I just came across something that literally made my year. I don't know if it has been posted before (I couldn't find it), but this is by far the best news for me at least of all things that have been said so far:
There's an inherent issue in Diablo II, where the game is degenerated to a task of getting to point B as quickly as possible, spinning the wheel, and then you rinse and repeat. While a lot of people obviously take advantage of it, and it sort of becomes a game in itself to see how fast and efficient you can be, it's not necessarily engaging. You could also say it detracts from the feeling of being immersed in an entire game experience.
Regardless of what happens or changes in Diablo III there are always going to be the min/maxers that game the systems to be more efficient, but as a goal we want to encourage players to experience the game as a whole or at least to a larger degree than an end-game that devolves in to just killing a single boss over and over. A lot of those ideas and details are obviously still under wraps but it is something we're aware of and thinking about.
I think one of the things I hated most about D2 was the lack of true endgame content. It came down grinding Andy/Mephy/Minions, universally for any drop or experience. I mean, there is only so many millions of times you can drop in > kill Mephy > drop out > repeat, before it starts looking like the most repetitive grind in the universe...
THAT was the news I've been waiting for all this time.....
the instant need of new items was more important for most people than the need to grind enemies to gain levels. That, hopefully, will remain as it was. New bosses with more interesting drops that require more tactic to kill will make things more interesting.
I hadnt really seen end-game stuff before i started playing MMORPGs and i can really say it was quite interesting. Especially if there are quests to tell stories about them.
Well I doubt D3 endgame will be anything as complex and layered as WoW, but that's not really something you should expect. Basically, as long as it doesn't come down to this:
1. Finish all three difficulties and get to level 85 in one day.
2. Kill Andy, Mephy, drop out and repeat. x10000
3. Join a gazillion Baal runs to gain exp.
And from what Bashiok says, they really might put in actual stuff to do. I really can't think of a more repetitive game than how D2 (with LoD specifically) gets once you finish the story of the game, but at the same time allowing you to finish the story of the game within minutes. That was a really, really broken concept no matter what anyone might say. It's very simple to fix it:
1. Prevent rushing and instant-exp runs.
2. Introduce at least several more bosses and random events to get your loot from and make you explore the game, instead of the same old two bosses that you do over and over again mindlessly, and completely ignoring 95% of dungeons which are pointless to the degree of people not even being aware of their existence.
Of course, making boss fights more dependent on skill would be a big plus as well. More thinking and less clicking. Making a game easy to play is not a bad thing, but not if I can teach my parrot to get rushed and do my loot runs.
Well playing before LOD was pretty much like that.. levels > items. You didn't have to get the best stuff to be able to level up fast.. which was imo good. And the drop system was more spread around, not just 1-10 different bosses/places to farm but almost all monsters had a good chance to drop that really godly rare item.
If people wanted to MF they many times did Flayer Jungle because there was loads of easy killable monsters which equals more item drops / hour and more rares / hour.
Developing your characters was the main deal for most.. of course finding really nice gear for them was very important for almost all, since it improved your character.
In LOD you got this huge amounth of unique items.. and unique items pretty much could only drop from certain bosses.. at least the highest quality items. So people started to run only those.
With rares you only had to run areas that had high enough monster level to drop the certain item type and prefix/sufix. Most of the time this was act3-> that could drop pretty much everything, excluding +2 amulets that only Diablo could drop and some high level modifiers like +rep life on wands etc. All the important stats like life/resists etc were actually very low level stats. I once found helmet from normal river of flame with 59 life(max), 34light res 23fire res 15 cold, this helm was pretty much perfect for my sorceress and she wore that helm all the way untill the end. In LOD you can't find anything normal that you could imagine using in hell also(except maybe a SOJ which is really rare).
So I hope item system is gonna get some improvements which could eventually lead to less item farming instead of character developing and having fun beating monsters. Also the characters should be less item dependant.. now it seems that many builds are totally item dependant in Hell while some builds can do almost naked.
as end-game content for a single-player game i'd consider a random quest pool that leads you to various dungeons that randomly spawn after each game start -all optimized for higher level players. This way there could be scripted mini bosses, good items and interesting quests all together. Its the only way that would fit the randomness of Diablo i think.
the immunities really made Diablo 2 impossible to finish in hell for every sorceress, i hope they dont make the same mistake in Diablo 3.
