I was wondering why games like Diablo continue to cap character levels around 100. I imagine this goes back to D&D.
The thing that makes Diablo so fun for me is that you can replay it and stuff gets harder and loot gets better. Why cap the number of difficulty levels at 3 (normal, nightmare, hell) but instead let it go up indefinitely or at least much higher, like 10-20 times around until it get insanely difficult, only the progression would be a bit more moderate than going from nightmare to hell.
Each level would be something like this:
gain around 25 skill points
loose 25 resistance
unique loot to each difficulty level
> loot modifiers could programatically match the difficulty level with minimal development effort.
more monster immunities
Some difficulty levels could introduce incentives such as extra/random skill tree entries.
At some point a level 85 character gets boring because they've got nowhere to go besides collecting a set or amount of magic find / defense. Having many difficulty levels would keep you interested in ramping your character up for the next level.
I hadn't played Diablo 2 in a long time and with the videos of Diablo 3 out I re-installed lod and played through it from normal to hell with building a Meteorb sorc. I'm at level 75 in hell and in no hurry (I don't do a lot of runs but do all the quests). I just know once I beat hell with my sorc I'll probably put the game aside until Diablo 3 comes out. If there were a few more difficulty levels it would keep my interest a while longer...
If D3 had like endless level cap with randomized content and items that just keeps getting harder and stronger... I dont know, it could have been nice i think. But i count on Blizzard to make it good enough.
I think you're bit fixated on thinking the problem in Diablo 2 terms. A more suitable approach would be adding more meaningful things to do once done with all difficulties. Such as making the PvP more balanced, or making repeating content more enjoyable. Or something else I can't think myself of, but the list goes on.
I was going to say something but this is pretty much all that needs to be said IMO....
D2 really does need MORE things to do....not just kill moar bosses!!!!
I wouldn't say that Diablo 3 should involve more than 99 character levels or 3 difficulty modes, as 99 levels and 3 difficulties is one of those things that has been canon to the Diablo series.
I've played games in the past which involve a sort of "restart" of a playable character, where you reach the maximum level and then revert back to the 1st level with additional bonuses to that character in the form of additional stats or abilities (eg; obscure Nexon game "Shattered Galaxy" and some text-based MUDs).
But, personally, nothing is more banal than playing through the same game with the same character several different times with marginal increases each iteration... it really disconnects the gameplay. Not to mention issues of balance if low level characters have innate skill/stat increases.
Given the degree of player-developer interaction that we see with games now-especially Blizzard's ability to patch in additional game content at will-perhaps a better alternative to additional character levels and/or difficulty modes would be additional areas accessible only in Hell difficulty that are rather tough, even for the most seasoned Diablo veterans.
Especially with Abd al-Hazir wandering Sanctuary, who knows what tombs or temples he is liable to find...
What about this; after beating hell diablo (or whatever boss is last) and then you gain acces to some dungeon. Call it what you want, I would like the dungeon of time or whatever.
And in it you'll have no limit on how deep you can go, but every level you go deeper the monsters become x% stronger. That and no level cap will make you do something. And there could be the best items in it etc. And every 10 levels or whatever you'll find the old bosses again but an uber or special version of them. As the dungeon of time can manipulate time or something to bring back these bosses but make them stronger.
Don't blame me for the bad story idea, but gameplay wise it could be entertaining?
While Torchlight had a level cap, it did have an infinite dungeon. I have to admit that I only ever cleared a level or two of this infinite dungeon because it didn't give me any sense of accomplishment... Despite being a great game wasn't compelled to play in an infinite dungeon...
I bet I would enjoy it, but it is just not Diablo. It is better to provide infinite challenges and virtually infinite improvements instead (I'm saying virtually because it would become harder and harder as you progress).
I honestly liked the concept of the infinite dungeon from Torchlight. It removed the need for me to farm specific content end-game and conveniently allowed me to play through a variety of different tilesets. It was only once I started to play it that I realized that I had no drive to play in it. Diablo however is not Torchlight.
On side note this is what we know about end game:
Official Blizzard Quote:
G4: In your vision for Diablo III, is the endgame going to be a lot like Diablo II, where players are doing Pindle runs and just repeating the same content over and over or will it explore a greater variety of content?
