decided to make a video discussing my thoughts, opinions, and suggestions regarding the Diablo III end-game. After seeing both Kripparian's and Athene's videos on the matter, I felt obliged to make one myself. Feel free to leave your feedback here or in the comments of the YouTube video, I'm just curious to hear what you all think in responses.
In short, I talk about how there is a lack of end-game (no, Inferno is not end-game, I said this last September!), and what can potentially be added to alleviate this issue. For example, Pandemonium events for PvE, a Competitive PvP, and ladders for both. I explain them in much more detail in the video.
Originally I only intended on doing one of these videos, but after the positive feedback and discussion that came out of my first video, I decided to do one covering the current issues with the Magic Find system. I very quickly talk about the five (essentially six) options Blizzard laid out in their blog post and then offer up my own [seventh] solution.
tl;dr
*Option 1: Solves gear swapping. Kills min/maxing.
*Options 2/3/4: All MF over time can all be gamed (gear swapping still exists).
*Option 5: Has non-MF related problems and can all be gamed (gear swapping still exists).
*Option 6: Gear swap button, this doesn't solve the problem, it encourages it.
*Option 7 (my option): Re-implement the talisman, charms, and the Mystic. Remove MF/GF from all items and only allow them to spawn on charms. Allow the Mystic to enhance our items with MF/GF and potentially craft charms.
The only thing that strikes me as odd, is that Blizz should have realized that these things needed to be in the game to begin with. It would be very strange that they are somehow oblivious to what made D2 live for so long.
They honestly believed people wouldn't be able to complete Inferno in less than a month, it's one of Blizzards ten commandments of game design
1...
2...
3. Always under-estimate the skill and tenacity of gamers
Even Sixen stated it, what seven times? They believed Inferno was the end game. There was no great conspiracy, just horrible exploits allowing Inferno to be farmed and completed in a tenth the time they expected, which pumped the economy full of high tier items which began allowing others to do the same thing, that then snowballed into a whole bunch of bored ass players complaining about lack of end game, simple as that.
It's just out of the question. There has to have been an event, that caused the philosophy change so radically, that in fact, the entire development of D3, took a turn for the worse.
This is what I'm chalking it up to, there is a completely different philosophy here, and that's the D2 philosophy and the D3 philosophy. I'm just having a hard time pinpointing and explaining the differences between the two. There is a clear distinction between item farming, content, playstyle, and build diversity (in addition to itemization).
Even if you go about it, like you get MONTHS Of progression, there are still CLEARLY documented moments, where the game literally does not give a single f'ck to regards of what gear you have, it just slaps you silly. Like being Physically blocked in Desecrate, waller , plague etc. - It does not matter if you outgear that, pre nerf, you would NEVER survive that. It does not matter how you do that, you are physically blocked. So you get forced to take other measures, skip packs etc. - And it becomes even MORE redundant if we try to play in HC on this. Because then it really shines.
This isn't blizzard who designed this shit, this CANNOT be the same team who Made Diablo 2. Because this stuff, this is something you learn by going with afterthought with say, like, couple of moments. And i can tell you, 10 YEARS, is a LOT of time to think and reflect, especially if you show that you had more thought in progress b4 while it was in progress.
Sixen .... your whole point about doing the charm system to stop gear swapping is moot.
ALL you do is push gear swapping from items ... to now charms. Unless each charm is GUARANTEED to contain both GF AND MF (just in varying %s ) people will swap in the charms that benefit them best for that situation.
Sixen .... your whole point about doing the charm system to stop gear swapping is moot.
ALL you do is push gear swapping from items ... to now charms. Unless each charm is GUARANTEED to contain both GF AND MF (just in varying %s ) people will swap in the charms that benefit them best for that situation.
Whether or not it's guaranteed to have both shouldn't really matter. At that point, what you're saying is, you'll be swapping out your GF and MF charms? That's not what's going on atm, as far as I'm aware. What's happening is that people are swapping out for one or the other (or gear with both if they're lucky), but not swapping GF gear for MF gear.
Sixen .... your whole point about doing the charm system to stop gear swapping is moot.
ALL you do is push gear swapping from items ... to now charms. Unless each charm is GUARANTEED to contain both GF AND MF (just in varying %s ) people will swap in the charms that benefit them best for that situation.
Whether or not it's guaranteed to have both shouldn't really matter. At that point, what you're saying is, you'll be swapping out your GF and MF charms? That's not what's going on atm, as far as I'm aware. What's happening is that people are swapping out for one or the other (or gear with both if they're lucky), but not swapping GF gear for MF gear.
