If you're not someone interested in bumping heads together and desire to play the game with a "Come whatever may" way of thinking, awesome! But, then you probably want to direct yourself away from this post.
For those who find discussion about viable possibilities and theory crafting interesting or exciting, I hope you find this video particularly enjoyable.
I liked the presentation of your video. I was hoping you would have shown the character creation screen to better illustrate your idea.
Unfortunately, the discussion of PvP is rather dead I think. I remember a blue or dev said it will never come. I didn't care to much for it to begin with, but I can understand the frustration (a promise is a promise) especially seeing a cool PvP Arena way back when.
But i do think ladders will come some day, and I'm sure that will add a lot of endgame. Also, keep in mind bounties and rifts are also coming. Though I personally don't know much about that.
Nice video. It's sad to see so many thought provoking ideas generated by mere players of the game, and not ever come anywhere even remotely close to being implemented. even the most simple and straightforward concepts such as "more choices" "more intriguing adventures when level capped" "MORE" character development and personalization...
..just the most common sense solutions to problems...nowhere to be found except on paper and in video......discussed by me and millions of other "man children" while wolfing down pizza pops...looking for bugged and useless items in game.......just mind blowing......
Nice video. It's sad to see so many thought provoking ideas generated by mere players of the game, and not ever come anywhere even remotely close to being implemented. even the most simple and straightforward concepts such as "more choices" "more intriguing adventures when level capped" "MORE" character development and personalization...
..just the most common sense solutions to problems...nowhere to be found except on paper and in video......discussed by me and millions of other "man children" while wolfing down pizza pops...looking for bugged and useless items in game.......just mind blowing......
You should organize these man children (aka armchair developers) and start your own studio and make your own games.
Nice video. It's sad to see so many thought provoking ideas generated by mere players of the game, and not ever come anywhere even remotely close to being implemented. even the most simple and straightforward concepts such as "more choices" "more intriguing adventures when level capped" "MORE" character development and personalization...
..just the most common sense solutions to problems...nowhere to be found except on paper and in video......discussed by me and millions of other "man children" while wolfing down pizza pops...looking for bugged and useless items in game.......just mind blowing......
You should organize these man children (aka armchair developers) and start your own studio and make your own games.
Since clearly you know what you're doing.
I know how to describe my feelings about a game series I grew up playing and idolizing that has since been abandoned by every person I grew up enjoying the series with.
Im certainly not a professional game developer. I spend 90% of my free time enjoying roleplaying games, I'm in no rush to spend 90% of my working time fighting to create them.
You say the phrase "armchair developers" as if actual game developers do not litter the internet. And that actual professional developers do not hate certain aspects of Diablo 3.
You say it like only an actual professional game developer can even attempt to describe an idea about a roleplaying game that is subjectively tantalizing.
I'd imagine I could name any actual gaming professional or gaming company in the world and you would not be impressed and consider 100% of their efforts to pale in comparsion to those of the company that made this thing:
and dropped it into the game with a smile on their face while doing cartwheels to the bank.
if you are going to insinuate that I and countless others whom I was referring to are so unfit to critique a video game adopted by millions, of course I'm going to toss a picture your way of fucking lame example of work done by a company that earns billions of dollars in profit.
either you will still cling to that picture saying its a cool legendary for a level 60 zone, and many characters should be so lucky and eager to find and use it,
say its a one in a million happening, having such shitty stats, and is not a fair example of the quality of drops
or say that its a tiny example of stupidity in a massive game that earns alarmingly rampant praise from all but the most grizzled and hateful critics. if you did not say one of those three above phrases than I fear you and I are in agreement and have not described our thoughts correctly to each-other....
I really want PvP in this game but people wanna use the gear they farmed for PvP, so the answer that was given at blizzcon of a PvPvE system seems more probable, although i hope there is some form of direct contact with enemy players.
I actually disagree with most of your ideas and will try to explain why as best I can below:
1. You mentioned adding more customization to the characters, but isn't that why we have armor dyes and are getting transmog? Unless you run full vanishing dye nobody will ever notice anything different about your character. The only up side I can see is for people like me who generally put vanishing dye on their helmet and could now have a different hair color *yay*. Obviously it's not really something interesting in a game like this, you can't compare it to for example an MMORPG where you really want a unique character and can really see the changes (this game doesn't even have polished graphics).
2. You say that people should not be able to change their skills and paragon whenever they feel like doing so. I strongly disagree with this (perhaps because I play monk). Personally I am able to fulfill either a damage role or a tanking role depending on my group and sometimes you want single target abilities over AoE (like for bosses). If I have to craft some ridiculous item or buy it for tons of gold every single time I want to change 1 skill or 1 paragon tab because I have to switch between tank/damage/solo survival then I will probably be doing more farming for this item than actually playing the game. You cannot treat Diablo III the same way as other (MMO)RPGs where you can simply run 1 "spec" and not have to change it very often (if ever) to justify having to pay for a respec. Almost every MMORPG that I have played has a form of "multi spec" and either has cookie cutter builds that are simply proven to be the best or have a very cheap way to switch on demand (like the new WoW talents or RIFTs souls where you can have 6 builds).
There is also the fact that our gear now gives a bonus for certain skills or types of damage which could suddenly change the way you want to build your skills. If I pick up some new items that give me a fire bonus then I want to be able to change my skills to fire damage without jumping through hoops. As far as I am concerned most skills and runes are in a good place, almost all of them have a certain moment or build where they can be used (be it solo or grouped). The only thing Blizzard should do is make some skills and runes a little more viable, but 2.0.1. already made a lot of good changes imo.
As for legendaries being character bound, I don't see a need to have to level a new character all the way from 1-60(70) again at the same slow pace when I have already seen the acts so many times that I could do them in my sleep. I also think it's nice to be able to give my character a head start or a nice boost once they reach max level so that I can be on par with my friends and play together with them on my new character, which for me is what really counts in a game like this.
