I know I already put this in the advertising thread, but I've already got a lot of discussion so I wanted to put this in its own thread to keep things from getting cluttered in that one. Here's my post from the official forums for people can see what is discussed if they cannot or do not want to watch.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is that time again and a new Diablo Digest has been spawned. For those not familiar with it, the Diablo Digest series I created is something of a news summary and personal opinion video podcast. The reason I'm posting it here today and in the feedback forum is because it concerns my thoughts and impressions of the current 2.0.1 PTR and things I'm concerned about. My hope is, of course, to also make sure that it is viewed by Diablo devs so the opinions inside could be taken into consideration.
To keep lines of discussion open, I'll summarize for those that can't or don't wish to watch.
I like many of the changes happening in Reaper of Souls and a lot of the changes are available to test on the PTR. While things are looking up, there are still issues I would see addressed and hope they can be fixed or modified for the future.
Death and No-Taxes: Death is but a stumbling block. Reviving at Corpse is not a feature I enjoy. I know many people are concerned about efficiency and would rather not lose those valuable seconds, but I want death to be something that is undesirable and to be avoided at all costs. Part of the fun in a game comes from overcoming challenges and having a risk to reward. I'm not talking about having to punish players for it, just a setback that says "hey I shouldn't do that again". Maybe a bonus for living some kind of benefit like Nephalem Valor was that you could lose if you died.
Difficulty should not be restricted to expansion purchase: Currently I'm in agreement with many people that Master difficulty mode is abit too easy. I'm not very geared and I can run Master mode without too much issue and I'm nowhere near geared for MP10 like others are. Either there needs to be change to how tough Master really is or Torment should be available to all players. I honestly don't see why the difficulty should be an unlockable feature at this point either. The previous unlockable difficulties were due to monster levels being tied directly into the 'beat the game multiple times' progression. Now that level progression is removed from the difficulties they should just be playable from the start, allowing players to choose what level of challenge they desire. For those concerned about giving non RoS purchasers any RoS benefits, those can all be tied to the expansion and turned off for basic players, but I really think there should be some kind of increased reward for base game players that makes it all worth while.
The Templar healing is a bit too strong: While leveling up and after getting the Templar, I found that the game suddenly lost its challenge. I took on Leoric the Skeleton King at around level 20 when the Templar got all his healing abilities. Leoric couldn't hurt me. At all. I think the Templar's healing needs to be reduced while leveling (maybe even at 60/70, not 100% on those) because it pretty much negates all damage you take. I intentionally run with only one of the spells because it feels more balanced that way.
Loot 2.0 is Too Smart: I like that smart loot drops, I like that finding upgrades is so much easier now and I don't have to get shut down by nasty RNG. However, I feel like smart drops are all I find. I get constant items with my stats, on occasion something neutral, but I have yet (not exaggerating here) to find loot with stats for another class (DEX, INT) outside of a class specific drop (Flail, Mighty Weapon). I've been unable to gear my Templar follower because I can't find STR gear for him on my Wizard. I had heard that Smart Drops would consider who your follower is when dropping items, I have yet to see that happen. Loot for other classes is so rare that I never find a piece that says to me "hey trying class X would be cool now that I found this neat item". I like loot 2.0 and smart drops, but I think it needs to be reigned in a little so that a little bit of randomness can return.
Arts and Crafts: Adding to the Loot 2.0 problem, I have an issue with crafting. I know that drops are being constantly evaluated, so I won't go into that too much, but know that I think Common Debris might need to be reevaluated. With Loot 2.0 the idea of making whites special might not be needed anymore.
My main issue with crafting currently is becuase crafting is 100% smart, I can't even craft for my follower now. Nothing will roll STR unless it's class specific. If I want to make something for my Templar, I have to roll up a Barbarian to craft for him. My suggesting is to add some kind of switch or toggle on the UI that lets me choose between myself or my follower. Heck, let's take that a step further and add some kind of switch for being able to craft for any class. If I'm running in a party of friends and I want to craft a new weapon for a friend, I don't want it to have INT on it when he's a Demon Hunter. Maybe a radio button at the top to pick a class to craft for would be enough.
Okay that's the major topics, please enjoy the video (if you still decide to watch). I'm hopeful this will be considered in development.