Its a hack-slash rpg, not an mmorpg. If you rush the game and get through everything that much faster, then you beat the game that much faster.
End game content? Thats one of the big reasons WoW is such a pos. If any of this potential end-game content looks anything like wow's, it will only feed my concern further on D3.
Any end game content should consist of quests or dungeons similar to the regular game. Pre-end game content (the game itself), needs to be the focus, and needs to be well done. Personally, randomized quest system > end game crap.
End game content? Thats one of the big reasons WoW is such a pos. If any of this potential end-game content looks anything like wow's, it will only feed my concern further on D3.
No-one said that it's going to be anything like WoW. I'll assume that your problem with WoW end-game was the fact that you had to coordinate with a bunch of people. They already said that you will be able to solo everything in D3 sooner or later, just like you could in the previous games, so whatever endgame content they implement, it will be soloable. The difference is that D2 LoD didn't even HAVE any endgame.
Quote from "avanent" »
Pre-end game content (the game itself), needs to be the focus, and needs to be well done. Personally, randomized quest system > end game crap.
Well, didn't it occur to you that 'randomized quest system' WILL be the actual endgame, or at least part of it? Why else would they randomize the quest system other than to provide people means to gain experience in a variety of ways (vs doing Baal runs until you drop dead), and possibly items, since a part of the random adventure system is those rare mini-bosses.
The only way they can make some great end-game content in Diablo is to put a few dungeons filled with some insanely high level monsters that make the end-boss cry, and some crazy quests that have you visiting again all the previous acts.
I agree that they could make a layered dungeon that requires you to eliminate several mini-bosses before you can reach the final dungeon boss, instead letting you warp to the boss and kill him X number of times per hour. By making Bosses harder to reach and more challenging, they can also change the drop rates a bit so that your effort doesn't go unrewarded after so many tries (given that it takes a grander effort than it took you to kill bosses in D2).
Another thing I can think of and that would make for a nice addition, is having a mini-boss in each dungeon. D2 was filled with pointless dungeons that lead nowhere. Most of them had a little chest in the end but it was nothing rewarding enough to drive you to go through it. Also, more fixed drop tables, so that say, more caster-oriented items dropped better off certain bosses and mini-bosses, and more melee-based items and heavy armor drops from a a different group of bosses and encounters. That way you don't go on farming Mephisto constantly for every item you might want, but instead have a varied choice of things to kill knowing that there's a significantly better chance for something to drop in that particular area/encounter/boss/mini-boss...
Yeha i know what you mean. In D2 getting to level 99 means absolutely nothing. Once your like 75 you can obtain the best gear. Ive never got a character to 90 yet all my 75-80s own any lvl 90+ because of my gear
Only end game content Diablo 3 would really have is the PvP ( if it's worth doing ) since as you know, their views on PvP has changed since Diablo 2, which is a bad thing, unless they really figure out a good system to use.
Diablo 3 or any hack n slash is a kind of game where you get your character through the difficulties, and then once you've completed them all, start a new class to use. I don't get why kids keep thinking hack n slashes are supposed to be like MMO's in terms of end game content. The end game that really comes to mind would be in an MMO, and Diablo 3 is not an MMO.
Even if Diablo 2 had " end game content " I'm sure it was pretty simplified and probably PvP for the most part.
Diablo kind of received a little of this in the form of DClone and Chaos Tristram, but eventually those just became farmable as well. Ok, so farmable wasn't the word, but easily beaten if you had the right class and gear.
This sounds great to me, though it obviously creates some apparent canon issues if the Three are regular bosses. Perhaps the Three will indeed be these extra. encounters, and Azmodan and/or Belial will be the last?
PlugY for Diablo II allows you to reset skills and stats, transfer items between characters in singleplayer, obtain all ladder runewords and do all Uberquests while offline. It is the only way to do all of the above. Please use it.
Supporting big shoulderpads and flashy armor since 2004.