Jay Wilson, Diablo III Game Director: It?s definitely better if the players explore more of the game. It will be a lot more fun for them, but players will gravitate toward the route that is fastest for what they want. Even if that route makes them crazy? even if that route is not fun at all. It?s not their fault. It?s our fault as designers. It?s our job to make sure that the path of least resistance is also the path of most fun.
We do have specific systems planned for the late game and our goal for those systems is to make sure that players are experiencing as much of the content over again as possible.
The best example of where we feel we do this well in our other games, in World of WarCraft, is the quest system, which really gets you to move all over the world and do lots and lots of different things. The basic, core actions of the game are very repetitive. It?s not that they?re not fun, but the boredom with anything comes with repeating the same thing in the same way. If you could repeat the same thing in a different way it stays interesting a lot longer and that?s definitely going to be a goal for us.
I really don't want anymore difficulties unless each one was markedly different and refreshing, which won't happen. I don't like the difficulty system with Diablo II as it is- I really think they should have just done three times the acts and made them scale in diffulty better. Difficulties are just a cop-out for developers to rehash the same content without adding anything but frustration in my opinion.
Levels, well... Say we did have infinite levels- do you really think most people will just go leveling on and on for years? I don't think so. There would be a general area that it just becomes unfeasible to grind for days for a single level. That and what Don said earlier in regards to character levels.
I think that with Diablo III we do not need a revamped Diablo II system, we need something new.
Obviously creating more acts takes much more work. I don't think difficulties is a cop out for designers. I think it is a way of extending gameplay through limited means. If you could easily add 3x the acts without much problem then why not do 10x the acts. These games take resources like time and money. Yes blizzard has money but we all can agree as a community that we do eventually want to play this game. There are always the options of expansions to increase gameplay but these also take resources.
I do think there needs to be a cap or an obtainable goal for the game. In my own opinion, it is fun tp try to reach these goals compared to simply leveling, leveling and more leveling. I personally want to be able to hit a peak.
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Obviously creating more acts takes much more work. I don't think difficulties is a cop out for designers. I think it is a way of extending gameplay through limited means. If you could easily add 3x the acts without much problem then why not do 10x the acts. These games take resources like time and money. Yes blizzard has money but we all can agree as a community that we do eventually want to play this game. There are always the options of expansions to increase gameplay but these also take resources.
Of course and I would never contradict that it would be more work; however, I really don't think it's fair to say that they can't do it because of financial constraint. They really just have none. Heck, they don't even have a time constraint. They don't have memory restraints, either, with Blu-Ray discs and multiple DVD's. If they really wanted to make this game the best that they could, I am convinced that they would care enough to go through with this.
However! Even if this did happen, I'd be willing to wager they'd do difficulties, anyway, just to squeeze more out of it. While I would not be crazy about it, so long as there is a ton of content, as opposed to the scant nothing in Diablo II (or Diablo I, though they had real constraints then), it would not be as horrible to repeat it since there would be more to repeat.
You can't just throw money at a project to make it go faster; I have no idea why so many people on video game boards feel that to be true. It is already taking 3+ years since they announced, and we don't know how many years before that they were working on it (since at least the "destruction" of Blizzard North?) Adding three times the content would ostensibly take almost three times the time (we know how Blizz LOVES going back and "iterating" finished work to polish it some more), and by then all of the stockholders would demand the game come out or kill the project. Ten years for a game means they'd have to redo the graphics engine at least once.
TLDR version: difficulty levels are definitely a "cop-out," but a very necessary one. Don't encourage Blizz to take even LONGER than they already are.
I do agree that the difficulty system was a cop out in the sense that it artificially inflates the amount of "content" a single character will experience. That being said whether they had 3x, 10x or 30x the number of acts in diablo 2, there will always be an end. The amount of time that a game holds our interest is proportional to how fun the game is and the amount of content.
I can almost guarantee you that I will not be bored with Diablo 3 or my wizard when I finish playing through normal difficulty regardless of how much content there is.
Ultimately I won't complain about having extra content, however I'm thankful that there are still goals for me to achieve after having beaten normal difficulty.