Death and No-Taxes: Death is but a stumbling block. Reviving at Corpse is not a feature I enjoy. I know many people are concerned about efficiency and would rather not lose those valuable seconds, but I want death to be something that is undesirable and to be avoided at all costs. Part of the fun in a game comes from overcoming challenges and having a risk to reward. I'm not talking about having to punish players for it, just a setback that says "hey I shouldn't do that again". Maybe a bonus for living some kind of benefit like Nephalem Valor was that you could lose if you died.
The fact softcore players can die very often and continuously ress at waypoint in live, or at his own corpse in PTR/RoS, really makes me mad!
ATM there's no payback except the minor repair bills and constant death cooldown, which is easily surpassable.
As a suggestion I proposed the return of enrage timer/full heal in order to re-stabilsh some tasty of challenge and apply some 'penalty' for being so glassy.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/11224112457
Definitely devs should review the role of death penalty.ps: bonus for staying slive? maybe, but just in a way it couldnt be exploited.
You made some really good points.
When i saw the "Respawn at Corpse" option, i was outraged. I have no idea why Blizzard thought this was a good idea, but it's stupid. I think Corpse running in Diablo 2 and loss of gold was ok, if i die in a bad spot, i can't recover my body and just restart but in D3, returning to the battle field from the checkpoint, that is quite frequent too, is an ok-ish punishment from dying because it breaks the pace of gameplay and makes you lose a bit of time.
If "Respawn at Corpse" stays, death will be completly meaningless and they could just make us invincible for a brief period of time and recover at full health like our followers... (damn, now i gave them an idea).
I already shared my opinion about difficulty and smart loot. Vanilla will be robbed of MP10 and the highest difficulty in RoS avaiable for level 60 players isn't close to the maximum Monster Power level and Smart Loot is waaaay to frequent that you barely see gear for new character to roll because you found a great piece of equipment for an alt and try a build for it.
I will conclude with "Beta is Beta" and balance will come... maybe.... but jeez, i hope they work their asses off now that holidays are over and see some great rebalancing for Beta and PTR.
You've made good points and your concerns about some features are justified. I do not understand though why aren't we voicing these concerns to Blizzard? Do you open such threads on official forums? It is nice that we discuss them here, but if Blizzard is willing to listen and change things, why don't we tell them directly about this? I know they are following these forums, but there are more people on official forums than here that could share their opinion on the matter as well. Limiting difficulty for Vanilla is a really bizarre choice and has no logic in it. They are restricting a lot of things just to force people into buying the expansion. Do you like Blizzard being like this? I am one of the people that wouldn't hurry and buy the expansion. I haven't played vanilla that much anyways because I was waiting for these changes(specifically loot 2.0) so that I can enjoy the game more. Why do they have to take away stuff, so that it gets boring for me and I have nothing to do but buy the expansion?
As he said in the introduction, the reason why he is posting this here is because he got so much feedback on the official forums on previous discussions.
If "Respawn at Corpse" stays, death will be completly meaningless and they could just make us invincible for a brief period of time and recover at full health like our followers... (damn, now i gave them an idea).
What's odd about this decision is that it completely reverses a problem they tried to fix awhile back. They didn't like that players were zerging elites so they added enrage timers and made the mobs restore health. If they didn't like it then, why would they make it something that's even easier to do now? I'm glad they don't have enrage timers anymore and I'm on the fence about the regenerating health, but even without those I think it wasn't in a bad spot on live.
You've made good points and your concerns about some features are justified. I do not understand though why aren't we voicing these concerns to Blizzard? Do you open such threads on official forums? It is nice that we discuss them here, but if Blizzard is willing to listen and change things, why don't we tell them directly about this? I know they are following these forums, but there are more people on official forums than here that could share their opinion on the matter as well.
As he said in the introduction, the reason why he is posting this here is because he got so much feedback on the official forums on previous discussions.
Specifically, very shortly after posting the video several really good comments were made on YouTube and I wanted to make sure I posted the video in as many location as I could to maximize the possibility it might be seen by a Blizzard rep and to increase the discussion. I was planning on putting this on the D3 official forums (linked above) anyway, but the excellent comments are what spawned this thread and a post on Reddit as well.