3. You mentioned new unlockable boss encounters, I can be very brief on this. Nephalem Rifts (and Nephalem Trials). Blizzard has stated that everything about a Nephalem Rift is random, the dungeon, the amount of levels, the monsters, the boss (not sure about abilities). As for Nephalem Trials, from what I know they are supposed to be filled with fully random enemies and give a good reward for surviving.
4. PvP. NO. JUST NO. Unless Blizzard makes pure PvP gear (like in WoW) and balances every single skill for PvP (only effective while PvPing) it will never happen or it won't be balanced in any way.
There is only so much you can expect from a dungeon crawler RPG and I think RoS (and patch 2.0.1.) will be adding a better and decent end game for this genre (it seems like they took quite a few ideas from Torchlight II). There honestly isn't all that much more I would want from this type of game without it turning into an MMORPG. More randomness would be nice (items, dungeons, bosses, maps) and even more skills/runes but generally I think RoS is going to bring the game up to the level it should have been at launch.
end game content for ros! If this game wants to keep surviving, we do need some sort of competition! We need to show off our new amazing builds, our fantastic new legendaries! Right now we just play to find loot then what? What are we aiming for once we are able to do torment 6 (if that is your goal)? It's hard to show off your current gear to the population. Clans helped this area but did not fix it.
Pvp should never exist in this game...however pvepvp most definitely should. That way we can have op gear and damage and still be able to have competition. I don't want my pve to be nerfed or skills. So we just need to forget about regular pvp period. They also stated it won't happen but have thrown the idea around for pvepvp which could work with the current diablo game.
Survival of the fittest: teams of 2 or four players per team that goes against three other teams for a total of four teams competing in one game. (Randomized teams are available if you do choose). this game is a nonstop fight to your teams death. You will die! Start out with easy monsters and build up quickly to harder monsters eventually to a boss and then multiple bosses. Maybe a -25% stun reduction (includes anything that impairs) to prevent stacking of certain classes to allow the game to be more fair. Or simply no stuns work.
Race to the finish: this game has randomized amount of levels/size of maps and you kill your way to the top with your team. The one who reaches wins! These maps can have any monster and any amount of monster density. even two diablos! there will be a lot of killing in order to even get through some of the areas of the map. You can teleport and you can try to run through but good luck with all the monster/boss spawns. The whole team needs to reach the end not just one character.
Killing spree: kill all and everything the fastest. This consist of ten levels each level being more difficult with spawning of bosses. (Can we get the old prime evils to join the Frey?) andariel, mephisto, Baal, etc make a comeback in these game modes.no limitations in this mode.
capture the flag: kill the most monsters in the flag zones to take control of the area. Bosses spawn to help level out the field. (Need more nought into this mode)
Rewards:
Leaderboard(s) that shows off the winning teams. Two leader boards! One for a team of two vs 4 groups and team of four against four groups.
dungeon tokens that build up over time to purchase special transmog gear, pets, vanity items, random legendary (absolutely no choice of what kind to make it fair), and trade in tokens for xp so once you get all the above your tokens are not wasted.
just some ideas I was thinking about. Thoughts?
bad grammar/prob misspelled a lot typing from an iPad while at work
if you are going to insinuate that I and countless others whom I was referring to are so unfit to critique a video game adopted by millions, of course I'm going to toss a picture your way of fucking lame example of work done by a company that earns billions of dollars in profit.
There is a massive, chasmic, difference between being critical and being COMPLETELY FUCKING UNABLE TO MOVE ON FROM TWO YEARS AGO.
What you're proposing is that NO OTHER DEVELOPER has ever done something that they had to fix in the future and, therefore, Blizzard is bad. And that's simply a sociopathic perspective to take on the situation when, in fact, Blizzard North made mistakes that it took 12+ months to fix and deploy - if I need remind you the runewords in classic D2 were basically complete garbage and runewords weren't really anything special until LoD.
If we applied your argument about itemization in D3 to runewords in D2 it would stand to reason that the Blizzard North guys were just fucking while laughing their way to the bank and that D2 was a horrible failure of a game... because it took them 12+ months to fix something. Fucking-A. Someone get David Brevik in here and hold a torch to the bottoms of his feet until he repents and begs our forgiveness for not being perfect!
Most psychologists will tell you that being unable to let go of the past can be a symptom of various issues including PTSD and suffering abuse as a child. You might want to talk with a professional about your anger because it's thoroughly unhealthy for you. We wouldn't want you having a heart attack before your 40th birthday now.
I eagerly jumped into the game to study the 55 odd pages of patch notes, last week.
unfortunately 2 handed legendary weapon damage ended up broken, and there is no ETA on its fix.
But don't worry; The minions in the Iskatu encounter were quickly hotfixed and no longer grant extra experience.
Whew! That should lower my blood pressure...
If D3 even had runewords I'd be impressed, hell I'd be impressed if D3 had them, released them broken again and then "fixed" them in approx 12+ months. 12 months would be an improvement; I'd only have to be stuck in the past 1 year ago instead of 2
Maybe then I could stop going to therapy !!
I understand that you think I'm hopelessly stuck in the past and just an angry sick pathetic little creature, and I want nothing but perfection... Oh well!
I'm not going to scoff at hundreds of thousands of pages of creative outpour on the forums of the internet just because its not from a "professional corporation". Especially when the ideas discussed are more intriguing than what's currently in game.
I'm also not going to assume anything created by a large gaming corporation is the pinnacle of role-playing game design.
I eagerly jumped into the game to study the 55 odd pages of patch notes, last week.
unfortunately 2 handed legendary weapon damage ended up broken, and there is no ETA on its fix.
But don't worry; The minions in the Iskatu encounter were quickly hotfixed and no longer grant extra experience.
