Diablo 2 featured a much greater range of socket-able item types than we currently have in D3 including Gems, Jewls and Runes, while blizzard has announced that there will be a diamond gem do you think there is a place in diablo 3 for another kind of socketable such as jewls and if so what would its purpose be within the greater item system?
Personally i would like to see some new kind of socket-able added to the game, to create greater item variety and opportunities for customisation.
The new class, act 5 and the loot runs look pretty cool but so far I am not very happy. I really don't feel like playing this game time after time with the unrandomized outside content for the current acts. On expansion day everyone will be rolling the new crusader class and once again we will have to play through this story line again (I have to grind my teeth in order to do so). I am not interested.
And lets not forgot... Still no death-match pvp.
I figured the RoS hype and cinematic would inspire me to pick up this game again but as predicted the hype is settling as everyone is waiting for new information from Blizzcon. Let's cross our fingers and hope that the game looks more decent to the people that are speculating.
i'll probably still buy the expansion, but to be fair if they are randomising the 5th act then i cant really see any excuses for not randomizing the rest of the game in the first place and especially for not 're-randomising' the rest of the game., this was one of the CORE aspects of original diablo games and what made repeating content so incredibly tolerable. I'm still playing but im seriously sick of pressing x to press skip all the dialogue. in diablo 1 and 2 if you skip the players speech then you skip everything they say and that's it!. dont make me press the same button on my 2nd, 3rd, X times through that's just a waste of energy and time as a programmer I'm pretty disgusted to see that such a simple principle for which there is a well established precedent has been ignored.
In addition if they choose not to randomise the rest of the acts then that becomes entirely incongruous and since one the primary things they have sought to achieve is to create balance across the acts then i both think and hope that they will at least eventually do this.
Seriously if act 5 is darker, more randomised and has at least equivalent drops to act 3 for example why would you not just play that act? + loot runs etc......so wont we just end up with another act 3 scenario if they dont???
How would you say UI affects itemization specifically? A few others fave mentioned this but I can never seem to get a clear response on it.
My game uses a pretty basic itemization UI: 25 inventory slots, 5 equipment slots, 4 skill gem slots. You can right click to equip, left click and drag, etc. Is there something intrinsic I'm missing that is unnoticeable at a glance but makes an under the hood difference?
Ui influences how people gear by giving them information about how their item choices affect their damage output, defensive stats etc. In diablo3 its generally very clear which items make your build more effective, because calculations like DPS are done for you and displayed so that you can make the best decision for your character.
That's correct; the melee characters generally required high-damage weapons, unless you were (ab)using Crushing Blow, because most of those skills added % damage (which is another fun trick nostalgia plays ... anyone else remember when Zeal only added accuracy and not damage??).
Well I think that answers the question then.
The problem in D2 was not "intrinsic power" - it was simply the fact that certain classes could run around killing shit without a weapon while others required a weapon to kill things.
It makes sense, but it also creates s gameplay imbalance to have certain classes being completely dependent on their weapon while others can run around without a weapon and play effectively. That's why it changed. It's the kind of obvious logic that you have to sit back and think the only people who could possibly be irked with this are casters... since melee toons and Zons have been tied to their weapon damage forever.
The rest of your post is obviously accurate about itemization. But I just don't understand this "well it's OK for some classes in D2 to be tied to weapon damage, but GODDAMNIT IF YOU MAKE THEM ALL TIED TO WEAPON DAMAGE YOU'VE COMPLETELY FUCKED UP THE INTRINSIC POWER OF MY CHARACTER" train of thought.
All it amounts to was a slight nerf to spellcasters (in that they simply couldn't ignore weapon damage any longer). Physical damage toons carry on as if nothing ever really changed. This is a huge deal? Really? To me it sounds like massively trumped-up faux outrage.
There are a hundred other points of contention with "itemization" that I could understand. This doesn't even register in the top 1000 for me. The impact is marginal and insanely overblown.