Scenario 1 - Charms are like gear now and have a CHANCE to get MF/GF or any other stat:
Players will use their dps/ life charms until the elite/boss is almost dead and swap charms like they currently do gear.
Scenario 2 - Charms are guaranteed to either roll MF or GF, with a chance to roll aditionally random affixes.
Players will swap less... but still swap depending on if they are doing an MF or GF run. (i am personally building a set of both).
Scenario 3 - Charms contain both MF and GF.
No point to swap at all.
* What i was specifically referring to was Scenario 1.... but yeah scenario 2 could still happen... but really isn't a problem.
3 Keys of Damnation - Fight Uber Butcher
3 Keys of Deception - Fight Uber Magda
3 Keys of Corruption - Fight Uber Rakanoth
Representing Azmodan, Belial and Diablo. Damnation and Deception because they're much better than "Key of Sin" or "Key of Lies", and i didnt want to reuse Key of Terror from D2, and Corruption happens to work really great in this case due to Act 4.
But i have a feeling them dropping from a specific boss would cause the game to only farm those three bosses at the disregard of the rest of the game. So maybe allow them to drop from any non-end-of-act boss. (SK, Spider Queen, Magda, Kulle... ) with 5 stacks of Nephalem. to promote farming more than End bosses considering they have huge gear benefits from back-to-back bosses. (Jailor+Butcher, Kulle+Belial, Cydaea+Azmodan)
Would indeed be awesome. But honestly, i really dig those key names XD
Sixen .... your whole point about doing the charm system to stop gear swapping is moot.
ALL you do is push gear swapping from items ... to now charms. Unless each charm is GUARANTEED to contain both GF AND MF (just in varying %s ) people will swap in the charms that benefit them best for that situation.
Whether or not it's guaranteed to have both shouldn't really matter. At that point, what you're saying is, you'll be swapping out your GF and MF charms? That's not what's going on atm, as far as I'm aware. What's happening is that people are swapping out for one or the other (or gear with both if they're lucky), but not swapping GF gear for MF gear.
Scenario 1 - Charms are like gear now and have a CHANCE to get MF/GF or any other stat:
Players will use their dps/ life charms until the elite/boss is almost dead and swap charms like they currently do gear.
Scenario 2 - Charms are guaranteed to either roll MF or GF, with a chance to roll aditionally random affixes.
Players will swap less... but still swap depending on if they are doing an MF or GF run. (i am personally building a set of both).
Scenario 3 - Charms contain both MF and GF.
No point to swap at all.
* What i was specifically referring to was Scenario 1.... but yeah scenario 2 could still happen... but really isn't a problem.
A few post above stated that your option 7 won't work. So I won't point out the huge flaws in it again.
I already stated this on the official forum on your thread.
Magic find isn't suppose to be an easy stat to achieve. It's not suppose to be a walk in the park to attain. You need to work for magic find gear that is good. It's just that the casual mentality right now thinking it's impossible to attain an amazing MF/dps, MF/tank or MF/TANK/DPS set. It's not impossible! It will be hard, but it's achievable.
Magic Find item swapping needs to be removed from the game. This will promote people into actually searching for gear with Magic Find that is good enough to take on act 3/4 runs in a timely manner.
Work for your magic find gear and you'll get rewarded. Stop expecting games to be always easy and stop expecting magic find to be an easy to attain stat.
"the talisman should be 'locked', and could only be 'unlocked' (extract the charms) in town via the Mystic."
Why add in a whole new system when you can do the same thing with the actual item/gear?
Edit
Also sixen suggested the removal of MF on existing gear. There is simply no strong reason to do this just for a silly tailsman/charm idea. When you can just lock gear just like you suggested.
The philosophical problems of D3 feel familiar to me- similar to George Lucas and the prequels. Too much "vision" coming from one person or a small group, who surround(s) themselves with too many people who do nothing but agree with any idea they have. This creates an environment where project leaders can convince themselves the product won't be compromised (or will be improved) by monetization (RMAH or toys, as an example). Plotlines and themes, without propper vetting, can appear disjointed (we've received mostly great feedback regarding the plot).
I'm not really sure who runs the show for D3, and to be honest I thought it was mostly a rushed/poor impletentation rather than a philosophical problem at first. But after seeing the 2008 trailer video again- it seems most of the major problems I have with the game are there by design rather than mistake/fatigue/lack of resources (poor ah functionality compared to 2008, "streamlined" loot/skill system, cooldown rather than resource management for most classes, etc.). Good philosophy with poor resources will be straightened eventually, good resources with poor philosophy will only become worse.