Whew! That should lower my blood pressure...
If D3 even had runewords I'd be impressed, hell I'd be impressed if D3 had them, released them broken again and then "fixed" them in approx 12+ months. 12 months would be an improvement; I'd only have to be stuck in the past 1 year ago instead of 2
Maybe then I could stop going to therapy !!
I understand that you think I'm hopelessly stuck in the past and just an angry sick pathetic little creature, and I want nothing but perfection... Oh well!
I'm not going to scoff at hundreds of thousands of pages of creative outpour on the forums of the internet just because its not from a "professional corporation". Especially when the ideas discussed are more intriguing than what's currently in game.
I'm also not going to assume anything created by a large gaming corporation is the pinnacle of role-playing game design.
both assumptions would be stupid to make....
The current item changes are based on RoS, not on people who are NOW maxed out in legacy legendaries. You will have to wait until RoS launches and you are level 70 before you can even give a single point of critique on items. Also experience exploits deserve to be nerfed.
yea thats true the items entire landscape is shaped around levels 1-70 but no one has to wait and see for any critique of items to happen right now. im not decked out smashing through torment 6 by any stretch of the imagination.....:P which critique were you referring to?
Yes experience exploits deserve to be nerfed absolutely. it just irritated me specifically that I honestly eagerly jumped into the game to find more cool items, which are starting to be programmed and released.....annnnd....the big high damage 2 handers...will drop, they will be rare, they will be tricky to find......
but they will not have the correct stats......they will be in all likelihood inferior.
And I'm not saying inferior compared to grossly overpowered legacy its in comparison to the current ruleset and current patch 2.0.1 item landscape.
the "wonderful drops just around the corner...will be broken..".....it just deflates the whole concept of the game.
I assumed that, being its the reason you play the game, to find cool items to use.....would demand a priority fix.
its like what if the monsters glitched and stopped giving experience? so you can struggle in the games world....but you get no stronger? You can fight large fights and dodge death and get mythical itemsin the games world....but the items are weaker?
is that priority? id like to think so.....!
But the Iskatu encounter.....? What was everyone going there? I did not even read about it or hear about it until the patch.....all i heard was Mira this, and COTA that......
Ideas in game design are a dime-a-dozen. Anyone can have ideas and anyone can photoshop up a cool new feature or game mode for their favorite title. That being said, some ideas are really cool and interesting, some things I would definitely try out.
Everyone can post their ideas on the internet and just because they do, it doesn't mean the walls (and trashcans) at Blizzard aren't lined with ideas that never made it into the game for whatever reason.
Ideas in game design are a dime-a-dozen. Anyone can have ideas and anyone can photoshop up a cool new feature or game mode for their favorite title. That being said, some ideas are really cool and interesting, some things I would definitely try out.
Everyone can post their ideas on the internet and just because they do, it doesn't mean the walls (and trashcans) at Blizzard aren't lined with ideas that never made it into the game for whatever reason.
This is gonna be a huge noob question, but how exactly does the process work? They should have a huge budget to do whatever it is they want to do. With their staff and budget, why shouldn't everything be in the game and some?
Because there is one very precious resource that cannot be added to : time.
A lot of development at Blizzard has been shown to be iteration based. They try something, see if it works, takes whats good or chuck it if it doesn't. All this takes time. As with many projects this large just throwing money and people at it doesn't necessarily make it happen faster. Just look at many government or government agencies. Add more people and invariably stuff actually slows down, as eventually there are just to many heads in the room.
Also note that this game sold 12 million + copies. There is no way whatsoever that everyone is going to be pleased with every decision. Just look at all the D3 vs PoE threads for that. Hell just look at all the bitching for wow, SC2 and hearthstone. Yelling at blizzard seems to be a pastime to people. Not to mention that a change can get praise from some people and hate from others.
On topic of the OP:
At the end of the day Blizzard seems to have decided that D3 is going to be a very open, easy to understand game that is very accessible. That means stripping away a lot of the barriers that new players have to enter the genre. Talking to a lot of my friends (and some where and are die hard D2 players) I keep having to tell them its OK not to like this version if something like PoE is what they are looking for. It doesn't make D3 bad it just makes D3 different and to fill a different niche in the gaming world 12+ years after d2. Cause lets be honest most games were "better" back then.
I'm not going to scoff at hundreds of thousands of pages of creative outpour on the forums of the internet just because its not from a "professional corporation". Especially when the ideas discussed are more intriguing than what's currently in game.
I'm not scoffing at it.
I'm just not deifying people with some time on their hands and photoshop. Most of the ideas, even in this video, are mediocre, at best, and really wouldn't add that much to the game for most people and that's the major problem. Just because some guy on the internet wants <feature> doesn't mean it will ever get implemented because it needs to be something that's good for the game, as a whole. And most of the suggestions are from a "I want this" perspective. Even if a couple hundred people get behind the idea, that's still a terrible minority.
Blizzard isn't making this game for a couple hundred, or even a couple thousand people. When they make changes they're trying to make changes for ALL of us - and that's one of the reasons that PvP constantly stalls. Even though PvP is quite popular, there are still loads of people who simply don't give a rat's ass about it. So why is that going to be high on their list of things to waste time on? Why not give us adventure mode, bounties, rifts, gambling, etc. that all people can enjoy?
Most player feedback misses the "big picture" and that's why there are hundreds of thousands of good ideas... that still miss the point. And that's why they're just ideas. Ideas aren't even a dime a dozen. They're probably not even a dime per 50,000 at this point. It's not difficult to have an idea and post it on a forums with a snarky "if I can think of this then why can't Blizzard LULZ DEY BAD!" attitude. That's the easy part.
