Diablo.somepage.com had the great opportunity to talk to Diablo 3's new Game Director Josh Mosquiera and developers Travis Day and Kevin Martens. The interview was released in three parts with the last one being recently published. We've summarized some of the more interesting things that the devs shared. You can read the three parts of the interview here, here and here.
- The Itemization patch, or "Loot 2.0", will release after Blizzcon. Blizzard does not want to publish small chunks of updates, but instead intend to do a full overhaul
- All Legendary items should have unique properties, some examples include a set bonus that makes Call of the Ancients last forever and a Treasure Goblin that follows the character, picking up grey and white items and sometimes throwing the player magical items
- Items could become upgradeable, making them also non-tradable
- The 2 billion gold Auction House cap might get raised, but it's a fairly complex thing to do technically
- Least used class skills are what gets most attention when balancing classes. Developers want to bring more build diveristy and constantly strive for it
- Some Elite packs are harder than bosses, because the later are more of a celebration element in the storyline. With that said the experience from developing the bosses on PC and later on console versions has tought the development team a lot and new bosses that make their way into the game will be much better
- The PC version of D3 might get updated with some of the console features
- The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions are identical in gameplay and mechanics
- Console development didn't start until after the PC game launched, as the console team was brought in to help finish the title for PC
- Jay Wilson allowed "whatever tweaks are needed" to properly translate Diablo 3 to consoles
Diablo 3 PlayStation Q&A at E3
Josh Mosquiera and Jason Bender gave a Q&A at E3, which was later posted by Blizz Pro. In it the developers talk about making Diablo work well with a controller, the gear swap feature, online and offline play and exclusive console content.
Monster Density and Monster Power Settings on Console
Monster Density and Monster Power will actually be slightly different on consoles.
Originally Posted by (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Monster density has been custom tailored for the consoles, since the pace of combat is different than the PC counterpart. We wanted to make sure combat flow was smooth and action packed, so you can be sure that we've kept that in mind as we adjusted the density.
Let me be more specific: The monster density updates you added in 1.08 JUST for inferno, is that coming to console?
Yes and no.
Difficulty levels and Monster Power operate a little differently on console. There will still be Normal, Nightmare, Hell, and Inferno, and completing one mode will unlock the next mode -- just like on PC. Also, within each of these modes players will able to select from different difficulty levels to suit their preferred level of challenge. On console, however, there are only 8 settings: Easy, Medium, Hard, Master I, Master II, Master III, Master IV, and Master V. At Medium and higher in Inferno, density does increase, but the increase won't be as significant as what you'd typically see on PC (due to performance issues). Similar to MP on PC, higher difficulty settings present more powerful enemies that will have opportunity to reward players with more powerful loot.
For perspective, here's the current scaling (note that this may change before we ship):
- Easy = Monster Power 0
- Medium = Monster Power 2
- Hard = Monster Power 4
- Master I = Monster Power 6
- Master II = Monster Power 7
- Master III = Monster Power 8
- Master IV = Monster Power 9
- Master V = Monster Power 10
Differences on Console and Itemization Info
Lylirra has made a post regarding some of the changes the console version will have compared to the PC version. Later on she talks about the upcoming itemization patch.
Originally Posted by (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Interesting quote! (Also, apologies in advance for the TL;DR response.)
While the core of the console game is based on the PC game -- you get all the same content, systems, classes, skills, and runes on the console as you do on PC -- the console version of Diablo III is really its own thing. It's a familiar, but ultimately unique experience. Our goal when developing Diablo III for console was to deliver that same visceral gameplay you get with a mouse and keyboard, but at the same time feel completely natural when using a controller. (Basically, whichever platform you prefer for gaming, you can pick that version and know that it was tweaked to be best suited for the platform of your choice.)
In order to achieve that, we've made a variety of tweaks to the the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, including a complete re-design of the UI and character controls, inventory management, as well as combat pacing and boss fights. The item game is predominantly the same, but we've also made some minor adjustments to itemization. Items will drop less frequently, but will typically be of higher quality. There's a chance that when a white or gray item drops, that it will be automatically converted to gold too. These changes were made to help manage the flow of gameplay and keep players in the midst of combat (and out of their inventory screens) as much possible. Inventory management is a little more difficult on the console version than it is on the PC, where you have a mouse to quickly navigate through menus, so this was a pretty key tweak for the PS3 and Xbox 360.
