Item pick-up's have been a focus of constant improvement from game to game in the Diablo franchise, starting in Diablo I where items were about as easy to find once they were on the ground as the proverbial needle in a haystack, between the excessively dark and gritty textures and the lack of item flags. Then came the unofficial Diablo I expansion pack, which introduced a spell that, when cast, showed the labels of all the items currently on the ground. This was an obvious improvement from the original system.
With the release of Diablo II, the Blizzard North team, whether because of the Hellfire unofficial expansion or from their own minds, introduced item-revealing as a hotkey (ALT on Windows systems) that did the same thing, though not as a mana-consuming spell. While it was an improvement, it left some to be desired, such as the introduction of strictly against-policy third-party programs used to automatically pick up items.
With the revelation of Diablo III we were promised another upgrade from this older system, including such changes as player-specific drops that others could not get at and automatic pick-up for specific items, namely gold. Item and inventory systems continue to evolve at Blizzard HQ, however:
Official Blizzard Quote:
Inventory management and the systems that surround it are something we're obviously interested in, but not something that can really be tuned until we have more of the item game fleshed out and tuned itself. It's hard to know exactly the best way to handle inventory management when the items, types, pickup frequency, and removal frequency can't really be measured with any real accuracy.
How can the currently-known Diablo III inventory system be bettered? What from the old would be better mixed with the new? It has already been proven that fan-based criticisms have affected the game, such as the reintroduction of the "tetris inventory", as it is called by most, from the previous installments (see Has the Tetris Inventory and Magic Find Returned?), so speak and let Blizzard hear your opinions!
Of course all of this talk of automated item systems begs the question: Where do we draw the line? When does automation go too far and what is best left to automated processes? Bashiok argues that certain items, like gold, are a no-brainer, but:
Official Blizzard Quote:
We want inventory management to include player choice and interaction, and so while we're definitely not opposed to new ideas and while we're certainly drawing inspiration from many places, we want to maintain that inventory management doesn't become an automated process.
It should only make sense, then, that while there needs to be some limiting of the item-picking grindfest from the old games that often detracted from the continues immersion flow, there still needs to be player-oriented choice (imagine being forced to pick up every light plate armor in the entire game- you would run out of inventory space fairly quickly).
I think that the alt button in Diablo 2 was a good system. I do think however it should be customizable. For example, in early game you could have it set to detect all items because you really don't care what items you get as long as it boosts your defense, stats etc. In later game, you really don't need or even want to pick up low quality items so you could set the alt button to screen those items so you only see magic, set, unique items.
What are we talking about exactly, here? I'll avoid beating the dead parts that we all talked about much.
All that D3 needs now over D2 is some customization. "Show only X Items". Permanently show (like Alt) items of X quality (so you can't miss them, but you can still see other items on the ground using Alt).
Auto pickup should be limited to gold. Its the only thing that makes sense that you would never, ever leave behind with a reason.
Other than small things like that, it really doesn't need more.
Yes, gold is the only thing that makes sense. Nothing else drops with enough frequency and stays useful at all times.
not true quest items could also be considered along with gold here. so we don't have to hold quest items. for instance both diablo 1 and 2 u had to hold quest items in ur inventory so i think thats what blizzard wants to know.
i for one thing feel that holding quest items should still be still in ur inventory makes the game more real. Peace out :cool:
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"I Do not Consider myself to do Justice, But I Do not conside myself to do Evil Either."
Getting rid of some "vendor trash" type items would be useful as well. (since after a certain point, there's no reason to pick up a lot of items, and it would reduce a lot of clutter.)
Blizzard could probably make the inventory auto arrange to fit larger items if all items are auto pickup. That's why they would be wondering if it was going to far. I myself would prefer to arrange the items how I like. As for weapon/armor auto pickup, it can be implemented but must be customizable.
I'd have it turned off. It would feel satisfying to manually pick up my sparkly rare loot.
I'd argue auto-pickup for potions would be good, too. Since they're going to be impossible to find or whatever you're going to want them no matter what. They should be stackable, though. Other games have done it and it works fine.