Ultimately this stems directly from the fact that Blizzard DOES listen to the community. After almost a decade of them listening to the playerbase with WoW, it's ginned up some ridiculous expectations with some players that anything that anybody suggests must be implemented immediately. It just doesn't work that way. Good ideas are fine, but a very select few of them will actually be right for the game.
Quote from Shurgosa» I assumed that, being its the reason you play the game, to find cool items to use.....would demand a priority fix.
And it almost certainly *is* a priority fix. You just also assume that fixing Iskatu takes the same amount of time as fixing 2h weapons and/or that they cannot work on them in parallel.
I'm going to give you a hint here. When they clearly can see the bug/issue (shadow spawn on Iskatu giving XP) it's a lot easier to fix than when they have to figure out why a particular bug, which may or may not be easy to recreate, is happening.
They could set a green thumb junior programmer to fixing the Iskatu issue and it would almost certainly take less than an hour to set the flag for those monsters that they don't give XP, test it, and have it ready to be rolled into a hotfix. I can see a scenario where they take 10+ hours just to figure out exactly why 2hers aren't rolling properly. They're just not comparable. Most of the work in computer programming, as it pertains to fixing bugs, is spent actually figuring out what the bug is and not necessarily fixing it.
When you have an issue where the fix is very easy to spot (flagging the summoned minions in the Iskatu encounter not to give XP) you tend to stick someone on it for an hour, get it fixed, get it off the "to do list" and move on. Why? Because once it's ready they can hotfix it in the next day, so knocking out the "quick fixes" is relevant and important.
Like Shaggy stated Blizzard and the team behind making Diablo III need to look at the whole picture and see what fits in the grand scheme. Making a simple change to how something works might throw the balance of the game to a new direction which is no better than the current one.
Skills, Items, Areas, solo play, group play, PVE, or PvP just to name a few components need to be tweaked and retweaked to find a balance that is fun and that works well with each other. This usually can take a long time to master if at all possible. Blizzard at least tries to do this long after a game is made and sometimes small changes can male the game feel fresh again.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
On Strike and supporting Fallout 4 Mod Makers
Some fallout 4 mod makers have had their mods stolen and uploaded and downloaded on Bethesda's site for the Xbox One.
people dont typically lose interest in the game when a certain encounter gives you too much experience.
People are SURGING forward through bots and legitimate level farming to the point where they made paragon levels infinite.....
when your legendary items are broken in the Diablo world where thats all the characters do is run around hunting monsters to find items that's a pretty big fucking issue. im sure you agree tho that its rather important!
people might not instantly and automatically lose interest in the game either but its LITERALLY the core of the game.
Go find the mythical items we made.
They are interesting and enhance your character to progress through the fields of monsters we programmed.
And thats not even touching on the turbulent and negative history Two handed weapons and items in general have had in D3,
I did not mention the two bugs because both are easy or one is easier than the other to fix. I mentioned it to fuel thought about the original post, which is the foundational quality of the game
and if the individual aspects of the game are shining examples of that quality.
This constant ball and chain hinderance about item value, at risk of harping on about items, did not begin last week with a sneaky bug it began I would imagine before the game was released.
Long before I found my precious bow all those years ago....and it lasted long after the first Legendary revision when everyone was getting Ivory towers and wanting to rip their teeth out....
I'd give anything to read what the beta testers discussed about the game way back then...
And you cant claim that the Iskatu fix was super easy to pin down in 1 hour for the new guy while the 2 handed weapon bug could easily take 10 hours.
Oh sure everyone would love to believe thats the case, and it makes sense logically.....but the truth is you and I both don't know exactly....
The difference in our responses seem to be hinged on two different frames of thought:
your frame of thought seems to exhibit logical and realistic expectations and replies. Professionals do the right thing, bug fixes occur in a natural and logical order etc..
My frame hopes to exhibit bullet points of, in my own opinion, complete fucking idiocy that prevents me from eagerly believing what your frame seems to exhibit. and I did believe what your frame of thought seems to exhibit, at one time about D3 in particular. That's why I rushed out and bought it without even giving it any thought.
even my original official forum posts were as praise worthy as ever....not any more....
as Hans said:
"........Skills, Items, Areas, solo play, group play, PVE, or PvP just to name a few components need to be tweaked and retweaked.............."
yes thats true....but they (blizzard) knew that for years and years. the games they create are more often than not, definitions of their respective genres
so why then is the paragon system four pages with little arrows to click? Is that the best they could come up with???
why was the game released with "nothing at all" before the paragon system???
why are their multiple "legacy" editions of legendary items and the old ones are absolutely fired into the trash?
why are in many tragic cases, even the newest uniques fired into the trash? And its not due strictly to the emergence of goddamn "trifecta" gearing....
why is the game not stomping all over twitch?
why is every class wearing innas pants?
and these questions just barrell down the mountain like a stampede....
The game company should say:
"yea you're right paragon levels are boring. they are. they certainly not as industry leading as talent trees were, which now basically span the planet today...."
theydon't hold a candle to some of the other "character growth systems" created in the past 20+ years...
"you're right it's infuriating that we don't dominate twitch. we did in the beginning save for LoL etc.....for the last year we haven't even appeared on the home page..."
"....wtf......."
"why IS every class using the same pants shoulders jewelry etc......how awkward...."
Some of the questions can be deflected and some can be explained.....but some are so glaring that they actually do effect the entire scheme of things and its not for the better....
and that's really unfortunate....Because while these most recent patch notes were the biggest and most refreshing I've ever read in my life for any game I can remember....)
As much as we'ed all love to believe that Blizzard is doing the right thing, and shoring up the truly maddening aspects of the game.......I'm afraid that sometimes its evident that they are not.....
and it doesn't take some 20 year old graphic designer to illustrate such a point, nor is that same designer unable to illustrate it.....