They could have also gone the other way on this, they could have made melee classes less dependant on their weapons rather than making everyone completely dependent.
I would argue its about striking a balance between intrinsic power and extrinsic power. If you neglect intrinsic power then the feeling of your characters growth feels artificial dependent on his-her items. it's like a soldier who goes from using a rifle to driving a tank the soldiers ability has not improved just his weapon has, Though he can certainly overpower most enemies, but at the end the day he's a pussy not a mighty hero.(just like Grindelwald haha)
i do find it offensive and odd that my wizards power primarily depends on the power of his weapon/items, a wizards power should grow as his mastery and learning grows finding weapons should just augment that power....it even goes against the archetype of the class as blizzard caste it.
in the same way i dont think it makes sense for a melee character to be completely item dependent either, a great warriors power is the result of his strength and prowess not just of how sharp or deadly his weapon is.
basically role playing games are about mimicing or enhancing the kind of reward systems we find in the real-world, in the real world your abilities improve as a result both of you investing time in them(skill-improvement) and as a result of acquiring good tools(Items).
so a good RPG needs to manage skill improvement(Intrinsic power) and item acquisition(extrinsic power) in a way which mimics that found in the real world. IMO diablo 2 struck a better balance between these two aspects and thus going back to the OP...
Getting that balance right will help you to make the best game possible for your resources.
Did you actually cite the story where ownership of the Elder Wand is precisely what allows an otherwise-inferior wizard to vanquish one of the best wizards ever as reason that gear doesn't matter?
Also, Harry Potter is a terrible example because, aside from the Elder Wand, each wand is basically an extension of your person (the wand chooses the owner, not vice versa). That OBVIOUSLY doesn't apply to a game where you slaughter monsters and then pick up their loot. Could you imagine picking up a breastplate and trying to equip it and getting an error message "sorry, that item is meant for someone else, try again!" It makes ZERO SENSE as applied to an ARPG.
Things that are written in fiction novels provide a basis for fantasy-type games like this, of course, but not every aspect translates into appropriate gameplay and that's exactly why your argument makes no sense.
Good fiction is not the same as good gameplay. Ignoring weapon upgrades because "that's how it would work in Harry Potter" doesn't make a game which is based on finding items and slaying monsters very fun. I mean if they were pulling from Harry Potter then wizards should not have meteor and blizzard but they should have Avada Kedavra and Crucio and we can't forget Alohomora. But they don't... because Diablo and Harry Potter are different and, more importantly, games and novels are different.
In Harry Potter wizards could teleport to anywhere in the world. In Diablo, teleport has a range. I could keep going with examples as to how gameplay trumps fantasy in a video game... but I hope I don't have to. It should be obvious that, in order to have compelling gameplay, not every single fantasy or RPG element can be implemented exactly as it is described in a novel.
If every character got a wand at level 11 that they never had to upgrade for the rest of their life... that would be true to how Harry Potter worked, but it would also be awful boring gameplay.
I seriously can't believe I just got trolled into explaining that a Diablo video game clearly doesn't have to stay true to the Harry Potter novels.
neither can i, not to mention that the length and depth you went into is complete overkill. esp since i was only talking about it in a very general sense.Try looking at the second part of my post:
"its the difference between intrinsic power vs extrinsic power in diablo 2 you had more intrinsic power in diablo 3 you have much much less."
the reason people dont like item dependence is because it makes the intrinsic power/ value of their character irrelevant, you seem to have avoided discussing that point in any way.
