So, I was discussing with some of my B.Net friends about the difficultly of Inferno at launch and now, and I realized something - I've never heard anyone suggest (what I think) is a better way to implement difficulty in an ARPG, and more importantly, how do you design the game so the player can overcome it. I'm mostly interested in it because I don't believe in holding something against someone if I can't at least suggest something else.
Before we start, I think we can agree the item drops were a little off (basically needing to be in Act 3 to get items to let you beat Act 2), and it's not great when mobs can one shot you from off the screen. Aside from these, how would the difficultly have been improved (assuming they stayed true to the original idea, in that only a very few would actually be able to complete it)?
In an ARPG, the obvious way to make it more difficult is increasing monster strength/damage/numbers. Alternately, they could improve the AI. I'm not sure how much the AI could have been improved, so I'll work with the first one (if you have good examples of AI, feel free to work off that).
For dealing with improved monsters, I can only think of a few ways for players to improve: grind for levels, grind for loot, or improve character control so you can manually dodge attacks.
I think in this case, level grinding is out cause you get so little stat bonuses from levels (a few points when you regularly have 1000's of them), so they COULD have done that, but they' either need a HUGE amount of levels, or they'd have to rework the skills/stats so they radically improve every few levels. In any rate, this, to me, is basically the same idea as the loot, so I'll cover more of it there.
Grinding for loot. It's what they did. Yes, a gear check is one form of difficultly, no different than any other RPG. The issue here is the same as gaining levels, as things tend to increase exponentially, then eventually you get to the point where you have to take 100 hours to get any progress (unless they just make it so you can out level any content). For levels, it's because it always takes more to gain the next level than it did before (linear, exponential, or quadratic only change how fast that happens). For items, it's because every upgrade puts you closer to the BiS, which means there are less items that can be an upgrade.
For the player skill, I tend to believe them when they said it wasn't much fun to try and dodge EVERY attack (which is what they said most people ended up trying to do). I, personally, think so because the mouse is actually a really clunky way to move around (not aim, it's really good for that). I mean, we only have a limited form of this (kiting) and many of the guides comparing kiting builds to others all say the same, many people find this boring. This changes in a game with different controls (for example, the best part of Kingdom of Amalur's combat was that I could dodge or block or parry instead of just taking the hit).
So, all that said, I can't see where Blizz went wrong, assuming you believe their stated goal of making it nearly impossible and only for the hardest of the hardcore (aka, not about trying to get people to buy gear on the RMAH). Also taking into account what I mentioned earlier (and other little niggles that crop up, like certain champ affixes being OPed or some such). The control scheme prevented most of the player skill, so their only two alternatives where both time sinks.
In a meatgrinder like D3, with large number of very dim-witted monsters whose damage-dealing abilities are mostly just area-denial I'd do it pretty much the way Blizzard has. Make them do more damage so you have to exercise a little situational awareness, but the relentless attacking never really stops.
In something more sedate like PoE, I think there's room for mechanics that require more precision and forethought, but PoE's particular design of letting people use any skills they like means that there's not a baseline the designers can assume, so that limits their options.
Having said that, I'm not sure that 'difficultly' is a concept that can go beyond EHP+DPS in a game oriented entirely around acquiring gear in a way that's not rigidly gated. Honestly, if you're looking for 'difficulty' that's solved by skill, rather than just getting better stuff, the whole 'action roguelike' genre is completely the wrong place to look.
To me, the big thing they screwed up was itemization. The issues with difficulty stem from that imho. Instead of trying to balance everything against the AH, it would have been better to make most gear that drops bind to account and then add an affix that makes the gear not bind. To be clear, I would have opposed this at the time because Diablo has always been about free trade. I would have been wrong though because I hadn't yet seen what the AH would do to the game.
Making gear bind to account by default would mean that you could balance the game around self-found loot. You could easily predict how long a person ought to be stuck at a specific gear gate, for example.
The other major benefit would be a lot less time needing to be spent on the AH. Since self-found gear would be inherently better since it doesn't have a net -1 affix, the AH would be a fallback for people who were unlucky with a slot or two, wanted to build more specifically tailored builds, or had a bunch of real money to burn instead of being the default for all gear each of your characters has.