Btw, forgot to add that to my previous post: thanks for writing all that up, in addition to the video. I know video commentaries are popular but I just prefer text (probably I can pace reading myself) - even if something takes me 2 hours to read I'd prefer it over a video, probably. So, thumbs up!
On topic, I think you picked some really good points that are actually very interesting to discuss, because they are (in my opinion) things that come down to personal flavor. We've had a lot of discussion about smart loot (too smart?), and apart from the problem of equipping my followers, I think I actually prefer the overly smart loot. Yes, it kinda kills serendipitous gear discovery for your other classes, but I can live with that; when I play my wizard, I want to gear up my wizard 90% and not find 66% loot for my other classes. But I can totally relate to people who are not fixed on one class or for other reasons just are not too keen on smart loot. But like so many other decisions, it's one that totally 100% was asked for by the community. (Although Blizzard might have taken it a bit too far once again, but things can always be tuned until release.)
As for the death and taxes issue, I actually liked that a lot. I dunno - this is not some competitive game or die hard strategy RPG. If someone wants to zerg a fight, go for it; it'll not be faster or better or "more fun" than actually gear up toughness. But I really was so annoyed by running through certain areas in D3V (solo), dying, and having to run through empty areas for 2 minutes to get back to action. Yes, it's a penalty on death, but it's a lame one, it's like saying "oh you died? so the next 5 minutes you have to walk your character through boringland". I'd much rather see insane repair costs or even better (since gold cannot be balanced with some people having billions and many people having nothing) some material added every 50 or 100 points durability lost. What about removing Common Debris from all crafting and introducing it as a repair material (but one that is only added to repair costs after dying 10 or 20 times or so)?
I don't know about the Templar because I don't have beta access, but I agree with the rest of the points, especially the smart loot issue. I am used to having one character dedicated to farming stuff for all of my characters and I usually want to play every class. I enjoy playing a fresh class for which I already have some gear. To me, that's part of the reward for having defeated the game already.
Gold and durability (i.e., more gold) was not the problem upon death in D2. Loss of experience on higher difficulties was the reason why you didn't want to die. And it was a percentage, which means that the higher your level, the more it would hurt.
Thank you, and for all others, that post their feedbac relating to RoS. At times, I get really excited for the release. At other times, I get a bit frustrated because of some of the problems people point out with their feedback and how to change them. I REALLY hope your feedback, and others feedback, get heard so we can all get the epic game we want!!
Thank you again for all the input!
Brings me to the idea of re-introducing ethereal items. Has this been discussed anywhere?
Don't know if that's been discussed, but I think it's unlikely that we see them again. Back then those items were only used on mercenaries where they didn't lose durability or if some other property made them indestructible. Nice déjà-vù btw, that's just how Archon and WotB only get used if their time restrictions can be bypassed.
If "Respawn at Corpse" stays, death will be completly meaningless and they could just make us invincible for a brief period of time and recover at full health like our followers... (damn, now i gave them an idea).
What's odd about this decision is that it completely reverses a problem they tried to fix awhile back. They didn't like that players were zerging elites so they added enrage timers and made the mobs restore health. If they didn't like it then, why would they make it something that's even easier to do now? I'm glad they don't have enrage timers anymore and I'm on the fence about the regenerating health, but even without those I think it wasn't in a bad spot on live.
Enrage timers wasn't for zerging, enrage timers were to prevent kiting. Health restoring was so that you had to kill them in one death. Zerging was preventing by the increasingly long respawn timers.
Death and No-Taxes: Death is but a stumbling block. Reviving at Corpse is not a feature I enjoy. I know many people are concerned about efficiency and would rather not lose those valuable seconds, but I want death to be something that is undesirable and to be avoided at all costs. Part of the fun in a game comes from overcoming challenges and having a risk to reward. I'm not talking about having to punish players for it, just a setback that says "hey I shouldn't do that again". Maybe a bonus for living some kind of benefit like Nephalem Valor was that you could lose if you died.
Death is always undesirable in softcore. It is extremely inefficient to die repeatedly.
Well, a good news is that Torment will be unlocked at level 60 next PTR/Beta patch.
We've heard some pretty significant feedback regarding the current difficulties available to players on the PTR. As a result, the intent next PTR patch is for Torment to unlock once you reach level 60, which will provide access to players both on the PTR and Closed Beta.