Weapons
This is a hot topic since the D3 team decided that weapon damage determines the damage of all your abilities whereas D2 weapons had no bearing on your damage. It is my feeling that it makes no sense for an all-powerful wizard to be running around using a weapon he found at level 4 because it's got better stats. No one complains that armor = defense and that higher level items have more armor. Yet somehow people complain about what amounts to a mechanic that ensures that some dinky level 4 newbie wand isn't the best item in the game. I don't get it, I never will. Is it a bit strange that a fireball from the sky takes your weapon damage into account? Sure. Does it provide better gameplay? Absolutely. As an adventurer why wouldn't your weapon be one of your most important items?
if you hand Lord Voldemort a shitty wand he's still Lord Voldemort. the ideal wand maximises his power but even with a shitty wand he's still one of the most powerful wizards alive....
surely you can extract from this the reason why people object to damage being completely determined by your weapon/items.
its the difference between intrinsic power vs extrinsic power in diablo 2 you had more intrinsic power in diablo 3 you have much much less.
1. the items looked Awesome both when equipped and in your inventory IMO diablo 3 items look average in inventory.
2. There were many low level unique's and sets which were easy to acquire.
3. Items you found in normal and nightmare still had the potential to be useful and usable in Hell difficulty.
2 + 3 meant that progression through the difficulties was smooth, farming nightmare was a Viable way to progress to hell.
4. Damage was not absolutely determined by your gear and stats, In diablo 3 the problems which Bleu mentioned above are accentuated because of the gear and main stat dependence.
5. Etheral items + self repair mod.
6. Huge variety of Socketables.
Note many of these D2 strengths/D3 critques are adressed in some way by ROS/ next patch
In order for me to really get excited I really want to see a few of these especially custom games and channels.
At this point you should understand any of thoses features won't ever come to d3. It is just how it is I guess...
We may get some greater customisation of game types but probably not named games, the sad thing with this scenario is that it does not really let the culture of the game evolve in fact i would say the culture of D3 is pretty much non-existant compared to D2 because there not nearly the same number of opportunities for player interaction.
Also, in D2 unique items were crap after 1-2 hours, I didn't find a legendary item the first dozen or so hours in D3. You'd get a bunch of uniques for every Baal kill, I still have plenty of farm runs without a single legendary.
It's better than levelling all the way to Inferno without finding a single legendary. Because that's the way it went with all my five characters.
yeah i thought it was pretty rank to play through even normal and not get a single one, the low level sets etc are so important for forming reward behavioural patterns im sure blizzard will have lost a few potential new age D3 fans through not reinforcing item-hunting behaviour early on. did not matter so much for us old-hands but even we noticed the absence of well timed rewards.
It strikes many as a bit odd that they're so aggressively marketing a different platform release for game that many people feel is very much broken.
I wouldn't even give a shit by this point, after all this time, if I wasn't so sure that d3 had such incredible potential.
I agree with you - but I think there is a higher corporate influence/momentum to consider here.
The game's design at release supported new systems that were being tested for the very first time - live - on a Blizzard game.
I don't think they expected such a sweeping backlash at the design of the game as they got and it clearly wasn't something they were willing to fix quickly. It isn't because they can't - they won't. Changes have slowly been made and the console can certainly be a cause for that - but I think its a minor cause.
The easiest way to bring the game back into alignment (shedding the old design) with community expectations was to slowly adjust the current game and then release an expansion that pleased the masses.
That expansion would need to be available for the PC and shortly there after for the console. So they get the game going for the console and when that is stable - they drop the expansion so it can hit both platforms.
Corporate momentum. More dollars for shareholders.
That has to be one the most influential changes to account for when considering the evolution of the Diablo franchise, they have grown to be a much bigger company driven by a much greater corporate attitude, of course that's why the console release is such a big deal its first and foremost about greater profits,making the game better is an indirect route to achieving that. It's not the individual developers fault or anyone else its the company motive and values as a whole which really determines the product which we interact with.
Yes because a Diablo release for the play-station from 1998(which i played btw) voids arguments which are primarily about a game that was released in 2012.
I can understand you don't like the console version, I totally respect that. But you need to understand this site is for Diablo as a whole and not exclusively the PC version.
