This isn't about superiority or loving to do math. This is a discussion about whether or not too much user-friendly character building will eventually devolve the genre into automatic character building, taking the player interpretation out of the game.
This almost sounds like the argument against auto-mining and multiple building selection they had back in SC2. History shows who won out in the end.
I never played starcraft 2 actually....tell me roughly how the debate went down?
should she get a huge warning strobe light when she uses topaz gems on her monk? its a wrong choice after all and harms her character by preventing it from achieving maximum potential by wasting sockets.
There is an obvious, and massive, difference between "don't let someone use the wrong gems and don't let them out of town if they only have 3 action buttons assigned" and "design the game, on purpose, such that people have to spend *significant* amounts of time NOT playing the game to be successful at the game."
There *is* a danger of making a game that's about ACTION focus too much on... inaction.
Their reasoning for BoA was "killing monsters is fun." So why doesn't that apply equally to evaluating loot? Why shouldn't we be spending time killing monsters instead of pouring over spreadsheets? Why, when it comes to loot, are we told that we should spending MORE TIME killing monsters and LESS TIME in the AH or on websites trading... but when it comes to items, it's totally OK to spend MORE TIME on websites and in spreadsheets?
Pick a fuckin stance and stick to it.
you keep exaggerating that notion to drive home your point....people dont spend more time pouring over spread sheets in even the most extreme cases. even in games that make diablo 1,2 and 3 combined look like tic tac toe you still only risk studying the math for a portion of the time. and those "extreme" games exist in such limited quantities its hardly worth considering them...
I really dont think Diablo 3 is at risk of that being the case...
if adding bizarre math is so bad and risky then even adding the new affixes that add % damage to elements or skills could be seen as a harmful mistep, and I would love to see someone try to argue that point...they were added because many people felt that the "diablo system" was getting a bit bland....
the affixes werent kept on the cutting room floor so that my wife would not get confused to the point of insanity.....
I do believe what ruksak is hinting at is that historically the evolution of roleplaying games extends far beyond the design goals of one game.
historically these games just evolved forward and grew thicker and more complex over time not less complex.
As far as Diablo 1 being able to to be played by a grandma, yes its actually a stunning accomplishment as far as im concerned. click the mouse and away you go.
click the monster and it gets attacked. diablo 1 has this trait and its beautiful and diablo 2 and 3 have it as well. my wife plays D3, she sucks BIG TIME, but she picked it up the controls in about 30 seconds, should she get a huge warning strobe light when she uses topaz gems on her monk? its a wrong choice after all and harms her character by preventing it from achieving maximum potential by wasting sockets.
she also forgot to fill her 4th action bar button. She only uses 3 skills and the 2 mouse buttons. should she be prevented from leaving town?
I would argue the potential for mistake only makes the game better. im still not convinced she understands what runes are. its adorable...
Diablo 2 and 3 having mountains more math and rules and number systems does not:
tear them completely away from the original goals of simplicity,
go completely against the wishes of the original designers,
make them definitively worse games, or lesser examples, etc. etc.
but to some people yes. it does do those things. thats how they interpret the changes...
on the flip side many people feel that roleplaying games as they lean back towards more simplicy, hand holding and auto calculations, they interpret those changes as horrific changes.....changes that if left unchecked would basically rub away the fabric of roleplaying game design and we'ed be back in the stone age playingWizards and warriors.....
some skills will deliver WAY more damage with a two hander compared to a 1 hander, but yes you will sacrifice a small list of things that are unarguably convenient. life on hit, spirit regen, stats more than likely socket availability etc.
I think you generally do not see people going the way of the two hander is because the list above is a real sales pitch for 1 handers.
generating more spirit and more life on hit and having more life and a larger number on your character sheet and way higher critical hit damage compared to regular hits... is no laughing matter
I actually use a Skorn from loot 1.0 with those heavy hitting skills and transmogrifying the stupid fucking ugly piece of shit is what's gonna end up driving me to buy the expansion.....:(
I just find it funny people are so upset over this. It's a blue bar that moves right. Now it moves slightly slower. Cannot fathom how this got blown so far out of proportion, since XP grinding is such a small part of what makes this game worth playing. Now, if they halve legendary drop rates, we'd have something to talk about.