The other piece beyond making gear bind would have been to not have gear from A2-4 be so much better than gear from A1 Inferno. This is the main thing that made it so impossible to advance for some classes. You simply needed gear you didn't yet have access to in order to realistically farm the content you did have access to.
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...and if you disagree with me, you're probably <insert random ad hominem attack here>.
I don't think ARPGs need difficulty beyond what we've traditionally seen in D2 and D3 honestly. ARPGs are just not a genre I look at as some kind of eSport that challenges people with twitch reflexes and super hardcore theorycrafting as requisites for being successful.
I think, generally, D3 is pretty spot-on with difficulty. Stuff like Monster Power has always been player-friendly and a very good middle ground between the nubs and the elite.
I would love to see more variety affixes on elites, although I kinda struggle with what they could be. Perhaps an arcane buff that does pulsing arcane damage (on the light side since it'd be unavoidable). Maybe Poison Nova, since that was a kinda memorable spell from D2. I don't know, but I do know I'd like to see more possible abilities that elites get. Most of the stuff right now is "avoidable but dangerous" - I'd kinda like to see some unavoidable stuff that isn't super-dangerous.
I like PoEs idea for "Wealth" and that's something that D3 could copycat at some point. Very rarely you get an elite pack which has an extra affix - Wealth - which makes it drop a lot more loot. There was a thread on the official forums (and here) about "positive" affixes which could work similarly to Wealth in PoE, but more varied. Maybe that thread could be revisited.
I understand why some ARPG fans hate TL2, but the starting 4 difficulties + HC option is a no-brainer, no matter your opinion on their execution of it. Making a player grind for 20 hours before the game even begins to get remotely challenging is just stupid.
I understand why some ARPG fans hate TL2, but the starting 4 difficulties + HC option is a no-brainer, no matter your opinion on their execution of it. Making a player grind for 20 hours before the game even begins to get remotely challenging is just stupid.
Just my opinion.
That's another issue, that I wasn't really trying get at. We're talking about ways to make it difficult, when ever it gets difficult. Although I think I prefer how D3 is now, you have 4 "modes" to play through, so you can move through areas quickly, but if you want more of a challenge, increase the MP.
One of the main issues with the "difficulty" in D3 is/was class balance.
I mean I rolled over inferno on release week because I played a DH with overpowered smokescreen (I made quite a few posts about how OP smokescreen was on the Blizzard forums during beta). There were plenty of threads, posts, and suggestions on the beta forums about abilities like smokesceen, yet Blizzard let all those abilities go live as they were.
So of course when certain classes can beat inferno so fast, yet other classes get stuck due to class balance there would obviously be plenty of complaints.
To be honest, as a DH i actually really enjoyed inferno the way it was released Beating inferno in part blues and generally terrible gear was actually quite challenging and fun even with OP abilities. Yet needless to say, a number of my RL friends quit or rerolled because the game balance was just blatantly poor.
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As for difficulty now, it's really hard to say. I mean you simply can't wear BiS level gear and have a challenge since the content can be outgeared.
Like today I was reading Blizzard's Monk Forums, and there were people talking about how to solo MP10 Uber ZK/SB after 1.0.7 as a Monk. Needless to say, I opened MP10 ZK/SB and decided to give it a shot on my Monk. My monk has 385 AR (and an additional 137 Physical), 3662 Armor, and 48k HP. So of course I'm a bit squishy for MP10 stuff, which makes the content challenging.
I managed to kill them on MP10, yet it wasn't a 1-shot. I hit enrage timer for a couple attempts before I got my kill. So in this situation, sure the content WAS challenging, yet if I had like another 100 AR or like 25k more DPS, the challenge simply would not have been the same. I wouldn't run into enrage timers, and I'd be able to kill SB without having to rely on potion healing due to higher mitigation.
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The thing is in ActionRPGs gear plays a major role in the game. IMO the best thing that could have been done is to make the most difficult content REQUIRE BiS gear and a very high level of skill, maybe like a GM level in StarCraft. At the same time that high difficulty content can not drop gear that impacts gameplay. rewards in it should have been simply cosmetic items, effects, and dyes.