There is one thing that could be improved: getting rid of auto-pickup on Gold. Some people like to take the time to pick up gold, tohers dont. Personally I always have a "threshold" and if its more, I pick it up, if its less I figure that the time it takes me to make 1 click is going to reduce my overall "gold per second" by picking it up as opposed to running past it, and waiting for a bigger drop. I enjoy this complex interplay. Why take it away?
The designers keep making stupid decisions based around the idea that FIGHTING is the fun thing in Diablo, and making everything else automatic so that you can spend as much possible time fighting. Well, guess what....fighting has always been the most boring aspect of Diablo. Its thinking about how to assign stat points, thinking about how to arrange that tetris inventory, figuring out how to mazimize your DPS, Gold-Per-sec, XP-per-sec, unique-per-sec, etc, that makes the game fun. I spent at least as much time buried in game manuals plotting out stat points for builds as I did actually playing, and the thinking part was the most fun part.
In my opinion MF and the tetris style inventory are iconic elements and I am very glad they will not be lost. Moreover, I think that these two elements contributed significantly to the success of the franchise.
The tetris style inventory gives the player the "feeling" of actually having a backpack and getting to put things in it, in a way that is not nearly as difficult as actually having to arrange a physical backpack full of junk...but at the same time accomplishes the effect of making the player feel like they are tangible things. The different sizes of items has several values:
a) gives a crude sense of scale to items, which makes them feel more real to the player.
introduces an additional aspect of something to be balanced, which keeps things interested....is it worth it to hold onto that 6 slot item if you're just going to sell it, or is it a better use of time to ignore it and pick up smaller items so you dont have to go back to town as frequently? You may criticize this as being "unfun" but it really is part of the fun of Diablo. Just as, when I worked on a ferry, directing cars into the slots to try to even the weight of the boat could be fun. There isn't much to do in Diablo, and I'd prefer that these simple pleasures not be taken away from us.
c) allows larger more prominent items like armor and weapons to be given more dominant artwork
As for MF, it is critical to getting players addicted to give them a way to increase their own chances of finding items...because the primary source of fun in Diablo is not killing monsters, its finding sweet shit. The prospect of finding something is more pleasurable than the actual ACT of finding something...psychologically, and for this reason finding MF items just skyrockets the addiction factor.
There is one thing that could be improved: getting rid of auto-pickup on Gold. Some people like to take the time to pick up gold, tohers dont. Personally I always have a "threshold" and if its more, I pick it up, if its less I figure that the time it takes me to make 1 click is going to reduce my overall "gold per second" by picking it up as opposed to running past it, and waiting for a bigger drop. I enjoy this complex interplay. Why take it away?
Really?.
Ahem.
Well... I find it rather strange. Certainly DON'T get rid of it. If you really want that though, a simple option to disable gold auto pickup would be nice, so that you can do it like you want, and I can have it on auto pickup.
Well... I find it rather strange. Certainly DON'T get rid of it. If you really want that though, a simple option to disable gold auto pickup would be nice, so that you can do it like you want, and I can have it on auto pickup.
Uh, no...having an option to disable auto-pick up would be completely useless and defeat the point....
The reason that manual gold pickup is better than auto-pickup is that it gives the player something else to think about while playing, giving them another way to differentiate themselves by creating a more powerful player than someone else who doesn't think about these things.
A player who wastes him time picking up tiny gold drops will slow his progress to other areas of the game where gold drops are larger, which actually reduces the amount of gold he can get in the same time. But if you don't pick up any gold at all, then you don't get as much gold per second as someoen who intelligently picks up drops that are close to him and dont delay him much.
If there exists an option to auto-pickup, then this interesting decision is removed from the player because the best decision is obviously to enable it.
It also puts a damper in inflation, because people stop caring at higher levels. If gold drop is auto, it will make inflation more of a problem because EVERYONE will be picking up gold ALL the time. Yes, the inflation problem exists no matter what, but this just means that whatever sinks they introduce to counteract inflation will need to be even more effective than they would have to be.
There's something wrong with that sentence. It should be:
"Then came the unofficial Diablo I expansion pack, which introduced a spell (that, when cast, showed the labels of all the items currently on the ground) which was an obvious improvement from the original system."
I think you made a typo typo here.
Thanks for your menial suggestions. In the future, please PM me. It's off topic. All fixed.