I think that creating random quests (like they did in diablo I) could be a cool idea. I mean, not having only four quests that are good, and if you dont get them you have to restart until you do get it, but having maybe five or six core quests, to progress the story along with maybe three or four side quests that could give exp, gold, items etc. etc. I dunno, just seems like a cool idea.
I really don't want anymore difficulties unless each one was markedly different and refreshing, which won't happen. I don't like the difficulty system with Diablo II as it is- I really think they should have just done three times the acts and made them scale in diffulty better. Difficulties are just a cop-out for developers to rehash the same content without adding anything but frustration in my opinion.
Levels, well... Say we did have infinite levels- do you really think most people will just go leveling on and on for years? I don't think so. There would be a general area that it just becomes unfeasible to grind for days for a single level. That and what Don said earlier in regards to character levels.
I think that with Diablo III we do not need a revamped Diablo II system, we need something new.
Agreed...
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All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
- Ernest Rutherford
The OP stated that he got bored at lvl 85, and you want more levels to grind ?!? A lot of games are very fun with an amount of lvl cap ( Diablo 1 lvl 50 ), the maximum level i believe will be determined for how many XP you can get crossing all content avaliable without beeing too much grind.
I think that was the criteria of Blizzard North for choosing lvl 99.
Espansion packs add more content, make the game be released in time, AND make Blizzard more money... Also can be added new classes, new skills, new lvls, new acts...
While Torchlight had a level cap, it did have an infinite dungeon. I have to admit that I only ever cleared a level or two of this infinite dungeon because it didn't give me any sense of accomplishment... Despite being a great game wasn't compelled to play in an infinite dungeon...
TL has no level cap. A simple mod jacks the level up to 999 and can be expanded. The gear caps below level 100 but again mods fix that. Some of the custom classes are geared towards being viable for infinite dungeon play.
You guys are forgetting the fourth difficulty in D2, pvp. Its the most challenging, and most random! You never quite know what to expect in pvp, but the last 1000 times I fought baal or ran an area, its been the same exact thing every time.
I'd care more about D3 having the full pvp spectrum in it then having fancy pvm feature, like random quests. I'd probably do about as many as times I ran non story line, non boss dungeons in D2, not very many. That is, unless they implemented them so you have to do them over and over to build wealth, but, then we just have wow with the daily job crap.
A full range of pvp from organized team duels to being allowed to pk random pub runs still would be my favorite difficulty feature they could ever implement in d3.
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The thing that makes Diablo so fun for me is that you can replay it and stuff gets harder and loot gets better. Why cap the number of difficulty levels at 3 (normal, nightmare, hell) but instead let it go up indefinitely or at least much higher, like 10-20 times around until it get insanely difficult, only the progression would be a bit more moderate than going from nightmare to hell.
Each level would be something like this:
gain around 25 skill points
loose 25 resistance
unique loot to each difficulty level
> loot modifiers could programatically match the difficulty level with minimal development effort.
more monster immunities
Some difficulty levels could introduce incentives such as extra/random skill tree entries.
At some point a level 85 character gets boring because they've got nowhere to go besides collecting a set or amount of magic find / defense. Having many difficulty levels would keep you interested in ramping your character up for the next level.
I was going to say something but this is pretty much all that needs to be said IMO....
D2 really does need MORE things to do....not just kill moar bosses!!!!
I've played games in the past which involve a sort of "restart" of a playable character, where you reach the maximum level and then revert back to the 1st level with additional bonuses to that character in the form of additional stats or abilities (eg; obscure Nexon game "Shattered Galaxy" and some text-based MUDs).
But, personally, nothing is more banal than playing through the same game with the same character several different times with marginal increases each iteration... it really disconnects the gameplay. Not to mention issues of balance if low level characters have innate skill/stat increases.
Given the degree of player-developer interaction that we see with games now-especially Blizzard's ability to patch in additional game content at will-perhaps a better alternative to additional character levels and/or difficulty modes would be additional areas accessible only in Hell difficulty that are rather tough, even for the most seasoned Diablo veterans.
Especially with Abd al-Hazir wandering Sanctuary, who knows what tombs or temples he is liable to find...