Ideas in game design are a dime-a-dozen. Anyone can have ideas and anyone can photoshop up a cool new feature or game mode for their favorite title. That being said, some ideas are really cool and interesting, some things I would definitely try out.
Everyone can post their ideas on the internet and just because they do, it doesn't mean the walls (and trashcans) at Blizzard aren't lined with ideas that never made it into the game for whatever reason.
This is gonna be a huge noob question, but how exactly does the process work? They should have a huge budget to do whatever it is they want to do. With their staff and budget, why shouldn't everything be in the game and some?
Even if you have as much money as blizzard, there is still only 24 hours in each day. The overall process of getting a thing into a game can take anywhere from a couple weeks to 3 months depending on how much existing stuff you are re-using. You can see this process in full force if you watch the Design-A-Legendary casts. There was clearly some time budgeted to make a new item model and some time for design, but none for other things (extra animations, summons models, sounds etc).
And you cant claim that the Iskatu fix was super easy to pin down in 1 hour for the new guy while the 2 handed weapon bug could easily take 10 hours.
But I can because I have working knowledge of how databases and code work. There are only a handful of ways for them to (reasonably) assign XP to monsters:
A table - either a separate table or a field in the monsters table
A default value + exclusion list - all monsters either use the default value or some override, which is contained in a separate table
To change a monster's XP value in either of these scenarios would take a newbie at Blizzard no more than 5 minutes. Period. It would take even less time if they have a GUI "editor" to use where they just load up the shadow vermin for Iskatu and edit the "experience" field and let the program handle any database updates that are necessary.
To fix two-handers, though, they have to take all the existing data and figure out WHAT is causing the bug. That is a very vague thing, as anyone who has worked with code knows. Something like that could take an hour. It could take three days. And we're only talking about finding the SOURCE of the problem, not implementing the actual fix.
Then there is testing. It's very quick and easy to run Iskatu 20 times and see that the spawn aren't granting XP. It's much more time-consuming to get the game to drop 200 2h weapons to make sure that the whole of the bug has been rooted out and everything is rolling properly. Because, God forbid they only fixed 90% of the bug, they'd have people like you up their asses again telling them how "fail" they are because they can't properly fix something the first time.
Anyone with a basic understanding of modern computer systems would comprehend why the Iskatu fix was so fast but why the 2h weapon fix is slower. If you don't have that requisite knowledge, you shouldn't be critiquing, because frankly it's ignorant. Even without that knowledge, continuing to beat down that door is not only pedantic but childish.
If the order in which they fix things is up on your list of "things Blizzard does wrong" then it's clear that they're not doing that much wrong because that's arguably one of the most minor gripes that I've never heard about any game in the history of games. OH GOD BLIZZARD IS PATCHING THINGS IN THE WRONG ORDER.... LET'S ALL SIT AROUND AND WATCH SAD MOVIES AND CRY ABOUT OUR EX-BOYFRIENDS! Do you realize how juvenile that sounds? You come off as such an entitled 15-year-old girl who thinks the entire world revolves around their personal wants and desires and that there aren't, literally, billions of other people out there and that not everything goes their way every time.
They don't want major XP exploits in the game. They've prioritized that higher than you think it should be prioritized. Deal with it. No amount of whining on the forums is ever going to change that because almost every company is going to prioritize fixing potentially-exploitable things over minor inconveniences. If 2hers are "broken" for the month leading to RoS, does it really impact your enjoyment of the game? If you answer "yes" to that then you really need to take a step back and a couple deep breaths because you're wound way too tight.
EDIT
And on top of ALL of that, there's the fact that they couldn't fix itemization without some kind of "reset." They were wise to realize this (the current game is a good example - it's very difficult to replace top-end weapons, gloves, amulets, belts, and pants at level 60) and tie the big itemization fix to the expansion that increases the level cap instead of rushing things in and then realizing that anyone who had acquired OP gear before the patch was going to use it over all the revamped items until they raised the level cap.
That alone pokes holes in the idea that they could have or should have fixed this "sooner."
For those who find discussion about viable possibilities and theory crafting interesting or exciting, I hope you find this video particularly enjoyable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4cQAFGqi3c
I liked the presentation of your video. I was hoping you would have shown the character creation screen to better illustrate your idea.
Unfortunately, the discussion of PvP is rather dead I think. I remember a blue or dev said it will never come. I didn't care to much for it to begin with, but I can understand the frustration (a promise is a promise) especially seeing a cool PvP Arena way back when.
But i do think ladders will come some day, and I'm sure that will add a lot of endgame. Also, keep in mind bounties and rifts are also coming. Though I personally don't know much about that.
..just the most common sense solutions to problems...nowhere to be found except on paper and in video......discussed by me and millions of other "man children" while wolfing down pizza pops...looking for bugged and useless items in game.......just mind blowing......
Since clearly you know what you're doing.
Im certainly not a professional game developer. I spend 90% of my free time enjoying roleplaying games, I'm in no rush to spend 90% of my working time fighting to create them.
You say the phrase "armchair developers" as if actual game developers do not litter the internet. And that actual professional developers do not hate certain aspects of Diablo 3.
You say it like only an actual professional game developer can even attempt to describe an idea about a roleplaying game that is subjectively tantalizing.
I'd imagine I could name any actual gaming professional or gaming company in the world and you would not be impressed and consider 100% of their efforts to pale in comparsion to those of the company that made this thing:
http://i.imgur.com/6Ph9d.png
and dropped it into the game with a smile on their face while doing cartwheels to the bank.
if you are going to insinuate that I and countless others whom I was referring to are so unfit to critique a video game adopted by millions, of course I'm going to toss a picture your way of fucking lame example of work done by a company that earns billions of dollars in profit.
either you will still cling to that picture saying its a cool legendary for a level 60 zone, and many characters should be so lucky and eager to find and use it,
say its a one in a million happening, having such shitty stats, and is not a fair example of the quality of drops
or say that its a tiny example of stupidity in a massive game that earns alarmingly rampant praise from all but the most grizzled and hateful critics. if you did not say one of those three above phrases than I fear you and I are in agreement and have not described our thoughts correctly to each-other....