I can't be alone here. There must be other people who really couldn't care less how much XP monsters give you.
[quote=undefined]
You missed the point i was making. I was showing how a scummy economy "sneaks up" on players who do not pay any attention to it. the scummy economy exists because it has a way to exist.
Hundreds of millions of gold is not the extreme end of the spectrum. Some people, have racked up billions and billions of gold. As I mentioned millions of gold OR billions it does not guarantee for sure that they cheated or that they are AH geniuses.....
But the example was simply to highlight an idea.
The same way that players not paying attention to a runaway COTA farmer might fall behind by several hundred paragon levels.
Oh sure not a big deal at all....who cares about the differences in everyones paragon levels......who cares about the differences in wealth......
Blizzard cares. At least i truly hope they do. If i had to hazard a guess I'd say that they do.
They dont have to outright prevent it, they dont have to easily allow it, but they should definitely oversee it. and correct it as needed. But again this is just an IDEA. Not a specific statement that COTA NEEDED to be nerfed....maybe it did.....
but the idea states that everything needs to be scrutinized and monitored, so that these apparently ridiculous anomalies are not allowed to grow and fester.....
I want to kill the first zombie outside Tristram and have it drop a full set.
It's just how I want to play and it doesn't hurt anyone.
This will probably raise a few eyebrows but... It really doesn't hurt anyone. The whole concept of having some sort of competition in D3 is purely artificial. At least for now. It's like if TL2 players suddenly start complaining about over 9000 cheat mods out there. No one does that, right? Why should it be different here? Why would anyone complain if you want all the legendaries in the world?
I know that we've been through this a long time ago, but we wouldn't have this discussion if D3 had an online mode for ladders and HC and offline for all the others.
It does not hurt the players until it hurts the game. The game then becomes "kill the zombies at rumford" or "go to cota" so sure X number of people can run cota 24-7, and it would be hard to notice the effects in game as you are playing....you can say it does not effect you and simply ignore it, but eventually there will be effects; More and more people you'd bump into would be hundreds of paragon levels deeper than those that roamed through the game normally. It would sneak up on you just like the shitty economy did; oh you only have hundreds of millions of gold? oh well....then you cannot even purchase one single piece of "end game" gear. sorry.
The people who acquired that wealth and are now draped in that gear? it was not all smarts and savvy.... the gold only existed because too much gold was dropping, people were farming fucking clay jars all day, and bot farms ran roughshod for 6 month stretches, the AH had virtually no fees or penalties...
It was bullshit. Items soon cost as much as a fucking commercial airliner....for everyone who would EVER start playing. but its possible to ignore that fact. Just look away and *poof* it doesn't matter. But it still matters! the issue is still there!
My wife bought the game a few day ago on sale. To say she is "Mega-noob-5000" would be an understatement. but shes happier than a pig in shit. She. does. not. have. a. clue. about the intricacies of the game I've been blathering on about for the past year+.....but the stupid concepts are still there, tainting her game whether she knows it or not.
for her to say "its no big deal" is different than Blizzard saying "its no big deal". Blizzard knows and hopefully Blizzard cares.
huge differences in wealth is OK
huge differences in character power and gear and level is OK
But that does not mean that how those differences come to be is irrelevant. It's relevant. the reputation and the quality of the game are at stake.
^ This post here reminded me of time spent in the late nineties playing final fantasy 3(6), marching back and forth in that goddamn dinosaur forest for at least 60 hours.....wow...them memories........
@Shurgosa I wouldn't really call it the players "fault", as a negative thing. It's just how people like to play games.
Some people like to be competitive even when sitting with a group of friends drinking some fucking beer. "Yo dawg, look.. I can drink 5 more beers than you.." - to which a normal's person answer usually is "who gives a fuck?"
But that doesn't change how people are. People like to compete. And people need to realize that some change every now and then is both good for these competitive players and to normal players as well (despite how bad the change might actually be, if that makes sense).
Maybe fault is the wrong word. and yes to be clear I am talking about a HUGE amount of players ( the whole world) in order to make this casual observation.
although some people might not be concerned about it I do consider it a negative thing. But thats just my own opinion on this specific topic.