Many of these adjustments inspired future changes we'd like to make to PC, and many of them were inspired by plans we already had for improving itemization as a whole. Since we use staggered development (meaning, the PC and console games more or less have separate teams and development cycles), though, it's possible that one game will receive changes before another. Over time, which game that is may switch back and forth. Even so, PC will always be the lead platform.
Regardless, here are a few interviews and hands-on reviews from PAX East you may want to check out. I've only highlighted ones where itemization on console gets addressed, but I figured this was kind of important, as it lets you get the information directly from the developers.
Penny Arcade Report
Kotaku
IGN (Skip to 5:25)
Thank you for linking that blog. I wanted to confirm how long ago it was, and three months is a long time to stand around and do nothing, from a player's perspective. Ask the Devs isn't even done, and the blog came before it, three months ago. Three months
Correct. Sometimes, changes to games can be made quickly. But that's not always the case, especially when you're looking at a system (like itemization) that's very core to the game itself. We can definitely understand that players would like said changes made overnight -- heck, we would too -- but we'd much rather take our time and come up with something that's actually meaningful and relevant, rather than implement something quickly that doesn't satisfy the current problems and/or make the game anymore engaging.
Everything we get is super rushed feeling instead of complete and considering the amount of time you guys spend being mum about things, we are being reasonable to doubt you guys care.
We know that some players feel that way about previous changes we've made (i.e. legendary improvements), and it's not unreasonable. Even if that's not actually the case, that's part of the reason why we're taking things a little more slowly this time around and really looking at more big/sweeping changes to the core of the item game.
That's disrespectful towards the community, even though I know you guys regret that the itemization blog came out so soon (e.g. Travis Day said that in his interview with Archon on Twitch). Once it's done, just stand up to it, don't hide your heads behind your hands, like they could cover you.
So, Lylirra, this comes from a respectful player who loves D3 : why did you guys stop communicating about itemization for so long ? You come out as very unprofessional, especially after you yourself said you guys were going to make efforts to communicate with the community
That's fair. At the moment, we just don't have a lot of details to share about itemization (beyond what we've already communicated). Our goal is always to share new information once it's available, but the tricky part is what to communicate in between those points. Do we just reiterate what we've already said? Do we talk high-level only? Or do we just remain mum until that new information is out? Players are definitely divided on what they want.
Going to back to Travis's blog, itemization was a very popular topic and we wanted to acknowledge the concerns that players had officially, even if we didn't have a lot of details to share about how we were going to approach specific pain points. That was also feedback we'd heard a lot of: "We don't care if you don't have any details to share. Just respond to us." And so that particular developer journal blog was born, as well as the following Ask the Devs topic.
The upside to posting Travis's blog when we did is that is tackled some of the major discussions players were having while they were new and relevant. It was also a direct response to the feedback we'd been given. The downside is that the blog came out just as we were starting to approach our itemization revamp, so there's not been a lot of new information to share between then and now. We're still working on the same ideas and theories, but nothing's really reached a point where we can communicate that a) these are the things have been locked down and
here are all the details of how those systems will work. Also, the communication we've provided on those "in-between" stages has been met with a lot of criticism (see the responses to the all itemization-related "Ask the Devs" answers) so far. Some people even said: "I don't know why you're even bothering to answer this if you don't have any details to share" -- which was the exact opposite feedback we'd heard just a few weeks prior.
We'd love to do more informal chats like what Travis and Wyatt did with Archon on the May 15, where the developers just take some time to casually talk about the game and their approach to certain issues. We might not have a lot of new information to share in those chats, but at least it would establish a nice of cadence of conversation. Less formal, more frequent.
But I don't know -- is that something that you guys would appreciate? We're always willing to experiment and find out what method works best to getting you information about the game. (Granted, it may not always be new information since Diablo III doesn't iterate as frequently as games like World of Warcraft or ones that are still in beta, but I think just having some transparency and candid communication with the developers would be nice.)
Over a decade and counting ain't enough?
Not sure what you're actually looking for here with your comment? We admit the item game we created in Diablo III has flaws, we've openly admitted those flaws to our players and that we want to improve them. The next big step is to identify the right way to fix those flaws and, in the process, really re-capture that lust for loot and feeling of "HOLY CRAP ORANGE" that many players feel is missing right now.
Yes almost 100% console version will have 1.0.9
Going to nip this one in the bud. The console version of Diablo III will ship with all of 1.0.7 content, plus some features from 1.0.8 -- but that's it. Detailed that a little more here: http://us.battle.net...ic/9245624848#4
While the core of the console game is based on the PC game -- you get all the same content, systems, classes, skills, and runes on the console as you do on PC -- the console version of Diablo III is really its own thing. It's a familiar, but ultimately unique experience. Our goal when developing Diablo III for console was to deliver that same visceral gameplay you get with a mouse and keyboard, but at the same time feel completely natural when using a controller. (Basically, whichever platform you prefer for gaming, you can pick that version and know that it was tweaked to be best suited for the platform of your choice.)