I'd appreciate it if in the future articles like this could have some kind of warning in them that says it's not actually news. I'm not saying you should stop making these, it seems to get people discussing things, but for those of us who only want to read actual news we'd appreciate not having to read through it to realise it's just a discussion thread
You seem perfectly capable of reading the first post and deciding for yourself. I'll continue to do my job and you can expect nothing of the sort
Well, Diablo II didn't because... I'm not sure, really. Maybe they just wanted you to think more about your inventory space? But then, keys were stacked. Hm...
I just think that in Diablo III they should be stacked because they're already not encouraging their use. If they make them a pain to carry with you, no one is really going to use them.
I like that. High level players will probably kill so fast that they have no use for any drop lower than rare, not even for gold.
It would be good if you could turn on ALT mode permanently too, especially when you are only looking for rare items and better. It will give you one less button to click which improves your efficiency.
Sticky keys are a solution to being able to hold Alt at all times. But remember, with Alt on, you can't select monsters, zones, chests, etc... Basically anything that isn't an item.
diablo 2 had a GREAT system! however, bots ruined the economy.
So, put those scrambled letters before joining each game or some mundane bot-proof task to keep bots from entering/exiting games on their own. main problem solved
There is one thing that could be improved: getting rid of auto-pickup on Gold. Some people like to take the time to pick up gold, tohers dont. Personally I always have a "threshold" and if its more, I pick it up, if its less I figure that the time it takes me to make 1 click is going to reduce my overall "gold per second" by picking it up as opposed to running past it, and waiting for a bigger drop. I enjoy this complex interplay. Why take it away?.
well you bring up a good point since gold is now a main currency in d3. Having auto pick up will make it that the longer you play basically make you rich = auction house = epic char.
I feel that it should be picked up gold in this sense. in d1 and d2 blizzard should have had gold on autoloot since gold sucked in general. i never picked up gold that much. I sold armor for gold mainly. Thats how i play. and i'll play that way in d3 regardless.
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"I Do not Consider myself to do Justice, But I Do not conside myself to do Evil Either."
Well, for the guy that enjoys a game where you pick up gold, I suggest you are in the minority. Aside from the fact that we don't know what gold will actually be used for, to suggest that people get enjoyment from doing something trivial and menial would be aimed at the people who play Farmville on Facebook, and less of the hardcore diablo fans.
The way I think gold will be used (to buy re-distribution points, with each additional point costing more and more gold, be that linear or otherwise) it would never make sense to not want more gold.
Another thing (if they do it the same way as in D2) that would be good for auto-pickup would be if they still have Tomes of Identify and Town Portal, to auto-pickup those items until the Tomes are full. That is, if it is done in the same way as D2.
well you bring up a good point since gold is now a main currency in d3. Having auto pick up will make it that the longer you play basically make you rich = auction house = epic char.
Not having it on auto pickup makes no difference on that. Gold is going to be important. You pick it all up, its always useful for you. End of the line. I'm not even going to start again on the topic of "its fun to pick up gold and pick up the right ones, and its all some kind of meta game".. its a -really- weird thing, and that some enjoy it is not the problem, but that you just want us to still be forced to pick it all up manually (which is what I call a chore) just because thats how some people like it is silly.
I'd rather just evolve and get rid of that annoying task.
Quote from "luc1027" »
I'm agree to auto pick-up the gold, potions, and elexir. All what's players won't spit on it.
For elexir I don't know if blizzard want a click competition or want a run on it.
But for gold and orb (potions) it's a must.
Don't confuse orbs and potions. Orbs are orbs, you never carry them around.
And even if potions are stacked, I don't know if auto pickup on them makes sense. They are still taking room. You won't be able to stack 100 of them in one slot for sure. They should not be auto pickup.
Someone said Quest items and I must say I didn't think about them, but I must say no. Actually picking up the quest item yourself might sound like a small thing, but its needed. Its a feeling thing. These items are relatively rare anyway.
You stack until the stack is full, then you have to manually click once to start a new stack. You are going to pick up all potions anyway, that is a no-brainer like gold.
It will all depend on how often they drop. If it's a rare thing... auto pickup should not be done, if it's all the time and potions are considered important in large numbers... auto pickup should be done.