The Bashiok post from last week seemed to at least show some self realization of philosophical issues- that their item hunt wasn't proper end game. On one hand, it's good that they're admitting the game has flaws. On the other, I think the conclusions they've come to are as flawed as their game direction so far. I think the item hunt is absolutely sustainable, so long as gear is varied, strong and available enough to make highly specialized (fun) builds viable. When every build, regardless of focusing on crit/regen/thorns/whatever needs vitality and all resist on every piece- and those affixes combinations are so rare- people tend to feel pigeonholed into one character/build. Especially if they want to progress their gear, and especially if there is gold inflation due to bot farming.
You don't need much gear to clear inferno- progressionwise. We've seen the budget videos, and with a little farming it's more than manageable. So what does the item hunt do for you in the current iteration of D3? Item upgrades give you a little more life, a little more damage and a little more survivability. There's no using slots for "cannot be frozen", "monsters rest in peace" or "bleed" modifyers. No bonuses to skills for extra utility, let alone other classes' skills. Every slot is used for those three things.
So what does this rambling have to do with your post? I'm not sure how much pandemonium events would help. In diablo 2, you needed very specific gear and build to make them viable. And the rewards (annis, torches) were something both powerful and unobtainable by any other means- so people not only geared up to do these events, but farmed them. This leads me to seeing two problems with pandemonium events here:
1. The diablo 3 equivalent gear check (from using current bosses as an example) would mean you had to arrive at a certain base hp, resistances/mitigation, life on hit/regen- and probably have to be able to dodge some attacks. Because there are no specific items/affixes in the game as powerful as d2 zealdin items (dracul's grasp, for example), this would simply be the same gear everyone else wants to do anything in the game. You wouldn't be farming a different set or building a specific character around items only helpful for a single boss- and because everyone wants the same stats, these items will either be near unobtainable for anyone but auction house tycoons or the events would have to be easy enough that you could just walk in with your regular gear- defeating the point.
2. What would the reward be? An achievement means you only run it once- like current inferno progression. Gauranteed 63s, unless they dropped by the dozen wouldn't be more efficient than elite farming (especially since they want people farming elites). Maybe a garaunteed legendary or two if the revamp is good enough- but even then if they still drop on normal mobs, there's going to be tons of them on the AH and it loses the unique feel of the run. Maybe class-specific legendary rings or something would work. But they would require an entirely different itemization paradigm to be worth it- which is the reason for needing this system in the first place.
To be honest, anything they could do with making pandemonium events is something they could do, much easier, with current inferno progression. Since there are no special item affixes to acquire to beat certain mob/boss mechanics, they could (as an example) just make the act 4 bosses (ishkul, raka, izual, D) actually worth doing by say 3-4xing their damage, 10xing their hp and maybe giving them a few more abilities. Severely ramp up the challenge/gear check each mob. Let them drop whatever special reward their pandemonium versions would have. Noone farms act4 anyway right now, it's too short for NV mechanics. That either makes inferno viable progression/challenge/endgame, or pandemoniom events wouldn't work regardless of gearcheck/reward.
I didn't really like Kripps video. Some of his suggestions were awful. Personal opinion, don't mind me (those who liked it).
I always thought Athene's video right after that one was supposed to be just trolling Kripp. He even appears to laugh on some of his own suggestions. (maximum buyout 1 trillion, :lol:)
I liked their timed solutions, because even if people want to switch gears, they can do it. But it's going to cost them so much money in the long run that it's something they're probably not keep doing. I could be wrong though.
*Option 7 (my option): Re-implement the talisman, charms, and the Mystic. Remove MF/GF from all items and only allow them to spawn on charms. Allow the Mystic to enhance our items with MF/GF and potentially craft charms.
This sounds like something blizzard would do. But they would wait for an expansion so they could charge us for it.
Well Sixen, after seeing your videos I am confident when I say "Sixen? More like SEXen!" No, but seriously, you have been running SC2Mapster for a while, you've been a SC2 forum MVP for a while, you saw how long it took them to start to seriously tinker with the custom map system. Do you honestly believe they'll bother bringing back the Talisman and Mystic systems they deliberately removed to fix one little problem? Never mind that most of their solutions boil down to the exact same thing (2, 3, and 4), do you think Blizzard will think it'll be worth it to bring back systems that they're probably intending to comprise some sort of major content patch for an expansion? I'm not saying it's a bad idea by any means, I'm just saying they don't want to give the players cake until they've had a good fill of bread. In other words, you really shouldn't expect any ideas that are more than band-aid solutions to be taken up for the foreseeable future (but, again, I'm sure you know this from being an active SC2 custom maps community member).