In such a situation there will be content difficult enough to be challenging for everyone, yet players can always farm the best stat items without having to play near-impossible content.
The thing is in ActionRPGs gear plays a major role in the game. IMO the best thing that could have been done is to make the most difficult content REQUIRE BiS gear and a very high level of skill, maybe like a GM level in StarCraft. At the same time that high difficulty content can not drop gear that impacts gameplay. rewards in it should have been simply cosmetic items, effects, and dyes.
In such a situation there will be content difficult enough to be challenging for everyone, yet players can always farm the best stat items without having to play near-impossible content.
I thought inferno was that, more or less, with the exception of a few OP'ed skills? I never really got very far in Inferno, so I don't know for sure.
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Before we start, I think we can agree the item drops were a little off (basically needing to be in Act 3 to get items to let you beat Act 2), and it's not great when mobs can one shot you from off the screen. Aside from these, how would the difficultly have been improved (assuming they stayed true to the original idea, in that only a very few would actually be able to complete it)?
In an ARPG, the obvious way to make it more difficult is increasing monster strength/damage/numbers. Alternately, they could improve the AI. I'm not sure how much the AI could have been improved, so I'll work with the first one (if you have good examples of AI, feel free to work off that).
For dealing with improved monsters, I can only think of a few ways for players to improve: grind for levels, grind for loot, or improve character control so you can manually dodge attacks.
I think in this case, level grinding is out cause you get so little stat bonuses from levels (a few points when you regularly have 1000's of them), so they COULD have done that, but they' either need a HUGE amount of levels, or they'd have to rework the skills/stats so they radically improve every few levels. In any rate, this, to me, is basically the same idea as the loot, so I'll cover more of it there.
Grinding for loot. It's what they did. Yes, a gear check is one form of difficultly, no different than any other RPG. The issue here is the same as gaining levels, as things tend to increase exponentially, then eventually you get to the point where you have to take 100 hours to get any progress (unless they just make it so you can out level any content). For levels, it's because it always takes more to gain the next level than it did before (linear, exponential, or quadratic only change how fast that happens). For items, it's because every upgrade puts you closer to the BiS, which means there are less items that can be an upgrade.
For the player skill, I tend to believe them when they said it wasn't much fun to try and dodge EVERY attack (which is what they said most people ended up trying to do). I, personally, think so because the mouse is actually a really clunky way to move around (not aim, it's really good for that). I mean, we only have a limited form of this (kiting) and many of the guides comparing kiting builds to others all say the same, many people find this boring. This changes in a game with different controls (for example, the best part of Kingdom of Amalur's combat was that I could dodge or block or parry instead of just taking the hit).
So, all that said, I can't see where Blizz went wrong, assuming you believe their stated goal of making it nearly impossible and only for the hardest of the hardcore (aka, not about trying to get people to buy gear on the RMAH). Also taking into account what I mentioned earlier (and other little niggles that crop up, like certain champ affixes being OPed or some such). The control scheme prevented most of the player skill, so their only two alternatives where both time sinks.
In a meatgrinder like D3, with large number of very dim-witted monsters whose damage-dealing abilities are mostly just area-denial I'd do it pretty much the way Blizzard has. Make them do more damage so you have to exercise a little situational awareness, but the relentless attacking never really stops.
In something more sedate like PoE, I think there's room for mechanics that require more precision and forethought, but PoE's particular design of letting people use any skills they like means that there's not a baseline the designers can assume, so that limits their options.
Having said that, I'm not sure that 'difficultly' is a concept that can go beyond EHP+DPS in a game oriented entirely around acquiring gear in a way that's not rigidly gated. Honestly, if you're looking for 'difficulty' that's solved by skill, rather than just getting better stuff, the whole 'action roguelike' genre is completely the wrong place to look.
How would I do difficulty? Dark Souls
It feels even weirder when you're chewing through elites then OH CRAP BURNING CONSTRUCTS!