If I made the game cookie clicker? I might not mind this as much. But if I made Diablo 3? I'd be furious...not at a group specifically like players or programmer or manager or even a fundamental game design rule....I'd be furious at the end result in this extremely specific scenario, THEN I'd be furious at specifically who does it AND furious at who or what enabled it. IE: neither side of the equation is predefined and neither side is free of fault.
There are many rules in sports that have sprang up to enhance the game and curb behavior and I'm sure many people support and decry each rule but if you examine the situation and see what changes came (IE: did the game become less exciting? did players stop doing dumb shit? did injuries really go down? etc....) even though everyone is competitive and indeed the goal of the game is to simply "score more points", both the rule makers of the game and the players of the game are expected to behave a certain way, by way of either creating changes or rules or following changes or rules. I feel that both players and rule makers are supposed to act intelligently when rules are not written and then just plead ignorance...
I can't really say that blizzard should have done this or that or that players need to do this or that.
I have to say that to both parties always and both parties I would hope, always say it to themselves.
I just realized how long I could sit and blather on about this..................we need D3 caucus with live broadcast 24-7......lol
If you think about it, Even in these last 2-3 days before RoS, these more hardcore players can have fun finding the next "best place for leveling up" and to show everyone, and the regular players can have fun farming whatever they wantwithout feeling like they're greatly gimping themselves(which is the biggest argument here).
This is where I see the problem, to be honest. There is an obvious need for players to search for runs like that in the first place. That (for me at least) is a sign that overall the game is not overall satisfying and people can't equally enjoy the game or achieve their goals (be it highest paragon level or that elusive legendary set or whatever) at any given act, any given zone and need to constantly search for a better place to satisfy the demand for whatever goal they play D3 for.
I dare say that this "problem" of players de-constructing the game mathematically is not totally blizzards fault. its the fault of the gamers as well.
blizzard made the game so that running around smashing clay pots in a cemetery will eventually give you a legendary item. yes it seems rather silly on paper. but in contrast the players jumped on it instantly to a degree of absurdity. people wrote programs that just ran characters around smashing clay pots, or hunting goblins that were discovered to spawn in the same locations repeatedly. and this is completely in spite of how well the game feels to play a huge portion of the time.
So i think if viewing what the playerbase will get up to overall its WAY more ridiculous than the comparatively small mistakes blizzard made about the delivery of loot and gold and XP.
players that measure and gobble up "XP"...(that term annoys the cunting fuck out of me....) in the billions....and just break the game down to how many billions XP i can harvest per hour.....annoy me to say the least.....and they are a global phenomenon, becuase that information is distributed globally with almost zero effort. just like the items in the AH.
blizzard by comparison just made a game and whoops gave the small minions more experience than the large ones. or made a goblin spawn in the same cave all the time.....
So yea it may look dumb that Blizzard keeps "nerfing urns and little spiders" Etc....when speaking specifically about that issue.
but in my opinion the players look even dumber slurping up XP so aggressively overall...
And they slurp with some alarming voracity when viewing the worldwide player base as a whole.
in terms of sheer survivability when buried or surrounded by packs, often a barbarian will outlast a monk.
at least it all of my testing and comparing this is what I have run into time and time again...
on the flip side when fighting a single target that would kill you slower than a pile of mobs and ground effects, but quickly nonetheless, the monk tends to survive this situation generally much easier than a barbarian
the barbarian has certain healing abilities that grow in power exponentially when surrounded by mobs,
the monk has certain CC abilities that really shine when facing one single heavy hitting monster
these two above defined scenarios are generalized greatly and skill setups and play-styles can be used to flatten the peaks and valleys of danger.
but when viewing the skill spectrum of each class as a mathematical probability VS typical scenarios, they often ring true, and began ringing once again for me as recently as last night............
I never really told any of my friends when they were actually playing how I linked the rend animation to the back of a ceased whirlwind. or how id spam it during a frozen orb barrage
or how the other little deep seated quirks about the barbarian would ramp up his durability, of which there are quite a few
on the flip side, while I had to run from more mobs as a monk, far fewer goblins ran from me.
My monk's girlfriend is the act 2 dervish keywarden....just a complete pushover.
I rips the game to absolute bloody shreds on the official forums, but how they changed to feel of fighting (from early D3 to what we have now) I think was spot on. but its a personal preference.