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With the release of Diablo II, the Blizzard North team, whether because of the Hellfire unofficial expansion or from their own minds, introduced item-revealing as a hotkey (ALT on Windows systems) that did the same thing, though not as a mana-consuming spell. While it was an improvement, it left some to be desired, such as the introduction of strictly against-policy third-party programs used to automatically pick up items.
With the revelation of Diablo III we were promised another upgrade from this older system, including such changes as player-specific drops that others could not get at and automatic pick-up for specific items, namely gold. Item and inventory systems continue to evolve at Blizzard HQ, however:
Official Blizzard Quote:
Inventory management and the systems that surround it are something we're obviously interested in, but not something that can really be tuned until we have more of the item game fleshed out and tuned itself. It's hard to know exactly the best way to handle inventory management when the items, types, pickup frequency, and removal frequency can't really be measured with any real accuracy.
How can the currently-known Diablo III inventory system be bettered? What from the old would be better mixed with the new? It has already been proven that fan-based criticisms have affected the game, such as the reintroduction of the "tetris inventory", as it is called by most, from the previous installments (see Has the Tetris Inventory and Magic Find Returned?), so speak and let Blizzard hear your opinions!
Of course all of this talk of automated item systems begs the question: Where do we draw the line? When does automation go too far and what is best left to automated processes? Bashiok argues that certain items, like gold, are a no-brainer, but:
Official Blizzard Quote:
We want inventory management to include player choice and interaction, and so while we're definitely not opposed to new ideas and while we're certainly drawing inspiration from many places, we want to maintain that inventory management doesn't become an automated process.
It should only make sense, then, that while there needs to be some limiting of the item-picking grindfest from the old games that often detracted from the continues immersion flow, there still needs to be player-oriented choice (imagine being forced to pick up every light plate armor in the entire game- you would run out of inventory space fairly quickly).
I think that the alt button in Diablo 2 was a good system. I do think however it should be customizable. For example, in early game you could have it set to detect all items because you really don't care what items you get as long as it boosts your defense, stats etc. In later game, you really don't need or even want to pick up low quality items so you could set the alt button to screen those items so you only see magic, set, unique items.
All that D3 needs now over D2 is some customization. "Show only X Items". Permanently show (like Alt) items of X quality (so you can't miss them, but you can still see other items on the ground using Alt).
Auto pickup should be limited to gold. Its the only thing that makes sense that you would never, ever leave behind with a reason.
Other than small things like that, it really doesn't need more.
not true quest items could also be considered along with gold here. so we don't have to hold quest items. for instance both diablo 1 and 2 u had to hold quest items in ur inventory so i think thats what blizzard wants to know.
i for one thing feel that holding quest items should still be still in ur inventory makes the game more real. Peace out :cool:
I'd have it turned off. It would feel satisfying to manually pick up my sparkly rare loot.
The designers keep making stupid decisions based around the idea that FIGHTING is the fun thing in Diablo, and making everything else automatic so that you can spend as much possible time fighting. Well, guess what....fighting has always been the most boring aspect of Diablo. Its thinking about how to assign stat points, thinking about how to arrange that tetris inventory, figuring out how to mazimize your DPS, Gold-Per-sec, XP-per-sec, unique-per-sec, etc, that makes the game fun. I spent at least as much time buried in game manuals plotting out stat points for builds as I did actually playing, and the thinking part was the most fun part.
In my opinion MF and the tetris style inventory are iconic elements and I am very glad they will not be lost. Moreover, I think that these two elements contributed significantly to the success of the franchise.
The tetris style inventory gives the player the "feeling" of actually having a backpack and getting to put things in it, in a way that is not nearly as difficult as actually having to arrange a physical backpack full of junk...but at the same time accomplishes the effect of making the player feel like they are tangible things. The different sizes of items has several values:
a) gives a crude sense of scale to items, which makes them feel more real to the player.
introduces an additional aspect of something to be balanced, which keeps things interested....is it worth it to hold onto that 6 slot item if you're just going to sell it, or is it a better use of time to ignore it and pick up smaller items so you dont have to go back to town as frequently? You may criticize this as being "unfun" but it really is part of the fun of Diablo. Just as, when I worked on a ferry, directing cars into the slots to try to even the weight of the boat could be fun. There isn't much to do in Diablo, and I'd prefer that these simple pleasures not be taken away from us.
c) allows larger more prominent items like armor and weapons to be given more dominant artwork
As for MF, it is critical to getting players addicted to give them a way to increase their own chances of finding items...because the primary source of fun in Diablo is not killing monsters, its finding sweet shit. The prospect of finding something is more pleasurable than the actual ACT of finding something...psychologically, and for this reason finding MF items just skyrockets the addiction factor.