I don't think D3 has been convoluted at all by the console version. We're seeing so much news about the console version at the moment because it's being released VERY soon. That's understandable isn't it? I mean why wouldn't Blizzard build up hype around the console version?
It's another way they can reach out to gamers who don't want to spend a heap of money on a PC, so why not spread the word?
Again, I understand that people don't like the console version, but when we make threads like this we need to think of the good that the console version will bring to Blizzard and especially Diablo. How you interpret that is up to you. People need to think logically before bashing.
Have you seen the facebook comments on some of the Diablo 3 posts? Absolutely disgusting.
But the key point is that
1. Diablo used to be a PC only game.
2. Therefore news on this site was fairly exclusively dedicated to the PC version of the game.
That has changed and IMO this is bad for those members of the community who only play the PC version.
Diablo 3 has pretty much been convoluted by definition, where once you could talk about Diablo and only be talking about a PC game now you are talking about the a very similar Game Across two Platforms such that really there are 2 games which are on the whole quite mutually exclusive, how does that not convolute the situation??
Not only does it convolute the situation it convolutes everything which is associated with it, the Diablo3 website and this website must now pedal both PC and Console news and updates rather than specialising in PC only news.
For me and other PC only Gamers this is and will be a bad thing IMO. you cant win a battle fighting for both sides, specialisation works for a reason; because it is efficient. which in gaming terms allows you to deliver the most satisfying product. I can see the counter argument which you are suggesting(diversification>>higher profit>>greaterinvestment in D overall) but today i like my side better
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why?? or sarcasm?
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Personally i would like to see some new kind of socket-able added to the game, to create greater item variety and opportunities for customisation.
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i'll probably still buy the expansion, but to be fair if they are randomising the 5th act then i cant really see any excuses for not randomizing the rest of the game in the first place and especially for not 're-randomising' the rest of the game., this was one of the CORE aspects of original diablo games and what made repeating content so incredibly tolerable. I'm still playing but im seriously sick of pressing x to press skip all the dialogue. in diablo 1 and 2 if you skip the players speech then you skip everything they say and that's it!. dont make me press the same button on my 2nd, 3rd, X times through that's just a waste of energy and time as a programmer I'm pretty disgusted to see that such a simple principle for which there is a well established precedent has been ignored.
In addition if they choose not to randomise the rest of the acts then that becomes entirely incongruous and since one the primary things they have sought to achieve is to create balance across the acts then i both think and hope that they will at least eventually do this.
Seriously if act 5 is darker, more randomised and has at least equivalent drops to act 3 for example why would you not just play that act? + loot runs etc......so wont we just end up with another act 3 scenario if they dont???
0
Ui influences how people gear by giving them information about how their item choices affect their damage output, defensive stats etc. In diablo3 its generally very clear which items make your build more effective, because calculations like DPS are done for you and displayed so that you can make the best decision for your character.
1
They could have also gone the other way on this, they could have made melee classes less dependant on their weapons rather than making everyone completely dependent.
I would argue its about striking a balance between intrinsic power and extrinsic power. If you neglect intrinsic power then the feeling of your characters growth feels artificial dependent on his-her items. it's like a soldier who goes from using a rifle to driving a tank the soldiers ability has not improved just his weapon has, Though he can certainly overpower most enemies, but at the end the day he's a pussy not a mighty hero.(just like Grindelwald haha)
i do find it offensive and odd that my wizards power primarily depends on the power of his weapon/items, a wizards power should grow as his mastery and learning grows finding weapons should just augment that power....it even goes against the archetype of the class as blizzard caste it.
in the same way i dont think it makes sense for a melee character to be completely item dependent either, a great warriors power is the result of his strength and prowess not just of how sharp or deadly his weapon is.
basically role playing games are about mimicing or enhancing the kind of reward systems we find in the real-world, in the real world your abilities improve as a result both of you investing time in them(skill-improvement) and as a result of acquiring good tools(Items).
so a good RPG needs to manage skill improvement(Intrinsic power) and item acquisition(extrinsic power) in a way which mimics that found in the real world. IMO diablo 2 struck a better balance between these two aspects and thus going back to the OP...