Diablo 3 has such immaculate character control I feel that it can get away with a more clunky/ slower/ methodical type of combat than most games, and still feel great doing it
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I really dont think Diablo 3 is at risk of that being the case...
if adding bizarre math is so bad and risky then even adding the new affixes that add % damage to elements or skills could be seen as a harmful mistep, and I would love to see someone try to argue that point...they were added because many people felt that the "diablo system" was getting a bit bland....
the affixes werent kept on the cutting room floor so that my wife would not get confused to the point of insanity.....
let me guess.....huge cavernous difference?
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historically these games just evolved forward and grew thicker and more complex over time not less complex.
As far as Diablo 1 being able to to be played by a grandma, yes its actually a stunning accomplishment as far as im concerned. click the mouse and away you go.
click the monster and it gets attacked. diablo 1 has this trait and its beautiful and diablo 2 and 3 have it as well. my wife plays D3, she sucks BIG TIME, but she picked it up the controls in about 30 seconds, should she get a huge warning strobe light when she uses topaz gems on her monk? its a wrong choice after all and harms her character by preventing it from achieving maximum potential by wasting sockets.
she also forgot to fill her 4th action bar button. She only uses 3 skills and the 2 mouse buttons. should she be prevented from leaving town?
I would argue the potential for mistake only makes the game better. im still not convinced she understands what runes are. its adorable...
Diablo 2 and 3 having mountains more math and rules and number systems does not:
tear them completely away from the original goals of simplicity,
go completely against the wishes of the original designers,
make them definitively worse games, or lesser examples, etc. etc.
but to some people yes. it does do those things. thats how they interpret the changes...
on the flip side many people feel that roleplaying games as they lean back towards more simplicy, hand holding and auto calculations, they interpret those changes as horrific changes.....changes that if left unchecked would basically rub away the fabric of roleplaying game design and we'ed be back in the stone age playingWizards and warriors.....
0
I hope they expand on it even more and make it even more "hazy"......
0
I think you generally do not see people going the way of the two hander is because the list above is a real sales pitch for 1 handers.
generating more spirit and more life on hit and having more life and a larger number on your character sheet and way higher critical hit damage compared to regular hits... is no laughing matter
I actually use a Skorn from loot 1.0 with those heavy hitting skills and transmogrifying the stupid fucking ugly piece of shit is what's gonna end up driving me to buy the expansion.....:(
0
0
You missed the point i was making. I was showing how a scummy economy "sneaks up" on players who do not pay any attention to it. the scummy economy exists because it has a way to exist.
Hundreds of millions of gold is not the extreme end of the spectrum. Some people, have racked up billions and billions of gold. As I mentioned millions of gold OR billions it does not guarantee for sure that they cheated or that they are AH geniuses.....
But the example was simply to highlight an idea.
The same way that players not paying attention to a runaway COTA farmer might fall behind by several hundred paragon levels.
Oh sure not a big deal at all....who cares about the differences in everyones paragon levels......who cares about the differences in wealth......
Blizzard cares. At least i truly hope they do. If i had to hazard a guess I'd say that they do.
They dont have to outright prevent it, they dont have to easily allow it, but they should definitely oversee it. and correct it as needed. But again this is just an IDEA. Not a specific statement that COTA NEEDED to be nerfed....maybe it did.....
but the idea states that everything needs to be scrutinized and monitored, so that these apparently ridiculous anomalies are not allowed to grow and fester.....
0
but you can talk to people and hear them and they can talk to you and the sound quality is fine.
its free,
go get a 5 dollar mic if you dont have one, tape it to your head
install Skype
make an account, add yer friends. bam. done.
we've had several hour long "phone conversations" and it works fine so far..
0
The people who acquired that wealth and are now draped in that gear? it was not all smarts and savvy.... the gold only existed because too much gold was dropping, people were farming fucking clay jars all day, and bot farms ran roughshod for 6 month stretches, the AH had virtually no fees or penalties...
It was bullshit. Items soon cost as much as a fucking commercial airliner....for everyone who would EVER start playing. but its possible to ignore that fact. Just look away and *poof* it doesn't matter. But it still matters! the issue is still there!