While Torchlight had a level cap, it did have an infinite dungeon. I have to admit that I only ever cleared a level or two of this infinite dungeon because it didn't give me any sense of accomplishment... Despite being a great game wasn't compelled to play in an infinite dungeon...
I honestly liked the concept of the infinite dungeon from Torchlight. It removed the need for me to farm specific content end-game and conveniently allowed me to play through a variety of different tilesets. It was only once I started to play it that I realized that I had no drive to play in it. Diablo however is not Torchlight.
On side note this is what we know about end game:
Official Blizzard Quote:
G4: In your vision for Diablo III, is the endgame going to be a lot like Diablo II, where players are doing Pindle runs and just repeating the same content over and over or will it explore a greater variety of content?
Jay Wilson, Diablo III Game Director: It?s definitely better if the players explore more of the game. It will be a lot more fun for them, but players will gravitate toward the route that is fastest for what they want. Even if that route makes them crazy? even if that route is not fun at all. It?s not their fault. It?s our fault as designers. It?s our job to make sure that the path of least resistance is also the path of most fun.
We do have specific systems planned for the late game and our goal for those systems is to make sure that players are experiencing as much of the content over again as possible.
The best example of where we feel we do this well in our other games, in World of WarCraft, is the quest system, which really gets you to move all over the world and do lots and lots of different things. The basic, core actions of the game are very repetitive. It?s not that they?re not fun, but the boredom with anything comes with repeating the same thing in the same way. If you could repeat the same thing in a different way it stays interesting a lot longer and that?s definitely going to be a goal for us.
Levels, well... Say we did have infinite levels- do you really think most people will just go leveling on and on for years? I don't think so. There would be a general area that it just becomes unfeasible to grind for days for a single level. That and what Don said earlier in regards to character levels.
I think that with Diablo III we do not need a revamped Diablo II system, we need something new.
Seriously, go play Maple Story if you want infinite levels. I think the highest, when I left, was at level 167 or something. :/
As for difficulties, I agree with Seth. Instead of five acts and three difficulties, give us fifteen acts, progressively harder.
I do think there needs to be a cap or an obtainable goal for the game. In my own opinion, it is fun tp try to reach these goals compared to simply leveling, leveling and more leveling. I personally want to be able to hit a peak.
Find any Diablo news? Contact me or anyone else on the News team
Of course and I would never contradict that it would be more work; however, I really don't think it's fair to say that they can't do it because of financial constraint. They really just have none. Heck, they don't even have a time constraint. They don't have memory restraints, either, with Blu-Ray discs and multiple DVD's. If they really wanted to make this game the best that they could, I am convinced that they would care enough to go through with this.
However! Even if this did happen, I'd be willing to wager they'd do difficulties, anyway, just to squeeze more out of it. While I would not be crazy about it, so long as there is a ton of content, as opposed to the scant nothing in Diablo II (or Diablo I, though they had real constraints then), it would not be as horrible to repeat it since there would be more to repeat.
TLDR version: difficulty levels are definitely a "cop-out," but a very necessary one. Don't encourage Blizz to take even LONGER than they already are.
I can almost guarantee you that I will not be bored with Diablo 3 or my wizard when I finish playing through normal difficulty regardless of how much content there is.
Ultimately I won't complain about having extra content, however I'm thankful that there are still goals for me to achieve after having beaten normal difficulty.
Agreed...
- Ernest Rutherford
I think that was the criteria of Blizzard North for choosing lvl 99.
Espansion packs add more content, make the game be released in time, AND make Blizzard more money... Also can be added new classes, new skills, new lvls, new acts...
Thats the answer...
TL has no level cap. A simple mod jacks the level up to 999 and can be expanded. The gear caps below level 100 but again mods fix that. Some of the custom classes are geared towards being viable for infinite dungeon play.
I'd care more about D3 having the full pvp spectrum in it then having fancy pvm feature, like random quests. I'd probably do about as many as times I ran non story line, non boss dungeons in D2, not very many. That is, unless they implemented them so you have to do them over and over to build wealth, but, then we just have wow with the daily job crap.
A full range of pvp from organized team duels to being allowed to pk random pub runs still would be my favorite difficulty feature they could ever implement in d3.