Getting that balance right will help you to make the best game possible for your resources.
0
neither can i, not to mention that the length and depth you went into is complete overkill. esp since i was only talking about it in a very general sense.Try looking at the second part of my post:
"its the difference between intrinsic power vs extrinsic power in diablo 2 you had more intrinsic power in diablo 3 you have much much less."
the reason people dont like item dependence is because it makes the intrinsic power/ value of their character irrelevant, you seem to have avoided discussing that point in any way.
Intrinsic power Diablo 2 == stats + skills + skill points
Intrinsic power Diablo 3 == stats + skills
intrinsic power Diablo 3 ROS == stats + skills + paragon points!! (woot)
You said you did not understand why people complain about item dependence i am trying to explain why.
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if you hand Lord Voldemort a shitty wand he's still Lord Voldemort. the ideal wand maximises his power but even with a shitty wand he's still one of the most powerful wizards alive....
surely you can extract from this the reason why people object to damage being completely determined by your weapon/items.
its the difference between intrinsic power vs extrinsic power in diablo 2 you had more intrinsic power in diablo 3 you have much much less.
0
2. There were many low level unique's and sets which were easy to acquire.
3. Items you found in normal and nightmare still had the potential to be useful and usable in Hell difficulty.
2 + 3 meant that progression through the difficulties was smooth, farming nightmare was a Viable way to progress to hell.
4. Damage was not absolutely determined by your gear and stats, In diablo 3 the problems which Bleu mentioned above are accentuated because of the gear and main stat dependence.
5. Etheral items + self repair mod.
6. Huge variety of Socketables.
Note many of these D2 strengths/D3 critques are adressed in some way by ROS/ next patch
0
We may get some greater customisation of game types but probably not named games, the sad thing with this scenario is that it does not really let the culture of the game evolve in fact i would say the culture of D3 is pretty much non-existant compared to D2 because there not nearly the same number of opportunities for player interaction.
0
0
yeah i thought it was pretty rank to play through even normal and not get a single one, the low level sets etc are so important for forming reward behavioural patterns im sure blizzard will have lost a few potential new age D3 fans through not reinforcing item-hunting behaviour early on. did not matter so much for us old-hands but even we noticed the absence of well timed rewards.
show me the sigons! ;P
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That has to be one the most influential changes to account for when considering the evolution of the Diablo franchise, they have grown to be a much bigger company driven by a much greater corporate attitude, of course that's why the console release is such a big deal its first and foremost about greater profits,making the game better is an indirect route to achieving that. It's not the individual developers fault or anyone else its the company motive and values as a whole which really determines the product which we interact with.
0
Yes because a Diablo release for the play-station from 1998(which i played btw) voids arguments which are primarily about a game that was released in 2012.
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yup that was exactly what i meant to say: Edited
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But the key point is that
1. Diablo used to be a PC only game.
2. Therefore news on this site was fairly exclusively dedicated to the PC version of the game.
That has changed and IMO this is bad for those members of the community who only play the PC version.
Diablo 3 has pretty much been convoluted by definition, where once you could talk about Diablo and only be talking about a PC game now you are talking about the a very similar Game Across two Platforms such that really there are 2 games which are on the whole quite mutually exclusive, how does that not convolute the situation??
Not only does it convolute the situation it convolutes everything which is associated with it, the Diablo3 website and this website must now pedal both PC and Console news and updates rather than specialising in PC only news.
For me and other PC only Gamers this is and will be a bad thing IMO. you cant win a battle fighting for both sides, specialisation works for a reason; because it is efficient. which in gaming terms allows you to deliver the most satisfying product. I can see the counter argument which you are suggesting(diversification>>higher profit>>greaterinvestment in D overall) but today i like my side better
## Pessimism