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In short, I talk about how there is a lack of end-game (no, Inferno is not end-game, I said this last September!), and what can potentially be added to alleviate this issue. For example, Pandemonium events for PvE, a Competitive PvP, and ladders for both. I explain them in much more detail in the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZOzStdC9fA
Originally I only intended on doing one of these videos, but after the positive feedback and discussion that came out of my first video, I decided to do one covering the current issues with the Magic Find system. I very quickly talk about the five (essentially six) options Blizzard laid out in their blog post and then offer up my own [seventh] solution.
tl;dr
*Option 1: Solves gear swapping. Kills min/maxing.
*Options 2/3/4: All MF over time can all be gamed (gear swapping still exists).
*Option 5: Has non-MF related problems and can all be gamed (gear swapping still exists).
*Option 6: Gear swap button, this doesn't solve the problem, it encourages it.
*Option 7 (my option): Re-implement the talisman, charms, and the Mystic. Remove MF/GF from all items and only allow them to spawn on charms. Allow the Mystic to enhance our items with MF/GF and potentially craft charms.
http://youtu.be/ghQJ4QvVjuM
Diablo III Analyst
SC2Mapster
They honestly believed people wouldn't be able to complete Inferno in less than a month, it's one of Blizzards ten commandments of game design
1...
2...
3. Always under-estimate the skill and tenacity of gamers
Even Sixen stated it, what seven times? They believed Inferno was the end game. There was no great conspiracy, just horrible exploits allowing Inferno to be farmed and completed in a tenth the time they expected, which pumped the economy full of high tier items which began allowing others to do the same thing, that then snowballed into a whole bunch of bored ass players complaining about lack of end game, simple as that.
Jailer, Waller, Frozen, Vortex, etc is not good.
It's not the same team, :/.
Diablo III Analyst
SC2Mapster
ALL you do is push gear swapping from items ... to now charms. Unless each charm is GUARANTEED to contain both GF AND MF (just in varying %s ) people will swap in the charms that benefit them best for that situation.
Diablo III Analyst
SC2Mapster
Scenario 1 - Charms are like gear now and have a CHANCE to get MF/GF or any other stat:
Players will use their dps/ life charms until the elite/boss is almost dead and swap charms like they currently do gear.
Scenario 2 - Charms are guaranteed to either roll MF or GF, with a chance to roll aditionally random affixes.
Players will swap less... but still swap depending on if they are doing an MF or GF run. (i am personally building a set of both).
Scenario 3 - Charms contain both MF and GF.
No point to swap at all.
* What i was specifically referring to was Scenario 1.... but yeah scenario 2 could still happen... but really isn't a problem.
3 Keys of Damnation - Fight Uber Butcher
3 Keys of Deception - Fight Uber Magda
3 Keys of Corruption - Fight Uber Rakanoth
Representing Azmodan, Belial and Diablo. Damnation and Deception because they're much better than "Key of Sin" or "Key of Lies", and i didnt want to reuse Key of Terror from D2, and Corruption happens to work really great in this case due to Act 4.
But i have a feeling them dropping from a specific boss would cause the game to only farm those three bosses at the disregard of the rest of the game. So maybe allow them to drop from any non-end-of-act boss. (SK, Spider Queen, Magda, Kulle... ) with 5 stacks of Nephalem. to promote farming more than End bosses considering they have huge gear benefits from back-to-back bosses. (Jailor+Butcher, Kulle+Belial, Cydaea+Azmodan)
Would indeed be awesome. But honestly, i really dig those key names XD
I really really love the idea of Scenario 2.
I already stated this on the official forum on your thread.
Magic find isn't suppose to be an easy stat to achieve. It's not suppose to be a walk in the park to attain. You need to work for magic find gear that is good. It's just that the casual mentality right now thinking it's impossible to attain an amazing MF/dps, MF/tank or MF/TANK/DPS set. It's not impossible! It will be hard, but it's achievable.
Magic Find item swapping needs to be removed from the game. This will promote people into actually searching for gear with Magic Find that is good enough to take on act 3/4 runs in a timely manner.
Work for your magic find gear and you'll get rewarded. Stop expecting games to be always easy and stop expecting magic find to be an easy to attain stat.
Magic find should be buffed. They should buff magic find by act.
For example
Act 1 - MF gear affect low % of your drops.