Ahem.
Well... I find it rather strange. Certainly DON'T get rid of it. If you really want that though, a simple option to disable gold auto pickup would be nice, so that you can do it like you want, and I can have it on auto pickup.
Uh, no...having an option to disable auto-pick up would be completely useless and defeat the point....
The reason that manual gold pickup is better than auto-pickup is that it gives the player something else to think about while playing, giving them another way to differentiate themselves by creating a more powerful player than someone else who doesn't think about these things.
A player who wastes him time picking up tiny gold drops will slow his progress to other areas of the game where gold drops are larger, which actually reduces the amount of gold he can get in the same time. But if you don't pick up any gold at all, then you don't get as much gold per second as someoen who intelligently picks up drops that are close to him and dont delay him much.
If there exists an option to auto-pickup, then this interesting decision is removed from the player because the best decision is obviously to enable it.
It also puts a damper in inflation, because people stop caring at higher levels. If gold drop is auto, it will make inflation more of a problem because EVERYONE will be picking up gold ALL the time. Yes, the inflation problem exists no matter what, but this just means that whatever sinks they introduce to counteract inflation will need to be even more effective than they would have to be.
Thanks for your menial suggestions. In the future, please PM me. It's off topic. All fixed.
You seem perfectly capable of reading the first post and deciding for yourself. I'll continue to do my job and you can expect nothing of the sort
I just think that in Diablo III they should be stacked because they're already not encouraging their use. If they make them a pain to carry with you, no one is really going to use them.
Sticky keys are a solution to being able to hold Alt at all times. But remember, with Alt on, you can't select monsters, zones, chests, etc... Basically anything that isn't an item.
So, put those scrambled letters before joining each game or some mundane bot-proof task to keep bots from entering/exiting games on their own. main problem solved
well you bring up a good point since gold is now a main currency in d3. Having auto pick up will make it that the longer you play basically make you rich = auction house = epic char.
I feel that it should be picked up gold in this sense. in d1 and d2 blizzard should have had gold on autoloot since gold sucked in general. i never picked up gold that much. I sold armor for gold mainly. Thats how i play. and i'll play that way in d3 regardless.
The way I think gold will be used (to buy re-distribution points, with each additional point costing more and more gold, be that linear or otherwise) it would never make sense to not want more gold.
Another thing (if they do it the same way as in D2) that would be good for auto-pickup would be if they still have Tomes of Identify and Town Portal, to auto-pickup those items until the Tomes are full. That is, if it is done in the same way as D2.
For elexir I don't know if blizzard want a click competition or want a run on it.
But for gold and orb (potions) it's a must.
Not having it on auto pickup makes no difference on that. Gold is going to be important. You pick it all up, its always useful for you. End of the line. I'm not even going to start again on the topic of "its fun to pick up gold and pick up the right ones, and its all some kind of meta game".. its a -really- weird thing, and that some enjoy it is not the problem, but that you just want us to still be forced to pick it all up manually (which is what I call a chore) just because thats how some people like it is silly.
I'd rather just evolve and get rid of that annoying task.
Don't confuse orbs and potions. Orbs are orbs, you never carry them around.
And even if potions are stacked, I don't know if auto pickup on them makes sense. They are still taking room. You won't be able to stack 100 of them in one slot for sure. They should not be auto pickup.
Someone said Quest items and I must say I didn't think about them, but I must say no. Actually picking up the quest item yourself might sound like a small thing, but its needed. Its a feeling thing. These items are relatively rare anyway.
It will all depend on how often they drop. If it's a rare thing... auto pickup should not be done, if it's all the time and potions are considered important in large numbers... auto pickup should be done.