I know I already put this in the advertising thread, but I've already got a lot of discussion so I wanted to put this in its own thread to keep things from getting cluttered in that one. Here's my post from the official forums for people can see what is discussed if they cannot or do not want to watch.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is that time again and a new Diablo Digest has been spawned. For those not familiar with it, the Diablo Digest series I created is something of a news summary and personal opinion video podcast. The reason I'm posting it here today and in the feedback forum is because it concerns my thoughts and impressions of the current 2.0.1 PTR and things I'm concerned about. My hope is, of course, to also make sure that it is viewed by Diablo devs so the opinions inside could be taken into consideration.
To keep lines of discussion open, I'll summarize for those that can't or don't wish to watch.
I like many of the changes happening in Reaper of Souls and a lot of the changes are available to test on the PTR. While things are looking up, there are still issues I would see addressed and hope they can be fixed or modified for the future.
Death and No-Taxes:
Death is but a stumbling block. Reviving at Corpse is not a feature I enjoy. I know many people are concerned about efficiency and would rather not lose those valuable seconds, but I want death to be something that is undesirable and to be avoided at all costs. Part of the fun in a game comes from overcoming challenges and having a risk to reward. I'm not talking about having to punish players for it, just a setback that says "hey I shouldn't do that again". Maybe a bonus for living some kind of benefit like Nephalem Valor was that you could lose if you died.
Difficulty should not be restricted to expansion purchase:
Currently I'm in agreement with many people that Master difficulty mode is abit too easy. I'm not very geared and I can run Master mode without too much issue and I'm nowhere near geared for MP10 like others are. Either there needs to be change to how tough Master really is or Torment should be available to all players. I honestly don't see why the difficulty should be an unlockable feature at this point either. The previous unlockable difficulties were due to monster levels being tied directly into the 'beat the game multiple times' progression. Now that level progression is removed from the difficulties they should just be playable from the start, allowing players to choose what level of challenge they desire. For those concerned about giving non RoS purchasers any RoS benefits, those can all be tied to the expansion and turned off for basic players, but I really think there should be some kind of increased reward for base game players that makes it all worth while.
The Templar healing is a bit too strong:
While leveling up and after getting the Templar, I found that the game suddenly lost its challenge. I took on Leoric the Skeleton King at around level 20 when the Templar got all his healing abilities. Leoric couldn't hurt me. At all. I think the Templar's healing needs to be reduced while leveling (maybe even at 60/70, not 100% on those) because it pretty much negates all damage you take. I intentionally run with only one of the spells because it feels more balanced that way.
Loot 2.0 is Too Smart:
I like that smart loot drops, I like that finding upgrades is so much easier now and I don't have to get shut down by nasty RNG. However, I feel like smart drops are all I find. I get constant items with my stats, on occasion something neutral, but I have yet (not exaggerating here) to find loot with stats for another class (DEX, INT) outside of a class specific drop (Flail, Mighty Weapon). I've been unable to gear my Templar follower because I can't find STR gear for him on my Wizard. I had heard that Smart Drops would consider who your follower is when dropping items, I have yet to see that happen. Loot for other classes is so rare that I never find a piece that says to me "hey trying class X would be cool now that I found this neat item". I like loot 2.0 and smart drops, but I think it needs to be reigned in a little so that a little bit of randomness can return.
Arts and Crafts:
Adding to the Loot 2.0 problem, I have an issue with crafting. I know that drops are being constantly evaluated, so I won't go into that too much, but know that I think Common Debris might need to be reevaluated. With Loot 2.0 the idea of making whites special might not be needed anymore.
My main issue with crafting currently is becuase crafting is 100% smart, I can't even craft for my follower now. Nothing will roll STR unless it's class specific. If I want to make something for my Templar, I have to roll up a Barbarian to craft for him. My suggesting is to add some kind of switch or toggle on the UI that lets me choose between myself or my follower. Heck, let's take that a step further and add some kind of switch for being able to craft for any class. If I'm running in a party of friends and I want to craft a new weapon for a friend, I don't want it to have INT on it when he's a Demon Hunter. Maybe a radio button at the top to pick a class to craft for would be enough.
Okay that's the major topics, please enjoy the video (if you still decide to watch). I'm hopeful this will be considered in development.