Act 2 - MF gear affect medium % of your drops.
Act 3/4 - MF gear affect high % of your drops.
This way it will promote farming harder acts with magic find. It will make magic find a stronger stat. While still balancing acts loots.
"the talisman should be 'locked', and could only be 'unlocked' (extract the charms) in town via the Mystic."
Why add in a whole new system when you can do the same thing with the actual item/gear?
Edit
Also sixen suggested the removal of MF on existing gear. There is simply no strong reason to do this just for a silly tailsman/charm idea. When you can just lock gear just like you suggested.
I'm not really sure who runs the show for D3, and to be honest I thought it was mostly a rushed/poor impletentation rather than a philosophical problem at first. But after seeing the 2008 trailer video again- it seems most of the major problems I have with the game are there by design rather than mistake/fatigue/lack of resources (poor ah functionality compared to 2008, "streamlined" loot/skill system, cooldown rather than resource management for most classes, etc.). Good philosophy with poor resources will be straightened eventually, good resources with poor philosophy will only become worse.
The Bashiok post from last week seemed to at least show some self realization of philosophical issues- that their item hunt wasn't proper end game. On one hand, it's good that they're admitting the game has flaws. On the other, I think the conclusions they've come to are as flawed as their game direction so far. I think the item hunt is absolutely sustainable, so long as gear is varied, strong and available enough to make highly specialized (fun) builds viable. When every build, regardless of focusing on crit/regen/thorns/whatever needs vitality and all resist on every piece- and those affixes combinations are so rare- people tend to feel pigeonholed into one character/build. Especially if they want to progress their gear, and especially if there is gold inflation due to bot farming.
You don't need much gear to clear inferno- progressionwise. We've seen the budget videos, and with a little farming it's more than manageable. So what does the item hunt do for you in the current iteration of D3? Item upgrades give you a little more life, a little more damage and a little more survivability. There's no using slots for "cannot be frozen", "monsters rest in peace" or "bleed" modifyers. No bonuses to skills for extra utility, let alone other classes' skills. Every slot is used for those three things.
So what does this rambling have to do with your post? I'm not sure how much pandemonium events would help. In diablo 2, you needed very specific gear and build to make them viable. And the rewards (annis, torches) were something both powerful and unobtainable by any other means- so people not only geared up to do these events, but farmed them. This leads me to seeing two problems with pandemonium events here:
1. The diablo 3 equivalent gear check (from using current bosses as an example) would mean you had to arrive at a certain base hp, resistances/mitigation, life on hit/regen- and probably have to be able to dodge some attacks. Because there are no specific items/affixes in the game as powerful as d2 zealdin items (dracul's grasp, for example), this would simply be the same gear everyone else wants to do anything in the game. You wouldn't be farming a different set or building a specific character around items only helpful for a single boss- and because everyone wants the same stats, these items will either be near unobtainable for anyone but auction house tycoons or the events would have to be easy enough that you could just walk in with your regular gear- defeating the point.
2. What would the reward be? An achievement means you only run it once- like current inferno progression. Gauranteed 63s, unless they dropped by the dozen wouldn't be more efficient than elite farming (especially since they want people farming elites). Maybe a garaunteed legendary or two if the revamp is good enough- but even then if they still drop on normal mobs, there's going to be tons of them on the AH and it loses the unique feel of the run. Maybe class-specific legendary rings or something would work. But they would require an entirely different itemization paradigm to be worth it- which is the reason for needing this system in the first place.
To be honest, anything they could do with making pandemonium events is something they could do, much easier, with current inferno progression. Since there are no special item affixes to acquire to beat certain mob/boss mechanics, they could (as an example) just make the act 4 bosses (ishkul, raka, izual, D) actually worth doing by say 3-4xing their damage, 10xing their hp and maybe giving them a few more abilities. Severely ramp up the challenge/gear check each mob. Let them drop whatever special reward their pandemonium versions would have. Noone farms act4 anyway right now, it's too short for NV mechanics. That either makes inferno viable progression/challenge/endgame, or pandemoniom events wouldn't work regardless of gearcheck/reward.
I always thought Athene's video right after that one was supposed to be just trolling Kripp. He even appears to laugh on some of his own suggestions. (maximum buyout 1 trillion, :lol:)
I liked their timed solutions, because even if people want to switch gears, they can do it. But it's going to cost them so much money in the long run that it's something they're probably not keep doing. I could be wrong though.
This sounds like something blizzard would do. But they would wait for an expansion so they could charge us for it.