Yeha i know what you mean. In D2 getting to level 99 means absolutely nothing. Once your like 75 you can obtain the best gear. Ive never got a character to 90 yet all my 75-80s own any lvl 90+ because of my gear
Getting to level 99 is just an achievement that some people wish to accomplish. Some people do it just so they can show that they wasted that much of their time or some people did it to be rank 1 on the ladders...
And yeah, gears all that's important. Yet I kind of hope that they change that in Diablo 3, to where there is gear for the higher levels instead of just a cut-off level.
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Arrogance, despised by some, considered genius by others.
I hope they make dungeons just a lot more fun end game. Most of the time your running around looking for the stairs that take you down a level .. As for getting to 99 i do it just to feel like i accomplished something >.<.
No-one said that it's going to be anything like WoW. I'll assume that your problem with WoW end-game was the fact that you had to coordinate with a bunch of people. They already said that you will be able to solo everything in D3 sooner or later, just like you could in the previous games, so whatever endgame content they implement, it will be soloable. The difference is that D2 LoD didn't even HAVE any endgame.
Well, didn't it occur to you that 'randomized quest system' WILL be the actual endgame, or at least part of it? Why else would they randomize the quest system other than to provide people means to gain experience in a variety of ways (vs doing Baal runs until you drop dead), and possibly items, since a part of the random adventure system is those rare mini-bosses.
Wow in entirety was crap, and everyone kept saying wait till end game, wait till end game it gets better. Not it doesn't. Instead of killing the same mobs over and over again for no reason, im being asked to do the same instance runs over and over again for no good reason. The fact that most of WoW was solo-able was a big disappointment... its an MMORPG, im paying to play with other people, what the hells the point if its better to level and quest in solo most the time.
I'm hoping any D3 content will look nothing like WoW's 'wonderful' content.
You don't know what you are talking about.... The game only truly begins once you hit the level cap (Level 70). Endless instance runs aren't endgame - raids are. From the sounds of it, you never experienced any of it.
WOW is soloable.I became level 70 in 5 days with just questing.I thought it would get better when i hit 70 but it was not.It had gotten worse.Just doing some bg, some instances (very hard to find a party because of fucking tank/healer isue) and if you completed your t6/s3-s4 set you could play well in arena but that's not fun too.That's all.Just waste of time.
It's funny when people conclude that WoW is soloable because they finished quests alone.... Who fucking cares? WoW is not about questing and leveling - the game is about end-game content: raids. Can you raid Black Temple solo? It's the game of ultimate variety, and end-game progress has a steep curve and never gets boring. There's no farming and grinding because there's so many content to do, and one raid boss can be killed once a week.
In contrast to that, D2 had TWO bosses everyone killed 1961891354 a day, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that..... It's a fucking grinding game that requires no tactic and BRAIN. If someone deliberately wanted to make a masochistically repetitive game, they couldn't beat D2 at it. If it had 1% of end-game content WoW has, it would be fucking golden and you should be fucking grateful.
As you said before it can be killed once a week.For so many players it can't even be killed.Because there is no fucking raid party.I played it 1.5 months and i couldn't find a raid party in Ahn'Quiraj.
Also what's wrong with Paladin in wow?You can't deal damage with paladin opposite to Diablo's paladin.Fucking priest can deal damage but paladin can not.Is this the balance between characters in wow?Hope blizz won't bring wow's balance to DIII.
Also what's wrong with Paladin in wow?You can't deal damage with paladin opposite to Diablo's paladin.Fucking priest can deal damage but paladin can not.Is this the balance between characters in wow?Hope blizz won't bring wow's balance to DIII.
I'm not trying to argue whether WoW or Diablo is better. Leave that out of the discussion.
Quote from "permaximum" »
As you said before it can be killed once a week.For so many players it can't even be killed.Because there is no fucking raid party.I played it 1.5 months and i couldn't find a raid party in Ahn'Quiraj.
That's because you're not supposed to 'wait' for a party. You are supposed to be in a guild that has experience with that raid instance. You can't expect a group of randoms attempting a serious raid boss, so no-one even tries something stupid like that, even if each of the members has experience - group coordination is something that develops with time.