Diablo Digest: Vanilla Difficulty, Changes to Vendor Salvage, Loot 2.0 Concerns
http://youtu.be/A5lMioIxtuw
Audio and video recorded Jan 11 2014
Topics that are included in this broadcast:
BTW nice material!
So much important topics to evaluate!;)
You've made good points and your concerns about some features are justified. I do not understand though why aren't we voicing these concerns to Blizzard? Do you open such threads on official forums? It is nice that we discuss them here, but if Blizzard is willing to listen and change things, why don't we tell them directly about this? I know they are following these forums, but there are more people on official forums than here that could share their opinion on the matter as well. Limiting difficulty for Vanilla is a really bizarre choice and has no logic in it. They are restricting a lot of things just to force people into buying the expansion. Do you like Blizzard being like this? I am one of the people that wouldn't hurry and buy the expansion. I haven't played vanilla that much anyways because I was waiting for these changes(specifically loot 2.0) so that I can enjoy the game more. Why do they have to take away stuff, so that it gets boring for me and I have nothing to do but buy the expansion?
As he said in the introduction, the reason why he is posting this here is because he got so much feedback on the official forums on previous discussions.
And here's the official thread for this topic:http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/11223272562
Thanks to everyone's comments so far, to address some specific issues:
What's odd about this decision is that it completely reverses a problem they tried to fix awhile back. They didn't like that players were zerging elites so they added enrage timers and made the mobs restore health. If they didn't like it then, why would they make it something that's even easier to do now? I'm glad they don't have enrage timers anymore and I'm on the fence about the regenerating health, but even without those I think it wasn't in a bad spot on live.
Specifically, very shortly after posting the video several really good comments were made on YouTube and I wanted to make sure I posted the video in as many location as I could to maximize the possibility it might be seen by a Blizzard rep and to increase the discussion. I was planning on putting this on the D3 official forums (linked above) anyway, but the excellent comments are what spawned this thread and a post on Reddit as well.
Btw, forgot to add that to my previous post: thanks for writing all that up, in addition to the video. I know video commentaries are popular but I just prefer text (probably I can pace reading myself) - even if something takes me 2 hours to read I'd prefer it over a video, probably. So, thumbs up!
On topic, I think you picked some really good points that are actually very interesting to discuss, because they are (in my opinion) things that come down to personal flavor. We've had a lot of discussion about smart loot (too smart?), and apart from the problem of equipping my followers, I think I actually prefer the overly smart loot. Yes, it kinda kills serendipitous gear discovery for your other classes, but I can live with that; when I play my wizard, I want to gear up my wizard 90% and not find 66% loot for my other classes. But I can totally relate to people who are not fixed on one class or for other reasons just are not too keen on smart loot. But like so many other decisions, it's one that totally 100% was asked for by the community. (Although Blizzard might have taken it a bit too far once again, but things can always be tuned until release.)
As for the death and taxes issue, I actually liked that a lot. I dunno - this is not some competitive game or die hard strategy RPG. If someone wants to zerg a fight, go for it; it'll not be faster or better or "more fun" than actually gear up toughness. But I really was so annoyed by running through certain areas in D3V (solo), dying, and having to run through empty areas for 2 minutes to get back to action. Yes, it's a penalty on death, but it's a lame one, it's like saying "oh you died? so the next 5 minutes you have to walk your character through boringland". I'd much rather see insane repair costs or even better (since gold cannot be balanced with some people having billions and many people having nothing) some material added every 50 or 100 points durability lost. What about removing Common Debris from all crafting and introducing it as a repair material (but one that is only added to repair costs after dying 10 or 20 times or so)?
I don't know about the Templar because I don't have beta access, but I agree with the rest of the points, especially the smart loot issue. I am used to having one character dedicated to farming stuff for all of my characters and I usually want to play every class. I enjoy playing a fresh class for which I already have some gear. To me, that's part of the reward for having defeated the game already.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
Gold and durability (i.e., more gold) was not the problem upon death in D2. Loss of experience on higher difficulties was the reason why you didn't want to die. And it was a percentage, which means that the higher your level, the more it would hurt.
I forgot to say something about the idea of material reqs for repairing:
Don't like it! Imagine the situation, when your gear breaks and you can't repair it because you need to farm mats first.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450