Those Who Do Not Know True Pain Cannot Possibly Understand True Peace...
1. You mentioned adding more customization to the characters, but isn't that why we have armor dyes and are getting transmog? Unless you run full vanishing dye nobody will ever notice anything different about your character. The only up side I can see is for people like me who generally put vanishing dye on their helmet and could now have a different hair color *yay*. Obviously it's not really something interesting in a game like this, you can't compare it to for example an MMORPG where you really want a unique character and can really see the changes (this game doesn't even have polished graphics).
2. You say that people should not be able to change their skills and paragon whenever they feel like doing so. I strongly disagree with this (perhaps because I play monk). Personally I am able to fulfill either a damage role or a tanking role depending on my group and sometimes you want single target abilities over AoE (like for bosses). If I have to craft some ridiculous item or buy it for tons of gold every single time I want to change 1 skill or 1 paragon tab because I have to switch between tank/damage/solo survival then I will probably be doing more farming for this item than actually playing the game. You cannot treat Diablo III the same way as other (MMO)RPGs where you can simply run 1 "spec" and not have to change it very often (if ever) to justify having to pay for a respec. Almost every MMORPG that I have played has a form of "multi spec" and either has cookie cutter builds that are simply proven to be the best or have a very cheap way to switch on demand (like the new WoW talents or RIFTs souls where you can have 6 builds).
There is also the fact that our gear now gives a bonus for certain skills or types of damage which could suddenly change the way you want to build your skills. If I pick up some new items that give me a fire bonus then I want to be able to change my skills to fire damage without jumping through hoops. As far as I am concerned most skills and runes are in a good place, almost all of them have a certain moment or build where they can be used (be it solo or grouped). The only thing Blizzard should do is make some skills and runes a little more viable, but 2.0.1. already made a lot of good changes imo.
As for legendaries being character bound, I don't see a need to have to level a new character all the way from 1-60(70) again at the same slow pace when I have already seen the acts so many times that I could do them in my sleep. I also think it's nice to be able to give my character a head start or a nice boost once they reach max level so that I can be on par with my friends and play together with them on my new character, which for me is what really counts in a game like this.
3. You mentioned new unlockable boss encounters, I can be very brief on this. Nephalem Rifts (and Nephalem Trials). Blizzard has stated that everything about a Nephalem Rift is random, the dungeon, the amount of levels, the monsters, the boss (not sure about abilities). As for Nephalem Trials, from what I know they are supposed to be filled with fully random enemies and give a good reward for surviving.
4. PvP. NO. JUST NO. Unless Blizzard makes pure PvP gear (like in WoW) and balances every single skill for PvP (only effective while PvPing) it will never happen or it won't be balanced in any way.
There is only so much you can expect from a dungeon crawler RPG and I think RoS (and patch 2.0.1.) will be adding a better and decent end game for this genre (it seems like they took quite a few ideas from Torchlight II). There honestly isn't all that much more I would want from this type of game without it turning into an MMORPG. More randomness would be nice (items, dungeons, bosses, maps) and even more skills/runes but generally I think RoS is going to bring the game up to the level it should have been at launch.
Pvp should never exist in this game...however pvepvp most definitely should. That way we can have op gear and damage and still be able to have competition. I don't want my pve to be nerfed or skills. So we just need to forget about regular pvp period. They also stated it won't happen but have thrown the idea around for pvepvp which could work with the current diablo game.
Rewards:
bad grammar/prob misspelled a lot typing from an iPad while at work
What you're proposing is that NO OTHER DEVELOPER has ever done something that they had to fix in the future and, therefore, Blizzard is bad. And that's simply a sociopathic perspective to take on the situation when, in fact, Blizzard North made mistakes that it took 12+ months to fix and deploy - if I need remind you the runewords in classic D2 were basically complete garbage and runewords weren't really anything special until LoD.
If we applied your argument about itemization in D3 to runewords in D2 it would stand to reason that the Blizzard North guys were just fucking while laughing their way to the bank and that D2 was a horrible failure of a game... because it took them 12+ months to fix something. Fucking-A. Someone get David Brevik in here and hold a torch to the bottoms of his feet until he repents and begs our forgiveness for not being perfect!
Most psychologists will tell you that being unable to let go of the past can be a symptom of various issues including PTSD and suffering abuse as a child. You might want to talk with a professional about your anger because it's thoroughly unhealthy for you. We wouldn't want you having a heart attack before your 40th birthday now.
I eagerly jumped into the game to study the 55 odd pages of patch notes, last week.
unfortunately 2 handed legendary weapon damage ended up broken, and there is no ETA on its fix.
But don't worry; The minions in the Iskatu encounter were quickly hotfixed and no longer grant extra experience.
Whew! That should lower my blood pressure...
If D3 even had runewords I'd be impressed, hell I'd be impressed if D3 had them, released them broken again and then "fixed" them in approx 12+ months. 12 months would be an improvement; I'd only have to be stuck in the past 1 year ago instead of 2
Maybe then I could stop going to therapy !!
I understand that you think I'm hopelessly stuck in the past and just an angry sick pathetic little creature, and I want nothing but perfection... Oh well!
I'm not going to scoff at hundreds of thousands of pages of creative outpour on the forums of the internet just because its not from a "professional corporation". Especially when the ideas discussed are more intriguing than what's currently in game.
I'm also not going to assume anything created by a large gaming corporation is the pinnacle of role-playing game design.
both assumptions would be stupid to make....