I am not suggesting anything like that for Diablo 3 endgame, of course - we already know all endgame will be soloable sooner or later, that's just how Diablo works, but I don't think it's wrong to hope for a VARIETY, a simple quantity of the endgame content to choose from. Ten bosses with relatively different loot is better than one boss that drops all loot in the game. Also, what's the merit in being a stubborn grinder who can kill Mephisto 10000 times a day for random stuff. You didn't get your loot because of your skill, you just had luck. By making bosses more challenging, you get the feeling of really earning your items - otherwise any noob can get lucky once in a while if he is stubborn enough. That's my point - instead of ultra-easy farmable bosses with astronomically low and random drop rates, make them more difficult and challenging, and also slightly more rewarding.
As you said before it can be killed once a week.For so many players it can't even be killed.Because there is no fucking raid party.I played it 1.5 months and i couldn't find a raid party in Ahn'Quiraj.
permaximum, I'm sorry to say this, but you really have no idea of what WoW is (trust me - I've been running a raiding guild in WoW for over 3 years). So I suggest you stop arguing about it.
On topic: What looks like a good example of End-Game content to me is the pandemonium event. It at least made you run 3 additional dungeons you wouldn't be visiting otherwise... You get the idea.
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I think one of the things I hated most about D2 was the lack of true endgame content. It came down grinding Andy/Mephy/Minions, universally for any drop or experience. I mean, there is only so many millions of times you can drop in > kill Mephy > drop out > repeat, before it starts looking like the most repetitive grind in the universe...
THAT was the news I've been waiting for all this time.....
I hadnt really seen end-game stuff before i started playing MMORPGs and i can really say it was quite interesting. Especially if there are quests to tell stories about them.
1. Finish all three difficulties and get to level 85 in one day.
2. Kill Andy, Mephy, drop out and repeat. x10000
3. Join a gazillion Baal runs to gain exp.
And from what Bashiok says, they really might put in actual stuff to do. I really can't think of a more repetitive game than how D2 (with LoD specifically) gets once you finish the story of the game, but at the same time allowing you to finish the story of the game within minutes. That was a really, really broken concept no matter what anyone might say. It's very simple to fix it:
1. Prevent rushing and instant-exp runs.
2. Introduce at least several more bosses and random events to get your loot from and make you explore the game, instead of the same old two bosses that you do over and over again mindlessly, and completely ignoring 95% of dungeons which are pointless to the degree of people not even being aware of their existence.
Of course, making boss fights more dependent on skill would be a big plus as well. More thinking and less clicking. Making a game easy to play is not a bad thing, but not if I can teach my parrot to get rushed and do my loot runs.
If people wanted to MF they many times did Flayer Jungle because there was loads of easy killable monsters which equals more item drops / hour and more rares / hour.
Developing your characters was the main deal for most.. of course finding really nice gear for them was very important for almost all, since it improved your character.
In LOD you got this huge amounth of unique items.. and unique items pretty much could only drop from certain bosses.. at least the highest quality items. So people started to run only those.
With rares you only had to run areas that had high enough monster level to drop the certain item type and prefix/sufix. Most of the time this was act3-> that could drop pretty much everything, excluding +2 amulets that only Diablo could drop and some high level modifiers like +rep life on wands etc. All the important stats like life/resists etc were actually very low level stats. I once found helmet from normal river of flame with 59 life(max), 34light res 23fire res 15 cold, this helm was pretty much perfect for my sorceress and she wore that helm all the way untill the end. In LOD you can't find anything normal that you could imagine using in hell also(except maybe a SOJ which is really rare).
So I hope item system is gonna get some improvements which could eventually lead to less item farming instead of character developing and having fun beating monsters. Also the characters should be less item dependant.. now it seems that many builds are totally item dependant in Hell while some builds can do almost naked.
RIP: Demon Hunter: lvl 50 | Barb: lvl 60 (plvl 5) | Monk: lvl12 & lvl70 (plvl 200)
the immunities really made Diablo 2 impossible to finish in hell for every sorceress, i hope they dont make the same mistake in Diablo 3.
End game content? Thats one of the big reasons WoW is such a pos. If any of this potential end-game content looks anything like wow's, it will only feed my concern further on D3.
Any end game content should consist of quests or dungeons similar to the regular game. Pre-end game content (the game itself), needs to be the focus, and needs to be well done. Personally, randomized quest system > end game crap.