Making gear bind to account by default would mean that you could balance the game around self-found loot. You could easily predict how long a person ought to be stuck at a specific gear gate, for example.
The other major benefit would be a lot less time needing to be spent on the AH. Since self-found gear would be inherently better since it doesn't have a net -1 affix, the AH would be a fallback for people who were unlucky with a slot or two, wanted to build more specifically tailored builds, or had a bunch of real money to burn instead of being the default for all gear each of your characters has.
The other piece beyond making gear bind would have been to not have gear from A2-4 be so much better than gear from A1 Inferno. This is the main thing that made it so impossible to advance for some classes. You simply needed gear you didn't yet have access to in order to realistically farm the content you did have access to.
Btw, the problem with the monster affixes is that it makes every elite pack almost the same.
I agree that the community is the worst online community ever.. but the game idea is great.
I think, generally, D3 is pretty spot-on with difficulty. Stuff like Monster Power has always been player-friendly and a very good middle ground between the nubs and the elite.
I would love to see more variety affixes on elites, although I kinda struggle with what they could be. Perhaps an arcane buff that does pulsing arcane damage (on the light side since it'd be unavoidable). Maybe Poison Nova, since that was a kinda memorable spell from D2. I don't know, but I do know I'd like to see more possible abilities that elites get. Most of the stuff right now is "avoidable but dangerous" - I'd kinda like to see some unavoidable stuff that isn't super-dangerous.
I like PoEs idea for "Wealth" and that's something that D3 could copycat at some point. Very rarely you get an elite pack which has an extra affix - Wealth - which makes it drop a lot more loot. There was a thread on the official forums (and here) about "positive" affixes which could work similarly to Wealth in PoE, but more varied. Maybe that thread could be revisited.
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Just my opinion.
That's another issue, that I wasn't really trying get at. We're talking about ways to make it difficult, when ever it gets difficult. Although I think I prefer how D3 is now, you have 4 "modes" to play through, so you can move through areas quickly, but if you want more of a challenge, increase the MP.
I mean I rolled over inferno on release week because I played a DH with overpowered smokescreen (I made quite a few posts about how OP smokescreen was on the Blizzard forums during beta). There were plenty of threads, posts, and suggestions on the beta forums about abilities like smokesceen, yet Blizzard let all those abilities go live as they were.
So of course when certain classes can beat inferno so fast, yet other classes get stuck due to class balance there would obviously be plenty of complaints.
To be honest, as a DH i actually really enjoyed inferno the way it was released Beating inferno in part blues and generally terrible gear was actually quite challenging and fun even with OP abilities. Yet needless to say, a number of my RL friends quit or rerolled because the game balance was just blatantly poor.
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As for difficulty now, it's really hard to say. I mean you simply can't wear BiS level gear and have a challenge since the content can be outgeared.
Like today I was reading Blizzard's Monk Forums, and there were people talking about how to solo MP10 Uber ZK/SB after 1.0.7 as a Monk. Needless to say, I opened MP10 ZK/SB and decided to give it a shot on my Monk. My monk has 385 AR (and an additional 137 Physical), 3662 Armor, and 48k HP. So of course I'm a bit squishy for MP10 stuff, which makes the content challenging.
I managed to kill them on MP10, yet it wasn't a 1-shot. I hit enrage timer for a couple attempts before I got my kill. So in this situation, sure the content WAS challenging, yet if I had like another 100 AR or like 25k more DPS, the challenge simply would not have been the same. I wouldn't run into enrage timers, and I'd be able to kill SB without having to rely on potion healing due to higher mitigation.
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The thing is in ActionRPGs gear plays a major role in the game. IMO the best thing that could have been done is to make the most difficult content REQUIRE BiS gear and a very high level of skill, maybe like a GM level in StarCraft. At the same time that high difficulty content can not drop gear that impacts gameplay. rewards in it should have been simply cosmetic items, effects, and dyes.
In such a situation there will be content difficult enough to be challenging for everyone, yet players can always farm the best stat items without having to play near-impossible content.
I thought inferno was that, more or less, with the exception of a few OP'ed skills? I never really got very far in Inferno, so I don't know for sure.