In order to achieve that, we've made a variety of tweaks to the the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, including a complete re-design of the UI and character controls, inventory management, as well as combat pacing and boss fights. The item game is predominantly the same, but we've also made some minor adjustments to itemization. Items will drop less frequently, but will typically be of higher quality. There's a chance that when a white or gray item drops, that it will be automatically converted to gold too. These changes were made to help manage the flow of gameplay and keep players in the midst of combat (and out of their inventory screens) as much possible. Inventory management is a little more difficult on the console version than it is on the PC, where you have a mouse to quickly navigate through menus, so this was a pretty key tweak for the PS3 and Xbox 360.
Many of these adjustments inspired future changes we'd like to make to PC, and many of them were inspired by plans we already had for improving itemization as a whole. Since we use staggered development (meaning, the PC and console games more or less have separate teams and development cycles), though, it's possible that one game will receive changes before another. Over time, which game that is may switch back and forth. Even so, PC will always be the lead platform.
Regardless, here are a few interviews and hands-on reviews from PAX East you may want to check out. I've only highlighted ones where itemization on console gets addressed, but I figured this was kind of important, as it lets you get the information directly from the developers.
Penny Arcade Report
Kotaku
IGN (Skip to 5:25)
Thank you for linking that blog. I wanted to confirm how long ago it was, and three months is a long time to stand around and do nothing, from a player's perspective. Ask the Devs isn't even done, and the blog came before it, three months ago. Three months
Correct. Sometimes, changes to games can be made quickly. But that's not always the case, especially when you're looking at a system (like itemization) that's very core to the game itself. We can definitely understand that players would like said changes made overnight -- heck, we would too -- but we'd much rather take our time and come up with something that's actually meaningful and relevant, rather than implement something quickly that doesn't satisfy the current problems and/or make the game anymore engaging.
Everything we get is super rushed feeling instead of complete and considering the amount of time you guys spend being mum about things, we are being reasonable to doubt you guys care.
We know that some players feel that way about previous changes we've made (i.e. legendary improvements), and it's not unreasonable. Even if that's not actually the case, that's part of the reason why we're taking things a little more slowly this time around and really looking at more big/sweeping changes to the core of the item game.
That's disrespectful towards the community, even though I know you guys regret that the itemization blog came out so soon (e.g. Travis Day said that in his interview with Archon on Twitch). Once it's done, just stand up to it, don't hide your heads behind your hands, like they could cover you.
So, Lylirra, this comes from a respectful player who loves D3 : why did you guys stop communicating about itemization for so long ? You come out as very unprofessional, especially after you yourself said you guys were going to make efforts to communicate with the community
That's fair. At the moment, we just don't have a lot of details to share about itemization (beyond what we've already communicated). Our goal is always to share new information once it's available, but the tricky part is what to communicate in between those points. Do we just reiterate what we've already said? Do we talk high-level only? Or do we just remain mum until that new information is out? Players are definitely divided on what they want.
Going to back to Travis's blog, itemization was a very popular topic and we wanted to acknowledge the concerns that players had officially, even if we didn't have a lot of details to share about how we were going to approach specific pain points. That was also feedback we'd heard a lot of: "We don't care if you don't have any details to share. Just respond to us." And so that particular developer journal blog was born, as well as the following Ask the Devs topic.
The upside to posting Travis's blog when we did is that is tackled some of the major discussions players were having while they were new and relevant. It was also a direct response to the feedback we'd been given. The downside is that the blog came out just as we were starting to approach our itemization revamp, so there's not been a lot of new information to share between then and now. We're still working on the same ideas and theories, but nothing's really reached a point where we can communicate that a) these are the things have been locked down and
here are all the details of how those systems will work. Also, the communication we've provided on those "in-between" stages has been met with a lot of criticism (see the responses to the all itemization-related "Ask the Devs" answers) so far. Some people even said: "I don't know why you're even bothering to answer this if you don't have any details to share" -- which was the exact opposite feedback we'd heard just a few weeks prior.We'd love to do more informal chats like what Travis and Wyatt did with Archon on the May 15, where the developers just take some time to casually talk about the game and their approach to certain issues. We might not have a lot of new information to share in those chats, but at least it would establish a nice of cadence of conversation. Less formal, more frequent.