~not going to buy a wow-ish diablo 3~
~this is the petition you're looking for~
Well, didn't it occur to you that 'randomized quest system' WILL be the actual endgame, or at least part of it? Why else would they randomize the quest system other than to provide people means to gain experience in a variety of ways (vs doing Baal runs until you drop dead), and possibly items, since a part of the random adventure system is those rare mini-bosses.
Another thing I can think of and that would make for a nice addition, is having a mini-boss in each dungeon. D2 was filled with pointless dungeons that lead nowhere. Most of them had a little chest in the end but it was nothing rewarding enough to drive you to go through it. Also, more fixed drop tables, so that say, more caster-oriented items dropped better off certain bosses and mini-bosses, and more melee-based items and heavy armor drops from a a different group of bosses and encounters. That way you don't go on farming Mephisto constantly for every item you might want, but instead have a varied choice of things to kill knowing that there's a significantly better chance for something to drop in that particular area/encounter/boss/mini-boss...
Diablo 3 or any hack n slash is a kind of game where you get your character through the difficulties, and then once you've completed them all, start a new class to use. I don't get why kids keep thinking hack n slashes are supposed to be like MMO's in terms of end game content. The end game that really comes to mind would be in an MMO, and Diablo 3 is not an MMO.
Even if Diablo 2 had " end game content " I'm sure it was pretty simplified and probably PvP for the most part.
This sounds great to me, though it obviously creates some apparent canon issues if the Three are regular bosses. Perhaps the Three will indeed be these extra. encounters, and Azmodan and/or Belial will be the last?
Getting to level 99 is just an achievement that some people wish to accomplish. Some people do it just so they can show that they wasted that much of their time or some people did it to be rank 1 on the ladders...
And yeah, gears all that's important. Yet I kind of hope that they change that in Diablo 3, to where there is gear for the higher levels instead of just a cut-off level.
Arrogance, despised by some, considered genius by others.
Wow in entirety was crap, and everyone kept saying wait till end game, wait till end game it gets better. Not it doesn't. Instead of killing the same mobs over and over again for no reason, im being asked to do the same instance runs over and over again for no good reason. The fact that most of WoW was solo-able was a big disappointment... its an MMORPG, im paying to play with other people, what the hells the point if its better to level and quest in solo most the time.
I'm hoping any D3 content will look nothing like WoW's 'wonderful' content.
~not going to buy a wow-ish diablo 3~
~this is the petition you're looking for~
In contrast to that, D2 had TWO bosses everyone killed 1961891354 a day, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that..... It's a fucking grinding game that requires no tactic and BRAIN. If someone deliberately wanted to make a masochistically repetitive game, they couldn't beat D2 at it. If it had 1% of end-game content WoW has, it would be fucking golden and you should be fucking grateful.
/end of rant
Also what's wrong with Paladin in wow?You can't deal damage with paladin opposite to Diablo's paladin.Fucking priest can deal damage but paladin can not.Is this the balance between characters in wow?Hope blizz won't bring wow's balance to DIII.
That's because you're not supposed to 'wait' for a party. You are supposed to be in a guild that has experience with that raid instance. You can't expect a group of randoms attempting a serious raid boss, so no-one even tries something stupid like that, even if each of the members has experience - group coordination is something that develops with time.
I am not suggesting anything like that for Diablo 3 endgame, of course - we already know all endgame will be soloable sooner or later, that's just how Diablo works, but I don't think it's wrong to hope for a VARIETY, a simple quantity of the endgame content to choose from. Ten bosses with relatively different loot is better than one boss that drops all loot in the game. Also, what's the merit in being a stubborn grinder who can kill Mephisto 10000 times a day for random stuff. You didn't get your loot because of your skill, you just had luck. By making bosses more challenging, you get the feeling of really earning your items - otherwise any noob can get lucky once in a while if he is stubborn enough. That's my point - instead of ultra-easy farmable bosses with astronomically low and random drop rates, make them more difficult and challenging, and also slightly more rewarding.
On topic: What looks like a good example of End-Game content to me is the pandemonium event. It at least made you run 3 additional dungeons you wouldn't be visiting otherwise... You get the idea.