My wife bought the game a few day ago on sale. To say she is "Mega-noob-5000" would be an understatement. but shes happier than a pig in shit. She. does. not. have. a. clue. about the intricacies of the game I've been blathering on about for the past year+.....but the stupid concepts are still there, tainting her game whether she knows it or not.
for her to say "its no big deal" is different than Blizzard saying "its no big deal". Blizzard knows and hopefully Blizzard cares.
huge differences in wealth is OK
huge differences in character power and gear and level is OK
But that does not mean that how those differences come to be is irrelevant. It's relevant. the reputation and the quality of the game are at stake.
2
0
Maybe fault is the wrong word. and yes to be clear I am talking about a HUGE amount of players ( the whole world) in order to make this casual observation.
although some people might not be concerned about it I do consider it a negative thing. But thats just my own opinion on this specific topic.
If I made the game cookie clicker? I might not mind this as much. But if I made Diablo 3? I'd be furious...not at a group specifically like players or programmer or manager or even a fundamental game design rule....I'd be furious at the end result in this extremely specific scenario, THEN I'd be furious at specifically who does it AND furious at who or what enabled it. IE: neither side of the equation is predefined and neither side is free of fault.
There are many rules in sports that have sprang up to enhance the game and curb behavior and I'm sure many people support and decry each rule but if you examine the situation and see what changes came (IE: did the game become less exciting? did players stop doing dumb shit? did injuries really go down? etc....) even though everyone is competitive and indeed the goal of the game is to simply "score more points", both the rule makers of the game and the players of the game are expected to behave a certain way, by way of either creating changes or rules or following changes or rules. I feel that both players and rule makers are supposed to act intelligently when rules are not written and then just plead ignorance...
I can't really say that blizzard should have done this or that or that players need to do this or that.
I have to say that to both parties always and both parties I would hope, always say it to themselves.
I just realized how long I could sit and blather on about this..................we need D3 caucus with live broadcast 24-7......lol
0
blizzard made the game so that running around smashing clay pots in a cemetery will eventually give you a legendary item. yes it seems rather silly on paper. but in contrast the players jumped on it instantly to a degree of absurdity. people wrote programs that just ran characters around smashing clay pots, or hunting goblins that were discovered to spawn in the same locations repeatedly. and this is completely in spite of how well the game feels to play a huge portion of the time.
So i think if viewing what the playerbase will get up to overall its WAY more ridiculous than the comparatively small mistakes blizzard made about the delivery of loot and gold and XP.
players that measure and gobble up "XP"...(that term annoys the cunting fuck out of me....) in the billions....and just break the game down to how many billions XP i can harvest per hour.....annoy me to say the least.....and they are a global phenomenon, becuase that information is distributed globally with almost zero effort. just like the items in the AH.
blizzard by comparison just made a game and whoops gave the small minions more experience than the large ones. or made a goblin spawn in the same cave all the time.....
So yea it may look dumb that Blizzard keeps "nerfing urns and little spiders" Etc....when speaking specifically about that issue.
but in my opinion the players look even dumber slurping up XP so aggressively overall...
And they slurp with some alarming voracity when viewing the worldwide player base as a whole.
0
at least it all of my testing and comparing this is what I have run into time and time again...
on the flip side when fighting a single target that would kill you slower than a pile of mobs and ground effects, but quickly nonetheless, the monk tends to survive this situation generally much easier than a barbarian
the barbarian has certain healing abilities that grow in power exponentially when surrounded by mobs,
the monk has certain CC abilities that really shine when facing one single heavy hitting monster
these two above defined scenarios are generalized greatly and skill setups and play-styles can be used to flatten the peaks and valleys of danger.
but when viewing the skill spectrum of each class as a mathematical probability VS typical scenarios, they often ring true, and began ringing once again for me as recently as last night............
I never really told any of my friends when they were actually playing how I linked the rend animation to the back of a ceased whirlwind. or how id spam it during a frozen orb barrage
or how the other little deep seated quirks about the barbarian would ramp up his durability, of which there are quite a few
on the flip side, while I had to run from more mobs as a monk, far fewer goblins ran from me.
My monk's girlfriend is the act 2 dervish keywarden....just a complete pushover.
0
but I would, much to my disappointment, learn that those items were still level locked at about level 47
is this still going to be the case once RoS is released?
0
Diablo 3 has such immaculate character control I feel that it can get away with a more clunky/ slower/ methodical type of combat than most games, and still feel great doing it