But I don't know -- is that something that you guys would appreciate? We're always willing to experiment and find out what method works best to getting you information about the game. (Granted, it may not always be new information since Diablo III doesn't iterate as frequently as games like World of Warcraft or ones that are still in beta, but I think just having some transparency and candid communication with the developers would be nice.)
Over a decade and counting ain't enough?
Not sure what you're actually looking for here with your comment? We admit the item game we created in Diablo III has flaws, we've openly admitted those flaws to our players and that we want to improve them. The next big step is to identify the right way to fix those flaws and, in the process, really re-capture that lust for loot and feeling of "HOLY CRAP ORANGE" that many players feel is missing right now.
Yes almost 100% console version will have 1.0.9
Going to nip this one in the bud. The console version of Diablo III will ship with all of 1.0.7 content, plus some features from 1.0.8 -- but that's it. Detailed that a little more here: http://us.battle.net...ic/9245624848#4
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Posted Jun 17, 2013Interesting.......
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Posted Jun 17, 2013I assume that means better boss fights. I'm not sure what features the console has that they would consider implementing to PC version other than that. No they won't just remove the AH or make the game offline available.
though who knows at this point. I'm really beginning to think this game will be totally different the night the expansion launches.
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Posted Jun 17, 2013Yeah...really sad to hear that, quite sad really, considering most people were looking forward to an expansion being announced at blizzcon and released early 2014, but looks like thats when we can expect the item patch instead, which means even longer from the expansion. Wonder what makes it take so long here, but on wow they can pump out insane amounts of content so quickly
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Posted Jun 18, 2013Can we not start this whole hate train again. It's comments like that that make our community look bad.
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Posted Jun 18, 2013Making items non-tradeable when upgraded will help keep the economy fresh. As it is right now its pretty hard to find anything worth selling.
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Posted Jun 18, 2013But they will be tradeable before you upgrade them! That item will still be BIS, being a good base to upgrade on.
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Posted Jun 18, 2013It does make a difference on the economy. Once an item gets upgraded it's not something you can trade anymore meaning that the supply is reduced on the AH. See the hardcore economy for a live example where items get removed frequently from the game by characters dying.
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Posted Jun 18, 2013There will always be BiS items. Maybe not one clear BiS like WH, but at least a couple of BiS items that dominate. And unless you create class-specific affixes for 2 or more items on each slot, you'll also have several classes that aim for the same item.
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Posted Jun 18, 2013The concepts are slightly different. The goblin will pick up all trash items, which is great. He doesn't throw them in the inventory, just makes them disappear from the ground. But sometimes he also actually throws a few good items back. Different mechanics altogether.
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Posted Jun 18, 2013Ama start saving all my D.E's for crafting when this pacth hits. I hope it takes a while. even tho i have 9 billion gold right now i want to overkill gearing my barb up when this comes out. also have 417 D.E's saved.
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Posted Jun 18, 2013Perhaps something like a tier of goblin mercenaries? Maybe you can hire them instead of the followers? They would pick up junk items and converts it to next tier once they got a full bag? Perhaps job desirable items? To reduce visual and graphic disturbances, other player's goblin will not show up on your screen. Make them "up-gradable" to make them move or pick faster.
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Posted Jun 18, 2013I think the goblin is an example as to exactly why the itemization patch isn't going to happen as fast as some of us would like it to. It's a really unique (lol) effect. This is the kind of thing that legendaries and sets need but they are not easy to come up with by any stretch of the imagination. I realize that I am not a game developer, but there is no way that I could come up with enough ideas that are of the caliber of that goblin item (or the double Hydra item) to effectively re-tool all Legendary and Set items. It's a daunting task, but the goblin item is showing creativity that SHOULD put to rest this talk about D3s itemization because that shit is nuts!
You may not have a total "BiS" item with this goblin thing, but what you will have is more chance for loot. Is the tradeoff worth it? Maybe, maybe not. The only thing I hope is that it doesn't become a "follower item" because then it would be a no-brainer to equip your follower with an item that sucks up garbage items and sometimes spits out a rare.
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Posted Jun 18, 2013Well, I'd rather them fix things as they can rather then one gigantic patch. That's uniquely Josh's decision.
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Posted Jun 19, 2013Why tease with a Beta game by promising more candy while they just can't deliver?
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Posted Jun 19, 2013Blizzard is terrible when it comes to frequent patching; for years they have taken a backwards design approach to waiting until their "unique" features are finished before patching, which means hotfix's, bug squashes, simple changes, have to be delayed release until their "major" data files are ready to ship. This is like companies that delay releases of games because they keep working on new features to the game every week, which ends up with a game that has no focus and a lot of mediocre "inspiring" content, and dead wallets with pushy publishers.