Yes experience exploits deserve to be nerfed absolutely. it just irritated me specifically that I honestly eagerly jumped into the game to find more cool items, which are starting to be programmed and released.....annnnd....the big high damage 2 handers...will drop, they will be rare, they will be tricky to find......
but they will not have the correct stats......they will be in all likelihood inferior.
And I'm not saying inferior compared to grossly overpowered legacy its in comparison to the current ruleset and current patch 2.0.1 item landscape.
the "wonderful drops just around the corner...will be broken..".....it just deflates the whole concept of the game.
I assumed that, being its the reason you play the game, to find cool items to use.....would demand a priority fix.
its like what if the monsters glitched and stopped giving experience? so you can struggle in the games world....but you get no stronger? You can fight large fights and dodge death and get mythical itemsin the games world....but the items are weaker?
is that priority? id like to think so.....!
But the Iskatu encounter.....? What was everyone going there? I did not even read about it or hear about it until the patch.....all i heard was Mira this, and COTA that......
Everyone can post their ideas on the internet and just because they do, it doesn't mean the walls (and trashcans) at Blizzard aren't lined with ideas that never made it into the game for whatever reason.
A lot of development at Blizzard has been shown to be iteration based. They try something, see if it works, takes whats good or chuck it if it doesn't. All this takes time. As with many projects this large just throwing money and people at it doesn't necessarily make it happen faster. Just look at many government or government agencies. Add more people and invariably stuff actually slows down, as eventually there are just to many heads in the room.
Also note that this game sold 12 million + copies. There is no way whatsoever that everyone is going to be pleased with every decision. Just look at all the D3 vs PoE threads for that. Hell just look at all the bitching for wow, SC2 and hearthstone. Yelling at blizzard seems to be a pastime to people. Not to mention that a change can get praise from some people and hate from others.
On topic of the OP:
At the end of the day Blizzard seems to have decided that D3 is going to be a very open, easy to understand game that is very accessible. That means stripping away a lot of the barriers that new players have to enter the genre. Talking to a lot of my friends (and some where and are die hard D2 players) I keep having to tell them its OK not to like this version if something like PoE is what they are looking for. It doesn't make D3 bad it just makes D3 different and to fill a different niche in the gaming world 12+ years after d2. Cause lets be honest most games were "better" back then.
I'm just not deifying people with some time on their hands and photoshop. Most of the ideas, even in this video, are mediocre, at best, and really wouldn't add that much to the game for most people and that's the major problem. Just because some guy on the internet wants <feature> doesn't mean it will ever get implemented because it needs to be something that's good for the game, as a whole. And most of the suggestions are from a "I want this" perspective. Even if a couple hundred people get behind the idea, that's still a terrible minority.
Blizzard isn't making this game for a couple hundred, or even a couple thousand people. When they make changes they're trying to make changes for ALL of us - and that's one of the reasons that PvP constantly stalls. Even though PvP is quite popular, there are still loads of people who simply don't give a rat's ass about it. So why is that going to be high on their list of things to waste time on? Why not give us adventure mode, bounties, rifts, gambling, etc. that all people can enjoy?
Most player feedback misses the "big picture" and that's why there are hundreds of thousands of good ideas... that still miss the point. And that's why they're just ideas. Ideas aren't even a dime a dozen. They're probably not even a dime per 50,000 at this point. It's not difficult to have an idea and post it on a forums with a snarky "if I can think of this then why can't Blizzard LULZ DEY BAD!" attitude. That's the easy part.
Ultimately this stems directly from the fact that Blizzard DOES listen to the community. After almost a decade of them listening to the playerbase with WoW, it's ginned up some ridiculous expectations with some players that anything that anybody suggests must be implemented immediately. It just doesn't work that way. Good ideas are fine, but a very select few of them will actually be right for the game.
And it almost certainly *is* a priority fix. You just also assume that fixing Iskatu takes the same amount of time as fixing 2h weapons and/or that they cannot work on them in parallel.
I'm going to give you a hint here. When they clearly can see the bug/issue (shadow spawn on Iskatu giving XP) it's a lot easier to fix than when they have to figure out why a particular bug, which may or may not be easy to recreate, is happening.
They could set a green thumb junior programmer to fixing the Iskatu issue and it would almost certainly take less than an hour to set the flag for those monsters that they don't give XP, test it, and have it ready to be rolled into a hotfix. I can see a scenario where they take 10+ hours just to figure out exactly why 2hers aren't rolling properly. They're just not comparable. Most of the work in computer programming, as it pertains to fixing bugs, is spent actually figuring out what the bug is and not necessarily fixing it.
When you have an issue where the fix is very easy to spot (flagging the summoned minions in the Iskatu encounter not to give XP) you tend to stick someone on it for an hour, get it fixed, get it off the "to do list" and move on. Why? Because once it's ready they can hotfix it in the next day, so knocking out the "quick fixes" is relevant and important.
Skills, Items, Areas, solo play, group play, PVE, or PvP just to name a few components need to be tweaked and retweaked to find a balance that is fun and that works well with each other. This usually can take a long time to master if at all possible. Blizzard at least tries to do this long after a game is made and sometimes small changes can male the game feel fresh again.
people dont typically lose interest in the game when a certain encounter gives you too much experience.
People are SURGING forward through bots and legitimate level farming to the point where they made paragon levels infinite.....
when your legendary items are broken in the Diablo world where thats all the characters do is run around hunting monsters to find items that's a pretty big fucking issue. im sure you agree tho that its rather important!
people might not instantly and automatically lose interest in the game either but its LITERALLY the core of the game.
Go find the mythical items we made.
They are interesting and enhance your character to progress through the fields of monsters we programmed.
And thats not even touching on the turbulent and negative history Two handed weapons and items in general have had in D3,
I did not mention the two bugs because both are easy or one is easier than the other to fix. I mentioned it to fuel thought about the original post, which is the foundational quality of the game
and if the individual aspects of the game are shining examples of that quality.