Companies like Trion and GGG push patches out as soon as fix's and features are ready, they dont clump up every feature and change into a "mega patch". Players dont need to wait 3+ month cycles to get a change that only takes a toggle to fix, or a addition of a single character to fix a line of code. They also dont delay features because "something similar / related is in development too..." . The changes to the higher rolled stats and drop frequency doesnt require that the legendaries, sets, special goblin gopher, etc. to be included. , those affect the game in an entirely different manner; they are an addition to the game (just like the "new" legendaries we got last year).
The whole "we run the risk of breaking the game" is a sad cop-out. If you break the game, its because the people who wrote the code and handled the patch messed up, not because the patch was smaller and the process was more frequent. If you do it right the first time, ( which i know doesnt happen all of the time ) , then there's no need for extensive QA testing to make sure your RMAH doesnt break because of an error going from 1 mil gold to 10 mil gold. On that note, blizzard bundles everything up , and always creates a mess somehow, so the entire "view" of them creating less frequent and better systems to release content, doesnt pan out ever for them. Its even more amazing after a month+ on the PTR...with the problems being pointed out by the players for weeks, they still get rolled out with the "finalized" patch...and it breaks.
So again, the always better solution (unless a feature is absolutely critical to be delayed, which is rarely ever the case except to create "themed" content patches like introductions of new raid tiers, etc.) , is to create and release frequent smaller patches to your game / software. Because they are smaller, they are LESS likely to be put out with bugs that get hidden among all the other lines of code, they are less intrusive on players monthly bandwidth limits, you fix the game issues in a much more smoother manner than hamfisting changes a few times a year, and players are sated by having new features and "goodies" to play with all the time. This also prevents / slows down dead periods in player population, which is critical for games that require a monthly sub. Have we still not learned from other companies how to NOT create another ICC / DS fiasco for the company? Ill give a suggestion ( like i havent overstayed my welcome already with them) , dont create periods of months and months where nothing new happens to the game, it never ends well, ever; especially with today's populous that "gets over" things in a heartbeat if they are not constantly tugging at their faces.
I get that constantly sprinkling words of encouragement about the development of a game helps to keep the game relevant (yay marketing), but they are just words. When you release the content, then people can take something seriously. Dropping bread crumbs of "itemization changes coming!" for a year before it happens, is just shady , typical PR.
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Posted Jun 19, 2013Thanks for your post, seems like you put a lot of thought into that. However, you still overlooked a few things:
1) Diablo 3 is not a subscription-based game. You cannot expect weekly updates. The reason why PoE gets weekly updates are because it's in beta, there's no money involved, and they don't have a million players that just play and leave for good if a patch in one week breaks the game.
2) Upon reading your post it becomes pretty obvious that you have no idea how difficult programming is. There is no such thing as "easy change" for anything in a game. If you change one line of code, such as the proc rate of a wizard's spell, all of the sudden their might be some phase beast champion affix that will 1-shot players in rare occasions. Don't believe that? Ask people who played WoW vanilla, they can tell you...
3) Since everything you change can affect anything else in the game, you need to do QA testing before you release it. For most of us it's not necessary because we don't care about the problems, but there are some players who really rely on QA testing. For example: hardcore players - if the phase beast in aforementioned example 1-shots a HC character, hundreds of hours of work and careful gearing go to waste, just because someone skipped QA. Or people who are top-geared and have characters worth the equivalent of thousands of dollars - regardless if they found the items, got the money via AH flipping, or credit card: it's just not right to make all their equipment worthless because you didn't want to test stat changes and its effects on the AH. Or casual players who are so annoyed of a new bug after a patch that they quit - forever.
Last but not least, this sentence here struck me: "This is like companies that delay releases of games because they keep working on new features to the game every week, which ends up with a game that has no focus and a lot of mediocre "inspiring" content, and dead wallets with pushy publishers." You can't possibly talking about Blizzard here. Blizzard is the one and only video game developer in the world that can tell their publishers to postpone a release as long as they want (happened for every game), reset a development (SC2, D3) or cancel a game (SC: Ghost, WC: Adventures, D3: MMORPG).
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Posted Jun 19, 2013That is not the point. The game a multiplayer game, you suppose to interact with others. Making item untradable remove 1/2 of it. The other half is coop, which they removed long time ago. So, they finally created a single player DRM product.