This constant ball and chain hinderance about item value, at risk of harping on about items, did not begin last week with a sneaky bug it began I would imagine before the game was released.
Long before I found my precious bow all those years ago....and it lasted long after the first Legendary revision when everyone was getting Ivory towers and wanting to rip their teeth out....
I'd give anything to read what the beta testers discussed about the game way back then...
And you cant claim that the Iskatu fix was super easy to pin down in 1 hour for the new guy while the 2 handed weapon bug could easily take 10 hours.
Oh sure everyone would love to believe thats the case, and it makes sense logically.....but the truth is you and I both don't know exactly....
The difference in our responses seem to be hinged on two different frames of thought:
your frame of thought seems to exhibit logical and realistic expectations and replies. Professionals do the right thing, bug fixes occur in a natural and logical order etc..
My frame hopes to exhibit bullet points of, in my own opinion, complete fucking idiocy that prevents me from eagerly believing what your frame seems to exhibit. and I did believe what your frame of thought seems to exhibit, at one time about D3 in particular. That's why I rushed out and bought it without even giving it any thought.
even my original official forum posts were as praise worthy as ever....not any more....
as Hans said:
"........Skills, Items, Areas, solo play, group play, PVE, or PvP just to name a few components need to be tweaked and retweaked.............."
yes thats true....but they (blizzard) knew that for years and years. the games they create are more often than not, definitions of their respective genres
so why then is the paragon system four pages with little arrows to click? Is that the best they could come up with???
why was the game released with "nothing at all" before the paragon system???
why are their multiple "legacy" editions of legendary items and the old ones are absolutely fired into the trash?
why are in many tragic cases, even the newest uniques fired into the trash? And its not due strictly to the emergence of goddamn "trifecta" gearing....
why is the game not stomping all over twitch?
why is every class wearing innas pants?
and these questions just barrell down the mountain like a stampede....
The game company should say:
"yea you're right paragon levels are boring. they are. they certainly not as industry leading as talent trees were, which now basically span the planet today...."
theydon't hold a candle to some of the other "character growth systems" created in the past 20+ years...
"you're right it's infuriating that we don't dominate twitch. we did in the beginning save for LoL etc.....for the last year we haven't even appeared on the home page..."
"....wtf......."
"why IS every class using the same pants shoulders jewelry etc......how awkward...."
Some of the questions can be deflected and some can be explained.....but some are so glaring that they actually do effect the entire scheme of things and its not for the better....
and that's really unfortunate....Because while these most recent patch notes were the biggest and most refreshing I've ever read in my life for any game I can remember....)
As much as we'ed all love to believe that Blizzard is doing the right thing, and shoring up the truly maddening aspects of the game.......I'm afraid that sometimes its evident that they are not.....
and it doesn't take some 20 year old graphic designer to illustrate such a point, nor is that same designer unable to illustrate it.....
Re: Fixing Bugs and Time: Could not be more true.
A table - either a separate table or a field in the monsters table
A default value + exclusion list - all monsters either use the default value or some override, which is contained in a separate table
To change a monster's XP value in either of these scenarios would take a newbie at Blizzard no more than 5 minutes. Period. It would take even less time if they have a GUI "editor" to use where they just load up the shadow vermin for Iskatu and edit the "experience" field and let the program handle any database updates that are necessary.
To fix two-handers, though, they have to take all the existing data and figure out WHAT is causing the bug. That is a very vague thing, as anyone who has worked with code knows. Something like that could take an hour. It could take three days. And we're only talking about finding the SOURCE of the problem, not implementing the actual fix.
Then there is testing. It's very quick and easy to run Iskatu 20 times and see that the spawn aren't granting XP. It's much more time-consuming to get the game to drop 200 2h weapons to make sure that the whole of the bug has been rooted out and everything is rolling properly. Because, God forbid they only fixed 90% of the bug, they'd have people like you up their asses again telling them how "fail" they are because they can't properly fix something the first time.
Anyone with a basic understanding of modern computer systems would comprehend why the Iskatu fix was so fast but why the 2h weapon fix is slower. If you don't have that requisite knowledge, you shouldn't be critiquing, because frankly it's ignorant. Even without that knowledge, continuing to beat down that door is not only pedantic but childish.
If the order in which they fix things is up on your list of "things Blizzard does wrong" then it's clear that they're not doing that much wrong because that's arguably one of the most minor gripes that I've never heard about any game in the history of games. OH GOD BLIZZARD IS PATCHING THINGS IN THE WRONG ORDER.... LET'S ALL SIT AROUND AND WATCH SAD MOVIES AND CRY ABOUT OUR EX-BOYFRIENDS! Do you realize how juvenile that sounds? You come off as such an entitled 15-year-old girl who thinks the entire world revolves around their personal wants and desires and that there aren't, literally, billions of other people out there and that not everything goes their way every time.
They don't want major XP exploits in the game. They've prioritized that higher than you think it should be prioritized. Deal with it. No amount of whining on the forums is ever going to change that because almost every company is going to prioritize fixing potentially-exploitable things over minor inconveniences. If 2hers are "broken" for the month leading to RoS, does it really impact your enjoyment of the game? If you answer "yes" to that then you really need to take a step back and a couple deep breaths because you're wound way too tight.
EDIT
And on top of ALL of that, there's the fact that they couldn't fix itemization without some kind of "reset." They were wise to realize this (the current game is a good example - it's very difficult to replace top-end weapons, gloves, amulets, belts, and pants at level 60) and tie the big itemization fix to the expansion that increases the level cap instead of rushing things in and then realizing that anyone who had acquired OP gear before the patch was going to use it over all the revamped items until they raised the level cap.
That alone pokes holes in the idea that they could have or should have fixed this "sooner."